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.
