The thing vs the thing

[Stark]

On a planet overrun by the thing, a spaceship containing another, different thing is discovered. These two things will clearly be antagonistic since they both want to take over the biosphere.

Can they detect each other? If we assume they're both essentially the same as the movie, can they replace each other? On a planetary scale, how will the thing organise itself whe the whole planet is aware of its properties? Indeed, how much does any thing entity actually understand its own biology? How will they respond to people who are clearly duplicates but do not share their goals?

[Silvertongue]

It reminds me of something I once saw at low tide. Two different colonies of lichen on the same rock. Same species. There was a sort of no chemical no mans land on the rock between them.

I'd wager the one on the spaceship is unable to get a foothold on the planet. The established one cuts off nutrients by blotting out the sun, and starves it out.

[DudeGuyMan]

[Purple]

And than there was anime...

Just throwing that bit out there.

[Tasoth]

Oddly, Darkhorse already did this as a story. Turns out, they act in concert and share their past memories....

[Stark]

Leaving aside shitty dark horse licences (LA predator invasion lol) why would they work together? What does 'share memories' even mean? Why would a planet covered in thing duplicates be unified? Bear in mind we've never seen thing duplicates in a situation where they weren't faced with looming extinction.

[Purple]

The better question is why to hell not.
The Thing is an intelligent organism and not some fungus that only expands out of primal instinct. There is no reason to believe that given an abundance of resources it would be any less inclined to sharing them with its fellows than say humans. Hell if the Thing is as intelligent as it some times seems it might even appreciate the company. The whole sharing of memories thing sounds suspiciously like a sort of conversation about past times and adventures.


A case can be made for the thought that the creature we saw in the movies is acting that way becouse it has just awoken from a very long and probably non voluntary sleep, is lost and cornered in a very hostile environment. So it freaks out and tries to do what it thinks is best to survive.

[Stark]

If the thing is 'intelligent' and 'appreciates company' why is it an existential threat to a biosphere?

Im just not seeing why something that duplicates life to succeed will be fine with someone else doing it. Lack of imagination, maybe? Predators are fine with other predators

[Purple]

If the thing is 'intelligent' and 'appreciates company' why is it an existential threat to a biosphere?

Could the same not be said for us?

Im just not seeing why something that duplicates life to succeed will be fine with someone else doing it. Lack of imagination, maybe? Predators are fine with other predators

Becouse there is an apparent abundance of material for both and competition would incur more loss to either of them than sharing?To use your predator analogy. Do packs of wild animals fight one another when there are all too many things to eat?

[Lord of the Abyss]

If the thing is 'intelligent' and 'appreciates company' why is it an existential threat to a biosphere?

From its viewpoint is it a threat to the biosphere? It imitates after all, it doesn't erase. It may regard Thingifying a biosphere as an improvement for that biosphere, granting all life there access to a far greater set of biological possibilities. Rather like we tend to look at terraforming a planet as improving it, as adding life to a dead world, and not as destroying the unliving status quo.

[Tasoth]

I think the sharing memories thing was just so they'd have past experiences and be two different organisms with the same memory.

Does the Thing also impersonate everything that comes in contact with or was the situation we saw it in just an extreme case?

[Enigma]

But what if those two things encountered thing and The Thing? Would it be clobberin' time? *snap**snap*