A natural evolution of Lavos...

[Satoh]

Lavos is a creature with a complex protective shell, that absorbs DNA to augment itself...

I propose that Lavos is in fact the pinnacle of evolution for a VIRUS. Through the course of its evolution over billions of years previous even to 65000000BC, it became a sentient or semi-sentient race of multi-celled organisms that retain their inherent nature of DNA manipulation.

We can look at the swine flu virus for instance... the core of it is an ordinary strain of influenza, however, its casing is a mutated combination of bird, pig, and human flu, which is what gives it its resistance to antiviral agents.

Imagine taking that thing which has a protective case, and changes our DNA to reproduce before our cells die from the modifications... and making it 50 feet wide.


Conversely consider that the planet is alive in CT, thus Lavos could simply be one of any number of self-replicating planet-viruses... And Crono et al.(That is, living organisms) act as macrophages for the planet.

You could even imagine further that the universe itself is naught but a single living thing on some level, and life as we know it are individual cells to it, while planets and stars are organs. In that case, Lavos and its ilk would be like small infections or possibly just debris.



But back on a down to earth look, I think Lavos is to a virus, what humans or reptites are to the proposed single celled organism live in CT would have evolved from.

Basically, while life like Reptites and humans were evolving from some protozoan somewhere, Lavos' race was likewise evolving from a virus on some other place... Probably for longer even. Over time it developed more sophisticated defenses than its outer shell. As it grew in size, its use for DNA evolved as well. From being only a mechanism to force other cells to reproduce it...

To building itself new defenses and giving it a way to reproduce on its own. Its behavior is much like a virus even, it attaches itself to a planet, and lies dormant while affecting the DNA to reproduce...

Another possibility is this: Lavos doesn't reproduce at all, and in fact, is using the planet EXACTLY like a virus would, and forcing the planet itself to produce the Lavos spawn.


Those are the thoughts I had while overlooking some of the Lavos discussions just now...

EDIT: My apologies, I forgot Lavos was a separate thread. I didn't see the "Lavos and other entities" thing until just a second ago... -_-; Again, apologies.

[tushantin]

XD You got the idea from Horton hears a Who, didn't you?

Anywhos, viruses and bacteria are a form of cellular organisms so obviously they can evolve to a multicellular state like animals have. Likewise, I state this.

The Core Lavos as we see in CT's final battle is his actual form. The Outer Shell is just a biological mechanism. We humans have managed to make inorganic miracles, like cars or what not. But Lavos creatures have made organic miracles, such as creating life that they can control. The Outer Shell is actually a space ship or biological weapon with life of its own, but the will is controlled by the core.

And Lavos manages to stay "Out of Time" with the help of their space ship in order to study the beginning and end of civilization throughout eons. Thus Lavos never gets old when you see it thousands of years in the future. XD

[Thought]

Another possibility is this: Lavos doesn't reproduce at all, and in fact, is using the planet EXACTLY like a virus would, and forcing the planet itself to produce the Lavos spawn.

I like that idea. But that would imply that Lavos is forcing the natural processes of the entity into producing Lavos Spawn; what are those natural processes?

The Core Lavos as we see in CT's final battle is his actual form.

Then why is the shell the  thing that Schala merges to in CC?

The shell and cores are different parts of the whole; the shell is no more or less lavos than the core, it seems.

[Chrono'99]

Anywhos, viruses and bacteria are a form of cellular organisms so obviously they can evolve to a multicellular state like animals have. Likewise, I state this.

Actually viruses are neither cellular nor organisms, which means they're technically not "living" things at all.

[Satoh]

Anywhos, viruses and bacteria are a form of cellular organisms so obviously they can evolve to a multicellular state like animals have. Likewise, I state this.

Actually viruses are neither cellular nor organisms, which means they're technically not "living" things at all.

Scientists still debate this, but current consensus would agree to that statement. However, viruses DO still mutate and become more deadly efficient. One could say that viruses are the direct physical manifestation of evil, being difficult to eliminate and purposed only to perpetuate themselves at the cost of the host.

Regardless, life exists now where once there was none, this is true no matter which you believe, evolution, god, or any mix of the two.

Since CT uses evolution, it stands to reason that a virus strain, over billions of years, became capable of being classified as life... or perhaps Lavos is not a living thing at all... Biological maybe, but not living. Perhaps that is what allows it to exist in the pocket dimension in the first place. As for forcing the Entity do things against its nature... why not? Viruses do the same to us. They vandalize our DNA one cell at a time, reproducing themselves indefinitely until we die or they are eradicated. We have no more control over what our individual cells do than the entity has over what people do.

Here is the root of the problem with life though: Life cannot be quantified. It cannot be defined, created, or directly studied. It can only be left alone, or forcibly removed. You can attach words to it that try to define it... but in the end, we don't know what life even is.

One could say that life is something that acts with a will, to accomplish a goal, in which case viruses would be as much alive as bacteria. But then there is the problem of 'will'.

Science generally tries not to use things it cannot understand to explain other things... unless it is an undeniable existence such as life.

What is it that makes a corpse of a child that was healthy but simply died... dead? What is it that makes a virus, which acts to accomplish a goal of reproduction... not alive?

A virus can differentiate, and direct its own movement rather than floating aimlessly... but yet it does not respond to stimulus... this is why Viruses are considered non-life, and yet still debated as possible life, because they act like both.



Regardless of living or non, I believe Lavos is the evolved state of a virus. It is the only kind of existence that reflects Lavos' nature in my mind.

[Thought]

Since CT uses evolution, it stands to reason that a virus strain, over billions of years, became capable of being classified as life...

See: Mimivirus
It's not alive, but it is darn close for a virus.

[xcalibur]

this is a good theory. lavos seems like a highly advanced, intelligent and sentient form of a virus.

i believe lavos is intelligent and sentient for various reasons.. 1. his manipulation of dna and farming of life, 2. purposely destroying zeal for taking too much of his power away, 3. hes a powerful magic user. thats just off the top.

just like advanced life such as humans and reptites came from multicellular organisms, lavos' race came from viruses.

theres also the fact that lavos has an extremely long lifespan, and spends long stretches lying dormant until something external activates it - viruses too can lie dormant in a host for years.

hadnt really thought of lavos as the ultimate virus, but i agree.

[Lakonthegreat]

I would like to take a moment to speak from personal experience.

I have had my life threatened from a deadly Staphylococcus Aureus infection before. I was in the hospital because the infection had grown into an almost tumor-like structure on my left axillary region. (armpit) So these bacteria, billions and billions of them, had grown into a life-threatening tumor. While there was no solid cohesion besides the core, Lavos could be something like the green ooze on the meteor in the Creepshow segment that had Jeordie Verril in it. This meteor had a microorganism in it that covered anything that touched it in strange vegetation within a few hours. Lavos could be a colony of these different organisms as such, which would also explain the size discrepancies in the size of the initial impact object and Lavos itself later.

[Wolf Kanno]

*Casts Life 2*

I know this topic is old but I wanted to bring in a new theory. The idea that Lavos is not a virus but rather an organism that has evolved to it's natural end. Basically, Lavos has grown to the end of its genetic potential and has reached an evolutionary dead end. Thus, Lavos travels to other worlds and uses it's powers to absorb the DNA of other species and uses their DNA to transform itself into a new evolutionary stage for itself.

To put it in perspective, say humanity has somehow for the sake of argument reached an evolutionary dead end. We cannot get any smarter nor physically more resilient and adaptable. In order to continue to evolve we have to artificially do so through genetic engineering. We would possible work on taking the traits we see as dominant, and beneficial from other organisms around us, and see if we could not engineer ourselves into a new species. One that exhibit the traits of other species without having to place ourselves into billions of years of conditioning, and without fear of losing any beneficial traits we may have had in our previous forms. 

This is of course, simply speculation.