how does it work?

[Anubis]

lets say that werewolf uses a virus to rewrite DNA. but how does it work?
here is my idea.

once the virus made's it way threw into the blood stream. at firts the virus multiplys like the common cold or you'll might call it the "encubation period" then the virus makes rewriters that rewrites the host's DNA. like the HIV virus it first attacts the imune system giving the host the imune sytsem of a werewolf first. so the imune system wont interfear with the rewritting. then the virus makes more and more rewriters than the muliplyers. every thime a cell busts with new viruses 95% are rewriters and 5% are multiplyers. it keeps on rewitting the DNA in the cell until the host is 100% werewolf then the imune system cleans up the virus. then with the host's new regenerative powers it transform for its first TF

so there is my idea got any better ones ?

[Apokryltaros]

I don't think the werewolf virus, if it is a virus, would need to disable the host's immune system. Once a host's immune system has been disabled, the host is good as dead, as people who have compromised immune systems, whether through disease, or faulty genes, tend to die soon from virtually any opportunistic pathogens, including yeast or protozoa or otherwise harmless bacterial commensals.
I would think that it would only be necessary for the werewolf pathogen to insert "werewolf-inducing" genes into the victim's DNA, and then for the pathogen to replicate itself in order to infect most of the victim's DNA.
There have been several threads discussing how a person becomes a werewolf...

[Anubis]

yeah but not like this we've been talking about like a virus, magic and etc.
but we never talked about how the virus worked.

[Apokryltaros]

http://calypso-blue.com/werewolf/viewto ... ight=virus

[Veruth]

I don't think he meant disabling the immune system, just replacing or augmenting it to make the werewolf immune system. I agree with Anubis

[Apokryltaros]

Well, a virus no need of "multipliers" or "rewriters," anyhow.
A virus inserts its own genome into a host cell, and either the cell immediately begins making more viruses, or the virus' genome integrates with the host's genome, so that the host cell, or the descendents of the cell can make more viruses later.
It's this latter ability that allows scientists to use viruses to insert genes from one organism into another.
Furthermore, when a cell that has inherited a viral genome undergoes stress of some sort, its heritage may become activated, and begin making more viruses. In one case, there are these "adeno-helper" helper viruses that can infect cells, but can only replicate in and kill their hosts only if their hosts are already infected with an adeno virus, or are cancer cells.

[Wolveblade]

Maybe if it was a virus and it did enter a body then maybe it would activate a recessive gene in the human.

For example a DNA strand: it has dominate and recessive genes. A virus with maybe a chemical or something enter the body and the recessive gene for werewolf suddenly becomes dominate. Its like puberty for humans. How things change with dominate and recessive genes.

Plus that explains how werewolves can exist with out being bitten. It is genetic. Recessive and dominate genes.

[Apokryltaros]

I feel like Morbo...

"Gee, I hope those windmills will help those poor turtles cool off."

"WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY: GOOD NIGHT"

Genetic dominance and recessivity do not work that way.
A dominant gene means that only one copy of the gene is needed for an organism to make "normal" amounts of that specific product.
A recessive gene means either that two copies of the gene are needed to make "normal" amounts of the specific product, or the organism in question happens to lack functional copies of the "normal" gene.
I believe you're talking about inactivated genes...
And reactivating them, like say, reactivating the gene that makes beta galactosidease, the enzyme that breaks down lactose.

[Merrypaws]

Okay, my two cents... (bear with me, English is my second language and I'm not sure if I can express this clearly enough)

If memory serves, viruses replicate themselves by infecting a host cell with their own DNA, so that the infected cell starts producing copies of the virus.
So, the werewolf virus (let's call it WV) would most likely also add the transformation factor to the cell. Then as more and more cells become infected, the virus would spread to the whole body.
In many movies and books it is said that the newly-bitten is very weak and often feverish during the time between the bite and the first transformation, which in this light makes perfect sense to me.
Then, as the infection spreads, the body would adapt to the virus (partially due to the ww healing factor that starts to kick in) and eventually settle into a symbiosis with it.
Voila, we have a new werewolf.

[Veruth]

Sounds about right to me. (The english was fine, a lot better than many native speakers )

[Curan]

Hmmhh ... my thoughts about the infection follow the same way. (As my english is far away of beeing good I hope myself I can make my thoughts clear.) A virus ist something between a living organism und a biological macromolecule, because they haven't an own metabolism. That's why they infect calls in order to use their metabolism for reproduction of viral RNA and protein hulls.
But this is not the intention of an werewolf virus (WV). A WV's task ist to generate a transformation matrix for transforming human genetic code into werewolf genetic code. So they work as cloning vectors to provide the technical funktionality for this transformation.
But I think the nature of this transformation is not to destroy human genes to replace them with werewolf genes. If it were done in this way, the victim were a twin, an exact dublicate of that WW who infected him.
This cloning vector must add genetic information to and intigrate it in the exsisting human code, which add the abbility to do a transformation into a werewolf.
Another difference to a common virus is, the donor (the infected cell) doesn't produce further cloning vectors. This task have special cells like lymphatic glands.

Now we have to talk about the process during a shift. This topic is really a very complicated one. The inner cell process must be a kind of gene repression, which initiate the physical transformation.

Hmmhh ... okay this is not really deep molecular genetic stuff, but my english is not good enough to dive in deeper in this enteresting stuff. So that's it for the moment. I'm sorry.

[Shadow Wulf]

Dont worry Curan, your doing just fine. I understand clearly.

[Fenrir]

If you want to go into more detail for your stuff Curan go to
http://babelfish.altavista.com/
or
http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_s ... lator.html

Ich kann nicht Deutsches sprechen
There's an example.
Μπορώ, εντούτοις, μιλήστε τα ελληνικά

[Shadow Wulf]

[Fenrir]

no I can't understand you
Μπορείτε να διαβάσετε αυτό;

[Wolveblade]

it was worth a try but it could be like puberty when certain genes become active and the body changes or like a virus make the person violently ill possibly killing them or they recover...well sort of

[white]

Anyway; For the most part, this is making sense, though it'd take a huge amount of energy from somewhere to execute the transformation itself. More on that later. I imagine the infection process would be pretty much as Curan described; the virus would go in and modify the new system, adding and changing things, but not replacing it all. Perhaps the source of the virus would have some influence on the traits of the resultant werewolf, or perhaps the virus would make the changes independant of wherever it came from, working solely from the genetic makeup of the new body, sort of like a procedural filter in Photoshop. I favor the latter, but it's close.

Back to the transformation itself. All that energy for moving things around, and possibly getting more matter, has to come from somewhere. From Einstein's equations, we know that matter and energy can be converted to eachother; scuch a process is, in fact, used in nuclear reactors. Given some VERY weird biological structures, I suppose that transformation to a lower-massed body could be powered by fusion, and the energy from that stored somehow for transformation back. However, even this leaves the question of where energy and/or matter for higher-mass transformations come from; namely, to the gestalt form. Assuming near-100% efficiency in both the transformation and the storage of energy, perhaps this is why the first transformation is typically the hardest/most painful, and effects the human form (raising health; removal of much fat, plus encouraging the body to be more vital in its reconstruction of lost tissue) so quickly; the necessary energy could be gathered from body fats and various other non-vital tissues, combined with, perhaps, a small store of energy transferred from the WW who did the biting. Add to that the possibility that the first transformation to a higher-mass form is significantly impaired the first few times (weaker, smaller by a small factor), until enough energy has been garnered over time from things such as the digestive process, and you have a plausable explanation. Except for how the transformation itself is executed, but for now I'll attribute that to some more specialized modifications and leave it to someone else to add detail.

Time to get back to my homework

[Lupin]

However, even this leaves the question of where energy and/or matter for higher-mass transformations come from; namely, to the gestalt form.

Yes, that would be difficult. I calculated it out one day, and assuming a perfect conversion and 100% efficiency, the energy in one pound of matter would be enough to power my home for 30 years of Julys.





Edit: That figure was calculated on the fact that this July, I used 1,772 kWh of electricity.

[Scott Gardener]

Viruses do biological changes. I have a hard time seeing DNA molecules and proteins by themselves manipulating subatomic reactions, generating mass, and so forth.

You could do a transdimensional phenomenon. Heck, I've worked with the idea of an "astral virus," a virus-like phenomenon that is transmitted through the astral plane rather than as a biological subcellular agent. Could explain vampires, but I did it as a plot device in a far future werewolf story. In fact, I'll be Nanowrimoing that same story this November into my third novel--going against my own statement about werewolves conserving mass. (It's not the same kind of lycanthropy that my character Scott Gardener has, but one that gets invented two millennia later using future technology.)

[Anubis]

that sound awesome! i want to read your books but my mom wont let me down load ANY thing

[white]

I'm not suggestiong something nearly so arcane as the virii themselves manipulating atomic reactions; I was theorizing about an amazing strange organ that could be created as part of the permanent, present-in-all-forms modifications.

Elaborating on my earlier ideas, perhaps it takes quite a while for a werewolf's first transformation to come about, as the appropriate facilities gather energy in such a manner as would not disrupt everyday life too much, and leave you with enough to get by with. Just gotta hope that the werewolf who bit ye had enough sense to kidnap ye simultaneously, or a badly timed medical exam might turn up some VERY interesting results...

[Curan]

[white]

Admittedly, a organic fusion reactor and energy storage system is stretching things a bit, but does anyone else have any ideas for a realistic excuse as to where all that extra mass/energy goes/comes from?

[Figarou]

Admittedly, a organic fusion reactor and energy storage system is stretching things a bit, but does anyone else have any ideas for a realistic excuse as to where all that extra mass/energy goes/comes from?

Its best to keep it as a mystery. Ask a real werewolf and he'll shrug his shoulders.

[Lupin]

I think Lupin and scott are right. No virus is able to control subatomar processes. And I don't know any construction (biological or technological) that would be able to store such a mass of energy.

I always liked 'borrowing energy from the quantum foam' (which is what happens in radioactive decay) but you can't do it for any length of time, and you start getting into Star Trek explinations.