What if space drugs are like catnip and it gets the aliens high but does nothing for humans?
There’s an 80’s movie with a plot like that, the aliens integrate wholly into society and a secret cabal plans to enslave them because laundry soap is like supercrack to them.
“Yeah, but you guys can’t access dimension 6-9 simultaneously like we can, so it effectively doesn’t exist for you. Sorry, bud. If your own species’ genitalia are insufficient for copulation, have you considered those of your… (checks info-shard) sheep? They seem to be rather accommodating.”
This already happened.
There’s a story about a scout ship that landed in the Western Hemisphere of Sol 3, and they decided to talk with the locals.
They offered them anything they wanted from the unitary matter replicator, as a show of good faith.
Unfortunately the counselors had absolutely no idea what a “pothead” or “stoner” was and so the two humans left after each synthesizing a bushel (a long branch around 2 meters tall) of a cannabinoid dense Terran plant.
They lodged their reports that the species on Sol 3 wasn’t intelligent enough to understand technology given they requested herbs/plants from a machine that could produce literally any compound known to nature, including cures for many diseases afflicting their world.
The subchapter text was based on the vocalizations of the pair, who said: “Ayyy” followed by “Lah-Mao”.
:vivid shrug:
Aliens: “shit out of luck…now take me to your dealer!”
ESPECIALLY space heroin…