Methods of infection.

[Searif]

i like the fact of genetics and being bitten, under a full moon when you are bitten though? well if you are bitten under a full moon i think what should happen is that you will turn into a werewolf, but you will be unable to controll yourself at all so you go on a killing freenzy... but thats just my thoughts

[Kzinistzerg]

If it's a virus, then you would probably have an incubation period.

[Scott Gardener]

In my works, I gave the incubation period a week to ten days; I figured that was the bare minimum amount of time it would take for a few thousand viruses to replicate enough to occupy the trillions of cells throughout the human body and to make the neccessary and rather ambitious modifcations. Any faster would risk killing the host from a hemorrhagic fever similar to ebola.

GURPS agreed with my math; when I tried their game system for designing a metamorphic virus, plugging in all the features of my version of lycanthropy, I came out with a ten day incubation period.

But, a one month incubation period would be easier to swallow, and would make sense for those of you who use the full moon. Someone gets bitten by a werewolf on a full moon. The following full moon, one month later, would be when the incubation period would have finished and the person ready to shift.

I haven't read too many sources that included scratches as contageous--mostly fan works. (I found one book.) Generally, in order to get it, it has to be a bite. I can't flat out say that scratches don't work, but it doesn't make sense if you follow a virus theory, unless the thing were so contageous that light contact could spread the thing. If, however, you opt for a metaphysical phenomenon, then you could do it that way.

And, let's face it. So many of us like the idea of infectious lycanthropy because it leaves open the daydream that somehow, somewhere, they're out there, and you can still get pulled into their world.

[Aki]

Scratches could work, if say the were got his (or another were's) blood on his claws. Assuming the saliva also contained the virus, you could end up gettng it on the claws easily too.

Granted through, claw infection is gonna have a lower chance of happening than a bite.

[Scott Gardener]

Maybe if one slobbered on one's claws before slashing--but, that conveys deliberate intent to infect, as opposed to biting someone followed by his or her happening to get away and survive.

[Stone Wolf]

Suppose that the virus is spread in such ways as being bitten and/or scratched, and the virus does take and incubation period of about ten days could the virus also be a deliverer of a gene, similar to what happened to giraffs.... and it is passed down through the generations and becomes a recesive trait, what would happened if a person with this recesive trait becomes infected again what would happen? Would the new infection cause the gene to become active or what?

Just an interesting point some of my friends and I were pondering....

[Scott Gardener]

Recessive traits are such because they are suppressed by normal genes. Re-infection would only work if the infecting virus also shut off the normal genes. But, it could work if it did.

However, for the record, there is no way that all of lycanthropy could be done with one gene, let alone a recessive one. It would take a ton of dominant genes to regulate shapeshifting.

[Kzinistzerg]

In my version of were creatures you have to be exposed for a while to actually get it, or you have to have gotten it delibrately transmitted.

I made it so that were you to have a werewolf father, you would not be one, but a werewolf mother would expose you long enough for the virus to take effect. If you were bitten it would not work unless you were slobbered on excessively. You could get it from a scratch, but only if the giver used magic (for lack of a better word) to preserve the virus.

The reason you needed to actually get exposed for a while is that your immune system would kill it off if not preserved or if there wasn't a large enough pool of it already.

Then again, the are multiple variants of the virus (for different species as well as for entire families of animals and also different regional effects). There is one type that is highly infectious because of its fast reproduction rate and its immunity towards your immune system. Unfourtunately, it kills you after ten or so years while degenerating your brain and making you go insane. It selectively ruinsthe forebrain while leaving the motor cortex for last. It also allows the Kaiia (alien species) to partially controll you.

The virus makes you immune to most diseases, since it bolters your imune system and actively protects its host, but you still aren't entirely immmune to some diseases thatwork too fast or have evolved resistances.

So that took a long time. But that's how it works in my universe (well, not the one in my profile - a variant being typed by me alone, using most of the ideas and info from Shadowmoon Wolf.).

[Stone Wolf]

I didn't mean that lycanthropy was done by one gene alone. I was just saying that the virus could become part of the host's DNA....

I also meant that the gene/s could be recessive in some people and dominant in others, that could be why you don't see a lot of wws around...
It was just a thought....

[Kzinistzerg]

Hmmm... it could be that the gene(s) is(are) recessive, so for it to work you wuld need a double recessive... and the gene(s) itself(themselves) would be rare

[Stone Wolf]

Thank you

Tha's what I was trying to get at....

[Apokryltaros]

Actually, you can't have werewolves through a "recessive" gene because "recessive" means, in this case, that, the gene that normally codes for a particular protein has been "turned off," in that it no longer makes the protein that does whatever it's supposed to do, whether that's to make antigenic proteins for your red blood cells, or to keep your hair straight, and not curly, or to make pink pigments to keep your petals from being white.
Contrary to what White Wolf said, in that it "was a recessive gene where less than 1 in 10 get,"
I would think that lycanthropy would be caused by a whole suite of dominant genes, as, after all, it would seem logical that turning into a werewolf would necessitate a veritable encyclopedia's worth of proteins, enzymes and hormones.
That all of these genes be extremely rare, and that they do not manifest a phenotype if even one of the genes are missing, would explain why inherited "true" lycanthropy is unknown to medicine and genetics.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Actually, you can't have werewolves through a "recessive" gene because "recessive" means, in this case, that, the gene that normally codes for a particular protein has been "turned off," in that it no longer makes the protein that does whatever it's supposed to do, whether that's to make antigenic proteins for your red blood cells, or to keep your hair straight, and not curly, or to make pink pigments to keep your petals from being white.
Contrary to what White Wolf said, in that it "was a recessive gene where less than 1 in 10 get,"
I would think that lycanthropy would be caused by a whole suite of dominant genes, as, after all, it would seem logical that turning into a werewolf would necessitate a veritable encyclopedia's worth of proteins, enzymes and hormones.
That all of these genes be extremely rare, and that they do not manifest a phenotype if even one of the genes are missing, would explain why inherited "true" lycanthropy is unknown to medicine and genetics.

To clarify something, White Wolf's Garou's werewolf side was spiritual in nature. The gene was only there to facilitate the spirtual transformation, to allow it to " turn on " as it were. It's not there to completely change them.

[netherwurm]

It just accord to me. Werewolves are superior to humans, and according to evolution they will eventually cause the extinction of the human race. I mean whats stopping the virus from spreading through every human on the face of the earth? Of course it would probably take a few hundred/thousand years.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

One reason I don't really suscribe to the disease theory......

[Kzinistzerg]

...Nothing, and that's probbly what would make it so scary...

[Stone Wolf]

It wouldn't necesarily cause the exstinction of the human race after all humans tend to destroy what they do not understand....

[Kzinistzerg]

it woudnt unless it killed people.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

If everyone on the planet became werecreatures then there wouldn't be any homo sapiens left.......

Perhaps they would be classified Homo Lupus

[Kzinistzerg]

... it would only be so if it actually changed the base DNA everywhere, permanently, to the point where they could not mate and produce children. (lupus/sapiens.)

[Scott Gardener]

Werewolves made by a virus would still most likely count as their species of origin. That is, if I got bitten by a werewolf and then became one myself, I'd still be a human and not a wolf, even if I could look like one.

Unless the virus was extremely sophisticated--enough to throw out human DNA and build a wolf genome from scratch, and then reconstruct the human genome on top of it. But, why bother doing all that when you can get the same effect for considerably less work as described above?

Reproduction is a useful tool for defining species, but it has its limits. It was used by taxonomists to follow genetic trends in the mating habits of populations. It breaks down when you start getting into genetic engineering, when new species are mixed up artificially.

My storyline involves lycanthropy via a virus, and I have my scientists reach the general consensus that a human infected with lycanthropy is still a human. Later on, as humanity develops genetic engineering technology, werewolves are described as the first examples of genetically modified humans. A "purebred" human without genetic modifications is referred to as a "genetic standard human."

[Stone Wolf]

Sounds reasonable...

[Kzinistzerg]

Meh. I read the story, so i knwo what you're talking about... however, to make a new species, it really does depend on how much the base DNA is changed; if it's a suppliment it's just a virus, if its CHANGED it's a new species.