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, 29 August 2011→Where do the Daodan Chrysalises come from? What are they, really?: pros and cons for each type of life
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=== | ===What are the Daodan Chrysalises, really?=== | ||
:This is the elephant in the room, isn't it? Oni never actually tells us what they are, or even where they | :This is the elephant in the room, isn't it? Oni never actually tells us what they are, or even where they are found. But one possible origin seems so likely that it blots out any other ideas in my mind: the Wilderness. | ||
:If we've gotten that settled, then the next question is the nature of the Daodan. What type of life is it? | :If we've gotten that settled, then the next question is the nature of the Daodan. What type of life is it? | ||
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:D. Then there's the "mystery" domain of life, the organisms that are often not considered to be alive at all, but simply invasive or unusual genetic processes. In terms of complexity and independent existence, we have viruses at the high end, but as you go down the scale -- viroids, plasmids, prions, transposons -- you eventually end up with a continuous spectrum that reaches into the basic nature of genetic replication, inalienable from the actual process of life. | :D. Then there's the "mystery" domain of life, the organisms that are often not considered to be alive at all, but simply invasive or unusual genetic processes. In terms of complexity and independent existence, we have viruses at the high end, but as you go down the scale -- viroids, plasmids, prions, transposons -- you eventually end up with a continuous spectrum that reaches into the basic nature of genetic replication, inalienable from the actual process of life. | ||
: | :'''Animal''' | ||
::Pros: If it's an animal, it can be communicated with, mind-to-mind. Even if the Daodan is not quite on the same level as our minds, picture Spock floating alongside the whale in ''Star Trek IV''; we can still learn what it wants and how it thinks. | |||
::Cons: Then again, depending on how alien the Daodan is to us, its mind could be totally inscrutable to us. Also, if the Daodan is animal, that tends to imply that there must be other Daodan-boosted animals out there, which is a possibility for later in the story of Oni, but could jumping the gun a bit if we reveal this early on. Also, the Daodan definitely behaves more like a plant or bacteria or virus, in changing another life form from the inside. The Daodan doesn't seem to have any organs of its own (although it could if we wanted it to, but that's not how it seems in Oni), so that makes it much more like one of the smaller, infective forms of life. | |||
:'''Plant''' | |||
::Pros: Plants are easier to deal with, from a story-telling perspective, than animals or bacteria. They're simpler than animals in terms of lifestyle, and they exist in a single body, so they can't spread in an untidy manner like bacteria or viruses. | |||
::Cons: It's hard to picture the great Daodan organism living outside a host as a mere potted plant. | |||
:'''Bacteria''' | |||
::Pros: If the Daodan were a plant, it probably would need to be able to survive on its own, being that plants are autotrophic -- unlike viruses, or even animals, which require other life as a food source. That means that, strolling through the Wilderness, you might happen upon a Daodan plant or a Daodan bug. Being microscopic allows the Daodan to be more mysterious, and also more menacing and alien when eventually viewed through a microscope. Localizing it in the form of a simple green-celled flora or an insect or mouse-sized animal, could easily trivialize the Daodan organism that is so key to our story. | |||
::Cons: They're boring! Anything that we can do with bacteria, we can do with the "enigmata" below. Plus, the more mysterious we make the Daodan, the further outside known science it becomes, allowing us more story-telling freedom. | |||
:'''Enigmata''' | |||
::Pros: Preserves the mystery of the Daodan, especially if it's even more low-level than a virus. Cf. [[wikipedia:viroid|viroids]], [[wikipedia:plasmid|plasmids]] (rolling circles, electroporation and replicons, oh my!), [[wikipedia:prion|prions]], [[wikipedia:transposon|transposons]]. | |||
::Cons: It's complicated! Much easier to just say that the Daodan is a special plant. Also, if the Daodan is transferred on the genetic level, might it be contagious? That would run counter to Hasegawa's notion of the Daodan needing to be implanted, person by person. This would have story-changing implications. | |||
:Assuming that the Daodan is anything but animal, then it does not possess any intelligence. It may simply be accustomed to infecting other lifeforms in order to reproduce. However, because the Daodan is foreign to our biosphere, it proves lethal to our life, as do many other plants in the Wilderness. Jamie was killed by a plant that either defended itself with substances harmful to other Wilderness life that might try to eat it, or else it was just minding its own business, but it was highly inimical to human bodies. Think of how some people have allergies to pollen, and you realize that a totally foreign "flowering shrub" could very well kill someone without "meaning to". | :Assuming that the Daodan is anything but animal, then it does not possess any intelligence. It may simply be accustomed to infecting other lifeforms in order to reproduce. However, because the Daodan is foreign to our biosphere, it proves lethal to our life, as do many other plants in the Wilderness. Jamie was killed by a plant that either defended itself with substances harmful to other Wilderness life that might try to eat it, or else it was just minding its own business, but it was highly inimical to human bodies. Think of how some people have allergies to pollen, and you realize that a totally foreign "flowering shrub" could very well kill someone without "meaning to". | ||
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:A. Could it have been the plant that killed Jamie? Hasegawa was a man of science. Even in his grief, he would have thought to take a sample of the plant that killed Jamie back to a lab, where he could analyze it and find an antidote so no one else would have to die. He would have found that the plant resisted all hostile pathogens, developing immunity almost instantly. This would have started his Daodan Project. (Cf. [[:Image:Dream_7_dying_Jamie.jpg|this image]] of the infected Jamie, who is displaying colored veins similar to the Imago effect seen in Muro and Barabas.) Eventually, Hasegawa found a way to introduce the Chrysalis, wherever it came from, into Muro, but only after much study and in a controlled environment. So even if that "flowering shrub" (as described in [[:Image:Dream 1 murder or mercy.jpg|this clipping]]) was the plant that yields the Chrysalis, it could be that the haphazard introduction into Jamie's body was too much for her to survive like Muro later would. Then again, she died by Hasegawa's gun, so we don't strictly know what would have become of her had that been the Daodan organism infecting her. | :A. Could it have been the plant that killed Jamie? Hasegawa was a man of science. Even in his grief, he would have thought to take a sample of the plant that killed Jamie back to a lab, where he could analyze it and find an antidote so no one else would have to die. He would have found that the plant resisted all hostile pathogens, developing immunity almost instantly. This would have started his Daodan Project. (Cf. [[:Image:Dream_7_dying_Jamie.jpg|this image]] of the infected Jamie, who is displaying colored veins similar to the Imago effect seen in Muro and Barabas.) Eventually, Hasegawa found a way to introduce the Chrysalis, wherever it came from, into Muro, but only after much study and in a controlled environment. So even if that "flowering shrub" (as described in [[:Image:Dream 1 murder or mercy.jpg|this clipping]]) was the plant that yields the Chrysalis, it could be that the haphazard introduction into Jamie's body was too much for her to survive like Muro later would. Then again, she died by Hasegawa's gun, so we don't strictly know what would have become of her had that been the Daodan organism infecting her. | ||
:B. Or was it serving some significant purpose in the Wilderness that drew Hasegawa'a attention to it? If we just make the Daodan a regular plant in the Wilderness that has miraculous properties for humans, it seems to be missing the point. One could surmise that if the Daodan is that powerful, it must be a key part of the Wilderness. If the Wilderness is really composed of alien life, something that Oni is not clear on, then perhaps the Daodan is what allows this life to adapt to Earth. It could be that the Daodan has "infected" every one of the foreign plants in the Wilderness, and perhaps also the plants of Earth that it comes into contact with, making them dangerous for humans in the process. Since we're told that the level of pollutants continues to rise outside the reach of the ACCs, then the question is what's driving this increase in pollution. One answer is the expansion of the Wilderness. Any measures the WCG takes to destroy the Wilderness will not be effective as long as all the plants are Daodan super-powered. This gives us an all-or-nothing twist: either we get rid of the whole Wilderness before it over-runs us, or we yield to the power of the Daodan as the key to our own survival. | :B. Or was it serving some significant purpose in the Wilderness that drew Hasegawa'a attention to it? If we just make the Daodan a regular plant in the Wilderness that has miraculous properties for humans, it seems to be missing the point. One could surmise that if the Daodan is that powerful, it must be a key part of the Wilderness. If the Wilderness is really composed of alien life, something that Oni is not clear on, then perhaps the Daodan is what allows this life to adapt to Earth. It could be that the Daodan has "infected" every one of the foreign plants in the Wilderness, and perhaps also the plants of Earth that it comes into contact with, making them dangerous for humans in the process. Since we're told that the level of pollutants continues to rise outside the reach of the ACCs, then the question is what's driving this increase in pollution. One answer is the expansion of the Wilderness. Any measures the WCG takes to destroy the Wilderness will not be effective as long as all the plants are Daodan super-powered. This gives us an all-or-nothing twist: either we get rid of the whole Wilderness before it over-runs us, or we yield to the power of the Daodan as the key to our own survival. | ||
===Where does the Daodan gets its energy from?=== | ===Where does the Daodan gets its energy from?=== | ||