Mind Flayers and Diet

Matt Frisch wrote:

> On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:02:17 -0800 (PST), WDS <Bill.RemoveThis@seurer.net> scribed
> into the ether:
>
>
>>On Feb 14, 6:05 pm, Tetsubo <tets....RemoveThis@comcast.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Mind Flayers are carnivores that primarily consume humanoid brains.
>>
>>You know, I wonder if Mind Flayers would be susceptible to Creutzfeldt-
>>Jakob Disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (aka, 'Mad Cow
>>Disease'), or other prion diseases? That could be humorous.
>>
>>http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/prions/
>
>
> Relevant if they eat the brains of their own kind, otherwise eating brains
> is really no big deal (health-wise...still seems nasty to me).

It depends on how you view Mind Flayer reproduction. My Mind Flayers
implant a "seed" into a sapient humanoid. It gestates and then converts
the humanoid into a Mind Flayer. So... you could have a Mind Flayer get
a disease from a member of its "original" race.

>
> Much better to kill someone and eat their heart to gain their courage.
> Their rich tasty courage, oh my yes.
>


--
Tetsubo
--------------------------------------
"The apparent lesson of the Inquisition is that insistence on
uniformity of belief is fatal to intellectual, moral and spiritual health."
-The Uses Of The Past-, Herbert J. Muller

BLUP
 >> Stay informed about: Mind Flayers and Diet 

On Feb 19, 10:02 am, WDS <B... DeleteThis @seurer.net> wrote:
> On Feb 14, 6:05 pm, Tetsubo <tets... DeleteThis @comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > Mind Flayers are carnivores that primarily consume humanoid brains.
>
> You know, I wonder if Mind Flayers would be susceptible to Creutzfeldt-
> Jakob Disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (aka, 'Mad Cow
> Disease'), or other prion diseases? That could be humorous.
>
> http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/prions/

Eating a lot of brains certainly does present that risk, however the
prerequisite is a similar enough anatomy to be affected. I usually
rule this one out citing simply that they are from the farplane, and
thus are too indescribably alien to be affected by mammalian diseases.
 >> Stay informed about: Mind Flayers and Diet 

On Feb 19, 5:56 pm, Matt Frisch <matus... DeleteThis @yahoo.spam.me.not.com>
wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:02:17 -0800 (PST), WDS <B... DeleteThis @seurer.net> scribed
> into the ether:
>
> >On Feb 14, 6:05 pm, Tetsubo <tets... DeleteThis @comcast.net> wrote:
> >> Mind Flayers are carnivores that primarily consume humanoid brains.
>
> >You know, I wonder if Mind Flayers would be susceptible to Creutzfeldt-
> >Jakob Disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (aka, 'Mad Cow
> >Disease'), or other prion diseases? That could be humorous.
>
> >http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/prions/
>
> Relevant if they eat the brains of their own kind, otherwise eating brains
> is really no big deal (health-wise...still seems nasty to me).
>
> Much better to kill someone and eat their heart to gain their courage.
> Their rich tasty courage, oh my yes.

Ah yes, this too, the risk is much higher when eating the brains of
your own kind, something mindflayers are not known to do. If you
wanted you could write in an outcast template of insane mindflayer who
feeds on the brains of other mindflayers (and consequently has lost
the plot). Now that I think of it, elder brains devour the brains of
all of the mind flayers in their colony as they approach death.The
fact that the elder brains do not face this problem bolsters my
suggestion that the 'consumption' is more of a psionic process.I
personally would rule that elder brains don't even have digestive
tracts and simply vapourise the brain with their immense psionic
ability whilst psionically absorbing the energies of the mind within.
 >> Stay informed about: Mind Flayers and Diet 

On Feb 19, 11:38 pm, Tetsubo <tets....RemoveThis@comcast.net> wrote:
> Matt Frisch wrote:
> > On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:02:17 -0800 (PST), WDS <B....RemoveThis@seurer.net> scribed
> > into the ether:
>
> >>On Feb 14, 6:05 pm, Tetsubo <tets....RemoveThis@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> >>> Mind Flayers are carnivores that primarily consume humanoid brains.
>
> >>You know, I wonder if Mind Flayers would be susceptible to Creutzfeldt-
> >>Jakob Disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (aka, 'Mad Cow
> >>Disease'), or other prion diseases? That could be humorous.
>
> >>http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/prions/
>
> > Relevant if they eat the brains of their own kind, otherwise eating brains
> > is really no big deal (health-wise...still seems nasty to me).
>
> It depends on how you view Mind Flayer reproduction. My Mind Flayers
> implant a "seed" into a sapient humanoid. It gestates and then converts
> the humanoid into a Mind Flayer. So... you could have a Mind Flayer get
> a disease from a member of its "original" race.

In this case, I would recommend the same thing for the elder brain.
The process of psionically consuming the mind implementsan intense
bolt of psionic energy. The side effect is that the actual marterial
brain is liquified or vapourised and 'cooked' of all harmful
antigens.The mind flayer then inhales or slurps up the resultant by
product as a nice finishing note of the exchange.

>
>
>
> > Much better to kill someone and eat their heart to gain their courage.
> > Their rich tasty courage, oh my yes.
>
> --
> Tetsubo
> --------------------------------------
> "The apparent lesson of the Inquisition is that insistence on
> uniformity of belief is fatal to intellectual, moral and spiritual health."
> -The Uses Of The Past-, Herbert J. Muller
>
> BLUP
 >> Stay informed about: Mind Flayers and Diet 

Matt Frisch wrote:
> WDS wrote:
>> Tetsubo wrote:

>>> Mind Flayers are carnivores that primarily consume humanoid brains.
>>
>>You know, I wonder if Mind Flayers would be susceptible to Creutzfeldt-
>>Jakob Disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (aka, 'Mad Cow
>>Disease'), or other prion diseases? That could be humorous.
>>
>>http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/prions/
>
> Relevant if they eat the brains of their own kind, otherwise eating
> brains is really no big deal (health-wise...still seems nasty to me).

Not true. There's a few of the buggy prion forms that don't transmit
across families; scrapie in sheep seems to be sheep and goats only for
instance, but humans can at least get the bovine form, squirel form, mink
form, and all those animals can get each others.
One can tell where each form originated by the way the madness
progresses. All those people with mad cow in the UK got all skatey like
the cows did, but cows that got it from mink brains in the US had quite
different symptoms (though the same appearance of swiss-cheese brains
post-mortum).

Presumably, species that are routinely cannibalistic are immune to
their own forms, and predators and scavengers that eat the brains of
others similarly. I suppose by the time our primitive human ancestors got
to the carcass the brain was long gone.


Mind flayers would obviously be immune, they're really just tiny
worms, and probably just use the brain matter to repair their physical
links to the host body's nervious system.

> Much better to kill someone and eat their heart to gain their courage.
> Their rich tasty courage, oh my yes.

I think I'd stick to eating their ass, if it came down to it.

--
tussock

Zzzzzzzzzz... uh, wha? What the hell? I was sleeping, bugger off.
 >> Stay informed about: Mind Flayers and Diet 

On Feb 19, 12:56 am, Matt Frisch <matus... RemoveThis @yahoo.spam.me.not.com>
wrote:
> On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:02:17 -0800 (PST), WDS <B... RemoveThis @seurer.net> scribed
> into the ether:
>
> >On Feb 14, 6:05 pm, Tetsubo <tets... RemoveThis @comcast.net> wrote:
> >> Mind Flayers are carnivores that primarily consume humanoid brains.
>
> >You know, I wonder if Mind Flayers would be susceptible to Creutzfeldt-
> >Jakob Disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (aka, 'Mad Cow
> >Disease'), or other prion diseases? That could be humorous.
>
> >http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/prions/
>
> Relevant if they eat the brains of their own kind, otherwise eating brains
> is really no big deal (health-wise...still seems nasty to me).

Actually, consumption of BSE infected brain matter is thought to be
one of the triggers of CJD in humans. It is almost 100% certain that
is what happened in England some years ago.
 >> Stay informed about: Mind Flayers and Diet 

On Wed, 20 Feb 2008 07:43:23 -0800 (PST), WDS <Bill.DeleteThis@seurer.net> scribed
into the ether:

>On Feb 19, 12:56 am, Matt Frisch <matus....DeleteThis@yahoo.spam.me.not.com>
>wrote:
>> On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:02:17 -0800 (PST), WDS <B....DeleteThis@seurer.net> scribed
>> into the ether:
>>
>> >On Feb 14, 6:05 pm, Tetsubo <tets....DeleteThis@comcast.net> wrote:
>> >> Mind Flayers are carnivores that primarily consume humanoid brains.
>>
>> >You know, I wonder if Mind Flayers would be susceptible to Creutzfeldt-
>> >Jakob Disease, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (aka, 'Mad Cow
>> >Disease'), or other prion diseases? That could be humorous.
>>
>> >http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/prions/
>>
>> Relevant if they eat the brains of their own kind, otherwise eating brains
>> is really no big deal (health-wise...still seems nasty to me).
>
>Actually, consumption of BSE infected brain matter is thought to be
>one of the triggers of CJD in humans. It is almost 100% certain that
>is what happened in England some years ago.

The origin of the disease is from cows being fed...cows. Once the prions
form, THEN they become contagious cross-species.

If we didn't grind up extra cow parts and feed them to more cows, BSE would
have never existed in the first place.

Once the prions form, you don't even need to eat the brain matter of the
infected creature, it spreads to the muscle tissue.
 >> Stay informed about: Mind Flayers and Diet 

Matt Frisch wrote:

<Re: Mad Cow>

> The origin of the disease is from cows being fed...cows. Once the prions
> form, THEN they become contagious cross-species.

Not exactly true. The prions form naturally, but very rarely and only
one at a time. After formation they /might/ trigger their own replication
in affected cells, but even then within most species they can't spread
beyond one small part of that one brain for years.

> If we didn't grind up extra cow parts and feed them to more cows, BSE
> would have never existed in the first place.

Unless you do that of course. Making a soup containing a few prions
spreads them amoungst the consuming creatures, where a small number go on
to trigger replication.
Again, not much of a problem with just one or two infection sites per
critter, but cow to cow to cow to cow to cow to cow to cow to(etc)
becomes heavy numbers of infections and rapid brain degeneration within a
normal lifespan even across a large herd (such as the entire British
herd).

> Once the prions form, you don't even need to eat the brain matter of the
> infected creature, it spreads to the muscle tissue.

The cow that's showing symptoms has probably eaten enough of the bad
prion to have it's body flooded with millions of them, and have thousands
of reproduction sites in it's brain.

The system in Britain was doomed to exponential growth of infection.
They covered it up better in the States, and now feed their cows to pigs,
IIRC, which are in turn fed to cows. Either that's a negative exponential
and it'll disappear, or it's a positive one and it'll get the whole herd,
you'll know in another ten or twenty generations of cow to pig to cow to
pig to ....



Anyhoo, if you eat a lot of most animal's brains, the occaisional
natural localised reproduction cell may eventually get the better of you.
The rates of CJD are very high amoungst people that commonly eat squirel
brains as a delicacy, for instance, sheer volume overcoming the natural
rarity of prion.

--
tussock

Zzzzzzzzzz... uh, wha? What the hell? I was sleeping, bugger off.
 >> Stay informed about: Mind Flayers and Diet 

On Feb 21, 6:24 am, tussock <sc....TakeThisOut@clear.net.nz> wrote:
> Matt Frisch wrote:
>
> <Re: Mad Cow>
>
> > The origin of the disease is from cows being fed...cows. Once the prions
> > form, THEN they become contagious cross-species.
>
> Not exactly true. The prions form naturally, but very rarely and only
> one at a time. After formation they /might/ trigger their own replication
> in affected cells, but even then within most species they can't spread
> beyond one small part of that one brain for years.
>
> > If we didn't grind up extra cow parts and feed them to more cows, BSE
> > would have never existed in the first place.
>
> Unless you do that of course. Making a soup containing a few prions
> spreads them amoungst the consuming creatures, where a small number go on
> to trigger replication.
> Again, not much of a problem with just one or two infection sites per
> critter, but cow to cow to cow to cow to cow to cow to cow to(etc)
> becomes heavy numbers of infections and rapid brain degeneration within a
> normal lifespan even across a large herd (such as the entire British
> herd).
>
> > Once the prions form, you don't even need to eat the brain matter of the
> > infected creature, it spreads to the muscle tissue.
>
> The cow that's showing symptoms has probably eaten enough of the bad
> prion to have it's body flooded with millions of them, and have thousands
> of reproduction sites in it's brain.
>
> The system in Britain was doomed to exponential growth of infection.
> They covered it up better in the States, and now feed their cows to pigs,
> IIRC, which are in turn fed to cows. Either that's a negative exponential
> and it'll disappear, or it's a positive one and it'll get the whole herd,
> you'll know in another ten or twenty generations of cow to pig to cow to
> pig to ....

Ah pursuit of squeezing every last penny out of everything. Leads to
so many *good* things.

> Anyhoo, if you eat a lot of most animal's brains, the occaisional
> natural localised reproduction cell may eventually get the better of you.
> The rates of CJD are very high amoungst people that commonly eat squirel
> brains as a delicacy, for instance, sheer volume overcoming the natural
> rarity of prion.

Who the hell would eat squirrel brains as a delicacy?

- Justisaur
 >> Stay informed about: Mind Flayers and Diet 

Justisaur wrote:

> On Feb 21, 6:24 am, tussock <sc... DeleteThis @clear.net.nz> wrote:
>
>>Matt Frisch wrote:
>>
>><Re: Mad Cow>
>>
>>>The origin of the disease is from cows being fed...cows. Once the prions
>>>form, THEN they become contagious cross-species.
>>
>> Not exactly true. The prions form naturally, but very rarely and only
>>one at a time. After formation they /might/ trigger their own replication
>>in affected cells, but even then within most species they can't spread
>>beyond one small part of that one brain for years.
>>
>>
>>>If we didn't grind up extra cow parts and feed them to more cows, BSE
>>>would have never existed in the first place.
>>
>> Unless you do that of course. Making a soup containing a few prions
>>spreads them amoungst the consuming creatures, where a small number go on
>>to trigger replication.
>> Again, not much of a problem with just one or two infection sites per
>>critter, but cow to cow to cow to cow to cow to cow to cow to(etc)
>>becomes heavy numbers of infections and rapid brain degeneration within a
>>normal lifespan even across a large herd (such as the entire British
>>herd).
>>
>>
>>>Once the prions form, you don't even need to eat the brain matter of the
>>>infected creature, it spreads to the muscle tissue.
>>
>> The cow that's showing symptoms has probably eaten enough of the bad
>>prion to have it's body flooded with millions of them, and have thousands
>>of reproduction sites in it's brain.
>>
>> The system in Britain was doomed to exponential growth of infection.
>>They covered it up better in the States, and now feed their cows to pigs,
>>IIRC, which are in turn fed to cows. Either that's a negative exponential
>>and it'll disappear, or it's a positive one and it'll get the whole herd,
>>you'll know in another ten or twenty generations of cow to pig to cow to
>>pig to ....
>
>
> Ah pursuit of squeezing every last penny out of everything. Leads to
> so many *good* things.
>
>
>> Anyhoo, if you eat a lot of most animal's brains, the occaisional
>>natural localised reproduction cell may eventually get the better of you.
>>The rates of CJD are very high amoungst people that commonly eat squirel
>>brains as a delicacy, for instance, sheer volume overcoming the natural
>>rarity of prion.
>
>
> Who the hell would eat squirrel brains as a delicacy?
>
> - Justisaur

Cannibalistic squirrels?

--
Tetsubo
--------------------------------------
"The apparent lesson of the Inquisition is that insistence on
uniformity of belief is fatal to intellectual, moral and spiritual health."
-The Uses Of The Past-, Herbert J. Muller

BLUP
 >> Stay informed about: Mind Flayers and Diet 

Tetsubo wrote:
> Justisaur wrote:

>> Who the hell would eat squirrel brains as a delicacy?
>
> Cannibalistic squirrels?

Genuine Kentucky squirrel burgoo, making the most of roadkill.

--
tussock

Zzzzzzzzzz... uh, wha? What the hell? I was sleeping, bugger off.
 >> Stay informed about: Mind Flayers and Diet