star wars
district 9
plus others as have been mentioned.
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Thanks, will check District 9!
Stargate, earth humans are not the least advanced, but there are humans on other planets that are less advanced.
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.
The "sentenced to war" series. I'm only 2 books in but the humans have like a 50 - 1 casualty rate against the aliens due to the aliens tech
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The short story Three worlds collide (read for free at https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HawFh7RvDM4RyoJ2d/three-worlds-collide-0-8 ) has humanity at the middle of an interspecies first-contact triangle with a more and a less advanced race.
Children of time, kind of
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.
ME is one of my absolute favourite SF. It just happens to be a game ;-)
Mike Resnick’s Birthright is an anthology series going through a future where humanity is the dominant species in a very filled galaxy. He has many other books that fit somewhere in the timeline, like Purgatory, Inferno and
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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.
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.
There is a caveat here.
In the Larry Niven/Ringworkd/Known Space fan base there is a MASSIVE divide between groups regarding which order you should read the books in.
The two main groups fall into the following:
1: Read in publication order. 2: Read Ringworld then Ringworld Engineers. After that go back to the earlier works which are technically prequels.
The one thing that almost everyone agrees is don't bother with Ringworld Throne.
Here's what I typically suggest for the series:
First, read the Ringworld saga. Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers, Ringworld Throne, Ringworld's Children (maybe skip the last two, read reviews, make your decision based on how much you like the universe, I petrography like all of them)
They are pretty closely linked and serve as a good introduction to Known Space. You don't have to know a lot about the Man-Kzin Wars, Beowulf Shaeffer, puppeteers or any other backstory to understand them.
Next, read all the books that fill out the universe with history and details, back stories, and lore. Crashlander, Protector, Three Books of Known Space, Flatlander, etc.
These give you more background on Earth, the colonies, Beowulf Shaeffer, and so on.
IF (big if) at this point you are still in love with everything Known Space then move on to the Fleet of World's books. They do have a bit of retconning in them but not in a bad way that feels disingenuous, so I don't view this as a negative mark.
One last point: If you are just looking for the "Humans as a superior species" aspect as you originally requested, just go read "Protector", the other commenter is correct. It's a very interesting twist on the subject.
If you want a HUGE universe of books to dive in to with an amazing amount of different intertwining stories and cool universe building: See above.