"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
A short story about two space explorers happening upon a new alien species. However, much to their disgust, they find that they're... meaty.
You might have an idea what species they're talking about.
Written by Terry Bisson, it was originally published in Omni magazine in April 1991 and nominated for a Nebula Award. Can be read here
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Fans have produced short film and radio play adaptations.
This short story provides examples of:
- Alien Abduction: The aliens have captured humans from all over the world for study and are shocked to find that humans are composed entirely of meat.
- Ambiguous Situation: The explorers go on and on about how bizarre it is that humans are made of meat, but what exactly they are is left deliberately unclear to the reader. All we know is that they live significantly longer than humans and for presumably hundreds upon millions of years at leastnote , they're in contact with several other lifeforms and have documented numerous species, and exist in some sort of society that legally requires them to document all sapient life. But most of this is ultimately just implied. The only thing we know about them for sure is that they certainly aren't made out of meat.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: The explorers are in utter shock and horror that humans are composed entirely of meat. Humans even communicate and sing by squirting air through their meat and flapping their meat at each other, which meat shouldn't be doing because it's meat.
- Cassandra Truth: Invoked by the aliens, who make it so that any humans who remember being probed would be considered crazy.
- Downer Ending: The aliens could (and are supposed to) contact humanity, but they decide not to because they think it'd be weird to interact with meat. It's also made it clear that humans contacting another life form by themselves is impossible, so they've essentially doomed humanity to eternal cosmic isolation. The closing line even highlights just how cruel it is to do that.Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: The second speaker just cannot wrap their head around the fact that this species is really, truly made of meat. They insist there must at least be a brain made out of plasma or something. When they learn that humans are truly made out of meat, to the point where their brain is also made out of meat, they still don't get it and are confused as to what does the thinking.
- Energy Beings: The "meaties" are literally the only race that die as meat. One race starts as meat, but eventually "ascend".
- Fantastic Anthropologist: One of the explorers is this, trying to explain to his colleague that humans are meat all the way down.
- Fantastic Racism: In the end, the explorers decide to strike the record of encountering the meaties and declare this sector empty, believing that first contact would be extremely awkward and of little worth. As one of them puts it, "What are we going to say to them? 'Hey, meat, how's it going?'?"
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: Meat cannot do that, because it's confined to C - space and therefore limited by the speed of light.
- First Contact: Subverted. The aliens refuse to respond to the humans’ radio signals, lest they have to interact with creatures made of meat.
- Humans Are Special: Humanity is apparently the only sentient race known that is entirely corporeal for their entire existence.
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: Despite their numerous encounters with other species, the explorers have never encountered a species that is made entirely out of meat for its entire lifetime. It's beyond their understanding.
- Hypocrite: The two explorers talk about how a "rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence" wants to get back in contact with them, because "Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone." This little exchange happens just a few sentences after their decision to deliberately deny contact with humanity because they think our meat forms are gross.
- Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Earth exists in an otherwise empty quadrant of space that other alien life decide to ignore.
- Invisible Aliens: They've done some abductions, but wiped the abductees' memory.
- Irony: The viewpoint characters discuss what they should do about a planet of meat-based intelligences (humans). They decide to ignore the "meat", and then talk about how lonely the universe would be if you couldn’t find alien life.
- No Intelligent Life Here: The explorers ultimately decide to just write-off this sector of space as "uninhabited" and move on.
- Parrot Exposition: The story begins this way, as shown in the page quote. The second speaker is just that baffled over this species being made out of meat.
- Puny Earthlings: The explorers note that humans live for a very short amount of time, and (unlike them) are limited to the speed of light.
- Squick: In-universe: the explorers are completely weirded out and more than a little disgusted at the fact there is sentient, living meat doing stuff.
- Starfish Aliens: Apparently, all known aliens are Energy Beings: there is one race that undergoes a "meat" stage, but ascends late in life, and another that is partially meat with a plasma-based brain.
- We Are as Mayflies: The Fantastic Anthropologist alien notes that they have observed humans for several of our life cycles, which aren't long given that we are meat.
- Xenofiction: The story is written from the perspective of alien beings... beings so alien they aren't even "alive" as we understand them, and focuses on how weird and disgusting humans are from their perspective.
