Short story about alien intelligence testing
I'm looking for a short story I've read long ago, and my memory is fuzzy.
It's an odd story in first person, about researchers testing the local alien intelligence; said aliens appear peaceful, shy, live in a green (forest?) planet (IIRC solar but not Mars), and love eating some herb or greenery; the test subject gets put in a maze with the treat at the end, but display odd behaviours: first run as expected, second run they test the painful path first and look meek, third run they refuse the treat. Same goes for different test subjects.
IIRC one of the other researchers was being targeted for murder.
I'd read it in the 1990s, likely first published much earlier.
The oddities get explained in the final reveal, whereby it is found out that the researchers were kidnapped by the aliens and by then subjected to testing to gauge their ability to make sense of random stimuli before going insane. The underlying theme is "how do you test for intelligence more advanced than your own?"
story-identification short-stories
edited 3 hours ago
Jenayah
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asked 4 hours ago
ptorptor
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ptor is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
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I'm looking for a short story I've read long ago, and my memory is fuzzy.
It's an odd story in first person, about researchers testing the local alien intelligence; said aliens appear peaceful, shy, live in a green (forest?) planet (IIRC solar but not Mars), and love eating some herb or greenery; the test subject gets put in a maze with the treat at the end, but display odd behaviours: first run as expected, second run they test the painful path first and look meek, third run they refuse the treat. Same goes for different test subjects.
IIRC one of the other researchers was being targeted for murder.
I'd read it in the 1990s, likely first published much earlier.
The oddities get explained in the final reveal, whereby it is found out that the researchers were kidnapped by the aliens and by then subjected to testing to gauge their ability to make sense of random stimuli before going insane. The underlying theme is "how do you test for intelligence more advanced than your own?"
story-identification short-stories
edited 3 hours ago
Jenayah
17.2k488123
asked 4 hours ago
ptorptor
1111
New contributor
ptor is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Let me get this straight. Some human scientists from Earth were kidnapped by aliens and abducted to another planet (not Mars) in the solar system? And the humans test their captors by running them in mazes? And one of the humans (not the narrator) is targeted for murder? By another one of the human abductees?
– user14111
2 hours ago
What makes you think that the story was published much earlier than 1990s? Is that book cover, or anything else?
– Nikita Neganov
1 hour ago
add a comment |
I'm looking for a short story I've read long ago, and my memory is fuzzy.
It's an odd story in first person, about researchers testing the local alien intelligence; said aliens appear peaceful, shy, live in a green (forest?) planet (IIRC solar but not Mars), and love eating some herb or greenery; the test subject gets put in a maze with the treat at the end, but display odd behaviours: first run as expected, second run they test the painful path first and look meek, third run they refuse the treat. Same goes for different test subjects.
IIRC one of the other researchers was being targeted for murder.
I'd read it in the 1990s, likely first published much earlier.
The oddities get explained in the final reveal, whereby it is found out that the researchers were kidnapped by the aliens and by then subjected to testing to gauge their ability to make sense of random stimuli before going insane. The underlying theme is "how do you test for intelligence more advanced than your own?"
story-identification short-stories
edited 3 hours ago
Jenayah
17.2k488123
asked 4 hours ago
ptorptor
1111
New contributor
ptor is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
I'm looking for a short story I've read long ago, and my memory is fuzzy.
It's an odd story in first person, about researchers testing the local alien intelligence; said aliens appear peaceful, shy, live in a green (forest?) planet (IIRC solar but not Mars), and love eating some herb or greenery; the test subject gets put in a maze with the treat at the end, but display odd behaviours: first run as expected, second run they test the painful path first and look meek, third run they refuse the treat. Same goes for different test subjects.
IIRC one of the other researchers was being targeted for murder.
I'd read it in the 1990s, likely first published much earlier.
The oddities get explained in the final reveal, whereby it is found out that the researchers were kidnapped by the aliens and by then subjected to testing to gauge their ability to make sense of random stimuli before going insane. The underlying theme is "how do you test for intelligence more advanced than your own?"
story-identification short-stories
story-identification short-stories
edited 3 hours ago
Jenayah
17.2k488123
asked 4 hours ago
ptorptor
1111
New contributor
ptor is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
edited 3 hours ago
Jenayah
17.2k488123
asked 4 hours ago
ptorptor
1111
New contributor
ptor is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
edited 3 hours ago
Jenayah
17.2k488123
edited 3 hours ago
Jenayah
17.2k488123
edited 3 hours ago
Jenayah
17.2k488123
17.2k488123
asked 4 hours ago
ptorptor
1111
New contributor
ptor is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
asked 4 hours ago
ptorptor
1111
asked 4 hours ago
ptorptor
1111
1111
New contributor
ptor is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
New contributor
ptor is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
ptor is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Let me get this straight. Some human scientists from Earth were kidnapped by aliens and abducted to another planet (not Mars) in the solar system? And the humans test their captors by running them in mazes? And one of the humans (not the narrator) is targeted for murder? By another one of the human abductees?
– user14111
2 hours ago
What makes you think that the story was published much earlier than 1990s? Is that book cover, or anything else?
– Nikita Neganov
1 hour ago
add a comment |
Let me get this straight. Some human scientists from Earth were kidnapped by aliens and abducted to another planet (not Mars) in the solar system? And the humans test their captors by running them in mazes? And one of the humans (not the narrator) is targeted for murder? By another one of the human abductees?
– user14111
2 hours ago
What makes you think that the story was published much earlier than 1990s? Is that book cover, or anything else?
– Nikita Neganov
1 hour ago
Let me get this straight. Some human scientists from Earth were kidnapped by aliens and abducted to another planet (not Mars) in the solar system? And the humans test their captors by running them in mazes? And one of the humans (not the narrator) is targeted for murder? By another one of the human abductees?
– user14111
2 hours ago
Let me get this straight. Some human scientists from Earth were kidnapped by aliens and abducted to another planet (not Mars) in the solar system? And the humans test their captors by running them in mazes? And one of the humans (not the narrator) is targeted for murder? By another one of the human abductees?
– user14111
2 hours ago
What makes you think that the story was published much earlier than 1990s? Is that book cover, or anything else?
– Nikita Neganov
1 hour ago
What makes you think that the story was published much earlier than 1990s? Is that book cover, or anything else?
– Nikita Neganov
1 hour ago
add a comment |
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Let me get this straight. Some human scientists from Earth were kidnapped by aliens and abducted to another planet (not Mars) in the solar system? And the humans test their captors by running them in mazes? And one of the humans (not the narrator) is targeted for murder? By another one of the human abductees?
– user14111
2 hours ago
What makes you think that the story was published much earlier than 1990s? Is that book cover, or anything else?
– Nikita Neganov
1 hour ago