Luke
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Post by Luke on Mar 19, 2008 10:19:27 GMT -6
What about Apollo then? Do you think he was an energy being, or something else?
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Atoz 77
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Post by Atoz 77 on Mar 20, 2008 7:30:57 GMT -6
I think we discussed Apollo back on page 3, but the good thing about feedback is that it encourages you to think again. It's possible that we have a sort of "reverse-evolution" going here. What if Apollo's people were energy beings, but when they arrived on Earth, they created human bodies for themselves in order to better interact with humans? Naturally, they created perfect human bodies for themselves, and included that extra organ so that they could still manipulate energy in their corporeal form. It also explains why the Greek gods could change form at will. I remember one myth where Zeus manifested himself as a "shower of gold", which sounds like it could be an energy being.
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Mar 21, 2008 10:41:43 GMT -6
I seem to remember that anyone who saw the Greek gods in their full glory instantly died. That might also be a clue.
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Post by Atoz 77 on Mar 24, 2008 7:42:54 GMT -6
That's right. And in the process of creating human bodies, they took on human feelings and emotions, too (like the Kelvans). It all kind of fits together.
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Mar 25, 2008 10:32:29 GMT -6
*"This Side of Paradise" -- The spores which infected the members of the Omicron Ceti III colony apparently created a perfect symbiotic relationship.*
Okay, I'm just cruising on through the first page of the seminar here. The thing that always bothered me about these spores is how in blazes they managed to control people's minds and make them do things they wouldn't do? I realize that for the story to work, they pretty much had to, but do you have a biological explanation?
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Post by Atoz 77 on Mar 28, 2008 10:43:44 GMT -6
That's a good question. Sandoval said they were a "collective organism" or something like that, but they didn't give the impression of being an intelligence powerful enough to exert mind control. It looked to me as if they were microscopic spores, and they congregated in the cerebral cortexes of their victims -- they didn't bother with animals or livestock, for example, only people. I'm guessing they merely stimulated the pleasure centers of the victim's brain, releasing inhibitions selectively, so that as long as you were doing what they wanted, you felt good, but if you started doing something they didn't want, you felt like you were in withdrawal or something. It would have taken someone with enormous willpower to resist something like that.
Of course, it just remains to be asked -- what did they want their victims to do?
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Apr 1, 2008 11:17:08 GMT -6
OK, good question. As far as I can remember, they didn't do much of anything. Even Sandoval complained that they hadn't made any progress in three years. And if the spores had wanted to spread, they could have made us of a starship, couldn't they? I think I see where you're going with this -- it proves the spores weren't particularly intellignent! Do I win?
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Post by Atoz 77 on Apr 2, 2008 7:23:26 GMT -6
Bingo! That planet only had one thing going for it -- Berthold rays, which the spores just loved. You would think that, having control of a starship, they'd be able to go to lots of different star systems that also had Berthold rays (they can't have been that rare), but the spores obviously were not intelligent enough to think that far ahead. They only knew that they had an abundant source of food here, and human bodies to ride around in, and that was all they cared about. They even took steps to see that the humans wouldn't leave, which suggests to me that they needed an organic body. I'm guessing they did something to the skin of their hosts to help them metabolize the Berthold rays, which they absorbed as food.
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Apr 4, 2008 10:28:50 GMT -6
Any guesses why they had to inhabit human bodies, sir?
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Post by Atoz 77 on Apr 7, 2008 7:19:28 GMT -6
I can only guess, like I did above, that as spores they were too simple to metabolize Berthold rays, and needed to inhabit multi-cellalur bodies to do that. And they went for the complex cortical areas of the brain, consequently they had an easier time controlling humans than animals. I suppose animals were more volatile emotionally, and kept flooding them with adrenalin and killing them.
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Luke
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Post by Luke on Apr 16, 2008 10:28:05 GMT -6
It's like you said, for it to be symbiosis, the spores would have to get some benefit from it.
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Post by Atoz 77 on Apr 18, 2008 7:41:05 GMT -6
Yes, and that's the only way I could think of the spores benefitted.
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Post by Atoz 77 on Apr 21, 2008 7:50:28 GMT -6
Okay, Luke, do you have any thoughts on the Companion (the creature composed of ionized hydrogen we met in "Metamorphosis")?
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Post by Luke on Apr 23, 2008 10:23:17 GMT -6
CAn't really think of anything. I like the way you analyzed their relationship in terms of biochemistry. I always thought it was weird that a gaseous cloud could fall in love with a human being!
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Post by Atoz 77 on Apr 25, 2008 7:42:48 GMT -6
That's what I do. Anyway, moving on then. "Journey to Babel" is the episode where we first met Andorans and Tellurites. The main thrust of this topic is the "exobiology" of basically non-humanoid creatures, but does anyone want to talk about these aliens?
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