Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamb And this is the
Speaker 2: Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind, focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in
Speaker 2: time our journey through the alien universe. This time brings
Speaker 2: us to the mysterious planet for the rotting paradise of
Speaker 2: Alien Covenant. Once an occupied world of the Engineers, the
Speaker 2: planet suffered a mass extinction event at the hands of
Speaker 2: the rogue android David. Descending from the sky in a
Speaker 2: stolen Engineer starship, he unleashed a devastating bombardment of the
Speaker 2: skeetide ampules eradicating most non botanical non fungal life with
Speaker 2: the dreaded evolutionary accelerant agent A zero slash thirty nine
Speaker 2: to fifty nine x dot ninety one slash fifteen. But
Speaker 2: as we've explored already, the black Goo doesn't destroy everything
Speaker 2: in such incidents. No, it also creates new dangerous organisms
Speaker 2: to prowl the lifeless borders of devastation, and it tends
Speaker 2: to find its way back to the basic form of
Speaker 2: a xenomorphic predator, in this case, working its way up
Speaker 2: from fungal and possibly insect life. The neomorph begins as
Speaker 2: a fungal growth that produces small pods or egg sacs,
Speaker 2: which release a swarm of moats upon disturbance. These moats
Speaker 2: are able to move through the air by their own volition,
Speaker 2: sometimes synchronizing in murmerations to zero in on a potential
Speaker 2: host organism's vulnerable orifices. The moats are often compared to
Speaker 2: plant pollen, though of course pollen depends on vectors such
Speaker 2: as wind or other organisms to move from one plant
Speaker 2: to the next. We might instead be tempted to compare
Speaker 2: these moats to fairy flies or fairy wasps, the smallest
Speaker 2: known flying organisms. As pointed out by Julius Klarr in
Speaker 2: a twenty twenty four article for The Sierra Club, fairy
Speaker 2: wasp body length can measure as little as zero point
Speaker 2: one three nine millimeters, equal to the thickness of a
Speaker 2: human hair, so it's not out of the question for
Speaker 2: something so small to be capable of powered and deliberate flight.
Speaker 2: According to Freeley Publishing's Alien RPG source books, the neomorph
Speaker 2: moats make their way into a host's body, where they
Speaker 2: deliver microscopic amounts of the black goo to the host's
Speaker 2: blood stream, and then the moats die. In the blood,
Speaker 2: the evolutionary accelerant mutates white blood cells, forming a tumor
Speaker 2: like mass that rapidly develops into an embryo, referred to
Speaker 2: as a blood burster. When this small quadruped is ready
Speaker 2: to emerge from the host, it bursts out through whatever
Speaker 2: part of the anatomy is most accessible the mouth, the back,
Speaker 2: even an eye socket. It depends in large part on
Speaker 2: where the tumor develops. If it survives, the bloodbuster rapidly
Speaker 2: develops into a neomorph. These medium size pales xenomorphic predators
Speaker 2: boast goblin shark like protrusible jaws, much like the deacon
Speaker 2: that we previously discuss, along with a whipping spike tail
Speaker 2: in a cluster of dorsal spikes, which, as a blood burster,
Speaker 2: aids in its emergence. Let's talk a bit more about
Speaker 2: those goblin shark jaws. Though the deep sea Mitsukarina ostoni
Speaker 2: isn't alone in having protrusible jaws. Shark jaws are not
Speaker 2: attached to the organism's cartilage skull and move as separate parts,
Speaker 2: allowing for varying degrees of protrusion when attacking prey. The
Speaker 2: goblin shark merely boasts the most extreme jaw protrusion known,
Speaker 2: both in terms of reach and speed. According to a
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen article by Nakaya at All published in Scientific Reports,
Speaker 2: the jaw sling shots forward at a maximum velocity of
Speaker 2: three point one meters per second to eight point six
Speaker 2: to nine point four pcent of the total length of
Speaker 2: the shark. They cited the phylogenetic evidence that suggests the
Speaker 2: adaptation evolved in response to their food poor deep sea
Speaker 2: environment and is a possible trade off for the loss
Speaker 2: of strong swimming ability. It might not be able to
Speaker 2: catch desired prey in an all out pursuit, but if
Speaker 2: they get close enough, their jaw length can make up
Speaker 2: the difference. As seen in alien covenant, neomorphs can act
Speaker 2: as both pack hunters and solitary stalkers. While they may
Speaker 2: enter prolonged states of hibernation, they're ultimately short lived and
Speaker 2: don't seem to engage in any form of host procurement
Speaker 2: or parasitic reproduction while alive. When they die or are killed,
Speaker 2: their corpses simply produce more sporesas ready to release more
Speaker 2: black moats when a potential host ventures near. Now, in
Speaker 2: the natural world, we certainly have organisms that die after reproduction,
Speaker 2: what we call simularity. These organisms reproduce but a single
Speaker 2: time and then die. Pacific salmon are a great example
Speaker 2: of this, along with certain insects and molluscs. The neomorph, however,
Speaker 2: would seem to reproduce through death, which is of course
Speaker 2: a fitting xenomorphic and gigresqu twist on everything it kills,
Speaker 2: it dies, and through its death it ideally spreads more
Speaker 2: of those motes that will produce new blood bursters and
Speaker 2: new neomorphs, presumably until all life on a world is
Speaker 2: reduced to just a few hibernating xenos and their weighting
Speaker 2: fungal eggsacts, we might reasonably compare it to various pathogens
Speaker 2: that spread via contact with dead hosts. That is the neomorph.
Speaker 2: But hey, tune in for additional episodes of the Monster
Speaker 2: Fact each week. Our Alien series will continue next week
Speaker 2: with the classic xenomorph eggs, so we are going to
Speaker 2: get into the classic xenomorph life cycle and biology. So
Speaker 2: write in if you have thoughts on anything we've covered
Speaker 2: thus far, and as always, you can email us at contact,
Speaker 2: it's Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com.
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