Escafil Device

[BaronConall]

The short answer would be Temporal Z-Space Tethering (+1 to Aluminator for his input. It just got me out of this situation! )

When you morph a subject that contains more/less mass, the nanites are gathering that mass out from Z-Space and keeping it tethered to you by maintaining a bridge across space-time, only capable of maintaining such a bridge for 2 hours at a time.

If you were to attempt to morph, say, a friend with gold piercings everywhere, the mass used for the piercings would be sent back to Z-Space upon demorphing.
Not to mention that unless you've actually had those piercings or are a piercer, it would be a little difficult to correctly place those piercings (eg. You would have off-centre labret or septum piercings).

As for demorphing into clothing or with piercings, with the spandex, the subject is creating that from their own bio-mass. They're litterally converting their own skin cells/muscle tissue/ etc into the spandex that they would need to wear. Because of the form-fitting, lightweight material that spandex is, they aren't actually sacrificing a great deal of bio-mass to do this (barely 1-2 kilos/pounds ...  I know they're different weight measurements, but I'm trying to focus on one science at a time ), the same with jewellery.

As for loose fitting clothing that can be morphed much later, they're still sacrificing their own mass to do so. Depending on how healthy the subject is, people will just think they're looking a little leaner lately.
In other words, if the subject were to demorph gold jewellery onto their body, they would essentially be selling off their own body to do so. Kind of like a tit-for-tat, quid pro quo, Equivalent Exchange rule.

So, it's relatively plausable, but you would have to posses that certain mind-set that would cause you to sit back and think "I'm going to go sell pieces of my body to make ends meet."
It's a little bit different to giving blood.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Y'know, I hated that theory at first, but the more I think about it, the more it grows on me. As of right now, I'm going to say it sounds pretty good, actually ^_^ That would go a long way towards explaining why they're so exhausted after multiple morphs in a row. They get better about that, too, later in the series, so maybe their technique does allow them to draw some additional mass from Z-space? Even with your explanation, Baron, I think ThinkAgain's money-making scheme might be plausible. Slow, exhausting, and horribly impractical, but plausible.

On the other hand, I don't think the books ever actually mention them morphing jewelry, and I've gone under the impression that it's just not possible. As for the clothing thing... the morphs almost have to be relying more on some stored image of what the morpher was like before morphing, as opposed to the morpher's concentration, otherwise the amateur Animorphs could never have morphed clothing. The nanites, at the moment morphing began, would create an "image" of the person and the area around them to a certain degree. I suggest that being able to morph clothing is a function of the technology interpreting the morpher's intentions, but building its own image. That way, even if you could morph jewelry, as soon as you morphed and took it off, a quick remorph-then-demorph wouldn't result in more jewelry, because the image of your human body that the nanites made before your second morph would no longer have the jewelry. It would be possible to draw in matter from Z-space and seemingly create something from nothing, but not via morphing technology, at least without a rewrite behind the basis of its function.

[BaronConall]

I have the same opinion as you, Aluminator.

The whole jewelerry idea would be plausible but it was never actually addressed in the books. I always just assumed that after the first year (since they still wouldn't be very well synced) Rachael just got sick of re-piercing her ears and gave up.
Plus if I was gonna base morphing spandex from mass, there was no reasonable way for me that it couldn't be done without contradicting the morph suits.

They get better about that, too, later in the series, so maybe their technique does allow them to draw some additional mass from Z-space?

I don't know about this idea. Even if they were able to draw additional mass from Z-Space for better clothing when demorphing, this would also move towards negating the idea of a morph clock. If they could just permanently bring mass in from Z-Space and send it back whenever they wanted, you would think they would do so with larger morphs as well, staying morphed indefinately and sending the extra mass back to Z-Space when they really need to instead of have to.

As for the nanites storing an image of the host prior to morphing I was mostly basing the concentration idea off the fact that the nanites are storing a lot of genetic data already and don't have the processing power or the need for a visual representation (who would they show it too?) of the host, just their genetic snapshot at that point in time.
If the nanites were completely responsible for storing the image of the host or morphs, that would mean that morphing would be solely based on the nanites processing power, which would mean morhing would have one set 'speed', with the Animorphs being unable to morph faster in later cooks or puch themselves harder to morph faster like in certain books (such as Marco demorphing and morphing before he hits the ground in Megamorphs #1)

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Thing is, there has to be more than just genetic information stored. Many physical characteristics of an animal are not stored genetically- in fact, nearly all physical characteristics (height, weight, build, etc.) can be altered by environmental factors. I'm thinking the information stored might use genetics as a basis, but there still has to be additional information stored to keep track of what the subject is actually like. If it was just genetic, you'd probably just wind up morphing a fetus of the animal you acquired every time. The morphing technology allows you to become an exact replica of the animal you acquired. "Image" is figurative, of course, but there's still got to be a lot of additional information stored, even if you have the animal's entire genetic code.

Y'know, if, when they morph, they're wearing spandex, the mass of that spandex should theoretically be accessible for re-creating the spandex. No need to draw on their body mass at all. It also means that it'd be impossible to create more jewelry from a morph, simply because when you take it off, it's no longer part of your morph...

Haha... man, you know it's getting to be a fairly solid theory when we just have little stuff like this to nitpick...

[BaronConall]

Haha, true, true

I was actually thinking to myself that it'd make a lot of sense that the spandex mass could be recalled from Z-Space for demorphing. I guess we'll wait for someone else to run into the room, arms flailing and screaming "NOOOOOOOOO!!! RET-COOONNN!!!" before we start nitpicking that one.

I agree with you that there has to be more than just genetic storage. Maybe since the nanites are, for intents and purposes, completely throughout the host body, they may also store a little bit of side data. Muscle mass, BMI, folicle length, etc.
Nanites in the muscles record that specific muscles mass, nanites in body fat record the BMI, scalp for folicle length, etc, etc.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

If you had a single nanite capable of storing a creature's genetic code, surely you could fit all that additional information in two or three additional nanites, right? Which would be good, because you have to be able to store that information for literally dozens of animals at any given time...

[roguebluejay]

I feel like I need to chip in at this point and say how awesome this thread is. I always got irritated when one of the animorphs cuts off Ax when he technobabbles! Now I feel like we've figured it out!

I loved Marco's dads explanation of Z space. That was awesome.

[bizarrocarlos]

the nanite thing is the greatest explanation for morphing. it ties up the nothlit thing. but i wonder, if after 2 hours the nanites run out of power and the ones in z space loose contact, then how does the metamorphosis thing (in book 19) "reset the morphing clock?" using your theory this means the nanites are somehow re-powered by metamorphosis including the ones tethered in z space.
i would love to hear your thoughts on this.

[BaronConall]

B-
Well...
You see, the thing is...

Crap.

You hear that? It's the sound of steam running out -_-'

Ummm...

ELLIMIST APPLEGATE DID IT!!!

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Man, that really does kind of throw a kink in this theory. And probably every other possible morphing theory out there. Hmm...

[BaronConall]

Ha!

Dude, for all intents and purposes, it throws a spanner in K.A.'s morphing theory, so I'm not really taking it to heart.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Nah, we can totally cover this!

... What if we just say the Z-space connection of the nanites is only active during a transformation, allowing communication and mass exchange? We could do a combination of temporal Z-space tethering and limited power supplies to make this work. The nanites in Z-space need a connection to the nanites in real space to retain functionality and power, but that connection degrades after 2 hours, severing the link between the real-space nanites in the morphed body and the Z-space nanites in the morphed mass. Without the connection, the Z-space nanites are effectively dead, and a transformation can no longer take place.

However, due to the transformation of caterpillar to butterfly (a significant metamorphosis), the nanites in Cassie's butterfly body became active, and were able to reconnect with and thereby re-power the nanites of her morphed mass in Z-space, resetting the 2 hour timer and allowing Cassie to demorph.

Haha... I dunno. I'm just throwing stuff out there. Any of this sound remotely plausible?

[bizarrocarlos]

okay then now for the next question.
if the nanites are the ones that absorb the dna then what could cause a "morphing allergy?"(book 12)
a nanite glitch perhaps, which causes random morphing? then again it was triggered by rachael's emotions.
any thoughts?

[BaronConall]

HOLY CRAP, DUDE!!!

THE VELEEK!!!

MORPH ENERGY!!!

The Veleek homed in on the Animorphs after the Visser gen-tuned it to seek out the energy that they give off when moprhing!
So: By that logic, wouldn't that mean that, while in Z-Space, the stored nanites/mass would use Morph Energy as their own Return Signal? The longer the host stays in morph, the more the Morph Energy signature dissapates, contributing to nanite loss and becoming a nothlit!

That would mean that the natural metomorphosis of the butterfly would trigger a surge of morph energy that would allow seperated nanites and mass to hone in of the temporal origin of the host!

YOU'RE A GENIUS!!!

[Aluminator (Kit)]

I like the way you put it much better, though. That is awesome, and it makes sense with everything involving the Veleek- like how morphs give off energy, but the morphing process gives off a lot more- and with Cassie's morph- the nanites interpret the transformation as a morph, assume some other nanite has started the process, and activate to assist in the process if signaled. That indicates that the nanites are probably not a constantly linked network, and, to conserve energy, only communicate with each other when morphing- they take the beginnings of the transformation as their signal to start receiving instructions from whatever nanites have been activated.

That, I think, could also go a long way towards explaining some of the anomalies with morphing, such as Rachel's allergy (The Reaction) and Marco's mixed-up combination morphs (The Proposal).

If the nanites weren't all transferred to Rachel properly when she got the morphing power, or one was damaged at some point, it could improperly record the crocodile DNA, and start sending mixed signals to the nanites, interpreting her emotional responses as a morphing command. The most efficient way to get that out of your body would be to let it morph and take all the crocodile nanites with it- hence her "burping" a full crocodile. So, yeah, essentially a malfunction or glitch, like Carlos was saying. In this theory, Rachel probably could have gone back to the zoo, reacquired the same crocodile (after she burped the first), and it would have been fine.

As for Marco's combo-morphs, if his concentration was shattered enough, he could potentially trigger two sets of nanites at once- if the ones for, say, a skunk were activated before they received the command to transform into a spider, you could get a combo-morph, but it's not something I see as likely to repeat often, and probably not something you could do consciously. At least, not without a lot of practice.

Baron, have I mentioned lately that I love your theory here?

Okay, what other ridiculous morphing anomalies still need explaining?