They are Smol takes place after a disasterous first contact and accidental invasion of Earth. Humanity is on a rapid uplift schedule, partly because our alien neighbors feel guilty, partly because having another allied species is a boon all around, and partly because it took us something like 150,000 years to learn how to plant grain.
look, nobody ever said we were clever. Humans, as a whole, oscillate between abject fear at the otherness of our neighbors and the frustration that they keep putting everything on the top shelf.