Can you acquire youself?

[goom]

I think it could be possible.  Your DNA changes when you age

but at the time you'd be acquiring the same-aged DNA.
i don't think it'd work.

Identical DNA not from the same body? Is it possible for a pair of identical twins to acquire each other, perhaps to stay young forever?

and yeah i've thought of that

[Enki]

Why is the blood thing an issue? Every cell in your body has a copy of your entire DNA strand in it, so it should be possible to acquire someone from their blood, hair, spit, skin cells, etc. Much like how forensic scientists can ID a person from the DNA found in such specimens.

Also, your DNA does NOT change when you age, only how each gene is expressed changes (ie, some are turned on or off). The only time DNA undergoes any kind of significant change is during the creation of sex cells, and of course, that's only in those particular cells. Unless of course, you happen to be hanging around high levels of radiation 

As far as whether or not you can acquire yourself, I don't see why that wouldn't be possible. The acquired DNA is encapsulated and stored in the blood, right? So acquiring DNA from another animal is sort of like downloading a .zip file from another computer, while acquiring yourself would just be like making a .zip out of data you already had stored on your computer.

[Terenia]

Identical DNA not from the same body? Is it possible for a pair of identical twins to acquire each other, perhaps to stay young forever?

Actually, this is a situation two of my fanfiction/rpg characters find themselves in. They're identical twins and one has a morph of the other. But it's a bit more convoluted than that.


I don't see why you couldn't acquire yourself, unless the Andalites put in some sort of safeguard against it for some reason. It could be very convenient, at the very least. Although it would suck if you forgot you were in morph and became a nothlit of yourself unintentionally.

[cams]

But then again, how would you be able to tell the difference between being in morph and out of morph? xD

Er... You'd be able to use thought speak while you are in morph of yourself?

Would there be the gross morphing process? Would you be able to tell if you're in mid-morph, or finished morphing, or if you even began morphing at all?

[phenom64]

Dosn't seem really nesscitary, you still are youreslf.

[MoppingBear]

Also, your DNA does NOT change when you age, only how each gene is expressed changes (ie, some are turned on or off). The only time DNA undergoes any kind of significant change is during the creation of sex cells, and of course, that's only in those particular cells. Unless of course, you happen to be hanging around high levels of radiation 

eh technically it does, every time cells divide, your telomeres (junk dna) gets a little shorter.  its thought to me one of the main causes of aging, telomeres run out and the division process starts eating up actual used dna.

[delta]

DNA does change a little bit when you age because the telomeres shorten (replication is an ineffective process). I assume that's how you can morph the same age. Also, DNA methylation would probably cause some of the DNA to be shut down.

One thing that I didn't like about 18 where they tried to acquire the blood is that... in humans, red blood cells actually do not have DNA in them. >_>; it's untrue for some other animals though, i think. So to acquire anything from blood, your morphing powers would have to detect the DNA in the white blood cells or skin cells still attached.

well, back to the main topic, i'm sure that you could acquire yourself at a young age, then "morph" that DNA from when you were younger... mainly based on telomere shortening.

[Kotetsu1442]

Yeah, book 18, whatever, but if the author says its possible, who am I to disagree with the universe she created

Acquiring from blood alone was sketchy at best, and that was from a completely different person...

Why is the blood thing an issue? Every cell in your body has a copy of your entire DNA strand in it, so it should be possible to acquire someone from their blood, hair, spit, skin cells, etc. Much like how forensic scientists can ID a person from the DNA found in such specimens.

The thing is, as Phoenix implied even though KA has AX state explicitly that it is possible to acquire from a blood sample alone, this is only stated the once then never even alluded to again; on the other hand it is repeated on multiple occasion that you cannot acquire from something dead, even immediately after it dies, so it doesn't make sense to be able to acquire from blood samples alone (really, they never actually ended up acquiring from blood, so it could have been easily written around by having their plan be to "spy on the security around the unconscious Hewlett Aldershot" then get Z-space-nabbed as flies).

Identical DNA not from the same body? Is it possible for a pair of identical twins to acquire each other, perhaps to stay young forever?

Actually, this is a situation two of my fanfiction/rpg characters find themselves in. They're identical twins and one has a morph of the other. But it's a bit more convoluted than that.


I don't see why you couldn't acquire yourself, unless the Andalites put in some sort of safeguard against it for some reason. It could be very convenient, at the very least. Although it would suck if you forgot you were in morph and became a nothlit of yourself unintentionally.

I agree that it should be possible in this way, unless there is intentionally something built in the technology to prevent it as Terenia says. But I'm still not clear on how that would let you stay young forever. Could you clarify, crystalclear?

[goom]

Would you be able to tell if you're in mid-morph

i'd thought of that.
if you could acquire yourself, you could morph a few seconds in to thought-speak.

[Liz]

But then again, how would you be able to tell the difference between being in morph and out of morph? xD

Er... You'd be able to use thought speak while you are in morph of yourself?

True, I'd forgotten about that.  Wow, this is an old thread!

That would actually come in handy, being able to thought-speak in your own form...

[CounterInstinct]

Wouldn't it be hard to demorph(or morph) tho? Since you have to concentrate on the image. And what if it is the same image?

[Coal Kropotkin]

I think it'd be entirely possible, the only real problem I can think of is what Morf pointed out, you go into a trance when being acquired... But, if you can acquire from blood, then problem solved, or, even from maybe hair, spit, et cetera (as someone else pointed out), that way, you could morph your younger self when you were old and grey, and get an extra 30-40 years, or more if it was a young enough morph, and, if they can figure out how to give the morphing ability to nothlits, then, yeah, there's immortal-ness possibility.

Plus, you'd get to go through the rest of your (newly elongated) life with thought-speak!

And, personally, I believe the reason you can't acquire dead things is a safety feature the Andalites installed. I mean, honestly, if you developed the morphing power, wouldn't you install the same safe-guard? You wouldn't want people killing someone, and then morphing then... A whole new level of ID theft! Lol. Although, on the same hand, you could just acquire them and then kill them... Which would actually be more helpful... Considering it puts them in a trance... Alright, I'm getting WAY off topic. XD Stupid not sleeping for days....

[Visser19]

This is an old thread... oh well.

Imagine Marco, "I am now going to morph myself!" Concentrates, nothing happens. "Well, did it work???" ....

About the blood issue, (no pun intended) remember when they needed to morph a polar bear? I think it was, or maybe a seal, but they found a dead polar bear and it's blood. Why couldn't they have acquired it from that? Just because the bear was dead doesn't mean that it's cells were, it was still fresh if I recall. Another KASU?

[Kotetsu1442]

This is an old thread... oh well.
About the blood issue, (no pun intended) remember when they needed to morph a polar bear? I think it was, or maybe a seal, but they found a dead polar bear and it's blood. Why couldn't they have acquired it from that? Just because the bear was dead doesn't mean that it's cells were, it was still fresh if I recall. Another KASU?

That's exactly what I just said; in one single case it is stated that blood is enough to acquire a morph, that is #18, The Decision; other than that it is stated on multiple occasions that a morph can only be acquired from a living creature (in the case you mentioned, they didn't explicitly state it, but that they ate some seal meat from a mother seal, but went to the trouble to catch the babies implied that they needed a living specimen). So it would seem that, for whatever reason, the morphing technology requires more than just individual living cells with DNA, but some more vital, holistic thing that can only come from a living source. In general, it makes more sense to accept that being able to acquire from a blood sample is the KASU, rather than that on multiple occasions they went to a good deal more trouble than necessary.

[yunyun]

Identical DNA not from the same body? Is it possible for a pair of identical twins to acquire each other, perhaps to stay young forever?

you age even in morph like in the last book Tobias says(thought-speaks)to Marco<me,i'm old for a red-tail,you, you're not even old enough to drink> and i'm pretty sure did not Tobias acquire a old hawk