Question Slime people

My main point, as I recall, is that its not the end result that is a factor but the process of manifesting.

In the end result, the key considerations have to be
1. that there be a process which allows all the parts to be 'fed' (oxygen, resources, etc) and a process through which information can pass and be stored. That's necessary for practical intelligent life. It doesn't guarantee anything approaching sentience or the ability to understand and associate with human beings... it may be so alien that no communication can ever be feasible. BUT, as long as resources can be shared through to all parts and information can be collected, transmitted and stored... it's possible.

2. manifesting has to happen in such a way that the elements of part 1 are in place before the similar parts of a human body fail. Given that the two are likely to be entirely incompatible, this has to happen exceedingly quickly... or the process can't simply be one stage, which is unlikely with a straight up mutation. Add in that the two types of processes and tissue are likely to be very incompatible, you also have to deal with the very likely issue of rejection during the transition process.


As a result, its highly unlikely for this to be possible without a ridiculous amount of regeneration keeping the individual alive... but it would have to be a non-standard regeneration, with a 'target' version of healthy that is either adaptive or aimed at a 'slime' end result.

It might help if a Shifter trait were involved, as Shifters often inherently do biomanipulation internally to keep the end result alive while the middle state may not be viably human.

Ultimately, the amount of change necessary in such a short time frame would result in burnout even with high levels of Regeneration involved. The resources simply wouldn't be available to integrate existing mass into necessary processes before those parts would shut down. Even if burnout did not result in death, it's unlikely that memory from the human state would transfer intact into a new state with any semblence of useful referencing by the new entity. Reorganizing might eventually be possible... especially if the individual were trained/prepared psychically going in in such a way that mental constructs were set up to hold memory intact as more than just biological storage... but otherwise? I can't see any reason why a conscious mind of a living slime might consider accessing a stored memory in any sense like a human might.


And of course... writing such a character? It would be a huge challenge. Because the character is going to be so alien from a human that just trying to make a connection to anything else, including audience sympathies, would be really tough.

Some things can be done with a reasonable stretch of evolutionary biology... some things... take a bit more suspension of disbelief.

Ya... but there you are moving into causing it to happen. Or at least knowing its going to happen and using prepared methods to work around those things that natural would not account for. And that IS different from manifesting. Very much different.

High level Shifters do indeed run into these sorts of problems. The advantage shifters have over 'slime' based lifeforms would be that when they manifest, they don't necessarily immediately Shift into fully non-human forms. This means that their body, nervous system, resource management, and so forth... has an opportunity to completely develop before being life threateningly necessary. But yes... a Shifter who can reshape themselves into inanimate objects? Still has to have oxygen and other resources moving around there... still has to have a brain and nervous system if they are to think and react.

That's one of the big reasons that WU Shifters tend towards having to be highly ranked to do what most people think are common comic book shifter things. Shifting is actually far more complex and 'beyond' the evolutionary science than developing organs that will allow you to channel energy, especially psychic energy. Especially to do so at will and with more than superficial results.

But absolutely... how do you imagine your brain would function if you Shifted into something no more than an inch high so you could slither under a door? Do you think your memories would be sustained if you just reorganized the cells of your brain to shape into a long plank instead of its normal shape? Thought may be energy patterns using memory of language, but the memories themselves are stored somewhat biologically. Change the shape, break connections, suddenly its all chaos.