Morphing non-animals

[Fwahm]

Would it be possible?  On one hand, acquiring a common type of bacteria would be easy, since dozens of harmless types live inside a human's body at all times, so all you'd need to do is research one type and picture it.  On the other hand, bacteria generally use RNA instead of DNA, which might pose a problem to the morphing technology.

What do you think?

[Cloak]

Remember you have to acquire the animal first, and I think that is the real problem with this idea.  You cannot see a bacterium in order to acquire it.

[Fwahm]

It isn't necessary to see something to acquire it; one must only picture it in their minds.

[DinosaurNothlit]

It isn't necessary to see something to acquire it; one must only picture it in their minds.

And I don't even think that's necessary.  I think you only have to picture it to morph it.

Remember when they acquired the anteater in #24?  They had no idea what it was they were acquiring, but they acquired it anyway.

What I want to know is whether the morphing technology actually takes DNA from an organism, or simply copies it.  Because if you take even one set of DNA from something as small as a bacterium, you'd kill it.

[Darth Revan]

Why would you want to morph bacteria? What would be the purpose? What cause would you have to be a sentient bacteria?

[Stephquiem]

They probably just copy it. It doesn't really make sense that they'd be taking it from the animal. They're creating, in essence, a clone of it, a genetic copy.

But I'm with Parker: Why would you even want to morph bacteria?

...Also, I'm rereading #9 at the moment, and this handy-dandy line just came up:

Acquiring an animal's DNA isn't very complicated. All you do is touch it, and focus your
mind on the animal. The animal gets kind of sleepy, kind of dopey. In a minute it's all over,
and a new DNA pattern is swimming around inside you.

I'm not sure what she means by "focus your mind on the animal." I always thought it was that you had to picture it. Which would make the anteater thing a KASU. Maybe someone else has a different understanding?

[Darth Revan]

Which would make the anteater thing a KASU.

Or like when that animal (buffalo/cow) aquired Chapman and morphed it? If acquiring not only morphs, but the power, how did that animal do it?

[Phoenix004]

Exactly Parker. There's no realistic reason why you would ever need or want to become bacteria. As far as I'm aware, the don't have conventional senses like animals do so they'd be practically useless as a morph, not to mention the fact that some bacteria die quickly in the wrong environment (eg. outside a host).

I can only assume it would be difficult to acquire the bacteria in the first place, since you can't see or feel it and probably don't know what it looks like. Due to the fact that bacteria is incredibly small, I wouldn't be surprised if morphing it was impossible. Remember how the Animorphs were sucked into Z-space and almost died when they morphed mosquitoes? The odds of that happening were incredibly low, but bacteria is much smaller (which presumably increases the chances) so it's possible that the morphing technology prohibits the acquiring of bacteria as a safety precaution (or bacteria might be too small to be considered a morphable creature).

The bacteria's process of asexual reproduction would also cause problems for the morpher, perhaps similar to what happened when Rachel morphed a starfish and was split in half.

As for the Anteater thing, I'm sure they'd all seen pictures of an Anteater before so they'd know what it looked like. Ax might not have, but I don't think he morphed it.

[Cloak]

He didn't.  He was just essentially the "bus" to take them the Anis to the Gardens.

+1, Phoenix.

[Phoenix004]

Thank you Cloaky, I was pretty certain he didn't but it's been a while since I read them. I think I'm due a re-read before my awesome fountain of Ani knowledge starts to decay... 

[anijen21]

yeah, but the problem in #18 wasn't with the size of the morph, it was the fact that a ship happened to be cruising through Zero Space exactly where the technology decided to dump their extruded mass. They've morphed fleas A LOT, which was fine, and I think they even morphed mosquito again later with no ill effects other than the mildly disgusting fact that they'd fed on their friends.

I really don't see why they couldn't morph bacteria. Just like I don't see why they couldn't morph mushrooms or daisies or sea sponges. All comprised of DNA. And yet, when you think about this, it doesn't feel like it should jibe, right? I mean they get the animal's mind and instincts when they morph...what would an Oak Tree have to offer? Would they even maintain the mental cognizance to be able to demorph?

For fic writing purposes, I decided kind of arbitrarily that morphing is limited to CNS-based organisms. There has to be some kind of nervous system to support the limited, yet present, "mind" so that the morpher can actually *use* the morph.

[goom]

just as anijen said:
i'd think that even if they WANTED to morph bacteria, once the morph was complete, how would they morph back?
it'd be a one-way process.
(speaking of which, is the animal's mind and new instincts always the last thing to change? i'd like to see a half-morphed animorph struggling for control with a new morph.)

you can't control something (like a bacteria) with such a different/lacking mind.

bacteria aren't even animals, anyways.
maybe they could try morphing coral.

[adeon222]

Exactly Parker. There's no realistic reason why you would ever need or want to become bacteria. As far as I'm aware, the don't have conventional senses like animals do so they'd be practically useless as a morph, not to mention the fact that some bacteria die quickly in the wrong environment (eg. outside a host).

I can only assume it would be difficult to acquire the bacteria in the first place, since you can't see or feel it and probably don't know what it looks like. Due to the fact that bacteria is incredibly small, I wouldn't be surprised if morphing it was impossible. Remember how the Animorphs were sucked into Z-space and almost died when they morphed mosquitoes? The odds of that happening were incredibly low, but bacteria is much smaller (which presumably increases the chances) so it's possible that the morphing technology prohibits the acquiring of bacteria as a safety precaution (or bacteria might be too small to be considered a morphable creature).

The bacteria's process of asexual reproduction would also cause problems for the morpher, perhaps similar to what happened when Rachel morphed a starfish and was split in half.

As for the Anteater thing, I'm sure they'd all seen pictures of an Anteater before so they'd know what it looked like. Ax might not have, but I don't think he morphed it.

Yup... Totally...

Not practical, or necessary, and probably not even possible...

[Stephquiem]

bacteria aren't even animals, anyways.
maybe they could try morphing coral.

Sadly, the only way that a coral morph would be anywhere approaching effective is if it were... erm... "baby" coral. Since that's the one stage of life when coral actually moves (hence why it's an animal and not some kind of sea plant.)

'Course, the problem with that is... tiny creature, big ocean, lots of other animals who'd have no problem eating you. I imagine that'd be more of a problem underwater, simply because the terrain (...okay, bad choice of word...) is so foreign to a human. If you're a ****roach or something, yeah, it's different, but you're still in an enviornment that's familiar to you. And you can demorph without drowning.

...That was a very roundabout way for me to realize another problem with morphing a non-animal species: it's so completely foreign that there are far more possibilities for disaster. Bacteria don't have instincts to tell them how to get out of a sticky situation. If you're, say, a rat, you can just give in to the "DANGER! DANGER! RUN YOU IDIOT, RUN!" instinct.

[estrid]

the animorphs were given the ability to morph any ANIMAL. bacteria are not animals. they are not even in the same kingdom. they are unicellular organisms, while even the most basic animal (the sea sponge) is multi cellular. if the morphing technology was designed to allow the person to aquire the DNA from any animal, it probably ment it could only read the DNA of multicellular orgamisms. im sure there was something in the technology that could only read DNA coming from animals