Combined Morph

[sub]

How does Ax's combined human work and why can't the Anis use that method to create more powerful morphs?

[Tim Bruening]

I propose combining human and horse to get a centaur, or human and vulture to get a harpy.

[RYTX]

Mild Spoilers Below?

How Ax's morph works: Excellent question, no idea. Hypothesis: Ax acquires the DNA of multiple people and is able to combine their DNA into one set, rather than four. (I suggest this, rather than that he controls which part of who's DNA he uses each time as 1) his human morph is consistent, and 2) in book 6 he acquires Jake's DNA again ). I'd like to think there is a time limit for the acquiring of each person, but since in TAC it seems Elfangor did it over time, that's probably not true
Somehow he can at least to an extent decide what genes get in this new DNA set, since he "choose" to be male.
But canonical details of how that (and in general morphing) works are absent

Why they don't use it to make new morphs?
Can't be done.
An organisms genetic structure is complex, precise, and it's particular expression vital to the functioning of an organism. If you tried to make a griffon or something you'd have to deal with the expression of a different number of chromosomes from the bird and the lion, lord knows how that would function (Down syndrome griffon???) Beyond that, how is it going to function? And eagles wings should be in the place of a lions forelimbs, but a griffon has them on the back, how does all of that coordinate, how could either's respiratory system support this cross species thing.
You see stories about human tissues being grown on mice, but those aren't functional organs, the mouse can't hear with it because has no neural connections, and can't move it beyond anything embedded in it's back. Tying a bunch of organs together does not an animal make.

Even the centaur thing, which an Estreen can kind of pull off, Cassie, book 1, probably wouldn't work beyond the transitions of morphing. Even being have horse, Cassie probably tripled her body mass, a human heart won't sustain a horses body. And if you but a horse heart up top, it'd probably be too much for the human parts. And if you have both, well I can't see you integrating them.

Ax's technique modifies DNA within species, DNA that is very similar already to make an organism that functions the exact same why as it's precursors, but to make new species by crossing two or more would probably kill the attempter, be it by chromosome incompatibility or morphological non functioning.

Of course, that bears question, can you cross a horse and a donkey (though why would you), and if so, then we start typing into how different animals have to be before this technique is a non-option

[DinosaurNothlit]

Probably a bad example here, but how about Marco in book 35?  Granted, he never morphed any of those hybrid creatures for very long, and in fact at times it caused rather disastrous results.  So perhaps in a sense that book is a strike against combining species, rather than for it.

Still, he did stay in spider-skunk morph for at least a couple minutes without suffering any side-effects like RYTX describes, and he actually seemed to think that the polar-bear-poodle was stronger than either animal would have been alone (granted, what he thinks of it is probably a moot point since he didn't exactly use it as a battle morph).  So it would seem that, in theory at least, a hybrid morph can be done without killing the morpher.

[RYTX]

Oh fine, if you want to ignore science and logic in this series of teenage body shifters that are fighting off an invasion of parasitic aliens.
The thing about sci-fi is sometimes the swing to from sticking to science, to fiction, and more damningly, fiction without consistent rules.
So, considering that, okay, we still have to ask what extent each morph contributes, and how much control over it they have. Is poo-bear 50-50? If so what parts are what. The head of poodle, body of a bear and insides enough to support one without overloading the other. But obviously poodle legs will never move a bear. And really, a lot of the bear-dog structure is comparable, dog/bear is closer than a lot of alternatives.

Spider-skunk though, that I call breaking your own rules. In 21 Jake couldn't see with dragonfly eyes till his brain changed, but Marco can see with both morphs eyes, while in a 5 inch spider, No. Beyond that it sounds like a skider, or a spunk as he called it (I hate growing up, that's now dirty) is mostly spider with skunk feet fur and tail. Admittedly extra feet-so what feet got coded with spider legs. Interesting. Anyway, it sounds like it was mostly spider with a feet skunk parts on the edge. Nothing vital, though I question how well those appendages function (hard to move a tail without the rest of the vertebrate), and how a spider would bear hauling them around.


Anyway, the bulk of the series suggest most can't control a morph that finely, that you choose what mix would so where in what propotion, that you can only access on morph at a time, and that's why cananocially, I think, it shouldn't work.
Factually, they'd have to deal with the fact that a 5 inch spider hauling a tail simply wouldn't move as well as a normal one, not the least of which is because skunk feet probably couldn't be oxygenated by whatever a spider uses to pump gas.

[Sub]

I assume the same technology responsible for people not dying in mid-morph (or sustaining consciousness in an ant brain for that matter) would probably allow combined morphs to exist for two hours.

I would accept the difficulty of interspecies morphs, but then again, biologically it would be a whole other challenge to combine four individuals at once than to morph what basically is aged offspring of two of the same species.

[MoppingBear]

How people think genes work

How genes actually work

You can't take the "Preheat oven to 350 degrees" gene and put into your sandwich because it won't do anything.  Same thing with combining different species.  Combining the same species though is like taking the "5 tablespoons key lime juice" gene and adding it to chocolate cake.  Chances are still that it wont work well, but it might.

[RYTX]

1- Key lime chocalate cake sounds amazing

2

I assume the same technology responsible for people not dying in mid-morph (or sustaining consciousness in an ant brain for that matter) would probably allow combined morphs to exist for two hours.

I would accept the difficulty of interspecies morphs, but then again, biologically it would be a whole other challenge to combine four individuals at once than to morph what basically is aged offspring of two of the same species.

I disagree with the first statement because there is a big difference b/w the 2-3 minutes in transition and keeping that form for 2 hours. Like when they morph fish in 3, they don't seem to be suffocating till the morph is complete, but if you loss the lungs and stay 90% fish for and hour, no deadness.  I'll repeat myself in a second, but we don't know how morphing works such that some parts function midmorph, but some don't until it's complete ( because I doubt KAA ever tried to make up rules for that).

As for the second statement, we don't know enough about how morphing works to say it can't be done in species.  It may be that the Frolis maneuver allows the production of a new from multiple individuals by causing the DNA of some or each person to undergo meiosis, and then combine to from a new individual, and repeat. So maybe Jake and Cassies DNA was made to make an new "child", and Rachel and Marco's a second, and then the "children" of those two "breed" to make Ax's human morph.

I just made that up, I think, but I like it!

[Jdorsey314]

Humans all have the same number of chromosomes. its probably a lot easier to select different chromosomes from 4 humans and only get one of each than it is to modify them to work together when they're from different creatures.