Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Mira on February 03, 2009, 10:00:28 AM
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As I read a lot of science I've seen that every invention is a result of experiments and succesfull experiments use to be results of unsuccesfull experiments.
So what do we know about morphing...
It doesn't hurt
Sometimes vital internal organs disappear or move to another place and so on.
Then we know that the andalites don't want to share technique with other species and that means they didn't test it on animals, because they could have ended up exterminate themselves. (Just imagine if the lab rats would take revenge...) ;)
So before they found out how do with the pain and the organs I think it must have been a lot of accidents. I believe many andalites got injured for life or died.
Any other development isn't possible.
What do you think?
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That's an interesting question. It might have been something they could work out theoretically, though. They might just have found a bunch of equations to describe how the blue boxes worked, and then changed the parameters of those without actually conducting many tests.
If not, and they did have to do experiments to test it, then I think I'd feel most sorry for the guys who got trapped in morph before they learned about the two hour limit. :(
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It wouldn't surprise me that there would be many errors before the current tech reached the point it was at the beginning of the series. Such is the way with all sciences.
But this is a good question -- I hadn't even thought of it before you mentioned it, Mira.
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hmmm...i think there would have been a few accidents. Maybe some andalies becoming overwhelmed by their morph. but this is assuming that the morphing technology in the beginning is like how it is now. I mean, if 5 human kids can get a grip on it, i don't think it would have been too bad.
i wonder if they knew about the 2 hour limit from the begining? probably.
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This reminds me of the Nothlit Chronicles fanfiction. If they didn't experiment on animals, they may have experimented on criminals, or terminally ill Andalites.
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This reminds me of the Nothlit Chronicles fanfiction. If they didn't experiment on animals, they may have experimented on criminals, or terminally ill Andalites.
In another words, Andalites with nothing left to lose?
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Yep. People that may wind up dead soon anyway.
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I don't know the details myself. History in general was pretty high on the list of Things Not to Be Discussed in the Interest of Galactic Harmony And Polite Conversation, and that went double for the history of technology.
My personal take, without much evidence, is that this was perhaps less dangerous than you might expect. Morphing is based around rapid regeneration, which is probably something they developed (or discovered. It's wild on good old mater terra, and possibly even natural, but now I'm getting off topic.) before the rest of the technology. That provides a reasonably good fail-safe (though with a long-term risk of cancer if they don't come up with some way to turn it off). Then, just tie that into a psychosomatics and z-space attachment and hey-presto! There's morphing.
But the painkilling is something they must have developed later. They definitely had regressions on that front as they tried to improve the technology.
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i can imagine quite a few died.
the ellimist helped out a lot, i imagine.
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This reminds me of the Nothlit Chronicles fanfiction. If they didn't experiment on animals, they may have experimented on criminals, or terminally ill Andalites.
Isn't this the quite the same thing as those "lab rats". If there was no lab rats for the same reason as Mira said that they may take revenge in some way, what shouldn't a criminal Andalite do?
i can imagine quite a few died.
the ellimist helped out a lot, i imagine.
And why? "he/she/or what it is" isn't allowed to do that...
Allright, now I finally got something to think about. Thank you Mira :)
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I'm not sure. I think it would be easier to test on sentient life, though the buffa-Human didn't seem to have too much trouble considering its nonsentience.
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And why? "he/she/or what it is" isn't allowed to do that...
the ellimist breaks a lot of rules.
haha.
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And why? "he/she/or what it is" isn't allowed to do that...
the ellimist breaks a lot of rules.
haha.
and Cryak laughs everytime he does so and steady counts them up.
so he can break them all at the same time when he wants to.
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And why? "he/she/or what it is" isn't allowed to do that...
the ellimist breaks a lot of rules.
haha.
and Cryak laughs everytime he does so and steady counts them up.
so he can break them all at the same time when he wants to.
Yes that's right ;)
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That's an interesting question. It might have been something they could work out theoretically, though. They might just have found a bunch of equations to describe how the blue boxes worked, and then changed the parameters of those without actually conducting many tests.
If not, and they did have to do experiments to test it, then I think I'd feel most sorry for the guys who got trapped in morph before they learned about the two hour limit. :(
OK that theory is thrown out if you ask me. I'm very good at mathematics and no one have ever invented anything only by equations. The Chinese didn't do it, the Egyptians didn't do it, Einstein and Steven Hawkins... Ada Lovelace was close actually but no. And to mention the Egyptians. Erek was there, right? And he is superior to the andalites so at least one of them had to be involved in the science.
Take the Space Race for example, 7 Americans and 5 Russians died before it was over despite the equations. And I think Ax said something about this took a longer time for them. We must count on that fact too.
hmmm...i think there would have been a few accidents. Maybe some andalies becoming overwhelmed by their morph. but this is assuming that the morphing technology in the beginning is like how it is now. I mean, if 5 human kids can get a grip on it, i don't think it would have been too bad.
i wonder if they knew about the 2 hour limit from the begining? probably.
Find ten people here on RAF who can use the first computer then ;)
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i wonder how close they got to what it is now
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What do you mean?
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like. was the first morphing cube blue? was it a lot bigger? what were side effects of the first morphing experiments? whas it developed in secrecy?
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Yes, this is another interesting question. And there is more, did they have different countries and religions, maybe different colour. Then I really want to know what Ax meant when he said Cassie's dad was "a male - as all human fathers"
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he said that? hmm...maybe he meant that since many species have different arrangements he was clarifying.
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he said that? hmm...maybe he meant that since many species have different arrangements he was clarifying.
Not that different? I mean, the seahorse in the most different species we know and still we know that the male one is the father... He said that anyway...
"Chapter SEVEN
Humans have very odd tastes. They think their music is beautiful. They are wrong. It is awful.
All of it. And they completely ignore their greatest accomplishments: the cinnamon bun, the
Snickers bar, the hot pepper, and the refreshing beverage called vinegar. - From the Earth
Diary of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill
Being in Prince Jake's body is no different from being in my regular human morph. Except
that it is slightly larger. Since the morph was formed from his DNA, I looked exactly like
him. Cassie insisted I borrow a garment called "overalls" and a pair of boots from her barn
before entering her home. Humans are very particular about clothing. I still do not understand
why.
"Hi, Jake. Cassie talk you into helping her muck out the barn again?" Cassie's father asked
me as I walked into her house.
He was a male - as all human fathers are. His hair was dark brown, but it seemed to have
been removed from much of his head. He wore round transparent lenses on his face which, I
am told, are for correcting faulty vision. His complexion is darker. He had the usual number
of legs and arms."
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I love Ax...
"Chapter SEVEN
Humans have very odd tastes. They think their music is beautiful. They are wrong. It is awful.
All of it. And they completely ignore their greatest accomplishments: the cinnamon bun, the
Snickers bar, the hot pepper, and the refreshing beverage called vinegar. - From the Earth
Diary of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill
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I can imagine body parts just left in Z Space. I always pictured Z space like honey in a way.
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hmm....maybe he knows crazy alien species. ^^
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Haha that is true...
But I don't think Ax is so smart, remember that he was mad at Visser3 for he bad been on the andalites moon and acquired that sea monster.
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maybe it was a lapse in memory caused by emotion?
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This reminds me of the Nothlit Chronicles fanfiction. If they didn't experiment on animals, they may have experimented on criminals, or terminally ill Andalites.
MRLARRYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! DAMN YOUUUUUUUUUU!!
That story touched on all of these questions lol I don't know any other stories that deal with the origin of the morphing power and the first tests of it. And it was such a good story! Gah, how cruel.
I gotta agree with Mira, there definately had to be tests, nothing can be worked out completely theoretically
I would assume that the tech was completely different back at the very first trial, they probably modified it over the years just like we modify our technology, smaller and faster
im sure it was more painful, took longer, the box was probably bigger, maybe the animal mind had more control, or maybe there was no animal mind and they added that ability so they would have some knowledge of how to use the body they had morphed
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maybe it was a cube...
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Nah. It's not even a cube anymore. It's a parallelpiped about 100mm x 60mm x 15 mm with rounded edges. It's white, with a clear finish.
Yes, they let Steve-flipping-Jobs design the damn thing. Personally, I prefer when it was pure Andalite tech--they at least have a sense of style.
If morphing is anything like lycanthropy (which it seems to be), they definitely did not have to "add in" the animal mind. The hard part is keeping it out, really.
Thought-speak, on the other hand. That is definitely part of the tech: that explains how the Animorphs are able to TS in morph: they don't morph an ordinary bear, dolphin, trout, etc. They morph a bear, dolphin, trout, etc that's been modified to allow TS.
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maybe it was a lapse in memory caused by emotion?
Azuguard, can you explane what you mean here, I don't understand the word "lapse" and it's not in my dictionary either.
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I think Azguard means that there's a period of time where Ax's memory isn't reliable, because he was so emotional.
Lapse (from wiktionary):
# A temporary failure; a slip.
# A decline or fall in standards.
This definition--> # A pause in continuity.
# An interval of time between events.
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So he was so emotional that he couldn't see even the most obvious fact? I don't imagine him like that, but maybe...
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emotional wasn't really an issue with Ax...
andalite arrogance however...
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yeah... that. ^^
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Arrogance is never good. But I too find it interesting about what it did to Ax. I would expect him to undersand that Visser three maybe wasn't Visser three when he acquired an animal that lives on the andalites planet, as he is an andalite himself and presumably was born on this planet.
I really feel for Ax. Just imagine what he is going through, he must have a lot of time to think horrible thinks when he is alone in that big forrest...
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true that. i think that no matter how close he got with the other animorphs, he would always be different.
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At the time when morphing was invented I'm going to arbitrarily say 2342 died by Taxxon small pox, 434 by recreational plant wrestling and 9 whose deaths were hidden by the media actually suffocated on trying to drink liquidified Leerans.
In terms of how many Andalites died during experimentation with morphing technology I could make some numbers up like the above but chances are we'll never know. If I remember correctly the technology wasn't revealed to the public for quite sometime even the military didn't know about it (hence how Alloran was acquired in one of the books).
I'd like to think that the Andalites development of technology was overly cautious so safety first. It explains why they think humans were so quick to develop from the industrial revolution to spaceflight in such a short space of time. The only other reason is the lack of geniuses like Einstein which I'm going to simply ignore. :P
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An interesting question, one so interesting that I'd say it's the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.
Therefore the answer is 42. ;)
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Yes, they let Steve-flipping-Jobs design the damn thing. Personally, I prefer when it was pure Andalite tech--they at least have a sense of style.
imorph. The new ipod from Apple. ::dancing silhouettes of andalites against a solid color background with headphones in their ears::
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An interesting question, one so interesting that I'd say it's the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything.
Therefore the answer is 42. ;)
42 ok... thanks ::) :) :D ;D
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And then 115,5 was hurt ^-^
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oh my gosh. i have no idea what's going on. haha
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42. I like that. Hitchhiker's Guide implies for 42 Andalites their entire meaning of life and everything was to die whilst testing experimental morphing technology. I'd be curious as to how they came about the idea and motivation behind creating such a device. Are they not powerful enough as a species? Physically easy on the eyes, decent defensive mechanisms, unbeatable ease of communication. I know the what-if factor plays a part but would you be curious enough to spend however large an amount of research and development to come up with such an unreliable form of a)finding out what animals are like and b)espionage technique.
I'd probably want to spend more time on a personal-phase-shifting device or undetectable and unblockable phase shifting long range remote sensors. Or for the curious animal lovers empathic-attach-to-the-side-of-the-head-device that lets you feel exactly what an animal feels.
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Yeah, it always struck me as weird, that the Andalites were the ones to invent the morphing technology. I mean, they're so proud of their own bodies and their tail blades, so why would they invent something that let them be other creatures? A lot of Andalites would probably tell you that there's no form better than their own. ::)
Yeerks, or humans, one might expect morphing technology from. Andalites? Not as much.
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so why then? well...first of all...what neccesitated (sp.?) the means of morphing technology? or...were was it used for something else at first...recreation?
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Maybe some hairbrained Andalites wanted to invent it for recreation but when the war broke out they realized it could be used for spying? Also think of Ax escaping the dome ship, he captured a Tiger shark and acquired it from deep in the ocean without flooding his dome or drowning or, apparently, killing the shark. That kind of thing could have meant the andalites could have captured individuals of species from planets they visited and blended right in for research purposes, or to survive enviroments or something.
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actually, about surviving environments...that sounds like a good reason. would be kewl if they blended the beginning of morphing technology with the end of the series, the kelbrids.
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Actually I quite like that idea only thing is 2hours doesn't really help you survive for very long in a hostile environment or for long term study. Otherwise though it's like putting adaptation for survival to the extreme which is pretty smart.
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The two hour limit might just be the best they could do at the time, maybe they were still improving on it. I mean good technology can only be improved on, eh?
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I can imagine there were a few things that went wrong in the development process. I wonder how many Andalites got caught as nothlits while discovering there was a time limit. Like, was the time limit something they planned for or was it a result of what they were doing?
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I for one wonder why they never (seemingly) developed a cure for Nothlits (Arbron's never being cured implies that there wasn't one, Tobias on the other hand might simply never have asked and therefore never been told) or why a nothlit can't simply regain morphing power from a cube.
I mean if a nothlit becomes trapped in a morph it stops being a morph so it becomes their actual body and there shouldn't be a reason that they can't reacquire the morphing power, I mean the mere fact that Loren could acquire Tobias' hawk body proves that it stoped being a morph because it's stated flatly that you can't acquire someone else's morph.
I think there might be a reason that the scientists didn't want nothlits regaining the ability to morph, I think it may have been diliberate. The question then would be: why? I mean maybe the two hour limit was also diliberate, maybe it's all about disciplin, forcing warriors not to get too attatched to temporary bodies but it seems a little harsh.
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I for one wonder why they never (seemingly) developed a cure for Nothlits (Arbron's never being cured implies that there wasn't one, Tobias on the other hand might simply never have asked and therefore never been told) or why a nothlit can't simply regain morphing power from a cube.
I mean if a nothlit becomes trapped in a morph it stops being a morph so it becomes their actual body and there shouldn't be a reason that they can't reacquire the morphing power, I mean the mere fact that Loren could acquire Tobias' hawk body proves that it stoped being a morph because it's stated flatly that you can't acquire someone else's morph.
I think there might be a reason that the scientists didn't want nothlits regaining the ability to morph, I think it may have been diliberate. The question then would be: why? I mean maybe the two hour limit was also diliberate, maybe it's all about disciplin, forcing warriors not to get too attatched to temporary bodies but it seems a little harsh.
Maybe the two-hour limit (and the subsequent restriction on nothlits regaining the morphing power) was deliberate, but not with Andalites in mind. Maybe it was a security measure, in case someone else ever got their hands on a blue box, someone who didn't know about the time limit. Under that assumption, it would seem that the two-hour time limit should have been a closely guarded Andalite secret . . . but I guess it didn't stay that way.
I mean, what better penalty to give to your enemies who steal your technology? They're going along, morphing whatever without a care in the world, and all of a sudden, they can't demorph, and they can't regain the morphing power. That would suck.
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A very good point DinosaurNothlit, I hadn't considered that but it sounds like a reasonable and realistic explanation.
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A more real life (but kinda pessimistic/killjoy) view would be that at the time of writing KA hadn't quite decided whether or not to give Tobias his human form back and just wanted to leave the idea open. Sorry!
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A more real life (but kinda pessimistic/killjoy) view would be that at the time of writing KA hadn't quite decided whether or not to give Tobias his human form back and just wanted to leave the idea open. Sorry!
Well sure, it's true any inconsistency or scientific flaw in the series is human error/fantasy and that none of this is real technology, but if people can have actual intelectual debates about the evolutionary paths and likelihood of Gargoyles and Fraggles (which is a totally fun way to pass time) I say we can pretend the Andalites had a method to their own madness too :D
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Maybe some hairbrained Andalites wanted to invent it for recreation
makes you wonder what type of recreation we are talking about here..
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I fixed the typo in the title, hope you don't mind...
Personally I find it quite hilarious to imagine all the things that could have gone wrong during the developement of the technology. There's literally a billion things that could have gone wrong in the experimental changes. You could have ended up with limbs or organs missing, some parts put back in the wrong places, getting trapped as a mutated hybrid, etc.
Ever wonder how the morphing technology blocks the pain of the transformation process? Imagine what would happen if the pain killer didn't work! :-\
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Well if everyones okay with cross-cannon arguments from Card's Ender universe, here goes some crazy theoretical fun...
The whole trick behind morphing is radical alteration/rebuilding of physical form while retaining the same mind(more-or-less)/memories/identity ("spirit" for the sake of discussion, okay?). As best as I can tell, the morphing works like this:
- Acquire a pattern for a new body. This contains more than just mere DNA, since things like iris pattern and fingerprints (which are not DNA-generated at all) are preserved.
- Establish a new master-blueprint for the body
- Initiate rapid regeneration with the new blueprint as a target
- Use z-space to violate conservation-of-mass, and perhaps partially to power the whole thing. (Not entirely though, morphing is described as being exhausting, though exactly what the cause is isn't covered).
- Somehow keep the original blueprint around, as well as the blueprint file (although they are not accessible)
- Reestablish original blueprint and cascade-regenerate again to morph back.
The second-to-last point is where the two-hour limit seems to come in. Beyond two hours a nothlit loses his original form and all other forms in the file. That's why Tobias is never able to morph Dude even after Ellimist returns his ability.
It still doesn't entirely make sense to me why nothlits have special rules:
1) Nothlits cannot regain morphing ability from an Escafil device.
2) Nothlits cannot be acquired.
(These are both cannon, right?)
Ach, my battery is running out. I haven't gotten to the OSC stuff yet. Oh well. I'll continue later.
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2) Nothlits cannot be acquired.
It never says that nothlits can't be acquired, only that a normal morph can't. Actually, Tobias is acquired at a few points towards the end of the series, but it's never really clear whether that's because he's a nothlit or because of what the Ellimist did to him in restoring his powers. I always thought it was the former, though.
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I think there's another post specifically about morphing but I'll put it here anyway. What I thought happened with Tobias was that the Ellimist removed whatever effect of the morphing cube from Elfangor's (kindness) so that it was like a reset. Tobias regained the exact same morphing as the rest of the group so that he wasn't a nothlit anymore. So the hawk would be his base form.
Kinda like if say an ant acquired morphing technology....
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ok. maybe the morphing technology isn't exactly perfect.
I mean,w e know that. but what i mean is that maybe morphing is not as smooth as we think it is. Maybe it isn't exactly an acquisition and entire morphing of a new creature, but rather a prototype. And that prototype has defects.
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they might have used a simulator, like...um...somehow ...
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I think there's another post specifically about morphing but I'll put it here anyway. What I thought happened with Tobias was that the Ellimist removed whatever effect of the morphing cube from Elfangor's (kindness) so that it was like a reset. Tobias regained the exact same morphing as the rest of the group so that he wasn't a nothlit anymore. So the hawk would be his base form.
Kinda like if say an ant acquired morphing technology....
Or the ant that DID acquire it? lol
Although that's definitely not a fave of some people...not even sure if Cassie was actually touching the box when the ant was. Same with the buffalo.