ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Thinking Outside the "Plot"!
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This strange alien species presents a puzzling contradiction.

On the one hand, it seems to be sentient and highly intelligent. While mimicking members of the humans, each alien seems to have all the knowledge of the original it morphed into.

On the other hand, we never see two or more of the aliens working as a team to lure various humans into situations where they could be absorbed. They always work alone.

Couldn't two-of-more aliens easily isolate individual humans and convert them to the alien versions?

Certain animal species of Earth, such as wolves, hunt in packs and trap there prey by cooperating. So . . . don't these aliens ever do this? Two aliens could overpower a lone man and absorb him — and then the three aliens could . . .

Well, you get the idea.

Consider how organized the "pod people" were in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. They took over an entire town, and they had plans to quickly move on to nearby towns as well!

~ A Question for the Members: Were the aliens in this story somehow incapable of cooperating with each other so that their efforts to replace all the humans would be more successful?

~ My Theory: Frankly I've got no explanation for why aliens who appear to be intelligent can't devise a unified plan for their group survival.

Come on, guys, this question is rip for discussion! Jump right in a dazzles us with a few new and scintillating ideas!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Morbius]

The thing-alien that crash landed in Antarctica was not a representative of the real alien race. Rather it was a genetic carrier. Its purpose was to infect the dominant life form on the planet.

Once one person is genetically altered, all other surviving representatives can be infected as well.

The many different genetic copies (obtained from various other worlds) are just a medicine chest of DNA for application. When the best well-suited genetic copies survive on earth (resisting environmental factors as well as resident, Earthly bacteria, and viruses), a separate batch of residual DNA can be triggered which will put whatever infected lifeforms there are remaining on earth into a subservient population, awaiting the arrival of the real alien conquerors.

This explains why the “thing” and all its various manifestations has no real intellect, just one purpose — to infect. The ship it arrived on was not really piloted by the thing, just a remote drone carrying its deadly cargo.

[Bud Brewster]

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That is a wonderful analysis of the story's premise!

In view of the totally alien nature of the "Thing', I accept your explanation for why the individual aliens don't work together they way organisms on Earth do.

Individual ants don't have the ability to reason, but the hive intelligence does amazing things which astound us!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)