Who+Goes+There+Questions

Place any questions you might have here.... and help answer some of the questions too!!

Okay, so I know we had this discussion yesterday, but I'm still not grasping the whole concept of The Thing eats something and then it multiplys. If it eats it, then it's gone right? Even though it makes a copy of it, that's technically not multipying anything, just producing a carbon copy image right? Please help me out!! =/

THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING!!!


 * bhlspectrum:** Well, I think you have the right idea. It is making copies of the animals it devours, so it isn't techincally multiplying but rathering coping or making reproductions. Something along those lines. However, feel free to add to the discussion and offer your interpretations.


 * hannah_dh:** if it's not making more of anything, then why copy it? is it somehow changing it or something? i understand that the copy can go copy, but but, why?!


 * bhlspectrum:** I’m missing the page number (I checked the online version of the text) – I’ll add it when I find my copy of the story (or someone can add it, its in Chapter 6). However, this quote can help explain it:

//Blair shook his head and gulped. "It's - it doesn't have to. It weighed 85 pounds. Charnauk weighed about 90. It would have become Charnauk, and had 85 pounds left, to become - oh, Jack for instance, or Chinook. It can imitate anything - that is, become anything. If it had reached the Antarctic Sea, it would have become a seal, maybe two seals. They might have attacked a killer whale, and become either killers, or a herd of seals. Or maybe it would have caught an albatross, or a skua gull, and flown to South America."// //Norris cursed softly. "And every time, it digested something, and imitated it - "// //"It would have had its original bulk left, to start again," Blair finished. "Nothing would kill it. It has no natural enemies, because it becomes whatever it wants to. If a killer whale attacked, it would become a killer whale. If it was an albatross, and an eagle attacked it, it would become an eagle. Lord, it might become a female eagle. Go back - build a nest and lay eggs!"//

So it can make copies of things, for the purpose of controlling/using it. Then it still has its original form to start all over again. The copies could then begin making copies, because it is extension of the original Thing. So, if one wants to use the term “multiplying” then they could be referring to the fact the Thing is expanding itself by making copies…


 * hannah_dh:** ok, so: the thing can control the copies it makes? so it's like the thing is just making itself more... the copies are just the Thing in another form...? Am I on the right track here? or is this a complete misinterpretation?


 * bhlspectrum:** yeah, I think you got it. It can control the copies it makes because it is the copies it makes.


 * OneSongGlory14:** I think I get it...So it doesn't matter wheater or not it makes more It's not like a whole "take over the world by invading it with more of me" type thing but just the whole "I can control your mind" type thing right?

//"Only in this creature, the cell-nuclei can control those cells at// will//. It digested Charnauk, and as it digested, studied every cell of his tissue, and shaped its own cells to imitate them exactly. Parts of it - parts that had time to finish changing - are dog-cells. But they don't have dog-cell nuclei." Blair lifted a fraction of the tarpaulin. A torn dog's leg with stiff gray fur protruded. "That, for instance, isn't dog at all; it's imitation. Some parts I'm certain about; the nucleus was hiding itself, covering up with dog-cell imitation nucleus. In time, not even a microscope would have shown the difference."// Once it attacks or devours something it kills that organism and makes a copy of it. So that original person or animal or whatever is dead and gone. What is left is an exact copy of the thing it ate (all the way down to the memories and thoughts). The copy of is a part, or extension, of the Thing. It will take over the world because (to quote Blair again): //The scalpel he had been fumbling in his bony fingers dropped; he bent to pick it up, so that his face was hidden as he spoke. "It would become the population of the world."//
 * bhlspectrum:** This quote from Chapter 6 might help, its Blair explaining...


 * OneSongGlory14:** Okay!! *Lightbulb clicks on* I get it now. On the outside it looks the same but yet, on the inside, it holds a deep secret. It is part of The Thing and, just like you or I can control our arms and legs, it can control whatever it devours!!!! I get it!! Yay!


 * CrazeSus142011:** Ok, I think I get it...so when it maes the copies/imitations of the other beings, it's still got like, what it itself started with, and at the same time it can control all the copies that it's made....oh, I get it now! Hehe...yeah, this thing's been confused up in my tiny noggin all this time, anyway, thank you!!!

The following description comes from a book called //Barlowe's Guide To Extra-Terrestrials// and according to someone on Wikipedia this book "contains his (the artist's) visualizations of different alien species from various works of science fiction.
 * bhlspectrum:** I ran across this description and picture of the Thing the other day. I figured this would be a good place to share it.

"**Physical Characteristics:** The Thing is an entity made up of protoplasmic cells that can take any form at will. In its rarely-seen natural state, it is about 1.5 meters tall, with rubbery blue flesh and four armlike appendages ending in seven tentacled hands. The pulpy head has three gleaming red eyes and thick writhing tendrils. The Thing's intelligence does not reside in a single brain, but in every cell of its body. If even a few cells of the Thing are separated from it, they organize into an individual intelligent entity. The Thing eats by absorbing the mass of its body, inceasing in size by that amount.

The Thing prefers an environment where the temperature is about 50 degrees Celsius. It is not known what kind of atmosphere the Thing evolved in, since it is able to alter its body to breathe any gas. From the artificial light sources built by the Thing, it is assumed that it came from a planet orbiting a hot blue star."
 * Habitat:**

For the truly geeky, like myself, or just the curious here is the amazon.com link to the book:
 * [|Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials: Great Aliens from Science Fiction Literature (Paperback)]

Vereaux (Pronounced: V-er-oo {It's French ^^}; Real name: Michael Coffee):** I found the physcial characteristics of the Thing to be slightly incorrect in the first sentence because the Thing can not take **any** form at will that it wants to be at first. If it could simply think of a form to be and then be it, the crew at the camp would long be dead in the story and it would "become the population of the world." It must first digest or make contact with the being it wants to become before it can become it. When it does, then it can became it at any moment it so chooses to be since every cell within its body acts like it has a brain of its own. Otherwise, it's impossible for it to change to anything it wishes.