I have come to suspect that the spores that the colonists have been infected with are capable of growing into completely new Thorians. While there are no Thorians on Earth, there are plants here, so predictions can be drawn by studying the Thorian’s closest terrestrial relatives. Unless the Thorian transports water through its body in a way completely unlike terrestrial plants, it is far too large to be a nonvascular plant. Also, its lack of flowering or conelike bodies seems to show that it may be a seedless plant. For reference, I have inserted a chart showing the lifecycle of vascular seedless plants.
By compiling what we know about the Thorian and seedless vascular plants on earth, I have come up with this theory on how the Thorian’s lifecycle works,
1. Thorian infects new hosts with spores.
2. Spores grow into gametophyte stage, capable of interfacing with host’s nervous system and are attuned to the psychic emanations of the Thorian. This is the mechanism by which the Thorian can control human minions.
3. Female parts of Gametophytes produce eggs, male parts produce sperm.
4. Gametophyte produces zygotes from eggs and sperm.
5. If the gametophyte ceases to receive psychic emanation from the Thorian for any reason, the zygote will grow into a sporophyte; a fetal Thorian, which will then seize control of its host through the vestiges of its gametophyte stage and seek out a safe place to grow.
6. When the sporophyte stage matures into the form seen in Mass Effect 1, it will begin to produce spores, beginning the life cycle again.
So by completely cauterizing the colony, not only are you sparing the colonists the horror of being eaten alive by the embryonic Thorians, but you are also preventing the Thorians from completing their lifecycle and using the colonists to spread to other worlds. As with the Rachni decision, I am not completely happy with the options available to Commander Shepard in this scenario. In the case of the Rachni, I would have preferred to transfer the queen to the custody of the council so that they can repopulate under the supervision of the galactic authorities if that is what they decide to be best. In this case, I would have preferred to quarantine the colonists to Ferros until it is determined if the Thorian gametophytes that were controlling their bodies can safely be removed, but tragically the only options available to Shepard are killing them, or unleashing them on the galaxy. While I took no pleasure in killing them, I did not want to allow the chance that the same tragedy could be repeated on other worlds. While it is possible that the gametophytes could be surgically removed, it is likely that the plants structures are so intricately intertwined with their hosts’ nervous systems that they cannot be removed without killing the host.
It is sad, but scientific evidence show us that Shiala and the colonists on Zhu’s hope must be killed for their own sakes as much as for the sake of the people they would otherwise infect.
Modifié par bobobo878, 02 mars 2012 - 06:58 .
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