'The Blood' in my Bloodymary fic 'Leftover Light' that I tried to scientifically explain because I thought Grace would definitely try to figure the freaky mutating blood out.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
At first glance (through a miscroscope)
Explanation below:
Disclaimer: I am NOT a scientist and I'm just doing this for fun (but I don't mind suggestions and feedback!)
*also graphs are not to an accurate scale
I watched the movie Iron Lung and tried to work backward, figuring out how Blood would be able to do all... that.
It burns through Simon's skin, but it also grows Blood Eel teeth on his face, AND melds his arm to the Iron Lung.
Red blood cells by themselves can't really do all that, and I struggled to figure out why so much blood would be there, surviving outside a body in a liquid form, and doing all the mutating stuff.
So... Bacteria!
There's this plant bacteria, Agrobacterium, that docks on wounded plant cells (using T4SS: Type IV Secretion System) and gives its T-DNA or T-Strand to the cell, and the cell takes it into its nucleus and starts growing a tumor, basically that benefits Agrobacterium. Here's the youtube video I watched explaining it.
I'm sure there's a lot of other cool bacteria I could have done, but PLANTS. Simon mutated/melded with/ 'became the soil' for the Blood Tree, so I took Agrobacterium and ran with it.
Why blood?
Simon's universe is dying. There are moons with life on them, but most planets and stars have been 'Raptured'. Like most Bloodymary fans, it's a cool crossover to think that Simon's universe is one where the astrophage problem was never fixed. Planets can't really disappear, but they would definitely change. But if there was no sun or the sun was too dim, Venus and Threeworld would start to freeze. Carbon dioxide-rich environments would be hard to find in a dying universe. The Astrophage overeats and ruins its own environment. (I'll make another post about how the astrophage is different in Simon's world.)
Agroglobin started off not looking like a blood cell, but it needs heat to have enough energy to survive, so it figures out a way (by accident) to entice the Astrophage to come to the moon it's living on. Carbon Dioxide.
There are some creatures on the blood moon like eels, angler fish, and frogs and when the Agroglobin encountered these native species, they did two things: injected DNA and stole DNA. It encountered human blood and liked its blueprint. It also really likes BONE because that's where blood cells originate.
Blood cells can 'hold' oxygen- it's like fuel for the bacteria to produce as much carbon dioxide as possible. (I had to figure out how they get oxygen in the first place, but I won't get into that yet). Also, mitochondria produce a lot of CO2 so it's there as well. There are also the chemoreceptor arrays to allow it to 'sense' stuff using chemotaxis to help it figure out which items are the most beneficial things to steal.
There are these hairs on bacteria called Type IV Pili that can grab stuff and pull it back into itself. If the cell bursts when it injects its DNA, then it will use the pili to steal the DNA or proteins or other useful stuff. If it doesn't then it uses the T4SS to transfer stuff between the two cells.
Basically, it takes whatever helps it survive better, and blood cells happen to do that.
Astrophage was desperate enough to go far enough into the environment to linger in the blood- making it boiling hot. It traps some weaker astrophage that doesn't have enough energy to leave. So there's astrophage in the blood ocean. (Grace freaks out about this)
Agrobacterium needs a wound to get its DNA into the cell, astrophage solves that problem. It makes it hot enough to burn Simon's skin, and the Agroglobin can insert its DNA into the cells.
Weaker cells just burst, and the agroglobin takes any proteins or useful DNA it finds. If it's not useful, it will just spit it back out.
But the cells that are strong enough to host the Agrobacterium DNA are where we get the mutation part. Skeletal muscle cells and plant cells are strong enough to host, so the Agroglobin puts its DNA into those cells, and it begins to mutate.
When it finds a useful mutation, it will multiply very fast using binary fission (like E. Coli) but much faster because it's science fiction and that makes it scarier.
It will damage its host until it finds a good (survivable) mutation that keeps the host alive long enough to be useful to the agroglobin. It does this to the Blood Eel that started out a pretty regular fish that got mutated by the bacteria that basically took over. It keeps adding to the Blood Eel, its strongest host. Thus: the human body parts that are a part of the Blood Eel. (also how it somehow speaks to Simon- this is less scientifically explainable, but whatever happened- it's the bloods fault.)
I'll make another post about what this means specifically for Simon when I post chapter five! I don't want to spoil too much here.
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