Charlton says hello!

Well, I didn't because I just stuck it on top of my helmet.
My Impervium helmet.

 

Found this yesterday:


I suspect the Apex are involved in some way. I've stored the two pods for further study.

 

Hmm.
Are they like the Flood from Halo?
Do they forcibly convert others into their kind?
Is that even possible?

 

It certainly looks that way to me

 

The flood pod that turned Captain Keyes into one of them!
It would explain a LOT!

 

Ruined a perfectly good pizza with them, from the looks of it.

 

Wait, what? Oh, I see RPing again.

 

That WOULD explain a lot. The Agaran's aren't a race of their own, they're the result of parasitic spores infecting Floran's. They're also the cause for the zombie green Apex, its merely one of the early stages of the Apex transformation. If we're correct, this could be a very, very big problem...

 

One of my Glitch contacts informed me while I was attempting to open an Agaran chest that the chest released spores upon being opened. I promptly took a hazard shower upon leaving that planet.

Watch what you guys are spreading until the scientists on the job reveal the effects of the spores.

Listen here, now. I have no qualms believing that drysap overdose leads to the creation of the Oaken Soldiers of Floran legend, but you spoke in a way that indicated that drysap was not in those drysap containers, throwing me off. So I ask again: Why in the hell would Aragans subject Florans to drysap if they had nothing to gain from it? Have any of you ever seen an Oaken Soldier? Can any of you describe them?

Considering what I've seen regarding Florans and Agarans, is it possible that the Agarans are the Oaken Soldiers?

 

Agarans don't look oaken though

 

Hazard shower and general decontamination checkpoints should do the job.
As for their effects, due to the simplicity of mushroom biology, there is no way that spore could lead to the level of infection that is believed to be hapening here all on its own. The immune system, cell regeneration and replacement and even simply the fact that we are moving around make this highly improbable that you could be infected under normal conditions and that even for a floran. Even mushrooms specialised in affecting plants and trees often require these to be in a weakened state in order to be able to do so.
I will however recommend caution with them and anyone entering in contact with anything agaran related should undergo complete decontamination before going anywere else. It is very probable that you could serve as an intermediary host. This is a fairly frequent system of reproduction among this kind of organisms.

 

What about subtle manipulation such as making a person consider a pod to be the best bed in the world?

 

Possible but unlikely. Here again, organism complexity. The only organisms this kind of effect have been observed on have very little mind of their own to start with. It would be possible with long term infection but this should be detectable and treatable without too much trouble.
We are of course talking about something we have no indication of its origin in a universe we barely know about yet so it is all speculation of course. Still, most rules of physics remain relatively stable trough the universe and if one thing hold true in one place, it tends to be so in others.

Just keep a fungicide injector handy and you should be fine really.

 

This is what I believe the nature of the spores are. I'm no scientist, but I know enough about shrooms to know how they tend to reproduce. The question here, though, is what the spores do that would lead to the birth of more Agarans.

 

No, it is pretty stupid, especially since it's stated outright that the Agarans spread through spores they excrete at a very high rate. For every planet you nuke with them on it, at the rate they're spreading, there's already another 3 that's been populated with them. It could be possible that these spores are carried on any ships docked with Agaran populations (since there's no evidence of space travel on the Agaran's part), meaning if that (if the claims that the Agarans are a genuine threat are true), the only way to properly defeat them is to quarantine planets with Agaran populations, and them starve them out. If my theory on how they feed proves correct, unless they adapt in a new way, they'll end up snuffing themselves out with nothing else to feed on. Bonus points if you can shatter the O-Zone layer of said planets and barbeque them.

Set up a server and plot the course, I'm down.

 

Starving out a potential threat that can spread easily is never the greatest solution. Just look at the people in Halo and what they did to contain the Flood >_>;;;

 

I'd love to hear a better idea, especially since if no ships dock on a planet, it's spores wouldn't be able to travel, making spread far more difficult.

If this official wallpaper from the newsletter is any sign, they're probably just as surprised as anyone else. It wouldn't be surprising that the Apex may have taken in samples of Agaran spores in their lab, but beyond that, I doubt they've gone as far as to engineer them since they're probably too busy trying to genetically engineer themselves.

 

Well, they went full out.
The Forerunner attempted what everyone's suggesting, and they failed horribly.
If (because we don't ACTUALLY know if they're a spore based creation) they work like the Flood and what not, then the best method is quarantine and removal.

 

Knock it off. This thread was started by someone requesting news. Like real news, you should stop trying to clutter it up with pesky facts and concentrate on what the Galaxy really wants to hear: Rumor, innuendo, and scandal. Who cares about biology? We want to know what Galactic Senator got strung out on military grade drysap and was found passed out in the Capitol fountain with an Agaran hooker.

 

Amusing. Well, here's what scandal I have.

The Galactic Senator is an idiot. Yes, do quote me on that one.

Tiy knows what the hell those politicians are doing up there, but its not good. We've heard NOTHING from them about the Agarans.
In fact, I doubt this government even exists.