More advanced life form: tyranids or The Thing?

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**w1zard**

Techpriestsupport wrote:
Good points but Blair thing wasn't trying to build a spaceship, just a ship that could reach a viable climate.

I read the short story you linked earlier. It was interesting. Reading the book and watching the movie, I always kind of got the feeling that the thing was just trying to survive and not really being malicious.

Glad to see this short story kind of confirmed what I felt. One issue though... Like, I get that it didn't really know what to make of us at first, and didn't understand that it was killing humans by absorbing them because it was used to forms of life like itself that existed as a mass of cellular consciousness. I would be willing to dismiss those first few deaths as a "diplomatic misunderstanding". But its conclusions of wanting to "correct" humanity by forcefully infecting everyone on the planet seem a little... arrogant. If I was the only human on a "thing" planet I would think that those "things" were actually a pretty cool and unique expression of life (if dangerous). I wouldn't just suddenly think to myself "nah, this life is wrong" and hack apart things until they are in pieces roughly the intelligence of a human because I can't conceive of life outside of the narrow definition of a two armed, two legged creature with an individual consciousness. The fact that it doesn't seem to care that it is killing us while doing this seems sharply in contrast with its own fear of death and seems pretty hypocritical.

**Techpriestsupport**

Did you ever read "who goes there? ", the original 1930's story "the thing" was based on? Old language but still good.

**w1zard**

Techpriestsupport wrote:
Did you ever read "who goes there? ", the original 1930's story "the thing" was based on? Old language but still good.

No I have not, but I will look it up now.

To answer your original question. I think the thing is undeniably the more "advanced" form of life (at least from my perspective). The tyranids are like an intelligent, intergalactic swarm of space locusts, and the thing is a highly advanced, hyperintelligent, cellular parasite/plague.

**godardc**

Techpriestsupport wrote:
w1zard wrote:
The Thing is absolutely one of the most terrifying alien organisms I have ever encountered in any kind of fiction whatsoever. Worse than the Tyranids, who need a gestalt hivemind to guide their actions and become little more than animals without that control.

Let's start off with what the thing is:
-A parasitic cellular organism capable of absorbing any kind of biological matter and expanding itself by "eating" that biomass.
-Capable of advanced cellular manipulation to mimic other lifeforms that it has "eaten". (One of the characters described it as a "chameleon")
-Capable of reproduction by splitting like an amoeba or an earthworm. If you cut the thing in half, now you have two things. This makes it pretty much impervious to physical attacks. (Unknown if one thing can absorb another after a split)
-The only way to truly kill it is through complete cellular destruction (Fire, chemicals, or energy... Unknown if radiation effects it)
-Intelligence is based on size, where a thing the size of a finger has little more than animal intelligence, while a thing a little bit bigger than a human was implied to be trying to build a space ship.

The thing's only downside is that it requires physical contact to spread itself, but I can see that changing if it eats something capable of shooting biological ranged attacks. However, it seems that the thing doesn't like fighting, and only kills in self-defense, it seems much more content to use it's mimicry instincts to hide itself rather than try to murder or "eat" everything in sight. Although, that could just be the chosen strategy of the thing in the very limited situation in the book/movie.

The thing would absolutely devour an entire tyranid hive fleet if it got the chance and become insanely powerful because for the thing bigger = more intelligent. If the hive mind was smart enough to catch on and kill the thing before it got too far it might have a chance, but tyranids (even bioships) are all about melee weapons for the most part which is a distinct disadvantage against the thing.

Good points but Blair thing wasn't trying to build a spaceship, just a ship that could reach a viable climate.

Naaah, tyranids would adapt and just use bio-plasma / zoanthrope / toxins. I mean, they already use plenty of these. As soon as the first waves of gaunts would be absorbed by the things, it will stop making melee organisms.