I’m reading Embassytown by China Mieville right now and it’s very much that. It’s also really good so far, but I’m only half way through.
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Considering I'm in my umpteenth play through; I feel like Mass Effect fits into this. Humans and other aliens are more or less on the same technological level.
There's a little more depth to it but it's something you can find out more while playing. There's also some comics about it.
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Protector by Larry Niven, it's exactly what you want with a twist. I don't want to spoil it for you, but it's worth the read.
Now I'm curious! Thanks, will check it out.
David Weber’s Honorverse and Mother of Demons by Eric Flint both come to mind. There is also the Little Fuzzy series by H. Beam Piper.
Edit: Also, The Legacy of Heorot by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
Honorable mention also to Dragons Egg by Robert L. Forward (humans start out more advanced in the beginning but get surpassed) and the Uplift Storm trilogy omnibus (or books 4-6) from David Brin (humans aren’t the most advanced in the entire universe but are in the planet that the stories take place on).
Damocles by SG Redling.
Basically, humans make first contact by going elsewhere.
The polity series, I mean I suppose we're the less advanced race if you count our AI, but it basically dominates all species except every now and then some retro species that makes a comeback.
We all know humankind would annihilate any inferior species we found elsewhere in the galaxy so we could steal their planets resources (and maybe eat them).
honestly, that seems unlikely to me. uninhabited planets are abundant for resources, so we wouldnt really care about going for the very rare planet with intelligent life that poses ethical issues or some risk of fighting back, unless we were literally trying to use every scrap of matter in the galaxy which is bit more efficient and methodical than humans tend to be. Probably unlikely that theyd be biochemically similar enough to be safe to eat for that matter, beyond that most people would probably find that gross.
What I could see though is humans or some faction of humans thinking something along the lines of "they might be less advanced now, but someday they might surpass us or be a threat, so we should destroy/conquer/assimilate them while we have the advantage"
No, we don't know any of that.
I think that I've checked all the comments but I didn't see any sign of Jack Vance's "Planet of Adventure"
Slight caveat, i haven't read the book yet but from what I've heard The Culture fits that description