Oni2:Slaves of War/Polylectiloquy: Difference between revisions

<blockquote style="border: 1px solid blue; padding: 2em;">

</blockquote>

:B. Pollution <u>from</u> the ACCs. Cleansing the air is bound to create some nasty by-products, at least with the kind of track record that humans have for creating solutions that create more problems.

:C. Weaponized viruses. Perhaps someone recklessly created a bio-weapon that got out of control.

:E. Extraterrestrial origins. Life from "another world" could be producing natural (to them) byproducts, which are inherently hostile to our life. This is strongly hinted at by the unusual nature of the Daodan as well as the Screaming Cells. The weapon page for the Screaming Cannon states: "This weapon fires capsules that release a mysterious entity known as a Screaming Cell. These creatures seem to exist out of Earth phase, but feed on human lifeforce and are drawn to it when freed". This doesn't mean that all of the Wilderness came from another planet or "dimension", but consider [http://carnage.bungie.org/oniforum/oni.forum.pl?read=17589 this post] by Hardy LeBel on our old forum. Quoting it here for posterity:

{{Pullquote|Well, obviously I don't have much say over what happens next, but MY plan was to take Konoko and drop her into a "road warrior" setting, where small enclaves of society were huddling in atmospheric safe zones. Outside in the badlands Daodan warlords and enforcers ruled over the unfortunate masses.

:*Another universe:

:*Another place:

:::Perhaps alien life is continuing to come through the phase veil on its own, but by what means, and in which places?

:::Or is the spreading Wilderness simply reflecting the success of this foreign life in starting from a single, brief point of introduction and rapidly invading our biosphere?

:::Also, if the Screaming Cells are being harvested through continual openings of the phase veil, rather than from the Wilderness, then we have a ready-made explanation for how the Daodan could be brought over by accident, continuously and in different places around the globe.

:If we've gotten that settled, then the next question is the nature of the Daodan. What type of life is it?

:C. Bacteria. Bacteria are the most symbiotic life forms. We typically assume that the Chrysalis is a single organism, but what if it's a colony?

: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.

:'''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.

:'''Bacteria'''

:'''Enigmata'''

::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.

:Kerr tells us that the Chrysalises were being grown "based on the genetic codes of" Mai and Muro. One way to interpret that is that they had extracted portions of tissue, or perhaps used their stem cells to generate a new mass of tissue, and introduced the Daodan to them; perhaps they used a sample from a plant or animal in the Wilderness that they found to be Daodan-enhanced. If the Daodan organism is something as low-level as a genetic process (see the [[Oni2:Slaves of War/Neo-Biology#Daodan organism|Neo-Biology]] page for details), then the idea is that it can leap from species to species, so the source of the Daodan "genes" is not important. Then, when it was eventually decided to implant the Daodanized tissue back into Mai and Muro, Hasegawa and Kerr would have needed some way to take the tissue that had been modified outside their bodies and re-introduce it.

{{Pullquote|Alternatively, the tissue or cellularized (cell) sample may be treated in vitro before being placed on the scaffold layer. For example, cells (such as autologous cells) can be cultured in vitro to increase the number of cells available for seeding on the scaffold(s). The use of allogenic cells, and more preferably autologous cells, is preferred to prevent tissue rejection. In certain embodiments, chimeric cells, or cells from a transgenic animal, can be seeded onto the polymeric matrix. Cells can also be transfected prior to seeding with genetic material. Useful genetic material may be, for example, genetic sequences which are capable of reducing or eliminating an immune response in the host. For example, the expression of cell surface antigens such as class I and class II histocompatibility antigens may be suppressed. This may allow the transplanted cells to have reduced chance of rejection by the host. In addition, transfection could also be used for gene delivery. Urothelial and muscle cells could be transfected with specific genes prior to polymer seeding. The cell-polymer construct could carry genetic information required for the long term survival of the host or the tissue engineered neo-organ.}}

:This method can work not just for replacing missing organs, but, as ¶31 says,

:Much speculative sci-fi agrees that, although circuits and silicon are neat-o, the "final frontier" of technology is organic, not mechanical.  The near-future world of "Ghost in the Shell" represents a natural extrapolation of current technology like robotics and computers, whereas the organic frontier is something much further out. After all, living things can repair themselves, adapt themselves, and reproduce themselves. That's the magic of life, and our silicon-based inventions are pathetically primitive by comparison. Sure, we could eventually develop nanomachines that self-replicate, but they're likely to feel like a pale imitation, an inefficient attempt at recreating what living cells have been doing for eons.

:Humans do not simply accept the existence of deadly diseases, shrugging and hoping that we eventually evolve immunity to them in a million years. We try to use medicine and science to eliminate them. Even if an expensive operation is needed to keep a single human alive, we will perform it. This sort of emphasis on the preservation of individual lives might be a natural outcome in any species that develops sufficient intelligence to be able to do something about our own health problems. Perhaps the Daodan simply represents the culmination in medical technology of this alien race.

:C. Mutual symbiosis. The Daodan and host benefit each other. The benefit of Daodan->human is obvious, but do we benefit the Daodan in any way? Requiring a host to live in does not count as mutualism; that would be obligate symbiosis for the Daodan. We would have to provide some other, less crucial benefit to the Daodan in order for mutual symbiosis to be taking place.

:D. Commensalism. Neither life form does much good for the other; they pretty much ignore each other. This is clearly not the case with the Daodan-human relationship.

To be exact, the word for the Daodan's type of symbiosis, whether harmful or helpful, is endosymbiosis, meaning it lives inside its host.

:If all the Daodan did was re-tool the human body a little, we could assume that it was simply running off the normal fuels of the human body: food, water, and air. But in its advanced state, it allows a host to do some pretty amazing things, like throwing around energy balls and generating force fields. Either the Daodan is vastly superior to our bodies at energy generation, or else it's receiving energy from somewhere else.

:A. The Daodan is tied to the "other side". In other words, there's a sort of phase portal inside the host that draws energy from there. This only displaces the question of where the energy comes from to "somewhere else, somehow".

:One final thing to think about: if the Daodan replaces human cells with its own... and it draws its energy from the Wilderness, not food... and some people want to eradicate the Wilderness... what happens to the Daodan hosts if they find a way to destroy the Wilderness?

:Naturally, he's continuing his research into the Daodan. After all, his work wasn't done when the Syndicate raided his lab and he was separated from Kerr and Konoko. What was left for him to do? Well, obviously he ended up implanting Muro with a Chrysalis (forced to by the Syndicate, or did he choose to?), so much of his time would have been spent studying the progress of the Chrysalis, the same kind of work that Kerr was doing on the TCTF side. Perhaps after seeing just how powerful and uncontrollable Muro became as an Imago, he realized that his technology needed some means of being controlled. His goal was to save people from the pollution, not to create a race of monsters.

===How does one control the Daodan?===

:B. Suppression waves. If we choose to make this possible, we can allow energy waves to inhibit the growth of the organism so as to prevent the Imago stage. The waves could be broadcast from towers stationed throughout the cities. The only way to avoid their influence is, naturally, to live outside the cities. No ordinary citizen is going to be willing to do this, as the "outside" is likely to be a mix of [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079501/ Mad Max]-style road wars and [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080391/ crazy killer plant life].

:C. Rival implants. If the Daodan organism has enemies in the Wilderness, implant one of them alongside the Chrysalis to inhibit its growth. Obviously this interaction could lead to unforeseen results, which could also be a part of the plot if we so choose.

===What was up with that [[Quotes/Consoles#Picasso_Island|Bertram Navarre]] guy?===

===Did Barabas or Mukade die? Either could simply have been KOed.===

:We could bring back Barabas, although he's frankly a boring character, so I don't see much use for him. It would also be weird if <u>none</u> of Konoko's major enemies die, considering that Konoko is a fairly violent femme in the first game, so if we are going to avoid straining credulity, we should bring back only the most interesting enemies from Oni 1. I would rank them in the following order of priority: Mukade, Muro, Barabas. I can see Mukade adding the most depth to Oni 2, so let's focus on what we can do with him (see Mukade questions below).

:No, Mukade is simply a ninja who rose through the ranks and was selected by Muro to be a Daodan host, as Barabas [[Quotes/Consoles#Barabas|rose through]] the Striker ranks to the same end. I can't argue with certainty that he couldn't possibly be an SLD based off Hasegawa's engrams and implanted with a Daodan, but it seems more interesting to make him a unique individual with his own back story and motivations that we can develop in Oni 2, rather than just a "Xerox copy" of an existing character.

===If still alive, what is Mukade doing?===

===If/when she does go Imago, isn't Mai going to be too powerful to make the game challenging?===

:B. She might not always be transformed or able to transform.

:C. There's the amnesia option proposed elsewhere, but amnesia wouldn't remove her strength, only her skill. Still, having to re-learn fighting would make the game more challenging. But I am not a fan of a contrived "restart" that wants to drag a character back to where they were.

===Is "Imago" really Imago?===

:Could it be that the so-called Imago stage is actually not the final stage at all? For what it's worth, a stage of life in an insect is called an "instar" -- and the emperor moth has at least ''five'' instars. Is it possible that Muro ends up in a form that is not even intended for the Daodan host (assuming the Daodan was designed)? Even if it was intended, could it be the equivalent of the teenage stage of human life, gangly, awkward and temporary?

:However, we can look at that text another way. Note that the final mission objective refers to Muro having "limited energy reserves" because he has "just evolved". Perhaps a Daodan host can store <u>some</u> energy, but since one cannot store infinite energy, obviously the host needs to keep taking in energy faster than they expend it; this is a basic rule of life. So perhaps what Bungie's really saying is, "Muro is not yet drawing in energy as fast as he can expend it". Here "reserve" is defined as "throughput from the source", or "energy bandwidth" -- how big a reservoir of energy Muro can access from minute-to-minute, if you will. Think about Konoko: she never stops being Daodan-boosted (in terms of basic physical enhancements, not the Daodan overpower mode); one way to explain this is that ''Konoko's energy reserves never run out either, for her level of energy expenditure''.

===Wouldn't the Daodan make the host immortal?===

:A. The Daodan is not perfect, so it cannot make the host perfect (i.e., remove a basic flaw in the cellular processes).

:B. The Daodan was designed to improve an organism but not to grant it immortality. The designers may have a philosophical or cultural reason for Daodan hosts or the general populace not living forever.

:D. The Daodan actually shortens the host lifespan because it forces rapid cell doubling. More frequent cell division accelerates the aging process.

:The fact is, the "aging problem" seems to be really complex; scientists can't agree on whether we die because our cells are programmed that way or because of accumulated environmental damage. Certainly the whole telomere-shortening issue is not considered to be a fundamental law of life. There are life forms that don't even use telomeres (simple ones), and some of the ones that do seem to be able to keep their telomeres from shrinking. One species of bird may even lengthen its telomeres over time.

:Finally, an intriguing counterpoint is that of neurons. Our brain cells are actually immortal, and not in the sense of HeLa being immortal because it never stops dividing. Neurons <u>don't divide at all</u>. You still have the same cells in your brain that you did when you were young. To be exact, neurons stop being produced in adulthood, so after that point, what you got is what you got. Except there's an exception there too -- the hippocampus and olfactory bulbs continue to generate new neurons. So, even though our bodies tend to give out after 80 or so years, our brains might in fact be immortal. Can the Daodan extend this special property of the brain to our entire bodies? I suppose the answer is whatever we think leads to the most interesting story.

:*Mai is trying to find her father. It should be for more than sentimental reasons, because those would seem trivial when the world is on fire, but certainly she wants some kind of answers or closure, similar to an adopted child seeking out his real parents. But likely Hasegawa will have data on the Daodan that could be instrumental to whatever is going on. When she finds him, we get to learn what he's been up to all this time. Maybe finding him is just the start of Act Two, as his information sets a new plot in motion.

:*Perhaps Man is trying to burn away the mutated Wilderness to re-establish a normal ecosphere and Mai feels this is not the right path. Or, alternately, Mai is simply traveling the world to see how the Wilderness is being coped with in different areas. Perhaps there's even a Utopian city that is successful keeping out the Daodan, but at some kind of horrible cost (human sacrifices?).