From: cbnorman@cayley.uwaterloo.ca (Bruce Norman)
Subject: Werewolf Psudo-Science
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 05:07:03 GMT

First off, I've already received about ten requests to post my werewolf
fiction, so I will :) It may take a week for me to find the time to break
it into good chunks first though.

Anyway, I thought I'd start off the Wwolf discussion with "ideas" about 
how werewolves could, psedo-scientificly, exist.  Warning, this note
is somewhat of a "spoiler" as the ideas I'm discussing are ideas I use
in my book.  I no way are the ideas I'm presenting below what I consider
"plausable" :)

Ok, the first thing I've done away with is the silver ideas.  It could
be that werewolves have an alegy to silver, but I decided to just cut
the silver thing out of my book.

Second, I see lyncanthropy as being a virus.  An infectuous genetic disease
which modifies the cell structure.  The way I handle this in my book is
that lyncanthropy is a preogressive disease transfered between hosts.
At the bottom of the scale is a wolf, seemingly normal, but infact
somehow carrying this infectuous disease (why I never try to determine). 
The wolf infects a human, who then undergoes a genetic transformation
(which takes a reasonably long time).  This transformation is from the
inside out.  It is accompanied with a psychological transformation, dreams,
etc.  Note that in my book, I never actually made it to the transformation
of the first character who was infected so I haven't worked out all the
details on how I will be handling his metamorphesis.  I have decided
it will be a one-way transformation, no return to human form.  It will 
happen on the night of a full moon, but there will be no evidence given
as to why it happens on this night (is it coincidence, science, or 
spiritualism? who knows).  The transformation leaves the infected human
almost totally lupine, a classicaly mythological werewolf who takes
the form of a wolf.  There will be odities in appearance which will betray
human characteristics, but a detailed examination will be required to
isolate these odities.

With each successive generation of infection (assuming our innitially 
infected human passes on the disease), the genetic transformation becomes
more refined.  The first transformation, in the final stage, would probably
take several days.  The second transformation would be into a true man-wolf,
with emphesis on the wolf, and would probably take only 12-20 hours.  This
man wolf will be incapable of walking upright, and will still be mistaken
for a true wolf if only a fleeting glimpse is caught of him.

The third generation werewolf's transformation will only take 4-6 hours.
At this point I would consider the possibility of a reverse transformation
(befor the metamorphesis is too severe).  This manwolf will be bipedial,
and look much like the clasic werewolf of movie fame, sort of inbetween
"teenwolf" and "the howling".  This beast is capable of gutteral speech
even.

Fourth generation werewolf can be mistaken for a human in very bad lighting.
Transformation would be very rapid.  Retro-transformation is certainly 
possible.  You could say transformation would take a few minutes, retro
transformation would take hours however (the wolven feature would be
under the skin so to speak, which would have to be regrown for a retro
transformation).  The werewolf would litterally "burst" out of his human
shell.  The human skin becomes an outer layer of camoflouge.

Fifth (last) generation of the werewolf is virtually indistinguishable 
from a normal human.  Transformation is trivial, only detailed examination
can distinguish anything "strange" about the individual.  Retro can quickly
hide any outer features (though medical examination would still reveal
oddities easily).  The "cycle" aspect of the lyncanthropic disease now comes
into affect.  When this fifth generation werewolf gives birth to a child
or fathers children, the "litter" will be wolves infected with the 
lyncanthropy virus.

What does everyone think?

Newsgroups: alt.horror.werewolves