Fat morphers.

[zaprowsdower]

You know what? We here at RAF should get together and write some kind of Animorphs encyclopedia, with all sorts of backstory events and explanation for how we think things like morphing work. Like scientific proposals for unexplained aspects.

[morfowt]

I'd say that's a great idea except I think we have way too many projects already...

[zaprowsdower]

lol yeah

[Azguard]

Well, I'm guessing the Andalites know a lot more about genetics than we do. Perhaps there's some property of DNA or deeper thing that explains all this that we just don't know yet or guess at.

[Gotchaye]

How about this:

Morphing's initiated by an effort of will, right?  There's clearly something important about the morpher's thinking.  And morphers can only morph things that they've personally acquired - so there isn't some huge shared databank of things to be morphed into, and it's plausible that the information about the thing to be morphed into is just stored in the mind of the morpher.

Let's take weathel's suggestion that there's clearly more being stored than just DNA information.  Maybe what's going on when acquiring something is just that absolutely every important physical characteristic of the thing is stored somewhere in the memory of the morpher.  The act of touching the escafil device was something like a self-acquiring, and they carry with them an image of their "normal" bodies (normal in every sense, so including uninjured, right haircut, etc) that they return to when demorphing.  It'd be interesting to see what happened if one radically changed their hairstyle - would they demorph into their old haircut until they got used to their new look?

[morfowt]

didn't rachel try the haircut thing out in book 2? I don't remember whether she succeeded or not...

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Marco cut his hair in book 10- he had long hair before that, and short after. Also, nobody ever commented on the Animorphs' lack of aging over the course of the war. Morphing technology =\= immortality.

I like Gotchaye's idea of morphs being stored in the memory, though. It might be designed in such a way that as the morph (or original body) changes, so does the memory image- the morphing relies on the brain's image of what the body should be to create the morph. That could definitely result in occasional memories, too- though it would be inefficient to get them all the time. Heck, that could explain why the only morphs that seemed to have memories were very early ones- later ones are more and more compressed to save brain space. In fact, it wouldn't just have to be saved in the brain- subtle changes could be made to every cell in the body in order to store information.

Depending on the storage method, the number of morphs one could acquire would be almost infinite. Given the Andalites' proficiency with computers, I'd say it's reasonable to assume some sort of quantum storage method. Maybe the morph "file" is stored in the very atoms of the brain. When activated, it is pulled into the subconscious of the brain and created based on the brain's judgment of what the morph should be (which could presumably exclude scars and injuries, and also age as the person/morph ages)

Maybe morphing doesn't involve DNA at all. Maybe Elfangor just said that so the kids would get the picture (and to screw with RAFians in the future). That crazy Andalite... tricky until the end...

[Nymphadora10]

I do believe morphing heals scars, at least they healed Loren's scars...

I am still reading the series so can I ask who Lauren is?

[morfowt]

I do believe morphing heals scars, at least they healed Loren's scars...

I am still reading the series so can I ask who Lauren is?

well... it happens in book 49, so unless you want to skip straight to it, I don't feel I should spoil any more than I might already have...

[INH]

Here's my theory on how morphing works:

It is said in book 10 that when you morph something small, the extra mass is extruded into Z-space, then retrieved when you demorph.  Ax mentions that there is a very small chance that a ship traveling in Z-space could run over the extruded mass.  In book 18, an andalite ship really does pass close by the Animorphs' stored mass, resulting in their consciousness getting "shunted" to it.  They find themselves in what sure looks like their original bodies.

My theory is that the extruded mass thing happens every time you morph, not just when you morph something small.  Your body is sent to Z-space, and an entirely new body of whatever you morphed is constructed to replace it (don't ask me where the mass for the morph comes from; maybe the Andalites shoved a bunch of stuff into Z-space for morphers to draw on).  Your body is put into some sort of state that allows it to survive Z-space conditions, but your brain remains partially active.  It is linked to the brain of the morph, controlling it and receiving sensory data.  When you demorph, it brings your body out of Z-space and sends the morph back.  During this process, it detects and repairs any injuries because, well, why not?

This explains why the Animorphs remain sentient even when they morph animals with brains that couldn't possibly support human intelligence.  What happened in book 18 was that the ship passing by disrupted their neural link, causing their original bodies to "wake up."

So, to answer the original question, when you demorph, it doesn't rebuild your body from scratch.  It just pulls your old one out of storage while taking the opportunity to repair it.  So things like weight, level of physical fitness, haircuts, etc. should be unaffected.  By the way, we know for certain that haircuts aren't affected.  In book 2, Rachel tries to fix a bad haircut as she demorphs, but that doesn't work because "morphing doesn't work that way."

That said, the acquiring process does appear to record more than just DNA.  In book 30, Marco acquires some middle-aged guy and when he morphs him, ends up just as fat and out of shape as the original person was.

[morfowt]

so how does it determine what needs to be repaired and what's just a haircut or cut fingernails, or missing teeth, or even surgery?

[INH]

Well, hair and fingernails are dead (the parts you cut are, anyway).  They really can't be injured.  As for the rest, *shrug*.  Obviously, this is more complicated than either leaving you the way you were before the morph or reconstructing the entire body based on your DNA.  There would have to be some kind of decision making involved.  But any morphing theory would have to take into account how it records some non-genetic information (like height, weight, and coat patterns) but ignores others (like broken wings).

You know, I'm starting to get annoyed at regeneration/healing powers in general.  They bring up so many issues...

[powertrash]

What about braces? They're tight, so you'd probably be able to morph and retain them, but what about when you get them off? Are your teeth pushed back to their original pattern?

[ellie]

What about braces? They're tight, so you'd probably be able to morph and retain them, but what about when you get them off? Are your teeth pushed back to their original pattern?

Isnt the shape of your teeth decided by environmental factors too, such as how much sugar you consumed as a child and if you sucked your thumb or not. With that in mind though, your fillings would probably pop out as the holes in your teeth were being healed.

[Visser19]

What about braces? They're tight, so you'd probably be able to morph and retain them, but what about when you get them off? Are your teeth pushed back to their original pattern?

Isnt the shape of your teeth decided by environmental factors too, such as how much sugar you consumed as a child and if you sucked your thumb or not. With that in mind though, your fillings would probably pop out as the holes in your teeth were being healed.

That would be so awesome! No more dentists! I have a cavity? Oh well, time to morph.