Star Wars versus The Thing

[Oni Koneko Damien]

No, no, I think he might be on to something there - about dogs and such noticing the creature, that is.

Presumably, in some manner, it doesn't quite smell right to a dog when it is pretending to be a dog. How many alien races are there in the Star Wars universe with close-to-dog-level olfactory senses? Wookies, maybe?

So then you also missed the point where it was pointed out that both in the book and in a deleted scene in the movie, the dog-Thing was in the same room with a bunch of dogs for hours and only elicited a reaction when it started to transform in front of them.

Long story short: The Thing's mimicry is perfect enough on a visual and behavioural level to fool humans, and perfect enough on an olfactory level to fool dogs.

[Molyneux]

No, no, I think he might be on to something there - about dogs and such noticing the creature, that is.

Presumably, in some manner, it doesn't quite smell right to a dog when it is pretending to be a dog. How many alien races are there in the Star Wars universe with close-to-dog-level olfactory senses? Wookies, maybe?

So then you also missed the point where it was pointed out that both in the book and in a deleted scene in the movie, the dog-Thing was in the same room with a bunch of dogs for hours and only elicited a reaction when it started to transform in front of them.

Long story short: The Thing's mimicry is perfect enough on a visual and behavioural level to fool humans, and perfect enough on an olfactory level to fool dogs.

No, sorry - I didn't remember that. I was under the impression that the Terminator test worked, and the other dogs started freaking out before the Thing revealed itself.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

No problem. As it stands, so far the only tests we know of that reveal a Thing before it wants to be revealed is a blood-serum test and the blood-burning test. I'm not saying that the SW Galaxy doesn't have ways to do this at a distance, or have better ways of finding hidden Things... but first those in charge have to realize there's a problem, then have to be able to research it and come up with those ways. And by that time it's likely already too late since The Thing is smart enough to stay under the radar as long as possible in whatever culture it's introduced.

[Simon_Jester]

The dogs were able to instinctively detect a Thing's attempt to impersonate a dog, as I recall- there may be chemical traces you could detect if you had the right equipment, which obviously wouldn't be on hand in Antarctica.

[Shroom Man 777]

As if the shrimp-headed dogs from the planet Sullustianoid XVII.53 Alpha-99, with their highly sensitive facial orifice that lies between their face-cheeks which filter-feed the air for scent particles, also don't bark madly when exposed to alien organoids with foreign scents from the Mon Mothra Gigan Federation of Nintendoo 64?

Heck, there's probably lots of planets in the Extrauterine Universe where the blind invertebrate cat-pets of the Cato Nemohuttesian Space Kennel Lords bark at humans because the pet-molluscs' heat sensitive sensor organs can sense that humans are endothermic and to them that seems foreign and alien, because in the planet of Nemohuttulon, the standard basal body temperature is XYZ gigakelvins and so upon noticing the strange temperature differentials, the domesticated Nemohuttulonian cave jaguars are agitated as seeing human bodily temperatures end up symbionizing their inbred mating instincts, and not only do they bark madly, but also their multi-pronged external fallopian tubes start engorging as bloodflow is increased into the nether regions of the hermaphroditic pet-creatures. They would then be possessed with the insatiable urge to rub their auto-eviscerated genitalia on the legs of these strange-smelling and bizarrely-endothermic organisms in an attempt to fertilize themselves or something.

Puh-leaze. Everyone's pet bantha would be barking like mad at any off-worlder who smells funny. I bet banthas bark at each other too, because some banthas from off-world have different diets and so their poodoo smells different and shit.

[DudeGuyMan]

Horrible post.

Part of the reason The Thing could get away with what it could was because weapons to combat it with were scarce. Basically flamethrowers and high explosives because small arms ain't getting the job done. In the GFFA though, blasters incorporate aspects of both HE and incendiary weapons and are everywhere.

The Arctic camp was armed to the teeth, isolated, and very quickly came to lack any sort of prey that wasn't an armed sentient with at least a partial clue about what was up. Turned loose in an open environment, it can go eat the entire rest of the biosphere if it wants to, until your guys in "sealed armor dur dur blasters wank wank" are the only unassimilated thing on the planet. Because it knows all this shit you just said, and it isn't going to conveniently run off and immediately kill itself trying to attack soldiers.

This is also of course hoping for The Thing's sake that bio-scanners and sensors can't pick it up and aren't common.

Considering what a dire threat Vong spies and their "alien creature wearing a disguise which is itself also an alien creature" routine turned out to be to the New Republic, we can pretty much discount this shit out of hand.

Or that every dog/alien dog on the street won't be barking at it everywhere it goes. The way animals detect the Thing has been inconsistent but leans against the creature. A dog in the prequel flipped out when the Thing wasn't even in the room and the dogs in the kennel in the original called it out not long after it sat down.

Wrongo. Go watch the scene again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_piYJAGQImc

Clarke puts the dog-thing in the kennel, and the other dogs glance at it but don't even bother to stand up. Absolutely nothing happens as Clarke sits there looking at them for a moment, then turns the light off and walks away.

At this point either a few minutes or a few hours pass depending on whether you count the deleted scene, but in either case the other dogs are still lying around relaxed while nothing much happens. Until the dog-thing finally begins it's hiss/growl heavy-breathing act immediately prior to monstering out.

So no, those dogs sat in close proximity and didn't display the faintest hint of agitation until the Thing started acting up. This was a total asspull on your part.

[VarrusTheEthical]

Well one thing that Star Wars has are droids, which I would imagine that the Thing would not be able to assimilate. Now if you had a way to discriminated Thing replicants and normal people, either through good scanners or the use of Jedi, then the Republic could possibly use an army of droids to purge areas that are infected by the Thing without the risk of the droids themselves being subverted.

[Simon_Jester]

Puh-leaze. Everyone's pet bantha would be barking like mad at any off-worlder who smells funny. I bet banthas bark at each other too, because some banthas from off-world have different diets and so their poodoo smells different and shit.

I didn't say "use dogs." I said "use chemical cues." Say, like a mechnical sniffer, a type of technology which already exists. If Things have a characteristic odor, you can tune your machine to that; even if it gets false positives on some people/species, you can do the blood test on them.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, DudeGuyMang's latest post pointing out how the sniffy dogs didn't react to anything until the Thinggy started deformagrotesquetiloidulomutaloidificatificating might indicate that they didn't smell anything funny with the Thinggy.

But yes, the Thing could possibly have all sorts of imperceivable tell-tales that some guys in a radioshack in the north pole had no way to cobble up.

EDIT:

Oooh, oooh! Speaking of multi-pronged external fallopian tubes that start engorging as bloodflow is increased into the nether regions of the hermaphroditic pet-creatures, the Thinggies could infesticate say, some random creature (they don't need to go after humans/sentients) during the mating season or take over some creature and let it secrete pheromones, and when members of the opposite sex start becoming horny and fucking it, it can infesterize the shit out of them too! A Cronenbergian organoblasphemic orgy of warped, twisted flesh, unholy screams crying out into the night, misshappen fanged genitalias shearing through flesh and implanting cursed seed into the skeins of the innocent!

[DudeGuyMan]

Once a Thing assimilates a few of the local insect species, that's pretty much game over for the planet. Good luck trying to kill every last flea and ant and mosquito in the world with anything short of a BDZ. An extremely isolated and limited environment like the Arctic station is the only sort of environment where human beings have much of a chance without some really ludicrous tech.

[Crateria]

Once a Thing assimilates a few of the local insect species, that's pretty much game over for the planet. Good luck trying to kill every last flea and ant and mosquito in the world with anything short of a BDZ. An extremely isolated and limited environment like the Arctic station is the only sort of environment where human beings have much of a chance without some really ludicrous tech.

How long might the insect Thing last? Typical insects don't seem to last long, though they make up for it by being so damn numerous. If a Thing starts infecting other life, could one of them be a plant?

Now I have this image of AT-ATs being tripped by mutated Thing vines.

[DudeGuyMan]

Even if Thing insects last no longer than real insects, that's fine. The population of real insects manages to sustain itself, after all. Assimilate a few rats, convert their mass into mosquitos or whatever, sit back and let the food chain do it's job for it.

As for imitating plants... I wouldn't count upon it but couldn't rule it out. Does Star Wars have the common cold? That'd be a hell of a species to imitate wouldn't it? And we know Thingification works on the microscopic level.

In any case, the Thing is at least as smart as us, and will know at least as much about Coruscant as us since it's assimilated that one initial citizen. It's not going to play stupid or even fair. It's not going to turn into a monster and try to eat some Jedi so it can be killed. It's not going to invade the Senate building so it can be caught by security while absorbing the Chancellor. It's going to spread as far as it can and fight dirty.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Considering in the movie The Thing's porous body was frozen in a block of ice for over 100,000 years without dying from all its cell membranes freezing and rupturing, in defiance of all known biological laws, I'm pretty certain the average life span of its hosts aren't really applicable to it, this is something that seems to have near complete control of its biological processes regardless of what it's imitating, including the process of aging.

On the other hand, when it infested one team member in the movie, it impersonated him so well that it suffered a heart attack because, before it took him over, the guy had a weak heart. So it's possible that if The Thing takes over a mayfly, the mayfly impersonation will only survive a day or so before dropping dead... but then afterwards grow tentacles and try to infest the next thing that touches it.

[PREDATOR490]

As with almost ALL scenarios involving infections from Zombies, Vampires, Contagions etc. the inital spread is no doubt going to be viciously effective and especially in this case because the infection is intelligent. That said, it seems kind of stupid and unreasonable for the Star Wars galaxy to have NEVER encountered infections, diseases and the like before. Perhaps not on this scale - Although Isard tried a viral weapon on the capital and failed and Planet of Twilight had a race of space spiders or something that wanted to spread some sort of virus thing.

If the Thing were to get to a planet like... Thyferra and somehow manage to infect Bacta shipments then the galaxy could be massively fucked with folks being sent into Bacta to 'heal' and coming out Things. Regardless, the motivations of the Thing are never really explored and the extent of it's intelligence is limited to contained example.

Can the Things work together ?
If Yes - They can launch a campaign of infestation across the galaxy and possibly achieve what Palpatine did in days by going into the Senate, infecting everyone and then using those sentors to infect their homeworlds when they go home. Naturally this is likely to spread through the power ranks of the galaxy from top to bottom leaving the Things in charge of military firepower, resources etc.

If No - They spread like wildfire but ultimately do it in a haphazard self-serving way without any real objective in mind except spreading and staying alive. It will be rather amusing if the Things end up fighting one another because they cannot recongise each other but naturally defend themselves from being exposed.
Harr... I infect you... fuck, your infected, damnit now I have to kill you cause you know I am Infected.

Regardless, the SW galaxy should be more than capable of fighting back by initiating severe isolation / quarantine procedures. I.E Anyone and everything onboard a ship / station is screened by Droids that are used to scan anything that comes in. As the surviors increase their resources they go about building a heavily defended community surrounded by automated defences to prevent incursions. I have visions of the survivors turning into the Quarians from Mass Effect flying around in a massive fleet of sterile ships while wearing containment suits and using Droids as slaves to test, enforce and do their dirty work.

Unless the Things somehow have the combined motivation of intergalactic infestation and the intelligence to continue a massive campaign to carry it out. The Survivors should be more than capable of going to nowhere, hiding out for years, decades and defending themselves against incursions via screening. Eventually they can organise and fight back using Droids and BDZ operations to purge the galaxy of the Things planet by planet.
It is quite likely this could take several milleninia to achieve and never really be successful but unless the Things can operate and organise defences like Planetary shields, fleets and military actions it would simply be a matter of the survivors grinding down the Things using superior intelligence and tactics. Just like you would expect vs any other kind of contagion.

IF the Things are capable of using Star Wars technology AND working together as an organisation... I see a situation of the Rebels vs the Empire occuring except it would be Survivors vs. The Thing(s).
Although this again assumes the Thing(s) would ACTIVELY go out of their way to infect EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE rather than simply get the majority and let the suvivors fuck off to nowhere and form their own little community while the Thing(s) form theirs. Effectively the Things become their own race.

[DudeGuyMan]

For what it's worth, TVtropes makes reference to a Dark Horse comic which states that the Thing cannot assimilate plant life, so there's that at least.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

As with almost ALL scenarios involving infections from Zombies, Vampires, Contagions etc. the inital spread is no doubt going to be viciously effective and especially in this case because the infection is intelligent. That said, it seems kind of stupid and unreasonable for the Star Wars galaxy to have NEVER encountered infections, diseases and the like before. Perhaps not on this scale - Although Isard tried a viral weapon on the capital and failed and Planet of Twilight had a race of space spiders or something that wanted to spread some sort of virus thing.

Here's the problem: What are the symptoms of a Thing infection? With the flu you get horrible feelings, a stuffed runny nose and a sore throat. With zombies you get rotting and people stumbling around trying to bite you. With rage you get angry, screamy running people. With vampires you get clammy goths with dental problems and an aversion to mirrors. Long story short: With everything you listed, it's pretty damn easy to tell the infected from the uninfected.

With The Thing you get nothing. It is, barring possibly sub-cellular scanning, a perfect replica of its host in looks, smell, thought and action. The only time you can identify a Thing at random is either when it severely fucks up and misjudges a situation, or just sheer dumb luck. Otherwise you have no idea that the people around you aren't the same people, aren't even the same species they were a day or two ago. In the movie, the only times the Thing showed itself without being provoked was with the dogs... possibly because it thought it could get them before they made too much noise... and taking over the red-bearded guy in the storage room, most likely because the not-quite-dead Thing corpse realized this was likely the only time it would be alone with someone before they either fully burned it or froze it again. With the other infected members of the team, they stayed under the radar for well over a week with very paranoid people around them at all times.

And it will be even worse in the SW universe. The Thing originally took place in a universe that's otherwise identical to ours. The Antarctic team was immediately on high alert after seeing it because a huge deformed tentacled thing was way the fuck out of the ordinary in their experience. In the SW universe, there are all sorts of intelligent and unintelligent things that are pretty damn far from the baseline human shape and demeanor. If someone's wandering a Coruscant back-alley and, by sheer dumb luck, manages to witness a Thing taking over someone else, what's their first thought going to be? My bet is something more along the lines of, "Oh shit it's one of those sewer monsters I keep hearing about, I better back away slowly and stick to walking in better lit areas from here on out" than, "This tentacled beast must be unlike all the other tentacled beasts on this planet and in this galaxy and represents a huge threat of infection and a danger to everyone, I better call every authority I can!"

Basically with all the weird, alien shit that goes on as an everyday occurrence on Coruscant and in the SW galaxy in general, the occasionally witnessed Thing attacks, even if sloppily done, can fly under the radar for a very long time before someone starts to pay real attention to the common threads between sporadic reports of a specific type of monster attack in the Coruscant sub-levels. And by that time, of course, The Thing will have likely spread to hundreds, if not thousands of other worlds. Which is why I said earlier: If non-Things win, it will be at the cost of a majority of their population and a majority of planets.

I will note that this is even without assuming The Thing can just infect food and water supplies. While the idea is scary, I don't think it's one of The Thing's capabilities. While they did make a big deal of avoiding any possible indirect contact in the movie, there is never any hard evidence presented that infection could start at a microscopic level. IIRC correctly, it even says in the book that The Thing needs to take over a good chunk of the host's body at once (hence the tentacles, teeth and clothes ripping) or its cells won't get a firm enough grip inside their new body.

I will also point out that in the movie, several infected team members worked side by side for at least a week without viewing each other as threats. While it's possible that they simply didn't know the other was also infected, and never had a moment alone with them to settle the issue, I'm leaning with the assumption that The Thing knows its own, and so long as there are other hosts out there to infect, they'll refrain from attacking each other if the urge is there in the first place.

[Molyneux]

For what it's worth, TVtropes makes reference to a Dark Horse comic which states that the Thing cannot assimilate plant life, so there's that at least.

Wait, why the hell not?
What reason is given for that? There wasn't any mention in the movie or novella regarding plants either way, so why the hell are plants suddenly immune to infestation?

[VarrusTheEthical]

For what it's worth, TVtropes makes reference to a Dark Horse comic which states that the Thing cannot assimilate plant life, so there's that at least.

Wait, why the hell not?
What reason is given for that? There wasn't any mention in the movie or novella regarding plants either way, so why the hell are plants suddenly immune to infestation?

If I had to come up with an explanation, I would say that the Thing's cells cannot penetrate the cell-walls of plants. By that logic, the Thing would also not be able to assimilate fungus as well.

[Thinktank]

For what it's worth, TVtropes makes reference to a Dark Horse comic which states that the Thing cannot assimilate plant life, so there's that at least.

Wait, why the hell not?
What reason is given for that? There wasn't any mention in the movie or novella regarding plants either way, so why the hell are plants suddenly immune to infestation?

If I had to come up with an explanation, I would say that the Thing's cells cannot penetrate the cell-walls of plants. By that logic, the Thing would also not be able to assimilate fungus as well.

I have an easier explanation. Despite some pretty good scenes and art, those DH comics
sucked. "Climate of Fear" is such utter BS. It is in the effing jungle. You cannot contain
that kind of threat in a jungle full of jungle animals and plants...

If the "Thing" even got to the coastline of Antarctica, the Earth is screwed. There is billions
of tons of biomass that is of a fairly complex level in our oceans. One sealion or flock of
penguins get infected and into the water... Game Over.

In Star Wars the most dangerous plan it could enact is to slowly infect the senate trough the
senators' staff members. After all, they have to go home now and then...

[Oni Koneko Damien]

The more I think about it, the more I realize just how utterly screwed SW is. After a certain point, one of the infected will likely go out of their way to call law enforcement. "Yes officer, I saw a monster attack, it's over here in this isolated dark alley... TENTACLES!"

And once one officer is infected, that's the rest of that precinct fucked over, "Hey Dale, could you double check this report for me? Here, let me close the door for priva-TENTACLES!"

Imagine this happening and spreading across all police on a local level. And then even if people start connecting the dots with randomly sighted monster attacks, "Why yes, reporter, we at Coruscant Precinct 28648 had investigated those incidents. It turned out to be a hoax, you'll notice there have been no further reports from this precinct in nearly a month. In a show of openness and trust, actually, why don't I get you all the official transcripts of the reports? Here, they're back in records retention, right through this door-TENTACLES!"

"I can't thank you enough for this private interview, mayor. Like I said, I have evidence of massive corruption within Coruscant PD, but I also have a way for you to come out way ahead in it. Take a look at this-TENTACLES!"

"Yes Senator, I must apologize again for missing our last meal-night, responsibilities to my people and all. So, how is the wife? The daughter? Excellent. Listen, this may seem a little odd, but TENTACLES!"

"Thank you so much for responding to my message and meeting me here, Senator Mothball, it's good you understand the need for discretion in a case like this. Like I said, I've unearthed evidence of a growing conspiracy among the Senate, some of our very colleagues may actually be converting to some strange hive-mind entity that threatens the stability of our very Republic. Now the information my staff has gotten on this entity shows that it has TENTACLES!"

And so on.

[DudeGuyMan]

You're not thinking dirty enough. As soon as it finds it's way into whatever organization is supplying those senators with clean, discreet, high-quality space pussy (which you know has to be happening) that's basically that as far as the government goes.

[Metahive]

I will note that this is even without assuming The Thing can just infect food and water supplies. While the idea is scary, I don't think it's one of The Thing's capabilities. While they did make a big deal of avoiding any possible indirect contact in the movie, there is never any hard evidence presented that infection could start at a microscopic level.

Well, that's how Blair got infected IIRC, he stuck his pencil into some of the goo of the dead dog-Thing and then obliviously chewed on it later, ingesting some Thing-cells.

[Shroom Man 777]

there is never any hard evidence presented that infection could start at a microscopic level.

You mean the microscope footage of Thing cells infecting normal cells?

[Molyneux]

I will note that this is even without assuming The Thing can just infect food and water supplies. While the idea is scary, I don't think it's one of The Thing's capabilities. While they did make a big deal of avoiding any possible indirect contact in the movie, there is never any hard evidence presented that infection could start at a microscopic level.

Well, that's how Blair got infected IIRC, he stuck his pencil into some of the goo of the dead dog-Thing and then obliviously chewed on it later, ingesting some Thing-cells.

There's mention made on some wiki or other mentioned earlier on this thread, that Things have been known to put pieces of themselves into food supplies for the purpose of quick-and-easy quiet infection of target populations. No need to go all tentacley if you can get them to stick some Thing cells right into a mucous membrane.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

there is never any hard evidence presented that infection could start at a microscopic level.

You mean the microscope footage of Thing cells infecting normal cells?

Wasn't that just a simulation?