Superior Species

"I'd just like to say that if I were a member of an alien race — which I'm not — I'd have to take this opportunity to say — Filthy Earth creatures! It is clear who the superior species is! Isn't it? Isn't it?! You stink!"
Zim, Invader Zim

If Humans Are the Real Monsters, then it follows that other races must be better than us. Even when humans are realistically portrayed, there may be a race that is stronger, smarter, and purer than us.

Members of the Superior Species never engage in something as stupid as warfare unless justifiably provoked, where they will wipe the floor without effort, they certainly never pollute their world, and they are definitely just better than you. They are prettier than you, more badass than you, smell better than you and probably live longer than you in their Mary Suetopia. And of course, you can't argue with them.

It seems they're not above arrogance, though — they usually feel the need to rub their superiority in our faces. Take solace that some of these arrogant prick species went through bloody periods in their history, showing they were at some point no better. All too many others, though, didn't and don't hesitate to point out why this also makes them better than humanity.

A Superior Species doesn't have to follow all of these requirements; demonstration that the species is "superior" to humanity is enough. And no, this trope is not automatically a Sueperior species.

If such a race believes that their superiority gives them the right to exploit "lesser" races like humans do animals, then they believe in The Right of a Superior Species.

See also This Loser Is You, Ultraterrestrials and Our Elves Are Better, for the race most often portrayed as... better. Contrast Humans Are Flawed, where humans not being perfect is a good thing. Compare Born Winner, where an individual is innately better than everyone else; Designer Babies, a common method of artificially developing one of these; and Humans Need Aliens, for when the alien race decides to help humans. Not to be confused with Eldritch Abomination, which a species is conceived superior due to their incomprehensible nature. For a species that only thinks they're this, and want to force everybody else to think it too, see Master Race.


Examples:

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    Anime and Manga 
  • The Berserk universe is filled with demons and Gods leagues above human ability; and each one outright boastful about it in the midst of battle. Yet the entire plot point is for the one human swordsman Guts to put them in their place. There is also a human witch Flora who out lived them by the hundreds of years (whom did not become immortal since she was indeed dying of old age).
  • The Pillar Men from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, who are light years beyond humans in both physical and intellectual ability and don't hesitate to flaunt that fact. However, sunlight turns them to stone. In addition, they're the villains, so it's rather fun to see supposedly inferior humans beat them. (And, in fact, humanity developed a martial art specifically designed to do so.)
  • The Abh are generally considered stronger, smarter, and all perfectly attractive. This, however, has a lot to do with all Abh being Designer Babies, and they typically aren't smug about it: as far as they're concerned, they're human like anyone else, they just have certain advantages.
  • Inuyasha In the feudal era the Youkai are considered to be stronger, faster, and longer lived than ordinary humans; aside from a few exceptional cases (such as Kagome and Midoriko) whom have attained even more spiritual power than the that of the greatest demons.

    Comic Books 
  • Many comic book alien species are this. This serves as a handy origin for the superhuman abilities of both superheroes and supervillains. Most at least have interstellar space travel putting them ahead of us technologically and many have superhuman abilities.
    • Marvel Comics has plenty of them, the Skrulls, the Kree, the Shiar. Yet for all their superiority, they can't do a damn thing against Galactus. For added irony, the "inferior" humans have managed to keep Earth out of The Big G's menu more than once.
  • The elves of ElfQuest. They're all beautiful, long lived, spiritual, better senses, better body and elven sex is so wonderful humans can't even stand it.
    • On the other hand, better senses are exclusive to Wolfriders due to their non-elven heritage, it's insanely hard for them to produce offspring, and elven sex might actually be flat-out painful for humans. As far as personality goes, Winnowill proves that they can be just as wicked as humans.
    • The tabletop game at least gives humans one advantage—elves are really, really bad at the sort of logical thinking required to make new inventions.
  • Kryptonians...maybe, sometimes.
    • One of the major changes Post-Crisis (partially based on the 1978 movie) was to massively deconstruct the "rightful heir of a superior species" aspect of Superman by taking the Fridge Logic inherent in Krypton's destruction to its logical end (why exactly didn't they figure out their planet was dying, and why didn't they have the means to escape if they had the means to send Kal-El to Earth?) The result was reasoning that Kryptonians were so elitist and arrogant that they were extreme xenophobes who never did any serious space travel because they considered all other life inferior to them, and (with the exception of Jor- El) were too vain to consider the possibility that their planet might be falling apart. The result is that instead of being miserable and lonely on earth, Superman had a very low opinion of Kryptonians for many years, (not helped by the fact that both a hologram of his father and a sentient Kryptonian computer program tried to Mind Rape him to purge him of his acquired humanity) and still secretly considers himself lucky to have grown up on earth instead of Krypton.
    • Their distant cousins, the Daxamites are far worse.
  • If J'onn J'onzz is any indication, the Green Martians are, although J'onn admits his people had their faults and Humanity is better at certain things. The White Martians being shown a race of warmongering dicks.

    Fan Fiction 

    Film 
  • The Na'vi from Avatar. The tie-in material outright states that they never mistreat their children, have a richer culture, a deeper spirituality, are immune to most diseases, and even their sex is a million times more pleasurable and meaningful than human sex. There was even an early draft of the script that said the Na'vi didn't even understand the concept of lying. However it is at least temporarily subverted in that Humans are way more technologically advanced to the point where in a full on fight between the Human and Na'vi forces, they are outright curb-stomped, until the Na'vi deity intervenes.
  • Ironhide voices this opinion in the 2007 Transformers movie, but Optimus is quick to disagree.
    Ironhide: Why are we fighting to save the humans? They're a primitive and violent race.
    Optimus Prime: Were we so different? They are a young species. They have much to learn... but I've seen goodness in them. Freedom is the right of all sentient beings...

    Literature 
  • The Arisians of the Lensmen books are vastly older, more powerful, and morally better than you. The Eddorians are the first two things. Both have to hide their existence, as mere knowledge of such superior races would destroy the sanity of the species they want to guide/rule over.
  • Julian May's Pliocene Saga and Galactic Milieu books feature this. The main Milieu races are psychic ("metapsychic"), technologically advanced, and 'coadunate', meaning they're all psychically linked in some way — not a full group mind, but they certainly wouldn't be violent or immoral. Smug and arrogant, maybe, especially when dealing with poor, violent, and imperfectly though scarily psychic Earth. Then there's the Lylmik, inspired by the Arisians, vastly older and powerful, enough so to mess with suns, and who possess a veto of the otherwise sort of democratic government — after all, one Lylmik could probably take on the whole Milieu.
  • The Wilds in A Harvest Of War are a downplayed example. They're exclusively found on the heroes' side and physically superior to normal humans, but not by much. Their intellect is outright normal.
  • The Animorphs yeerks feel this way towards humans to some extent, but some can empathize with them (most Yeerks liken what they do to humans to what humans do to cows or pigs, but some realize that they steal others' bodies for themselves, and some realize that this is wrong)...
    • Andalites are repeatedly characterized as arrogant, and see humans are curiosities at best and expendable inferiors at worst. (This provides an interesting twist: Jake and the others are waiting for a good part of the series for Andalites to save them, but Andalites don't give a damn about humans.)
      • Subverted in the last book. It's revealed that it's really only the Andalite military that's like this. Andalite civilians are much more agreeable and get along with humans just fine.
  • Twilight vampires are practically immortal, really strong, and sparkly. Practically the definition of Cursed with Awesome.
    • Also, as an exclusively predatorial species, they cannot sustain nearly as high a population as humans, even in optimum conditions. Their long lifespan and inability to (usually) produce offspring of their own in a way that does not reduce the supply of food directly removes the incentive to develop new ideas and improvements for the next generation, removing the impetus for much innovation, making them less mentally productive than humans. Oh, and they don't have souls.
      • For the record, that last bit is just Edward's opinion. Then again, he could be right...
    • Not only that, but according to Word of God, they don't feel physical pain as much as we do, yet sex is more pleasurable. They're smarter, and according to Edward, they feel love more strongly than humans as well. Cursed with Awesome? Not really. More like blessed with awesome.
  • Reversed in Christopher Anvil's "Pandora's Planet" - The aliens are actually less intelligent than humans on average, but have had a long time to build their empire. They only conquer Earth through overwhelming military force.
  • The Houyhnhnms from Gulliver's Travels could be seen as a deconstruction, after kicking Gulliver out because he's too much like the Yahoos that they look down on.
    • Though Swift was in a pretty cynical place regarding human nature when he wrote that part of the book, so it's more likely he was playing the trope straight.
    • The Brobdingnagians fit into this trope, too.
  • The Culture, while flawed and able to screw up sometimes, remain the most advanced and powerful humanoid civilization in the Milky Way: they are potentially immortal (they die of old age because they choose to do so), do not pollute other planets (they live in artificial ringworlds and draw their energy from the multiverse), their "empire" is an utopia where boredom is the biggest threat, the less smart citizens of the Culture are as smart as physics Nobel prize laureates, most of the smartest citizens of the culture are godlike AIs, and while they do not have any real army, any culturnik can be turned into either a One-Man Army or a Person of Mass Destruction. The few civilizations which could represent any serious threat against them have already left the universe. So make no mistake: they are better than you, and if you are stupid enough to piss them off they politely explain why you should not have tested their patience, while blowing up your homeworld's sun. That being said, the Culture is an alliance of sentient species and thanks to various advanced genetic engineering can apply this to any of their citizens. So while they are Superior to you, if you join them, you can become as superior as they are.
    • Whoever wrote the previous entry hasn't read many of the books. There are at least half a dozen, likely more, civilizations in the galaxy that are militarily on par with the Culture, and that's not counting the 'Elder Races' such as the Dra'azon, who are partially Sublimed but still interfere in galactic affairs.
      • To elaborate: the Culture belongs to the group of civilization named by some "The Optimae": these are the most advanced and powerful civilizations which are still directly involving themselves in the affairs of the Galaxy. These civilization while on the same "weight class" as the Culture tend (with a few notable exceptions) to neither be nor sympathize with the oppressive tyrannies or fanatical regimes which typically attract the Culture's ire. So while there's several civilizations in the Culture's Verse capable of taking on and even defeating the Culture, they're not going to waste time, resources and people to protect the likes of the Idirans or Azad or whoever's vicious enough to catch Meatfucker's attention. This also explains why some characters through the series (including some native Culturniks) regard the Culture as hypocritical bullies, given that virtually all their targets are massively less powerful than them while, say, a sadistic civilization that they regard as abhorrent like the Affront is given way more leeway because among other reasons, they're close enough to the Culture in terms of firepower to not be that easily steamrolled.
  • The Neanderthals in Robert J. Sawyer's The Neanderthal Parallax seem this way at first, being portrayed as more intelligent, technologically advanced and peaceful than puny homo sapiens... until it is revealed that they achieved this through eugenics and a "Big Brother" style system of constant surveillance for every individual.
  • The idea of superior Neanderthals was actually deconstructed in the Man-Kzin Wars novella "Briar Patch". Turns out the Neanderthals were all empathic, able to feel the emotions of those around them, resulting in a society with no war whatsoever and a total dearth of selfish behavior. Then they encountered us, a group capable of killing them with no problem, and their social superiority proved no match for our martial crudity.
  • The Elves of the Inheritance Cycle are a race of vegetarian super-humans who can decide how they want to look and beat any other entity in war.
    • They can do all of the above, plus a lot more, because they have a stronger connection to magic than any other species. Still, they were driven close to extinction by a human.
  • The Dark Side of the Sun, by Terry Pratchett, has 52 sentient races, of which two others are considered equal to humanity (to the extent that "humanity" now no longer refers to just humans), most are too incomprehensibly different to compare, and one is considered "Super-human": the Creapii. From what we see of them, this blanket description seems only true of the higher-caste individuals who live on the hottest stars.
  • The Lilith's Brood trilogy spends quite a lot of time examining what it is about the Oankali that makes them better than humans. The Oankali can use their semi-telepathic abilities to participate in conversations involving thousands of them at once, with little confusion; coming to a consensus this way produces better solutions than electing someone as a leader, and without leaders, there can be no Corrupt Corporate Executives.
  • Any aliens or otherworldly beings encountered in Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time or subsequent books (The Time Quartet). Any that aren't endowed with Incorruptible Pure Pureness, outstanding beauty, and higher ethical standards is probably the villain. Her characters (all super-advanced scientists, natch) do give humans credit for discussing the incredible ability of humanity to adapt.
    • Every species that's not human is this. They're beautiful, kind, loving, and in touch with the music of the spheres, even if they are Inspirationally Disadvantaged (like Aunt Beast and the rest of the blind, empathic Ixchel).
    • Although it is implied that this is the natural state of intelligent life. The villains are generally the ones living on "shadowed" planets. Earth is one of these shadowed planets (but we're fighting the shadow).
  • In John Varley's Gaea Trilogy, Titanides are sometimes accused of being a Mary Sue race ( among other things). They are ten times stronger than humans, twenty times faster, shoot any weapon perfectly, perform fantastically complicated music by instinct, and can mate in seventy-two different combinations. Plus they do handicrafts in their sleep, with results more beautiful than the best human art. In the third novel we find out that they are also infallible judges of character, and the protagonists explicitly trust that any human killed by a Titanide was truly evil and needed to die.
  • The Draka eventually become genetically-engineered superbeings. They are often accused of being a race of Villain Sues (and their empire of being a Villain Suetopia).
    • And they will gladly tell you how much better they are on the environment than OTL humans. Just don't mind that most people at this point have been genetically modified to crave slavery.
    • Homo draknesis are not perfect: the process that created them erased creativity, and as a result the Alliance retains the technological edge.
  • Storm Constantine's Wraeththu are hermaphrodites who look like bishies, are physiologically incapable of getting fat or having bad skin, almost invariably have psychic powers, are long-lived but mature quickly...and the list goes on.
  • Every species in the Cthulhu Mythos is superior to humans on a level that humanity can not even comprehend. Note, though, that in many Mythos stories, especially those by Robert E. Howard, Eldritch Abominations still get their butts kicked by humans.
  • Largely averted in Old Man's War - every species sucks in one way or another, they just won't admit it. Even the Consu, powerful as they are, are real assholes about it.
  • S.L. Viehl has had to make many a saving throw to keep her Jorenians from being one.
  • The Dark Elves, otherwise known as Drow in the Forgotten Realms Icewind Dale trilogy, Dark Elf Trilogy, and any other novel with Drizzt in it. They live for centuries, are as silent as death and weave intricate webs of deceptions that humans could never hope to unravel. Every one of them carries magical adamantine weapons and the least-skilled of them can stand toe to toe with the elite warriors of other societies. They all have some magic, and many of them grow to be potent wizards. Their rulers, the most powerful of their kind, are priests commanding the powers of their dark god. On the other hand, they're only capable of cooperating with each other due to direct and repeated intervention from their deity, and then they can barely manage a functioning society. For all their power, their sheer evil keeps them from being effective—but said power still tends towards the ridiculous, if only because the weak tend not to reach adulthood. So, subverted, or played absolutely straight?
  • The Martians in Stranger in a Strange Land have such an advanced culture that merely knowing their language grants incredible psychic powers, and they're effectively immortal due to having completely open lines of communication with the afterlife.
  • The gnomes of Gnomes live in an idyllic society based on foraging, gardening, and home industry, organized into a single kingdom which prevents any political conflicts. They also have low-level psychic abilities that prevent them from keeping secrets from each other, can talk to animals and predict the weather, and are physically strong, never die of disease, and are in perfect control of their reproduction.
  • The transhumans that appear in Greg Egan's works are these: in several stories it is mentioned that none of them kill, or even hurt, anybody else, because one of their modifications was apparently perfect empathy, while at the same time being advanced enough technologically to protect themselves from any aggressive species still out there. (Any aliens that are at their same level have also gone this route, making self-defense almost a moot point, though aliens only rarely appear in his works to begin with). Another effect of this is that almost everybody is perfectly rational without being a Straw Vulcan — the rare exceptions usually see the error of their ways by the end. Combined with the empathy, this means that racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice, as well as poverty and other social injustices, have become completely eradicated. If that weren't enough, they're all functionally immortal because of Mind Uploading, which also means that disease is not an issue as they can just transfer their consciousness to another body. It's Played With, though, in that (at least in the stories set after The Singularity) there aren't any baseline humans, or fleshers, left to compare them to, as it is implied that once the technology to create transhumans was invented, they all became Pro Human Transhumans who brought the rest of humanity up to their level,meaning that, no matter how far into the future the stories are set, there are a couple of characters who were born as ordinary humans and became superior through technology.
  • In The House of Night, vampyres are all ethereally beautiful, and live away from humanity in peaceful enclaves. Many famous historical figures (and celebrities) are retconned into being vampyres. They are matriarchal, but never sexist. They are incredibly wealthy, but never spoiled. They are stronger and faster than any human, but they never use this strength to do anything bad. They are deeply religious, but never bigoted. They are very long-lived, and look youthful even after centuries have passed. They can be identified by the exotic, intricate tattoos that grow over their bodies, and the "glossy, inhumanly attractive light that [radiates]" from each of them.
  • This trope is the reason why the Beowulf Code in Honor Harrington is so adamant about not altering humanity beyond the limits of nature. Ordinary human racism is bad enough, and (as Beowulf had just seen), things get a hundred times worse when one specific race actually is measurably and quantifiably superior to the rest of mankind.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Star Trek:
    • Vulcans, or at least they think they are. Vulcans do have a rather serious drawback in the form of powerful and dangerous emotions they need to suppress in order to remain sane, which is sort a bummer for them. In Star Trek, it'd probably be easier to count the number of alien races who don't consider themselves superior to humans, but having races that consider themselves superior to others isn't Superior Species but Cultural Posturing, and quite believable in context.
    • Also from Star Trek, the Q are clearly much more powerful and arguably smarter than humans. They are also convinced that they are socially and morally more advanced (though this claim breaks down as time goes on).
    Picard: What gives you the right to judge us?
    • Similarly, the Borg consider themselves this to such an extent that they don't seem to understand that other races do not want to join the Collective. Even the Borg who do understand this believe that the benefits of joining inherently outweigh any objections.
  • Comes close to an aversion in Stargate SG-1:
    • When first seen, the Ancients seemed to be this trope, being the most advanced race ever, inventors of the stargate and having ascended to a higher plane of existence. Later in the show and in the spinoff Stargate Atlantis, they were thoroughly nerfed, having made a lot of silly mistakes and being gigantic jerkasses.
    • There are also the Asgard, who later are technologically at least as advanced as the Ancients, are friendly, wise and noble. However, physically they are a Dying Race with deteriorating bodies.
    • Most other advanced species just think they are superior while actually just being arrogant morons. Humanity itself managed to do amazing feats, however, the SGC isn't all of humanity and most of their feats were only accomplished by scooping up technology from other races.
    • Somewhat averted in the early battles against the Replicators: the more technologically advanced races' weapons didn't work against the Replicators, but ours did. Why? Because all the 'superior races' use energy weapons while we're still using bullets.
    • Played straight with the Nox who's technology is so advanced that its almost like magic.
  • Babylon 5:
    • The Vorlons are a prime example: an early episode in season 1 the crew of the titular space station come across a Mad Scientist guilty of genocidal war-crimes who has invented an immortality potion. What ensues is a conglomeration of all the major species as they fight and nearly go to war over who gets the potion (and the Mad Scientist) (all except the Vorlon ambassador who is busy playing mindgames with the resident telepath). Eventually the terrans win out and it's decided the potion will be researched on Earth. All the ambassadors of all these very powerful competing races gather in the observation room to watch as the potion and its creator depart on a heavily armed ship on their way to earth. Cue the Vorlon ship jumping out of hyperspace, and destroying the ship with one blast. Then it leaves. The ambassador walks in, says, "you are not ready for immortality", then goes back to whatever he was doing before. There is a very good reason why every single one of these proud and warring species immediately shuts up.
    • Then there are the Lumati, who never shut up about everyone else's inferiority.
  • Doctor Who: The Daleks believe themselves to be this (and will announce it incessantly), despite all evidence to the contrary. The Time Lords are effectively a superior race in most ways; but in the original series had degenerated into a race of effete, arrogant, navel-gazers and bureaucrats obsessed with maintaining the status quo; when they weren't actual jerkasses. In the in the new series, they became power-mad elitists due to the horrors of the Time War; and were willing to sacrifice the rest of the universe in order to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence.

    Music 
  • The narrator of Queen's song, Princes of the Universe. Immortal supermen who battle an Eldritch Abomination that is the only thing that can kill them. And apparently, they need earth. Bonus points for the abomination being a walking talking money grubbing decapod. Yep, that's it... given that the song describes the upside of being an immortal from the "Highlander" universe. Who Wants to Live Forever?, the song, describes the flipside and why being an immortal is NOT superior.

    Mythology 
  • Our Gods Are Different is essentially a special case of this; the idea of "superior" lifeforms that more or less invisibly live in the same world as we mere mortals do and that may sometimes feel inclined to help us out a little as long as we pay our proper respects and don't tick them off is a basic building block of just about every religion ever.

    Tabletop RPG 
  • Warhammer 40,000 has the Eldar and Old Ones filling this role, and the Tau like to think they're in the role, too. Humanity has been engaged in a xenocidal war with the Eldar for about ten thousand years and counting, and for around five hundred years or so with the Tau, whilst the Old Ones have been MIA since the Enslaver Plague nearly wiped out all life in the galaxy several million years ago.
    • The Eldar as a species have a hard time behaving in a manner other than ultra-regimented anal douche or completely irresponsible sociopathic hedonist. They're superior to humans in terms of mind and body but they've definitely got some issues of the soul to work out. The Craftworld Eldar have actually managed to tune it down a notch since the fall of their race. The Dark Eldar are far worse about this, and are closer to what the combined race was like at it's height.
    • The Tau on the other hand are just insufferably arrogant and naive because they were hunter-gatherers just a couple millennia ago and now have more advanced shinier technology (mostly, as they have no teleporters or real warp drive) than a species that has expanding across the galaxy for at least 30,000 years.
    • While not species, as such Adeptus Astartes are physically, mentally and spiritually superior to everyone else to the point it would over takes a hundred men to match a single marine. They are however dicks about it.
    • The best example of them are the Marines Malevolence, who not only consider ordinary humans as canon fodder, but they consider themselves to be more important than other Space Marines.
    • The Imperium propagates a dogmatic belief that humans are a Superior Species. They're wrong. Dead wrong.
  • AT-43: The Therians are race of cybernetic hyper lifeforms, they boast that even if they loose a few times, they will outlast and out live their enemies in millions of years. And the twist its, the Therains are the original humanity.

    Video Games 
  • Protoss in StarCraft have better technology, live for several hundred years(on rare occasions more than a thousand), possess psychic abilities ranging from telepathy to levels in soulknife, and can survive more or less indefinitely on moonlight and dewdrops. Plus, their warriors are often equipped with teleporters that teleport them away when hit with extreme damage.
    • Of course, Individuality Is Illegal in their theocratic society based on a religion of Assimilation. This might be considered a significant drawback, at least from a human perspective. It does not apply to the Dark Templar, who severed their connection to the Instrumentality and were branded heretics for it.
    • The protoss were actually created by the Xel'naga to create a purity of form, so their alleged superiority is mildly justified. However, the few mistakes they actually do make tend to be far more epic than their human counterparts. Witness the loss of their homeworld to a Horde of Alien Locusts, one of them trying to kill a political leader without informing anybody that she was Brainwashed and Crazy, exiling the only warriors who eons later would prove to be able to destroy their worst foe yet, setting a planet on fire regardless of who lives there to burn out a potential threat... The list goes on and on, and that's only in the game!
    • By the time of "Legacy of the Void" the Protoss are easily enslaved by Amon, who takes over the Khala and turns them into mindless pawns for his grand plan of galactic genocide. Fortunately Artanis is able to escape Amon's grasp and is dead set in destroying him by reuniting the Protoss.
  • Halo deconstructs this with the Forerunners: On one hand, not only were they the most powerful and advanced race in the galaxy during their heyday, but they believed that they had a duty to set an example and care for the other species of galaxy, living up to it by sacrificing themselves in order to stop the Flood. On the other, their superiority ended up distancing them from the galaxy's other races, most of whom became weak and subservient, and they grew to view anyone who opposed them as barbarous ingrates, punishing them by dismantling their societies back to the stone age (with ancient humanity being one of their most notable victims). When the Flood came knocking after the Forerunners' main rivals had finally been defeated, the Forerunners were forced to effectively stand alone. Additionally, their own creators never viewed them as superior, and had in fact planned to favor humanity instead; the Forerunners ended up becoming "superior" only by force.
  • The Asari in Mass Effect seem like this at first glance. They are very long lived, and seem to have the most advanced culture of the known races. They are wise and have the most skilled warriors, though they lack the raw power and numbers of other races. They are also not warlike, preferring "trade and understanding" with others. They are also all female and sexually liberal to an extreme degree. However, you'll be gunning down plenty of asari villains and mooks. In Mass Effect 2, conversations on the asari planet of Illium (a Wretched Hive painted over with Crystal Spires and Togas), both overheard and with a disgruntled asari Matriarch Aethyta forced to work as a bartender, bring up several things that are wrong with asari society, such as:
    • Asari spend their maiden years (up to the age of 300) stripping or being mercs;
    • A major war breaks out at least once every asari lifetime (the Rachni Wars, the Krogan Rebellions, the Eden Prime War). Wisdom and culture does nothing to stop or end it, and another race has to turn up to save them;
    • They are technologically stagnant to an enormous degree. The suggestion that they try to build new Mass Relays led to Aethyta being laughed halfway across the galaxy. For the last two thousand years their technology has barely progressed at all, to the point where Carriers are considered an innovation.
    • The institutional racism asari have against the offspring of asari-asari unions ("purebloods"). On Illium you speak with a pureblood asari whose mate was killed in the geth uprising, and whose daughters were killed on the Citadel in the geth attack. A dozen metres away a pair of asari are loudly proclaiming how purebloods need to be "purged" and that they "should be prevented from breeding!" The asari in question is devastated by her loss, and those assholes, within earshot, are screaming that they they don't give a shit, because they're purebloods. The main reason for the prejudice is that such unions are possibly more likely to produce their equivalents of Succubi, though it's an incredibly rare genetic disorder by itself.
    • This all leads back to the asari's true hat: every organic race thinks they're hot. That's their sole contribution to galactic society: they're a race of bisexual fanservice. But hey, At least they use it for the constructive purpose of acting as diplomats and mediators for the rest of the galaxy.
      • This gets deconstructed in Mass Effect 3: Their technological progress? They keep secret that they have the last intact Prothean beacon. Their inherent virtues and biotic abilities? Product of extensive genetic engineering by the Protheans Their diplomatic abilities? The result of more uplift efforts by the Protheans. And if Javik is in the party, he will reveal that this trope was actually invoked by the Protheans, who intended asari to lead the next cycle's races to defend against the Reapers, should the Protheans themselves fail. A chance that the asari merrily squandered away on playing high and mighty. Though he might have been lying to make Liara feel better.
    • The Reapers also qualify for this trope, albeit to a lesser extent as they look down on all organic life, not just humanity, and they aren't exactly pacifists...
    • Then again...
    • The Yahg are also close to this; from the perspective of the next cycle, should Shapard fail, they'd probably be in charge: they're larger than Krogan and probably stronger, as smart as the Salarians but live significantly longer, they fall in with the most competent leaders even if they're from a different tribe (and are thus potentially as organized as the Turians), their tribal culture bred into them a very keen sense of perception (they're nearly impossible to lie to) so they're probably as good with politics as the Asari, and since one of them was able to infiltrate, take over and manage the single largest intelligence organization in the known Galaxy for decades without anyone even knowing what species he is, it would be safe to say they're as adaptable as humans. They'd be pretty much a Mary Sue species if not for their rampant savagery and comparably primitive technology. That said, the intelligence and adaptability may not necessarily be a species-wide trait but rather something specific to the Shadow-Broker, as Mordin mentions outliers and we never encounter another yahg in a context where such qualities come into play. It is also mentioned in the Shadow Broker dossiers that they had to kill several before finding one who wanted to leave, giving the outliers theory credence.
  • The people of the moon in Touhou (often translated Lunarian, for whatever reason). Long lived, powerful yet peaceful, the whole works. It is implied that they're very bored though, and they seem to abuse their (sentient) rabbit-servants without a second thought.
  • World of Warcraft
    • The draenei are sometimes accused of being a Mary Sue race, but they are a weird case. On the one hand, they are long-lived or maybe even immortal. They have magitek that makes them able to construct inter-dimensional floating castles/spaceships, complete with teleporters, holograms, hard-light floors and escape pods (making them one of the most technologically advanced race in the setting). They are the first (and only when they were introduced) race to master elemental magic, arcanic magic (they were so good at it that Sargeras, who wants to destroy all life, tried to make them his lieutenants) and light magic (they had paladins millenia before humans supposedly invented them, and talk directly to beings who are one with the Light). They are as tall and muscled as taurens, who were previously the tallest and most muscled race. They were introduced as the pure, original version of a previously established race. Even their weapons are made from pretty crystals. Finally, they are the closest thing the franchise has to a Lawful Good race. However, their society isn't really romanticized by any character in the games (in fact they barely are mentioned), they lost every single battle where they stood on their own, and their overwhelming goodness is more-or-less justified as they're the faction of their species who refused to follow Sargeras and The Legions of Hell.
    • Mists of Pandaria's portrayal of the previously well liked Pandaren have also been accused of this. They have virtually no evil individuals, everyone that opposes them is portrayed as Always Chaotic Evil, and their morals are always depicted as correct. It didn't help that entire races such as the Orcs were demonized to help facilitate their aesops. Though it should be noted that the lack of evil individuals can be attributed to aspects of Pandaria itself; negative emotions can sometimes literally come to life and try to kill you there.
  • Almost any time elves show up in a Japanese RPG, they will be exactly this. Expect them to never shut up about how humans are a bunch of stupid, rude, unhygienic warmongers who kill each other and their peaceful nature-loving ways are superior, possible even after a party of humans humbly endure their insults and arrogance to protect/evacuate them from the inevitable attack by the big bad. (YOUR KIND DID THIS, GET OUT OF OUR VILLAGE AND LET US REBUILD IN PEACE) As a result, JRPG elves are often a race of scrappies.
    • Refreshingly subverted in the Suikoden series. Their elitist attitude earns them nothing but a horrible reputation to outsiders. In some cases, it leads to their outright destruction.
    • Subverted in Jeanne d'Arc as well. Players see very little about the elves, except that in one mission they refuse to open their doors to any outsiders until after you prevent the bad guys from kicking down said doors and butchering everyone inside, and that they have no little institutionalized racism - the one elf you get was banished from her people because she agreed to marry a non-elf. Their leader comes to realize that the elves can't afford to act like they're so above it all anymore.
  • The Elder Scrolls
    • Each race of Mer (Elves) in Tamriel believes this about themselves, but the Altmer (High Elves) really play it up. They see themselves as the closest in blood and culture to the Aldmer, Precursors to all of the races of Mer and supposed direct descendants of the Aedra/Ehlnofey, the divine "original spirits" who created and first populated the mortal world. The Altmer believe that the other races of Mer are a result of "degeneration" over the ages (and don't even get them started on the races of Men...), while the Altmer actively try to breed themselves back to their ancestral ideal (which includes killing off any undesirable offspring). Come the 4th Era reformation of the Aldmeri Dominion under the leadership of the extremist Thalmor, the Altmer have kicked this belief into overdrive, subjugating the Bosmer (Wood Elves) and Khajiit while waging war against the remnants of the Septim Empire.
    • The Dwemer certainly considered themselves as such, with every other race (Men, Mer, or otherwise) being beneath them. A big part of their Naytheism came from their belief that even the supposed "gods" were not truly superior to them. Arguably Justified, as their advancements (technological, metaphysical, and more) were (and still are) far, far beyond what any other race in Tamriel is capable of.
  • The Drakken from the 4X Strategy Game Endless Legend are a Draconic Humanoid race who narratively are shown to be this as the wise and old race, keepers of old knowledge and the respected middle-man in diplomatic negotiations. Gameplay-wise their superiority is shown through their racial ability to force treaties on other nations without their agreement, for increased cost of influence resource.

    Web Original 
  • It's actually canon in Orion's Arm that transapients are better than any human could hope to be, although its still possible to become a transapient yourself.
    • There's also a terragen species called Homo superior, who are essentially humans with several generations of germline genetic engineering making them superior, mentally and physically, to 'baseline' humans.
  • Chakats and stellar foxtaurs are out-and-out stated to have been designed as such, although the sheer quantity of Fetish Fuel in their design makes them an odd, though not unexpected, addition to this page.

    Webcomics 
  • The drow races of Drowtales view the extremely short lived, technologically inferior and non-mana bearing races in their worlds as inferior to them, lumping all races like humans and orcs together in one term, "goblins". They view these races at best as cannon fodder and at worst, a food source. They also view their fellow elven species, the Dark and Light elves from which their race is descended as inferior and almost all members of these species that live within their cities do so as slaves and are just as subjected to being invited for dinner in times of famine.

    Western Animation 
  • The Irkens, announced frequently by Invader Zim.
  • Cybertronians in the Transformers franchise are almost always described as superior, at least physically and technologically, to humans when the two species are compared (mostly by Decepticons, who tend to refer to us as "insects"). They are a species of Mechanical Life Form that all have the ability to change their form into almost anything of their choice, have far superior weaponry and travel capabilities and can individually live for thousands or even millions of years, so they probably wouldn't be wrong in thinking along those lines.
    • This has been subverted on a few occasions in which humans have been shown to utterly thrash transformers. The most recent example of this was a battle in IDW comics between Colonel Witwicky and Scrapper, which resulted in Scrapper's head being blown off by his own gun.
    • Also it's outright stated in Beast Wars that one of the reasons the Autobots would beat the Decepticons was because humans were helping them.
    • It's also been commented on that Humanity does at least stop having wars for extended periods of time, while Cybertron and its peoples have been in a constant state of civil war for longer than humanity has existed. Also humanity has the ability to adapt and change real fast, compared to the Cybertronians who barely have done anything new for millions of years.
  • In Ben 10: Alien Force the High Breed like to boast how they are superior to every other alien race. Except they're a Dying Race thanks to their frequent inbreeding. The entire reason the Highbreed began their campaign to purge other species is because they will soon go extinct, and they can't stand the idea of their "inferiors" outliving them.


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