This isn’t about the Muppet segment – although that’s arguably relevant.
For some reason I’ve lately been encountering a lot of pig hybrids in science fiction, usually with portmanteau names.
Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake gives us genetically-modified Pigoons, which host human-transplantable organs.
Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat series features Porkuswine, a monstrous pig-porcupine hybrid that provides the meat for the fast-food franchise McSwiney’s, with its ubiquitous silver arches.
In the Dune prequels Brain Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson gave us Sligs, legless Pig-Slug hybrids whose main purposes seem to be providing meat and being generally disgusting.
Last year on Netflix we had the movie Okja, about “Superpigs” (no cute name there) bred by a thinly-disguised Monsanto. They, too, are enormous, like Porkuswine, to provide more meat.
Why all the interest in SF Altered Pigs? Are there any others?
Pigs (or hyperpigs) within the Revelation Space universe have been genetically modified at various stages throughout Human history. Although modifications were originally related to the growth of human-compatible organs, many races of Pig have heavily altered physiological and neurological states compared to their base ancestors- most notably the ability to think in human terms, and to speak human languages.
I’ll also point out that in Damon Knight’s original story To Serve Man, the alien Kanamit (played as big-domed humanoids by a pre-Jaws Richard Kiel on The Twilight Zone episode) were described as giant humanoid pigs:
Yeah, Dr. Moreau is a rich source of enhanced pigs (but I hadn’t realized the 1996 one had Hynena Pigs!)
The 1930s movie Island of Lost Souls (first version of Dr. Moreau in the movies) had a Pig Man, but he was kind of in the background. Forey Ackerman’s magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland liked printing pictures of the Pig Man in the 1960s
In Volume II of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, “Alphonse” Moreau has a notably close and intelligent Pig Man servant
The 1977 Michael York/ Burt Lancaster movie had a Pig Man, too:
TV Tropes has an entire page devoted to Pig Men, but it’s getting removed from my original thought of Science Fiction Pig Hybrids with Portmanteau Names
There are mutant pig cops that appear in the earth based games, but when the setting is space there are some remains of the mutant pigs in some levels. The aliens used mutant devices and the influence that they have to turn the human policemen into mutant pigs against humanity.
No matter, As a general said about Duke, he is “a man whose very presence sent aliens running back to their mother-ships.”
I’m reading the Bobiverse trilogy thanks to a recommendation on the dope. In the first book, “We Are Legion, We are Bob”, Bob discovers a primitive intelligent species he describes as looking like a cross between a Pig and a Bat. These books came out in the last few years, so the trope is still pretty current.
When thinking about the “why,” I thought about classical mythology, and I can think of man/bull people, man/goat people, man/ram people, but not much in the way of man/pig or boar people. Unless I’m forgetting obvious ones, it means that a creator can introduce them without me immediately thinking “minotaur” or “satyr.”
Conversely, if the author wants to shortcut racial introductions by using animal traits, pigs will eat anything and are known to be violent/dangerous. So if you need a race of violent people with questionable hygiene, pigmen are a quick choice.
Janet Kagan’s book (collection of stories, really) called Mirabile is set on an earth colony where, to save space, they encoded multiple species’ DNA in “unused” portions of the critters / plants they DID send. For example under the right circumstances, an otter gives birth to something that eventually leads to a moose (the first story in the book is called The Loch Moose Monster).
Sometimes the results are not-quite-earth-true mixups, as you might imagine, and some of THOSE are downright nasty, including the frankenswine. Imagine a viciously destructive and aggressive animal that would make a tasmanian devil say “Dude… chill out!”
Some decades back, there was a story in Analog (I think) about a genetically engineered pig that was designed to be a ruminant (chew cud etc.) and the dilemma as to whether it was kosher. Yes, if you go by the ruminant / cloven hooves thing, no if you go by "it’s bred from a regular, don’t-eat-this-critter pig.
Oh yeah, and there was a pretty rank Judge Dredd novel called Swine Fever from one-time Doctor Who script editor Andrew Cartmel: pork has been banned in Mega City One after genetically super-intelligent pigs demand equal rights with humans, however somebody is murdering them all to turn into sausages and bacon.
Diana Wynne Jones’ book Dark Lord of Derkholm had flying pigs in it. And The Man from P.I.G by Harry Harrison had mutated pigs, bred for intelligence or size.
Pigs are acknowledged to be Wonderful magical animals (Clip from the Simpsons), they are omnivores, and they are pretty smart, especially when compared to how your average cow. So they’re a natural starting point when you want FutureMeat. But although you want your space opera hero to be able to enjoy some bacon, just having the future include pigs is kind of boring, so you get hybrids such as porcuswine.
Atwood’s pigoons on the other hand owe their existence to xenotransplants and other real life appearances of pigs in medical science.
