scientific theory

[Happygun]

[Wizard_of_odd]

[Queen of Night]

[CK01]

[UberMan5000]

[Queen of Night]

Um... Hobbs is Calvin's imaginary friend... everyone knows that...

And if we are really going to discuss real werewolves, there are of course people who do believe they are werewolves, just not to the extreme of PitW. Hell I know a guy who swears up and down he's half demon... Believe what you want, as I said I wasn't here to step on toes, I really just don't like senseless fighting on an open subject. It's like arguing religion, no one is right and no one is wrong but people go out and kill themselves for their personal beliefs to prove to others that they are right. There are plenty of scientific studies on where lycanthropy came from, and the believers have a million and two explainations on becoming a "real wereanimal". There are 1000's of websites out there if you really want to become one go find a site, move to Louisianna and find a vamp/were club and get your kicks. You really shouldn't take this shit so seriously -_-...

[Wizard_of_odd]

Queen , PLEASE dont encourage even more scary people to come down here to Louisiana

(we have enough of freaks and geeks galore WE DONT NEED ANY MORE! )

we may be the "official home of vampires and werewolves" but it doesnt mean I like any of the poeple who claim that they are...

Me and tyrant arent liked too much because when we are asked "do we want to fight" by larpers we occasionaly take it the wrong way and on our mistake have beaten a group of larper's to a bloody pulp...WHOOPS!

other than that , most people who claim to be either vamp/were are mostly anarexic pathetic losers with very little social life...

This being stated , I mostly just avoid them alltogether...

[Queen of Night]

Well in all reality I really would LOVE to say something about him moving to Louisiana... But I don't want Kris to give me a warning... And I'm about ih.... 85% sure I would get one.

Meh, I'm sure he's going to say something scathing when he returns but I really just want to close this whole post down for obvious reasons...

[Kris@WLP]

[UberMan5000]

[Happygun]

Here'a a little something I posted on a different forum a while back. It was inspired by Max Brook's excellent The Zombie Survival Guide - sort of a Werewolf equivalent . Though we originally planned on covering everything from werewolf psychology to combat tactics, we only got as far as etiology before people lost interest. The science is pretty weak, but hey, it's entertaining.

As I look back on it, a lot of the mechanisms are similar to what Uberman suggested. Perhaps I owe him an apology...

The Lupus Macrovirus

Lycanthropy – more commonly known as ‘the curse of the werewolf’ – is the condition where, among many other things, affected individuals transform into anthropomorphic wolves. We shall first examine the etiology of the disease, specifically the Lupus macrovirus, or L. macro – the agent through which the condition is passed from individual to individual.

Folklore holds that lycanthropy is spread when affected individuals bite or scratch others in their transfigured state. This would suggest that a microbe is responsible for the disease and, much like the Rhabdovirus rabies, is passed along when infected saliva or blood enters the host’s bloodstream. This is indeed the case (but see below on cell specificity). The macrovirus L. macro has been identified as the infectious vector.

Lupus macrovirus is not related to any known genus of virus or viroid. Its origin remains a mystery. It has not, as of this writing, been found outside the body of infected individuals. It is not airborne and can only survive for a limited duration (24 hours) in water, though its rate of decay increases dramatically in water with a high salinity or low pH. Its outer protein coat is irregularly shaped and embedded with numerous receptors, hence the nickname bestowed upon it by researchers – the “fuzzy” virus.

Lupus macrovirus is exceptional in many respects. Many researchers are even hesitant to label it a virus, though it shares many commonalities, among them the dependence on existent cells for replication. With that said, the L. macro differs from viruses in several ways. One, it is relatively large – over 800 nanometers in diameter – hence the genus “macrovirus.” This is comparable to many bacteria, E. coli being around a micrometer in length. Secondly, the organization and composition of L. macro is unlike anything else seen in nature. Whereas most virus coats hold at best the genome of the virus, a set of polymerases and a few other assorted proteins, L. macro carries a veritable slew of biomolecules and nucleotides, including both DNA and RNA, lipids, sugars, glycoproteins, and enzymes.

The complexity of the virus is staggering. Electron microscopy, mass spectrometry, and X-ray crystallography have revealed hundreds different proteins, many of which possess completely previously novel motifs and folding, bonded together to form highly organized complexes. There are also RNA-protein complexes similar to but much smaller than ribosomes throughout the protein coat. They seem to play a role similar to histones in the nucleus of eukaryotic cells; coils of DNA wrap along the protein/RNA complex, unwinding as the virus enters a cell. Dozens of other components remain unidentified, as they seem to consist of a conglomerate of organic and non-organic molecules.

What is truly astonishing is that the primary structure most of the virus’ proteins includes three previously unknown amino acids. They do not replace one or more of the twenty common amino acids in the three base-pair genetic code; they supplement existing ones, bringing the number of amino acids in the L. macro virus from 20 to 23. Some researchers attribute the extraordinary properties of the virus to their activity (see below).

Infection

L. Macro is spread when the virus enters the host’s blood vessels via lesions or sexual intercourse. Despite rumors to the contrary a carrier can spread the virus in both shapes, though for obvious reasons most infections occur when the carrier is in his or her anthropomorphic form. Upon contact with a host cell mistakenly identifies it as food and engulfs it. When the virus is transported to a lyzosome for digestion within the cell, the low pH triggers a complex enzymatic reaction that immediately lyses the vesicle and opens the virus capsid, releasing its contents into the cell before lyzosomal proteases have a chance to break it down. This may explain the L. macro’s vulnerability to acid (see above). Some scientists are attempting to create a countermeasure to the virus that exploits this weakness.

The virus spreads throughout the body with extraordinary quickness. This is due in part to its indiscriminate pattern of infection (see below) and its ability to accelerate its host’s metabolism. Whether or not they previously had the capacity to, infected cells immediately begin to manufacture a cocktail of hormones and/or excitatory neurotransmitters, stimulating the host’s sympathetic autonomic nervous system (this is only a mechanism to speed up the infection; it is not directly responsible for the transformation -Ed.). How this is accomplished is unknown, though it does explain the symptoms of nausea and exhilaration that follow infection.

Though technically a retrovirus, the degree to which it rewrites its host’s genetic code puts it in a league all its own. Most viruses are highly specific in what type of tissue they target. L. macro, however, appears capable of infecting virtually every cell in the human body! It even seems to be able to modify its host's chromosomes on an epigenetic level. No one has been able to propose a mechanism explaining this phenomenon.

[bordeux]

( huddles in a corner in feeeeeer )

yea dont kill me for a necro-bump but i cooouldnt pass this one up.

i read a few posts ( i succumbed to the TL:DR syndrome again )

and for the most part.. i'll stick with the schrodingers[sp?] cat theory.

in a nut shell, anything can happen. but it is when we finally discover the truth ( or a truth ) that the infinite possibilities disappear.

i cant really say that anything is an absolute. cause even in SCIENCE!!! absolutes dont necessarily exist.

so i guess what im trying to choke out of a dictionary is that. is it possible? sure. is it provable? given the lore and secrecy behind it. probably not. so given the theory werewolves have the potential to exist.

( can someone check my math on this one? i honestly think i got off topic and crossed some red wires somewhere :\ )

[nighthawke]

[Kris@WLP]

[The_Grey]

First at all, hello, I' ll present myself, The_Grey, Spanish geek and humanities sciences student at the UAB. I discovered recently PstW webcomic and I must admit I'll get kind of hooked to it. Anyways, I want to offer my two cents about some elements in the comic but instead of the biology and physics point of views from the humanities one. Note:My apologies for the bad english grammar, hope this will be enough understandable and comprehensible for you.

Without entering into the fields of "hard" science, my concept about why Sarah is bigger than the rest perhaps (appreciating in the process the "rule of funny") can be explain with using references to certain historical events and comparative mythology.
The first references we can find on European culture (omitting oral tradition)referring to werewolves are in Greek and roman literature, however the most interesting case is Gaius Petronius' Satyricon where one of the characters,Trimalchio, tells in a banquet tells a horror tale to his guests involving a werewolf. However the ambiguous description what that character offers concerning the beast is more related to the small creature more animal than humanoid if we compare it with the references from the middle ages. If we are evemerist, PitW world's Gaius Petronius perhaps had contact with the werewolves inside the Roman Empire' s orbit, what I'm going to refer as Loup-garou.
Those werewolves, distant from the hulking beasts we can see in pop culture sources as The Howling ,where more similar to the species Peter and his pack members belong, humanoid creatures with human standards size with a strong culture what perhaps was the roots of Celtic civilization.
If we think about the religious eclecticism the roman culture showed during the republican and the first imperial periods, the Celtic druids exception calls much the attention. Political questions aside, in PitW universe the true reason was because the druids where loup-garou or humans chosen by those (I will save a more detailed explanation of this for the next post).
For a man prepared like Julii Caesar it was easy to overcome the might of the loup-garou just by studying the historical references to celtic raids into greek and roman territory, he armed the entire 13th legion with silver weapons and started his famous campaing for obtain personal glory and wealth.
Instead of exterminate all the werewolves, the Senate firm a pact, those who promise to be loyal to the republic and the roman people values will be respected. Without enter into what happened during those unstable times and even the imperial period, we speculate the loup garou keep themselves on their ancestors land, the territorial extension what will become Occitania or Lenguadoc during the middle ages.
Meanwhile, in the north there will be a different kind of werewolf, one much more related to our modern vision and which will be the source of Fenrir key role on the norse myths. During the barbarian invasions at the end of the roman empire, those fenrisian werewolves expanded across the lands what where usually loup-garou territory, starting a political tension between the two species until the Albigenses crusade, where it snapped.
The fenrisian used the crusade as a vehicle for a ethnic cleansing, almost exterminating the loup garou in the process and becoming the predominant werewolf breed on the continent.
Now, back to Sarah, if we think about licanthropy as a retrovirus, perhaps there must cases of people who didn't become therianthropes as some kind of strange and unusual resistance to the disease. When Peter had sex with her he doesn't really infected her, just wake up the fenrisian genetic info on her DNA.

I will develop more some concepts exposed here in the next post.

[Kaeto]

Since part of the Legend of Rome says that it was founded by Romulus and Remus who were raised by a she-wolf. Who's to say that maybe she was actually a werewolf.

Although since by PitW standards Lycanthropy can be transmitted through mother's milk they would also them be weres.

[The_Grey]

[Kris@WLP]

This is less science and much more history, so I'm stepping in here.

The founding of Rome is pretty close to what I had in mind, yes- and the werewolf clan who ruled Rome was exterminated pretty much completely when the monarchy was overthrown. Pretty much every ruler, tyrant or emperor of Rome afterwards was human.

As for other lycanthrope types... well, there's been some limited mixing since the Bronze Age, around various initial borders. There's never been an organized pan-werewolf, pan-werecat, etc. jihad against any other type of were. Human cultures and natures have generally trumped were cultures- especially since were families tended to be isolated rather than large interconnected groups. As a general rule, the shifting fates of cultures and nations were not affected by lycanthropes.

As a very general rule, attitudes towards lycanthropes began in pre-historic times with fear, went to veneration and worship, then declined to acceptance during the Hellenic era. The shift from acceptance to intolerance in various portions of the world is a direct function of the decline of shamanism and animism in each region- Christanity in Europe, Islam in Persia, Arabia and Africa, Buddhism in mainland Asia, the state religions of the Aztec and Incan Empires.

By 1100 lycanthropes were anathema throughout Europe (except in the Balkans, where superstition had its strongest hold), anathema through the Caliphate, deeply suspect or anathema from India to Japan and all points between, treated as infidels in the Inca lands, and on the decline in the shortly-to-fall Maya lands. Among the various barbarian tribes still close to animism- the Mongols, the Indian tribes that succeeded the Cahokian civilization in North America, the Amazon tribes of South America, much if not most of sub-Saharan Africa for example- lycanthropes retained their status.

(There were no lycanthropes in Australia prior to the beginning of European colonization. No one knows exactly why.)

By about the same time in most parts of the Old World- c. 1650 or so- mindsets shifted from hating and fearing lycanthropes to believing them mythical. That trend spread to the New World with the expansion of colonial rule- in many cases jumping native cultures straight from acceptance to myth without the intervening extermination.

And repeating two main points: first, that lycanthrope culture is not significantly different from whatever human culture it's within; and second, that lycanthropes as a rule were not the prime movers in major human history. There will be a few exceptions (Egypt and Rome being the big two in my head at the moment), but mostly humans rule humans, and lycanthropes are along for the ride.

That's how it is for PitW. Other werewolf stories may be different.

[The_Grey]

[cawsking555]

[cawsking555]

[stormydragon]

[Happygun]

[cawsking555]

yes we can you have 2 sets of DNA one is a human and the other is infected with lycanth so you compare the DNA and see WATS not spouse to be their.

it in the middle of the chain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA
it expalines

[Happygun]