Prompt: Due to Oxygen being one of if not the rarest gasses in the universe, it has been classified as highly illegal to own. When humans step up onto the galactic stage, the galactic council freaks out.

Submitted to r/WritingPrompts by u/Thunderclap222333

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Chemically speaking oxygen is the third most common element in the universe. However pure allotropes of oxygen ( O₁ O₂ O₃) are a lot rarer due to there highly reactive natures.

Even O₂ (dioxagen), one of the most stable allotropes of it, is capable of burning most things at low concentrations.

While dioxygen itself is somewhat dangerous, it's not especially more dangerous than most other chemical weapons. So it was not banned on the danger of itself.

and while trioxygen is quite a bit more nasty it's still not bad enough to really get the galactic counsel involved.

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Atomic oxygen (monoxygen) was dangerous enough. It's incredibly good at absolutely destroying things at the chemical level. Most chemical weapons, while frowned upon, have to be somewhat specialized for the biology of your enemy. Monoxygen is no such case.

however luckily monoxygen reacts with itself forming dioxygen, but with the discovery of the kel-zimoid reaction, all you need is a bunch of heat and a specialized catalyst, and voila, you're not so dangerous dioxygen turns into a giant expanding cloud of death that rips even through solid walls to get at you.

When humans were first contacted and requested to send an Envoy to the council, needless to say it was terrifying when they sent a pressurized tube full of almost 20% dioxygen gas.

It was even more terrifying to find out the bureaucratic nightmare that these inhabitants brung. An entire species that requires large amounts of this incredibly dangerous chemical in order to survive.

and an entire planet full of organic life forms, that given water sunlight and the common and stable carbon dioxide can efficiently and endlessly generate this previously difficult to create and banned substance.