"WHAT IF Only Edible Thing On Planet Were Intelligent Aliens?" Topic

YOU HAVE CRASH LANDED on an alien world, and everything you try to eat is poisonous or makes you physically ill … except the most intelligent beings on that world. For some reason you "accidentally" discover that you are able to digest parts of their flesh without any problems.

Would you become the equivalent of the "man-eating" beasts of Sci-Fi and Pulp stories? Would you risk setting such a negative precedent for all future relations with that civilization?

A) Anyone ever gamed a "monster hunt", but one in which the monster was a human on an alien planet?
B) What figures did you use for the human and for the aliens?
C) What rules?
D) Got pics?

Dan
PS. Think of the film "Planet 51" (2009), but with a horrific trail of mutilated (but tasty) bodies left behind. :)

Bring plenty of BBQ sauce!

Eric Flint's first novel "Mother of Demons" had a similar theme. The stranded humans didn't have to actually eat the intelligent aliens, but the only thing they could safely eat was the regurgitated food the alien mothers had eaten (which like birds, they fed to their own young). Yum!

Thanks for bring that up !

That's what they said…..

Well it's different take than aliens coming to Earth and eating us !!!!

That little guy on the salad is a little too "cute" to eat …

Welcome to the NASA mortuary service, where we will give your recently departed loved ones a "tasteful" send off.

If we don't do the killing, no harm no foul. But, in all likelihood they have rules against this sort of thing.

It would be funny if someone made a couple of 15mm Greys dressed as "Men in Black" or FBI agents.

Dan
link

youtu.be/KmK0bZl4ILM

I think that there would be a lot fewer aliens in the near future.

Jakar

Fantastic little tune! End vegicide now! :)

Dan

"(…) everything you try to eat is poisonous or makes you physically ill … except the most intelligent beings on that world. For some reason you "accidentally" discover that you are able to digest parts of their flesh without any problems."

'til you eat a stupid* one, then it's game over… ;-)

* Like, maybe it's developably challenged and eats paint chips, or something (more likely, the 'something'…)

"Quick, feed the invader the tard!"

If, say, we had sent a one-way colony ship and they had this problem (including the idea that the stuff they brought to grow simply won't grow) then I would feel very bad for the intelligent aliens, but really if it's us or them, I pick us.

If, say, it is just a tourist destination, people can pack in their own food.

Zephyr1

LOL. Good catch! I definitely should have worded that better.

What I meant was … the top sentient species on that planet.

One of these 15mm guys could work as the sole surviving human passenger on the crashed ship:

rebelminis.com/15zor.html
rebelminis.com/teci.html
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If the survivor is a pilot, then these 15mm armed crew sets might be useful:

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I wonder … if and when they finally do catch him, would he say "take your stinking tentacles off me, you damn tasty squid"?

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Or they could be "Prawns":

link

Dan
PS. Hmm, maybe it could be their brains then. Good idea, Zephyr1! That wouldn't hold you for too long, so the body count would pile up a lot faster. :)

Starguard had "Drenoi" which were a said to taste like lobster.

In all honesty, the higher predators are most likely to be the most toxic.

For example, mercury levels in tuna (and dolphin).

"Zephyr1

LOL. Good catch! I definitely should have worded that better.

What I meant was … the top sentient species on that planet."

Oh, I knew what you meant, was just having some fun with it.

(My edit didn't go through above, it was supposed to be "toxic paint chips". ;-)

Lion

What if they are vegans? They might taste like beef or lamb. :)

Dan

Mmmmm … Calamari !

Actually, quite unlikely that the top of an extended food chain would be edible and nutritious to humans, but nothing lower down on the chain would. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest it's a scientific impossibility. Either everything would be inedible, or a certain range of species would all be edible. So I don't think the issue would arise.

Given how intelligent most plant-eaters are on earth, I find it unlikely that the dominant intelligent life-form would be a herbivore. (Noted exception to prove the general rule in the Elephants, and the filter-feeding whales are still carnivores)

Lion

Have you seen deer and cows eat live birds and even carrion, when the plants don't offer enough nutrition? I have. It was very disturbing at first but I'd be doing the same if I had a choice between meat and grass. :)

Dan
PS. I've heard that elephants do the same. Plus gorillas eat lots of termites and other small critters, I guess when their salads need "croutons".

I've been told they taste like eggs but with an eggplant texture

I will also note that when it comes to mammals as food, as I understand it, predatory mammals are generally less desireable as human food sources compared to herbivore animals, due in part I believe to disease risks. This is even more significant for scavenger and carrion animals, for rather obvious reasons; you don't really want to eat a jackal (or a vulture).

So unless the alien species is a herbivore, the likelihood of them being a viable food source for humans is limited, and in an ecosystem, the aliens being the only food source is a virtually impossible circumstance. Of course, I recently read a novel in which an alien species were essentially intelligent cows (highly belligerent, militaristic, xenophobic and genocidal cows, but still cows). The novel did not involve human consumption of these aliens, though as they were hostile combatants, large numbers did wind up being "barbecued" (my word; the novel didn't describe the combat results this way, and didn't speculate on the beings' edibility to humans).

Most anything is edible after you deep fry it… ;-)

Zephyr1

So very true!

That's why the only sushi I consume is the deep fried kind. :)

Dan