Tested on Humans: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

The [[Mad Scientist]] or [[Big Bad]] tests or demonstrates his latest weapon, not on beer cans or inoffensive paper targets like any decent [[Trigger Happy|gun-nut]] would, but on live human beings!

 

Definitely a subtrope of [[Kick the Dog]]. See also [[Innocent Bystander]] and [[Disposable Vagrant]]. [[Professor Guinea Pig]] is when the thing being tested isn't a weapon, and the Mad Scientist uses it on his or herself. [[Guinea Pig Family]] is when the Mad Scientist uses his family.

{{examples}}

* ''[[Samurai Gun]]''. The evil Shogunate test their [[Steampunk]] [[Gatling Good|gatling gun]] on a [[Women in Refrigerators|bound woman]] with [[Fan Service|large breasts]].

* In ''[[Death Note]]'', L uses a death row prisoner to "test" and locate Kira. Kira, obviously, has to use humans to test the capabilities of the Death Note.

* In ''[[Gunslinger Girl]]'' after Raballo dies, Claes becomes unsuited for field work, so she's relegated to being the test bed for each new iteration of cyborg technology.

 

== [[Film]] ==

* In the magnificently inaccurately-named ''[[Flash Gordon Serial|Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe]]'', Emperor Ming tests his Death Dust on some prisoners to see if it will only kill those with the will to oppose him. Those of 'lesser intelligence' survive.

 

* ''[[The Professionals]]''. In "Killer With A Long Arm" the [[Cold Sniper]] guns down someone on a golf course to check his weapon was properly zeroed for the assassination he's been hired to carry out. If there was a reason for him to use a live target other than [[For the Evulz|just to be a dick]] it was not adequately explained, especially since he'd used a scarecrow for an earlier test.

* ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]''. The Funniest Joke in the World was tested on a low-level military grunt.

* On ''[[Ugly Betty]]'', Marc briefly became someone else's assistant. He did not enjoy it:

{{quote|'''Marc''': Fabia doesnt believe in testing her products on animals, but she does believe in testing them on assistants.}}

 

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** To be fair, the group committing the act was not the Allied military but the [[Mega Corp|FutureTech Corporation]] who also worked as a [[Private Military Contractor]] for the Allies in the occupied Soviet Union. It is implied the Allies themselves did not know of FutureTech's experiments.

* This was done many times in the ''[[Fallout]]'' [[Alternate Universe|Universe]], by the United States. In one example, Nuka-Cola Quantum taste tests killed most of the testers. However, the most known example is probably the [[Viral Transformation|Forced Evolutionary Virus]] (intended to create [[Super Soldiers]] for the war against China), who's test on Humans resulted in [[Body Horror|terrible mutations]] and many many deaths, often because it caused participants to become so stupid, many [[Too Dumb to Live|died because they forgot to keep breathing]]. The final result is essentially an extremely hostile big green man with the intelligence of your stereotypical caveman.

** No no. The most egregious example are the vaults themselves; marketed as shelters to benefit mankind, they are instead huge testing facilities, in which their residents are exposed to a variety of (often horrible) stress situations in order to test their adaptability and resiliency.

* In ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' Mordin's former assistant uses humans as test subjects to develop a cure for the genophage. It's also what they initially think the Collectors are doing with the colonies they abduct {{spoiler|actually they're being used to make a new Reaper}}.

** Mordin himself acknowledges the logic behind using human test subjects (humans are more genetically diverse than most other species and so make excellent lab rats), but disagrees with it on moral grounds.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==