Gene-Splicing

[MalignantT]

So I was looking at the translating the Marro thread, and began thinking about possible set ups for Marro society, and I kept coming back to gene-splicing.

And it got me wondering, are the Marro like the Borg or the Zerg?
(if you got better and more accessible metaphors, by all means, please use 'em... these were just the first one's that came to mind)

So the Borg take extant life forms, "Borgify" them, and they got a new hybridized member.
Whereas the Zerg (with the exception of Kerrigan) take other life forms and add the other DNA to their own to produce a specialized hybrid from a zerg larva.


I was thinking in the context of "Mind Shackle", that the Marro might opt for the Borg strategy, and then Hives become not birthing incubators of freshly created individuals, but instead are factories where a dominated life form is the input, and some Marro sub-type is the output.

I think that would also explain the TKN, SBN and MBS's mounts. WGS becomes a great serpent that's been "Marrofied", but I dont know what to think about KMS, unless she's two different creatures that were joined though the Marrofication.

Where Groks and Nagrubs would come from is still a mystery, unless they are symbiotic creatures... which makes sense for the Groks at least. Maybe that's an explanation why Groks can't be re-birthed, because they are not Marrofied creatures.



In this framework, the Marro are like the classic ideas of the Undead or Lycanthropes, where the condition is a disease... a permanent skin-eating disorder with a wacky bone-muscular structure growing over grafted bits of whatever (see NGS, Drudge,or the new Dividers).

It was a thought.

[Lord Pyre]

Well, I'm assuming you mean the Borg from Star Trek, but I have no idea what the hack a Zerg is.

[Cavalier]

Originally Posted by Lord Pyre

Well, I'm assuming you mean the Borg from Star Trek, but I have no idea what the hack a Zerg is.

Zerg:

[StarofEarendil]

I think in most cases it is this Zerg-ish kind of Marrofication.
To me it seems the Marro noticed how well the Vipers could do and then created Wo-Sa-Ga to match their power.

[Nooblar]

I've always thought of it in the Zerg context, and once the parasite reached sentience through infection of thinking beings the Marro began to experiment with borg-like modifications.

[Einar Gen.]

I've always thought of it as being like the Tyranids in Warhammer 40k. Basically they plant spores into other creatures and they become the same thing. The reasoning behind this is the marro hive, which tends to make the marro seem like bugs. That, and the fact that they seem more like a "swarm"...

[Fencerjared]

Storywise, I see them more as the Zerg, otherwise the Hive wouldn't have the extant life forms to "Marro-fy" on Valhalla. In that case, the Groks, Nagrubs, and Wulsinu would breed on their own. Also, the reason the Groks can't be rebirthed (from what I glean from the power title), is that they would be rebirthed but would be useless as mounts without their training.

[Uchiha Blood]

This sounds interesting, with that in mind, WotC could add a whole ecosystem of 'Marrofied' species. Like for example a Marrden Tiger.

I hope WotC reads this thread. While I don't play with the Marros myself, I know that Samurai beat the Marros 3 out of 4 times in the hands of 2 skilled players. So, putting it that way, the more Marros, the more likely people are to use them.

[MalignantT]

I guess the two forms of Marrofication are either the Marro take the new life-forms unto themselves to add a new functional option to their extant line, or they bring themselves unto life-forms and 'corrupt' them into Marro.

I guess with the "corrupting" line, the hive is a place where the Marro essence is implanted within dominated creatures. What the "Marro essence" is is up in the air... maybe it's a flesh-eating bacteria that is psychically linked to control the host body... Maybe it's a little worm hanging out at the brain-stem controlling the body's systems.

Though if Marro are birthed, and they have the Gene-Splicing, what is the base form of a Marro that hasn't been imbued with some other life form. If most Marro we see have been infused with humanoid DNA, I wonder what they would look like without. Is WSG, a giant worm, closer to the base form of Marro-ness than the other heroes?


I mean, why do most of the Marro appear to be skinless? Is there something about living in the swamps that helps them absorb nutrients better than with a thicker outer membrane? Is that why Water Clone and Swamp Water Strenght/Tunnel need water? Is it an ecological connection or a magical connection? Maybe polluting waters is an effective method of eradicating Marro... how's that for an anti-ecological campaign? (Pollute the Streams, Kill the Marro!)



Just something I was thinking about when I should be doing other stuff.

[Toad Rocket]

Originally Posted by Lord Pyre

Well, I'm assuming you mean the Borg from Star Trek, but I have no idea what the hack a Zerg is.

Zerg is one of the alien races from the computer RPG game called Starcraft. That game was HUGE some 8-10 years ago.

[TheLorax]

The second I saw the Marro I was like "oh so someone played Starcraft."

From what I can tell they operate in a similar fashion as the Zerg, absorbing traits from other races/species and adopting them into their own race/species. Like some one mentioned, Wu-Sa-Ga seems like a Marro-fied Viper. Judging strictly from the bios, it would seem that somewhere other Marro strains are engineered or created, rather than simply absorbed like the case with the Zerg. Even the hive itself may have been an organism engineered by the "higher ups" or "original" Marro in order to reproduce more quickly.

Originally Posted by Toad Rocket

Zerg is one of the alien races from the computer RPG game called Starcraft. That game was HUGE some 8-10 years ago.

It is about to get HUGE again in a few months...

[Odin_Osgard]

I believe the Marro are possibly a hybrid of the two.
A species than can not only modify itself, but other organisms. Most marro seem to have the same basic shape. But then you have TKN and WSG. These are probably other organisms that were taken over and marrdified.