Q. When a Being’s parts break down, does their matter become a specific composition of dirt? While these days, shipping dirt all over the place is an economy in itself, it seems like it might be possible for a dedicated researcher to narrow down their source of origin from there.
As a codicil, would Ann be able to discern if that loam’s legit?
A. A Being breaks down into whatever kind of dirt/clay it was originally made from. And Walker has definitely investigated samples of all the Beings she’s…uh…worked with. But if she investigates this particular pile, she’ll find it has a really mixed/random composition, and hypothesize that that’s just what happens once a Being is fully decomposed.
Q. Whatever was the result of that experiment where Cohen chopped off Patrick’s head to see which part grew back?
A. The larger part grew back.
Q. Must Beings turn into adult versions of their animal forms? Can Cub become a real cub, and can The Cat, turn into a kitten?
A. We’ve seen kitten!Reseda before! And tiger-cub Blake, and of course Patrick is regularly described as a puppy.
Q. Can The Dove become a pigeon (doves are basically white species of pigeons) or is The Pigeon a separate Being?
A. I believe the Dove can become a pigeon, yes.
I didn’t remember that Cohen chopped off Patrick’s head. That’s pretty cold. I guess he already knew that Patrick could grow back a hand or something. So when you say “the larger part grew back” you mean the body regenerated a head, correct? (Because my first instinct was thinking ‘that takes more energy, to grow the larger part.’) Does that mean that the original head collapsed into a pile of dirt? Could this hypothetically mean that if you could actually cut a Being completely in half you might get two beings out of it? Or would it more likely be that since we can never be able to cut them down to the molecule EXACTLY the same size, one half would always collapse into dirt?
Yes, the larger part did the growing, and the smaller part disintegrated! I’ll edit that in the FAQ.
You know what, I’m going to say that if you could cut a Being perfectly in half, down to the exact same number of quarks on either side, then you could get two Beings. But I don’t know if that’s physically possible. Feels like the kind of thing quantum mechanics won’t let you do.
Good answer, that quantum mechanics won’t let you do it! :)