Perhaps some alien plague is going around? So, some humans feel the need to dissect some aliens to see if there's a cure. Maybe the aliens have some sort of immunity?
"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"
Cloning
^^A variation of that could work. The aliens in the work have very long lifespans due to genetic components that also make it nearly impossible for them to develop cancer and other genetic mutations. Cancer is explicitly stated to still be a problem for humans in this setting (a few characters actually reference loved ones dying from it) so it would make perfect sense for scientists to want to study them to cure it. I’m just trying to think of other applications it could have
^Do you mean in the context of creating a “super army” or something like that? Because the species in question isn’t particularly sturdy.
Part of the backstory for my sci-fi work involves future human scientists traveling to a remote planet and performing experiments on members of a humanoid (and very much sapient) alien species.
The alien species in question is viewed as a good subject because they fairly similar to human beings, have short gestational periods and reach maturity significantly faster than humans (the scientists can also tweak DNA to create subjects that mature even faster). They even manage to create a few alien subjects that have small amounts of human DNA (this will be mentioned as to involving a fair amount of trial and error in-universe) to ensure conclusions developed from these experiments can be even more easily applied to humans.
To clarify for anyone wondering, yes this would be considered “bad” by most people in this setting and a degree of Fantastic Racism does exist in setting. The scientists involved would most likely suffer repercussions if caught and possibly legal action for inhumane treatment of a non-human species, but none of the scientists involved believe this is likely to happen. The scientists view themselves as Well Intentioned Extremists who are trying to solve problems plaguing humanity by doing research that would otherwise be impossible without human experimentation (or something similar).
These scientists do engage in behavior that definitely causes them to cross the Moral Event Horizon (which is very much addressed in-universe) but I want to ensure they don’t come across as Complete Monster Mad Scientists who are performing cruel and unnecessary experiments just For the Evulz. What are health problems we have currently (or likely would in the near future) that we have limited research on at least partially because we cannot engage in traditional experiments that would involved human subjects? In addition to that, what are some experiments that may not necessarily be lethal in the short-term, but could cause moderate to severe mental trauma?
The events aren’t focused on super heavily in the narrative (partially because it would lead to the work’s tone getting significantly darker than I want) but they are mentioned a few times and a couple characters suffer from their effects.