User:Voldemore/Buffyverse
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Vampires in the Buffyverse
The process which a human body undergoes during that day or so that it takes to be converted into a vampire body is similar to the process of petrification that exists in nature, with certain plants. When a tree or plant becomes petrified, what happens is that over the course of years, the original biological elements of its cells are very gradually replaced by mineral elements... so gradually that the infusing minerals take on the same shape and appearance as the original biological cells. In effect, the original biological cells act as a matrix, or as a sort of "molding", for the incoming mineral deposits, and what you end up with is a gradual build up of minerals in the exact shape of a tree trunk, or a plant of some sort.
This same process, vastly speeded up, is what happens when a human body is transformed by the vampiric "curse", or infection, or mutation. Supernatural necromantic energy flows into it from an extradimensional source and replaces all the original human organic matter... but it does it gradually, and in such a way as to mimic the original cell structure. And the organic matter is not completely replaced, but is only 99.9999 percent replaced. A tiny amount of the original human cellular matter remains as a template, spread molecularly thin throughout the newly generated, unnatural vampire tissue which is made up of necromantic otherdimensional energy in more or less solid form.
This process is why vampires do not have souls. Since souls are intangible psychic organs they are not duplicated by this sort of necromantic petrification process, and as the original, natural body was transformed and replaced, the original soul attached to that body loses its adhesion and undergoes the metaphysical equivalent of evaporation into the ether.
This necromantic petrification process, explains the supernatural and superhuman powers of the vampire. A body composed of an unearthly energy we cannot rationally define within our physics can and will, by definition, defy the requirements of physics as we understand them.
This demonic, necromantic energy that makes up most of the vampire body is extremely responsive to the animating consciousness' psychic impulses.
Probably, over the course of thousands of years of existence, any vampires who 'live' that long gradually forget what actual, physical, metabolic life was like. These vampires would, theoretically, start to behave more like 'living' corpses... losing their 'human' perceptions and having them replaced by more direct psychic perceptions, ceasing to respond to purely physical stimuli, and, most likely, gaining more and more unlimited capacity for shifting the shape of their necromantic energy bodies into other forms... such as the classical vampires are supposed to be able to.
However, relatively 'young' vampires still remember very strongly what it was like to be alive, and they still respond as if alive. For example, while he a vampire's consciously aware of the fact that he doesn't 'breathe', or at least, doesn't have to, if he also subconsciously wants to smoke a cigarette while he's smoking that cigarette, the necromantic energy in the shape of his lungs 'works'. When two vampires want to have sex, their subconscious minds activate the appropriate anatomical parts, and, similarly, when a male vampire wants to have sex with a human female, his subconscious reactivates his reproductive system.
Of course, a reproductive system composed of necromantic energy is only a simulation, and no actual pregnancy would be possible without severe mystical intervention... but to all physical appearances, the male vampire would be perfectly functional. To a human lover who expected such things, there is even a convincing sensory illusion of an ejaculation, although the physical existence of the ejaculate is primarily ectoplasmic, and will just fade away or evaporate fairly quickly after the sex act is over.
Since an unnatural, extradimensional, demonic energy is the basis for vampire bodies, patterned after the human bodies they are replacing, virtually everything is possible. An unnatural energy does not have to follow the laws of our universe (and could behave entirely differently in another universe).
Since a vampire's necromantic energy body is more amenable to his own psychic manipulation, most of a vampire's strength is telekinetic and of the vampire's will, expressed through manipulation of the energy form he or she inhabits. This is why more highly motivated and ferocious vampires often seem to be faster and stronger and fiercer combatants than the dumber or more apathetic ones, and especially, why vampires seem so clumsy and vulnerable when they first get up out of their graves... their remaining human consciousness, having just awakened in a strangely transformed body, may not be fully attuned to the necromantic energy they now inhabit. They may also not be fully awake. Either way, they can't manipulate their bodies with their full capacity.
The reason vampires burst into flames when sunlight hits them is that Earthly sunlight contains some wavelength of radiation that is missing from the sunlight of 'demon dimensions', and that acts on necromantically energized 'flesh' the same way intense heat would act on ours. In fact, vampire flesh bursting into flames in sunlight is the undead equivalent of radiation poisoning, significantly accelerated and condensed in time.
Perhaps the reason Demons 'lost their grip' on this dimension had something to do with the Sun's moving from one phase to another? Or maybe prehistoric Earth, back in Demon days, was perpetually wrapped in clouds, and when that changed, the Demons had to leave, because the unnatural energy they used as a basis for so much of their power, or perhaps that they even formed physical bodies out of was damaged and destroyed by the Sun's radiation?
Vampires turn to dust when they are destroyed because most of their 'body' is actually 'dark energy'. When something happens to dispel that energy... and there seem to be two central nexuses of this energy, one in the brain, and one in the center of the chest... it vanishes, leaving behind only the remnants of the original human body... the 'dust' that settles to the ground. The energy's mimicry of the human body is so complete as to make the recreated 'heart' and 'brain' necessary to the continued coherency of the vampire body. A stake to the 'brain' would also kill a vampire, but the skull is generally too hard to make this feasible, and the chest generally makes a much better target anyway.
Wood is a mystically or supernaturally imbued material, in a way that plastic and metal are not. This is because wood retains some essential element of natural Earthly life that is inimical to otherwordly energies; an elemental force that plastics or metals do not have. Wood also stores within its cells, through photosynthesis, the same element that sunlight possesses, which destroys vampire flesh. Thus, when thrust into a nexus of necromantic energy, as exist in the center of the chest where the major circulatory system of the human body was, it instantly disrupts those energies, causing the seemingly solid energy of the vampire body to instantaneously disperse, and the relatively small amount of organic remains to crumble to the ground as dust.
Given that the brain is the most sophisticated, complex, and vital organ in the human body, a necromantically duplicated brain is an essential organ in the vampire body. The various nodes that command the energies of the various different portions of the body still lead into the brain, and the necromantic brain duplicate is still constantly active holding the necromantic energy patterns of the vampire body into a coherent matrix. Segregate the brain from the rest of the necromantic body and the energy flow is interrupted and thus, the necromantic energy almost instantly disperses... and again, the organic remnants of the original human body sifts to the ground as dust.
Because of magic necromantically imbued substances cast no reflections. As a result vampires do not reflect in mirrors and not only does vampire flesh not cast a reflection, but even the clothes vampires wear don't reflect because their clothes quickly become suffused with necromantic energy when a vampire wears them, and thus, take on the supernatural aspects of that energy.
Vampires only cast shadows from artificial light because artificial light, like other technological artifacts such as videotape, interacts with necromantic energy in ways not taken into account by the legends and literature about vampires. Vampires don't cast shadows in sunlight or moonlight, don't reflect in 'natural' objects like shiny surfaces, water, and glass... but do block artificial light, and make an impression on videotape stock.
Vampires cannot enter a private, 'owned' dwelling space without specific invitation. The imposed limitation is, in fact, so specific and powerful that vampiric flesh can interact with the 'no invitation' barrier as if it were a physically solid partition.
This has to do with the sensitivity of necromantically imbued material to psychic energy. People tend to universally regard their private quarters as havens, sanctum sanctorums, their safe places, their private territory, their dens... places where they are safe and secure, where no one else is allowed to come without specific invitation. Normal human bodies, natural to this world and material plane, can move freely within it. Vampiric flesh is composed of supernatural, otherworldly, extra-planar energy. It can move freely in any place where psychic barriers have not been put up against it, but in specific, limited areas that are held as 'private', it needs permission to enter.
Crosses (and other holy symbols) seem to affect vampires exactly the way heated metal would affect humans (forcing them to back away in pain from close proximity, leaving burns and brands on their flesh if they come into contact with them), and holy water works on them like a powerful acid. Certain religious organizations have the ability to invoke through prayerful incantation certain aspects and supernatural powers that are inimical to the necromantic energy vampires are composed of. The Catholic Church for instance, through prayer, is able to 'bless' certain objects with the power to disrupt, if only in the specific area touched, necromantic energy.
Fire is also harmful and even potentially lethal to vampires because fire is an elemental force of this material realm, and possesses certain natural mystical powers of its own against unnatural, alien intrusions into this plane from outside. In addition, necromantic substances are simply very flammable.
Vampire senses aren't like human senses. However, when a vampire brain picks up various stimuli and other data with its enhanced psychic perceptions, it translates them into familiar human terms... like aromas. But in fact, what vampires have is a sort of direct psychic perception of their immediate surroundings that, their brain interprets into a 'sense of smell'.
A vampire's limited shapeshifting capacity, to switch from normal human appearance to Demonic Happy Face is a very limited and specific power, one that they have little or no conscious control over at first but that simply happens when they're enraged, or about to feed; however, older vampires learn to switch from one 'face' to the other at will.
The Soul in the Buffyverse
In distant prehistory, back in the mists of antiquity, those hominids who would one day be humans began to evolve what can best be described as a 'psychic organ'. While this organ had no physical component, it nonetheless was a real adaptation in neo-mankind's non-physical consciousness. This "mutation" bred true, and proved its survival value, and thus, was passed on to succeeding generations.
What this 'psychic organ' did, basically, was allow each individual hominid who possessed it to form a rudimentary connection to every other hominid who possessed it. In essence, it allowed our remotest ancestors to form a sort of primal telepathic network between themselves. This network wasn't powerful enough for most to be consciously aware of, so it became a sort of mass racial subconscious... but it was enough to allow those protohumans to form, accept, and internalize various social concepts, like the family, the tribe, the race, and eventually, the nation... and also more individual social concepts, like friendship, trust, companionship... and love.
There were other hominids around at this time not blessed with this random psychic mutation that jump started the social evolution of what would become humanity. The two groups rapidly grew apart, as those not gifted with 'souls' continued in their chaotic, egoistic, sociopathic, non-cooperative, violent and confrontational manner and humanity's direct ancestors, began to draw together into groups, teams, families, tribes, nations - social organizations aimed at mutual support and survival.
Several dynamics evolved between the two distinct groups. When the social protohumans with 'souls' could be caught alone, they made fine and easy prey, because their new 'empathy sense' weakened their naturally violent and viciously individualistic natures. They were naturally inclined to 'trust', to try to help someone they saw in need, and to behave in other completely irrational and utterly insane ways...which would allow a cunning soul-free hominid to trap them easily. In general, this dynamic worked to create, enforce, and increase hostility and distrust between the soulful and soul-free populations, and to force the newly socialized protohumans to draw together even more tightly, from outside predator pressure. The protohumans were driven into migrations by such predator pressure into new geographic regions free of the attacking soul-free creatures, and the intense competition between the groups would impelled the protohumans to develop new innovations in defense - new technologies, new organization techniques, better methods of communication, improved weapons - which had a synergistic inter-relationship with the fact that the protohumans, being already enmeshed in a psychic, racial subconscious telepathy web, already had a far better capacity for cooperating in the invention and implementation of such innovations.
The end result was that human evolution - social, intellectual, technological, and even genetic - tended to leap ahead of that of their soul-free fellows, and that humans themselves became far more inclined to an orderly approach to their day to day life, with higher and higher levels of social organization arising from each succeeding one. Increasing Order successively rose from previous chaos, in a reversal of the normal entropic process. While 'demons', the soul-free populations, continued to be mostly chaotic and unorganized, fighting amongst themselves for dominance and being able to, at best, organize themselves into mutually beneficial cooperative unions for a very short term. Those individual 'demons' smart enough to think up innovative and effective advancements in any area kept them to themselves, and thus, the demonic race as a whole and as a collective did not benefit from the genius of its individual members.
Eventually, humanity, with its strange, unforeseen 'psychic organ' mutation, came to utterly dominate the Earth.
Basically the 'soul' is a non-physical component of individual human identity evolved by our distant, protohuman ancestors that through a subconscious telepathic network link with every other human, gives us all a rudimentary social consciousness - a concept that we are not alone, that we belong to something greater than ourselves, that the group can be as important, or more important, than the individual, and most important of all, that another individual, or every other individual, is as important, and valid, as we ourselves are.
Demons don't have this, and given that, from their viewpoint, it causes humans to behave in frankly irrational manners that make them extremely vulnerable to exploitation and depredation by those without such an inherent psychic flaw and weakness, they don't want it. The enormous advantages given to humanity by our natural aptitude for organization and team work are things that demons themselves can only dimly grasp and not really comprehend; they understand that somehow humans have come to dominate the Earth, but they aren't sure how.
When a human being is converted to vampirism, their body transforms from normal flesh and blood into a near-exact duplicate composed of necromantic energy, but the soul, being an entirely immaterial, psychic organ, is not duplicated. Thus, the human self still existent within the transformed body finds itself without that vital aspect of its individual consciousness that it has always had, and as such, no longer has any instinctive feeling of sympathy, empathy, or socialization. There is no longer a capacity for true friendship or love in the human who now finds him or herself in a vampiric body; they are cut off from the telepathic racial subconsciousness. That sense of belonging to something greater is gone.
The soul is a product of evolution that gives us a huge psychic advantage over demons. It's a natural part of our intrinsic humanity.
Demons in the Buffyverse
The generally humanoid demons seen are not true demons, but are, in fact, 'tainted'. Demon bodies are composed of the same unnatural, necromantic energy as vampire bodies. The lesser demons for the vast most part will tend to be anti-social, aggressive, violent, easily incited to anger and hatred.
The gradual evolution of the soulless prehistorics into many different demon races, and the soulful primates into considerably fewer human races, is attributable to direct genetic and magical manipulation of the demonic races by Greater Demons, as opposed to a relative lack of such manipulation of human genetics by the Higher Powers. In fact, vampirism and lycanthropy are the results of Greater or lesser demons attempting to screw around with human genetics, psyches, and essences regardless of the fact that humans are protected by the Higher Powers.
We have lesser demon races here on Earth and Greater Demons dwelling in the Outer Dimensions trying to get back to Earth and all sort of demons of varying power levels and appearances and abilities in between living in other dimensions but traveling to Earth fairly often when summoned. Most lesser demons have adapted, over the generations, and developed the power to shapeshift into a semblance of human shape because they have at least some necromantic energy in their bodily make up. Most lesser demons are stronger and tougher than normal humans. Some of the more powerful lesser demons can enter into pacts with Greater Demons for many different things, usually expressed as increased mortal power.
Despite the obvious fact that there are many physical differences between demons and humans (and between demons and demons, for that matter), the primary difference between the two groups is psychic, and defined by the presence or absence of a soul. This is underscored by the fact that demons can be nourished by human flesh, can use human bodies as incubators for their own young, and, especially, can interbreed with humanity in many cases and have fertile offspring... all of which show that demons evolved in the same environment as humans did and have an astonishing amount of genetic consanguinity with humans.
Slayers in the Buffyverse
Into each generation, many potential Slayers are born, although none of these candidates actually become full fledged Slayers until the death of an immediate predecessor causes the initiation of a mysterious activation process that endows the new Slayer with the superhuman powers that are the fundamental tools of her new office/profession/vocation.
Potential Slayers all to share certain things in common, which are from a common genetic sequence scattered in prehistory amongst the human population. In general, these common traits are:
- Gender - potential Slayers are all female.
- Athleticism - potential Slayers are all have enormous natural physical strength, speed, stamina, coordination, and durability. They also learn athletic disciplines easily and enjoy physical exertion.
- All potential Slayers share a special affinity for and sensitivity to whatever it is that eventually chooses and makes a sort of psychic connection to them, in order to give them their powers. This is a gender-linked trait.
There isn't any particular Earthly ritual involved in the 'activation' of a Slayer. The office of Slayer was created mystically long, long ago, by prehistoric human shamans as a covenant with the Higher Powers, to help provide a besieged humanity with some sort of powerful and effective help against the forces of supernatural evil (demons and vampires) that were, at that time, constantly prowling just beyond the circle of firelight outside primitive man's cave dwellings.
The powers, which are 'natural' to Slayers once they are activated as Slayers, are not present in the girls before, and are not instilled in them by any known force, process, or entity. These powers are quite formidable, and apparently, can be active in more than one Slayer at one time without any discernible diminishment in either Slayer's power levels . These powers apparently remain for life, even after a Slayer is killed and resurrected, and can increase with experience and training.
The source of the Slayer's power is demonic, and stems from an ancient pact between humanity and this particular demon. The pact states that this demon will provide 'power' to the Slayer, and that upon the death of one Slayer, the 'power' will then be provided to another person who will become the Slayer. The pact contains various details and provisions outlining exactly the sort of person who will be deemed to be an acceptable Slayer.
The Watchers are the ancient organization that first created the Slayer Pact back in prehistory and inherited custodianship of the Pact and attempts to locate, train, and support each succeeding Slayer. They have ways of tracking the extradimensional link between the Demon who gives the Slayer her powers, and the Slayer herself.
