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The older man looked at the younger one. He took a deep breath and began to tell his tale, just like he was told before when he himself was that young.

I've been here way longer than you, let me tell you how this all started and why are you here now. They came without a sign and attacked without warning. Our fighter jets, tanks, warships were no match for their alien spaceships and advanced weapons. Nation after nation fell and soon everybody knew humanity would be erased forever. We were wrong.

But they didn't kill anyone who did not oppose them. We thought they would have mercy on us, to let us live. This time, we were right. Even though nobody knew why they let us live, we soon found it out. They need us.

More specifically, they need our flesh. They consider it a delicacy, and in the worlds inhabited by them they would give anything for it. You see now, we aren't preserved by scientific curiosity, by compassion or by love. We are livestock for them, we are taken care of in order to grow and then they kill us, dismember us, package us and send us back to their worlds where we are cooked, grilled, sauteed and eaten. Earth has been converted into a facility to grow, slaughter and process humans.

Now you know where the others went and why won't you ever see them. Now you know why do we get free food and housing. Now you know why are they doing this all to us.

What exactly would an alien species do in order to maximize the yield of this facility?

They are intricately familiar with human anatomy, know what is to be known about psychology, have vast resources at their disposal to create either huge buildings, precise machinery, hormones or medicines, etc. They don't care about the lives and values of humans any more than we do about the cows or carrots that we grow, harvest and finally consume.

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11 Answers 11

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"At that terrible moment, in our hearts, we knew. Home was a pen. Humanity, cattle."

START YOUR OWN HUMAN FARM!

Even though human meat is highly sought-after, early over-hunting has left the species extremely endangered.

As a result, hunting wild humans is banned across all 4 quadrants. But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy great-tasting and fresh authentic human!

With the recent implementation of the mandatory weekly cryosleep, a dynamic and synergistic farming method guarantees an excellent crop with that lovely, free-range human taste.

Contact +%2212_R386 to become a HumYum™ franchisee today!


Thank you for your decision to become the proud owner of the newest HumYum™ human farm, and welcome, to the HumYum™ family.

The HumYum™ method is state-of-the-art, and results in a bountiful harvest of traditionally-raised humans in just one cryo-year!

To begin, you'll need your HumYum™ starter's kit, which contains the following:

Qty. 1 Terraforming Smart Sensor®
Qty. 1 Pkt Terraforming OxyGen® Algae
Qty. 1 Sulfur Sucker Environmental Assistant®
Qty. 53 Pre-frozen variety packs of Human Food
Qty. 20 Pre-frozen human cultures

In addition, you'll need:

  • A medium to medium-large sized world between 3-5 Sett lengths from the nearest star
  • A medical-grade carbonous defroster
  • 4 AA batteries (not included)

Let's get started!

  1. Humans can survive in a broad range of unusual conditions, but to get the best results, you should aim to meet the recommended atmospheric requirements. Insert fresh batteries into your Terraforming Smart Sensor®. Follow the onscreen instructions to optimise your farm's conditions.

  2. Defrost and scatter the human food around a wide area. The food will expand to fill any empty spaces, so don't worry about spreading it too far.

  3. Leave the human food to develop for at least 2 Cryo-Weeks. This step is essential and must not be skipped.

  4. Defrost your humans and deposit them in 3 or 4 groups separated by a large distance.

  5. Your HumYum™ human farm is ready to incubate! It is important not to disturb the humans during this phase, as this would panic them and cause them to harm themselves.

How it works:

Humans are just intelligent enough to manage their own food supply. It is normal for some humans to claim a disproportionate amount of the available food source, and for some of the crop to fail, but we have found that this process tends to result in more tender and juicy meat in the end.

Humans are notoriously bad at self-controlling their population, they will continue to breed fresh meat well after the area becomes overcrowded. Our research shows that one Cryo-Year is about how long it takes for the harvest to reach maximum yield rate.

Humans will not recall your existence, and so have no reason to 'escape'. After a few meagre attempts to leave the planet, they will make the economically sound decision not to fund further space exploration, as it detracts from their main goal of making more humans.

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Your setup is an open invitation for rebellion. You are better off if your livestock does not know they are, or even better if they cannot remember alternative states.

So you start with farm just with kids. They do not remember the "good old days" and cannot think of a parallel of their current situation with the old animal farms of the past.

Just feed them, give them shelter, etc. At best, you can treat them like animals, so they do not need to learn anything at all.

If you want the process to be more self-sustained in order for it to be more economical (less alien workforce needed), you can provide them some basic language, teach them a basic knowledge of agricultural procedures and give them a few tools so they can feed themselves. Avoid keeping them in groups too large (so illness/revolutionary ideas developing spontaneously do not harm your other harvests) and you are set to go.

An additional twist is keeping a group of educated humans to take care of the farm. In this case, you want to:

  1. Make sure the caretakers understand that problems with the livestock will mean they and their families become livestock.

  2. Limit interaction between the two groups to the minimum, in order to avoid the caretakers becoming too worried about the livestock fate.

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I would start by looking at what we have done to livestock, such as cattle, chicken and sheep.

We would certainly be bred for maximum fleshy-ness, and domesticated in a way that served our new alien overlords.

Rebellious members would be killed off, I'd imagine after many generations the vast majority of the human population would've accepted their fate (perhaps even embrace it).

I can imagine battery-chicken style farming techniques being applied to us, food being fed to us on a drip to fatten us up for the kill. This food could also be drugged to sedate us, lessening the chance of resistance.

Abattoir style killing houses to strip every last bit of meat from our bones. Cast off chunks of human flesh would probably be ground down and served as suspicious looking batter covered human-nuggets.

There is a possibility that younger humans taste better (like lamb for instance), so most of us would be killed off after a few years, with only a few kept around for breeding purposes.

Perhaps human breast milk would be used in the alien cereals.

Our skin could end up being processed for use as a leather.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, I know that certain food colourings and certain products (gelatin for instance) comes from by products of cattle farming, I'd imagine we would have similar by products.

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(Ab)Use Religion to control the people

A properly maintained religion can get people to do almost everything, and can guide their behaviour. People have killed others in the name of their religion. People have willingly gone to their dead in the name of their religion. In short, a carefully crafted religion is the key.

And the aliens have a great advantage: The humans can see the gods coming from the sky. It's, of course, the aliens.

Let me cite a bit of the holy scriptures of those people:

10And then the gods created the humans. 11And the gods said to the humans: Multiply and fill the earth. 12And care to always eat enough. For the gods like well-fed humans. 13But beware of the sin, that is the curiosity, 14as curiosity leads to the evil. 15And the humans did as the gods said. They multiplied and filled the earth. And they cared to always eat enough. 16But one day, the devil came onto earth, and the devil said to the leader of the humans: 17Be curious, as that will make you equal to the gods. 18And the humans got curious, and they discovered a lot of things. 19And they discovered magical practices that are reserved for the gods. 20But as they were not gods, they couldn't handle those powers, and they started killing each other, 21and in trying to improve the world, they started to destroy it. 22And many people were hungry, and the gods decided to step in.

23And the gods came from heaven and told the humans to stop with their sacrilege. 24But the humans said: We will soon be as powerful as you. So why should we stop? 25So the gods said: Let us destroy those humans we created, as they don't follow the law. 26And so the gods unleashed their power. 27And the rage of the gods hit the humans and killed then in droves 28and the humans came to understand that they were still far from the gods. 29Then the remaining humans turned to the gods and said: 30Forgive us, gods, for we have sinned against you. 31We violated your laws, ans we certainly deserved what we got. 32But we learned our lesson and will from now on always follow your orders. 33And no more will we be curious, but we will accept your will, 34because we know it is the best for us. 35And the gods saw that the humans were honest, and they decided to let those humans alive. 36And they removed the magic objects the humans had created, as those were reserved for the gods. 37And the humans agreed to take what they receive from the gods, and never again to try to get more. 38And the gods fed the humans well, as they had done in the beginning, 39and the men followed the orders of the gods, and they prospered and multiplied and were all well fed.

40And the gods were so pleased with the humans that they said: Let us do the humans a favour, and take most of them to heaven to live with the gods. 41And so every fifth day they chose from the youth those who would be ascended to heaven.

Well, we of course know what really happens with those "ascended to heaven".

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The better the story behind each piece of flesh the better the price. Some of the ultra-rich might serve up a whole family for a special party. The more interesting the story behind the meal, the better the entertainment value it provides. Perhaps the dominant aliens can even experience the past of the individual they eat. The best way to do it is probably to let us do it for them. Possibly even in a way that keeps hope alive for us. This opens up two new high price delicacies.

The freedom fighter/underground leader. The key human leader/traitor who thought they and their family where safe due to their betrayal of their race.

The more freedoms they grant us the cheaper the operational costs to the aliens. This level just leaves earth as it is, but syphons off a quota every year for sale. The greater level or security they provide, the less risk they have on themselves. An Orbital Space prison with no access to anything would be the extreme of this. But then there is more cost to build and maintain these, so less profits. Possibly an effect on the taste as well.

One low cost free range option would be to follow the plan of the Wraith in Stargate: Atlantis. Create small colonies of humans on other worlds and then regularly harvest them. If the aliens have a different ideal planet then humans this would be ideal. It would also allow them an easy way to distract/betray humanity. “We are here to benevolently help you spread across the stars.”

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Your approach would likely change depending on whether the aliens value intelligence in the humans they are harvesting and how much time they have.

Awareness of their fate adds a piquancy to the taste

If the aliens don't plan on removing human intelligence, probably the best approach would be to establish social classes for who gets eaten and who doesn't. One regrettable aspect of human nature is that we find it very easy to split ourselves into "us" and "them", and dehumanizing the "them" part of things. Witness slavery, abortion, Rwanda, British Imperial massacres, etc. The collaborators would be in charge of the people to be eaten and would therefore be saved from the same fate. Those in the lower classes would have the carrot dangled in front of them of possibly eventually becoming part of the overseers. Add in a dash of paranoia by allowing people to gain rewards or even to move up in social class by turning in possible rebels or other malefactors and I doubt the aliens would have much of an issue.

Humans as dumb livestock

Probably more ideal would be to reduce the IQ of humans. The easy solution is to induce mental retardation whether through lobotomies, chemical damage, or other methods. Of course, this has a side effect of a) children won't be affected and b) most methods of inducing brain damage are very crude and will also harm survival instincts (lobotomy patients frequently lost the ability to feed themselves, or to deal with other aspects of life). Thus, your better approach is probably selective breeding, as seen in I, Weapon and such books where you get control of a section of human beings and start breeding them for larger size and less brain power. This will take time, of course, but eventually you're likely to wind up with fairly docile breeding stock that can fend for themselves in at least a primitive manner.

It may be possible to get adequate results from just pithing a generation before trying to breed for lower intelligence. A child isolated from intelligent contact typically grows up with significant cognitive disability. They would likely mirror their less intelligent parents, reducing the chance of rebellion. That said, I wouldn't depend on that because, well, they may simply learn by observing their alien overseers.

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The answers seen so far, miss 2 fundamental issues. Firstly young human flesh must be better than old (it's the same for all of the animals that we farm), Secondly humans have a tendancy to form clans/tribes/communities, the stable size of which depends on resource availability. If the Aliens wanted to battery farm humans, they'd need to keep people in seclusion, as the stress of the battery farm would tend to form 2 or 3 person groups, up for rebellion.
Stories of yore, talk of monsters coming to terms with villager elders, such that a village has to produce and provide at least one, perfect 18 year old virgin per year, or they would all be executed by the monster. Something along those lines, ensuring resources, encouraging productivity, and happiness amongst the villagers, albeit at the price of 1 male and 1 female 'prize' per year, is probably the most productive way to go.

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Well that really depends on what variety of humans you're talking about raising. There's plenty of edible varieties, some for industrial chemicals and processing and even a few neat varieties used by the fashion industry. My grandmerg still has some polished bone necklaces and a full length hair coat! I remember having a preserved human fall out of the classroom storage closet one time when I was younger. I had nightmares about those arms reaching out to get me for weeks and wouldn't even finish the hands at dinner.

Some of the old heirloom varieties of humans have such a unique flavor. Not like some of the modern ones that look big and delicious but you might as well be chewing on ra'ttan for all the flavor they have left. Not to call out anyone by name but the 'Human-gus' brand just sells big ones that are mediocre at best. Especially after shipping. They look great in the display case but there's that little sign that says 'cryostored during transit'. Bleh. Fresh is really the only way. Sadly there's not many of those shops left where they were hanging on display still dripping a little bit. Or you could get the roasted salted ones in a pod of six. My little broodlings loved the bags of fried 'French Fingers' you could get before the closest shop closed. Yeah most worlds these days are the traditional 'factory planet' operation but, you know, whatever feeds the masses.

Me personally I've always wanted to be a breeder. I have so many ideas for new crosses and traits that would be really beneficial. Especially for free range planets. Hairless varieties to save pulling out the hair during processing, reducing bone density for those with problems chewing or digesting the bone. One of my colleagues even has a line where the skin is thin, but tough so they're much easier to peel and get all the skin removed. That will help with the annoying skin getting stuck in your acid glands and getting all gummy.

But you know how hard it is to get a permit to go collect new genetic material from the Terran Preserve these days. They barely let breeders get a few hundred a year anymore! I understand all the talk about germplasm diversity and preservation and all but there's billions of them running around the planet now. They really need to start another preserve just in case something happens.

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Like some answers and comments have already hinted at, there are several scenarios here:

  • Large-scale: Earth (or another planet) is one huge free-range farm or hunting reserve. Harvests can be anywhere from thousands per year (which basically goes unnoticed by humans) to millions a month or even billions every couple centuries. Humans may or may not know or believe the truth about the destiny of the missing ones. Required maintenance is minimal – aliens may play god once in a while.
  • Medium-scale: There are factory farms (on Earth or somewhere closer to the distribution centers) with hundreds or thousands of humans in each. Their nutrition and reproduction is controlled. There likely are specialized fattening and breeding farms, or at least dedicated stables. Humanity isn’t technologically advanced enough to fight the aliens, but they might learn to use alien gadgets against them for an uprising one day.
  • Small-scale: Humans are also kept as pets, because their meat isn’t that special compared to other animals and they can learn neat tricks. Alien families may own a handful of humans and slaughter one on special occasions.

I think the OP has the medium-scale model in mind, so I’ll deal with only that from here on.

Most boys will be eaten before they reach manhood or male fetuses would be aborted / avoided, because like cattle one doesn’t really need a 1:1 sex ratio. To avoid revolts, separated groups mustn’t become too large and the exchange of grown-ups should be kept to the minimum necessary. The meat of late teen girls (who are fully grown but haven’t been pregnant) will probably be the priciest. No human cattle would live into their forties, except maybe an exceptional stud once in a while or pets.

Human pregnancy terms are rather long and the overall yield is low (like the question already suggests): a women can have about as many children in her lifetime, without risking her health, as a sow in one brood – a dozen, maybe two to three with optimal care, but by then there would be younger, healthier ones available. If bred well, a human dams should be able to bear and feed twins easily. More would be too dangerous, better separate the young early and provide them with an artificial diet, so the mother can get pregnant quickly again. Girls would probably first be inseminated (perhaps artificially) around 14 to 16 Earth-years old, when the farmer is sure their body can handle the stress. A good one will then have twins every year, ten to twenty times. After that they are not rentable enough for high-efficiency farms and would either go to the slaughterhouse or some private/hobby after-market.

Human growth is also slow, which can only enhanced by hormones so much, but farmed humans will grow faster and bigger than naturally. That still makes the meat an expensive luxury commodity, although there may have been that glorious time when there was plenty of it from the original Earth harvests (cf. whales or buffalos). Human bodies waste a lot of energy in developing their brains, so maybe that is a delicacy for aliens that makes it worth it or the brain is considered an aphrodisiac or drug. In this case, the alien farmers would have an interest in training and exercise for their human cattle, because a demonstrably clever brain would sell for more. Imagine “intelligence pageants”. They need to balance that with them becoming clever enough to escape or rebel – isolation may be the key.

Note that the aliens who are farming or hunting humans don’t need to be the ones preparing or consuming them. They can be from different castes/classes or even completely different races. Human meat could even be a black market item, because interplanetary law forbids the trade of sentient species (at least for gastronomic purposes). This is even more likely if this is in a scifi setting where humanity is exploring deep space, too.

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This is a fascinating topic! Experience has led to garnering knowledge that can be applied to myriad aspects of this "thought-experiment." Plus, this is the sort of thing that many of my oldest friends enjoy "brain-storming" for fun & giggles, and I've shared scores of late evenings sitting round the fireplace discussing many things which interconnect with this subject.

First off, consult Joseph Cummins' book "CANNIBALS;" copyright 2001, The Lyons Press, ISBN 1-58574-217-1. He quotes at length from William B. Seabrook's book "JUNGLE WAYS" (1929) in which Seabrook avers that the human flesh which he had actually sampled, while in Africa, had all of the taste, texture, colour, and consistency of "well-raised veal."

Seabrook's contention was echoed in a psychologist's notes from lengthy interviews with an incarcerated human cannibal--- man-meat is really supposed to be almost impossible to tell from older veal.

Sorry; but that rather "shoots in the head" the idea that aliens might find human flesh uniquely toothsome--- with the emphasis on "UNIQUE."

If you either ignore this fact, or postulate that the aliens have more-advanced palates, or something, you might still be able to carry this off. Perhaps it's such that they raise cattle off-planet for their lower classes and Bureaucrats, but reserve "the authentic article" for the ruling class or Administrators. I do look forward to seeing this book.

Now, as for a line of thought which our "Ghoulish Gathering" has often explored, let me commend to you our delightful theory that ALIENS ARE ALREADY HARVESTING HUMANS FROM EARTH! Three of our number are Federal agents, and as a result, know a good bit about the statistics on the number of people who disappear or go missing, year after year. Another member, who occasionally joins our discussions by email, is with the European Union, and has access to data from overseas.

Evidently, up to MILLIONS of people "disappear," world-wide, every year. Now, most of these disappearances are in trouble-spots, where life is cheap and brief, or impoverished nations, where starvation or cannibalism is common. Still; something like 20,000+ people are alleged to technically "go missing" in the North Americas, the EU, and Russia, annually. Conventional wisdom contends that these are suicides, homicides, deliberate name-changing disappearances, and people simply "dropping out."

For the sake of fun, though, we've often supposed the "vanishings" are as you'd proposed: "Alimentary Abduction" of Humans by Aliens!

(Of course, we don't REALLY BELIEVE that; it's just fun to make spooky speculations!)

It's a perfect proposal: The aliens don't have to "spend" anything on maintaining their "farm." No expense or output to run it, at all, unless you care to suppose they have recruited (and put tracers on) human ghouls who're told of to hunt up specific sorts of people, on order. The ghouls would be tasked to find the specific "meat" desired, and take these people to pickup points, where they are then abducted by the aliens.

One winning scenario was postulating a luxury tour company that would offer "unbeatable deals" to "target groups" like the "alone" and single people; maybe even with fake contest prizes featuring all-expense-paid tours. The people leave on the tour, which turns out going much further than anyone expected!

It's a perfect plan for a truly frightening story! People on Earth have no idea what's going on! Governments aren't even aware it's a "problem!" The alien species has no "overhead" aside from coming here, picking up a consignment, and going home---plus they get to eat very well, while away from Home-World!

If they must "pay" their human ghouls, their technology is such that they could either replicate currency or gold coins; or interdict a drug-cartel money-delivery. "Illegal money" is easy to find, with higher technology.

The aliens can keep their species' "luxury-niche" well-fed with only 20,000-30,000 "Alimentary Abductions" a year, for merely the expenditure of time and travel costs. And Earth Never Suspects!

Imagine the sort of meat-market if they've expanded operations and harvests to a million or more, each year? They have all these wars, plus the tribal and other genocidal pogroms, religious spats, and other diversions to cover up snatching one of two million humans a year to feed the Elite!

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Truth be told, they'd do it in secret. They'd come in with asteroidal platinum and diamonds and start buying up mortuaries. All the so-called "bodies" people bury are just clever wax sculptures. The real dead people are shipped back to the Homeworld for expensive banquets.

And this is just the lowest price point.

Next, you start getting higher-end product, as the aliens start buying up ownership of hospitals. Fresher product, some with an exhiliarating cocktail of intravenous spices added.

Eventually, alien gourmands tired of overprocessed humanity start demanding free-range meats. So alien entrepreneurs start muscling in on gang activity and kidnapping rings.

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