# Build a working vampire **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 3, 2012, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733 "2012-11-03T03:44:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/21 "2012-11-03T18:39:21Z")
I don’t care for biological vampires; I prefer them to be grounded in an interesting and consistent magic/mythic system. That doesn’t mean crucifixes need to work, but I hate the idea of microscopes and serums being of any help. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/22 "2012-11-03T20:31:09Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > Yeah, the reflection thing always bugs the hell out of me, too. Especially when you start really nitpicking it. (“Wait, even if I can’t see the vampire in the mirror, why can’t I see his clothes? Are his _clothes_ undead, too? If I toss Dracula a sweater, does it’s reflection vanish if he catches it, or just when he puts it on?”) > > Anyway…in a play on the whole thing, one strain of vampire in the novel I’m writing can _only_ be seen in mirrors, a la Medusa\*. It’s an autonomic telepathic effect, used to aid in hunting. The distortion/image reversal of a reflection is enough to circumvent the neurological effect. For clothes, I think it could work like how some types of “real” invisibility works: the vamp would emit a field that bends light say a centimeter out from their body. That would mean that they would have a hazy halo around them, and not sure how that would translate to mirrors. You idea vaguely reminds me of Guy de Maupassant’s _Le Horla_ (vaguely; you seem plagiarism-free). There’s a couple versions, he rewrote it a bit, sometimes under a different title. It’s not really a blood-drinking vampire, but an invisible milkdrinker (wanted to use that word) which could also be a product of the narrator’s insanity. IIRC he looks in a mirror and doesn’t see his own reflection, possible because the Horla is in the way. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/23 "2012-11-03T21:05:06Z")
Pfft. Like vampires work. I’d like you to show me a leech who knows the value of an honest day’s work. At least your werewolves can do a full shift without “Ooo, the sunlight” or “Ahh, I wanna drink your blood.” Pansies. :rolleyes: 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/24 "2012-11-03T22:35:15Z")
Hey, the vampire in Pratchett’s _The Truth_ works. Even though his line of work (photography) means that he crumbles to dust every time he uses the flash, he works. AND he’s a Black Ribboner, too. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/25 "2012-11-04T14:16:45Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > Hey, the vampire in Pratchett’s _The Truth_ works. Even though his line of work (photography) means that he crumbles to dust every time he uses the flash, he works. AND he’s a Black Ribboner, too. Well, that’s true. Just seems like Vampires go the blue-blood rich-guy route all the time. So what about running water? That’s usually a physical barrier-like they can’t swim? It doesn’t hurt them, per se. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/26 "2012-11-04T16:17:07Z")
Okay, here’s a stab at physics-compliant non-reflectivity. It’s pretty weak, but it’s the best I’ve come up with. First, you tie in the premise that **Der Trihs** mentions, that the material of the vampire’s body is being replaced with Mystery Substance X. In addition to all its other vampire-explaining advantages, let’s assume that the X in the skin layer has a natural nanocrystalline order similar to that of certain engineered metamaterials. The metamaterials in question have a negative refractive index, bending light around the vampire’s skin. It’s not enough to make the vamp invisible, of course–full metamaterial invisibility cloaks appear to be limited to cloaking fairly small objects (at least so far), and the vampire’s clothes don’t bend light. In good lighting, they’d generally look normal enough–perhaps taking on a bit of the color of whatever’s behind them–but a vampiric aversion to sunlight would mean they weren’t often seen in really bright light. However, at certain angles, and certain distances, the light bending around exposed skin would be sufficient to disrupt the human outline of the vampire’s form, which is a highly effective form of camouflage. Thus, a vampire that is perfectly visible a few feet behind you if you turn your head and look could appear substantially distorted in a mirror (which doubles his effective distance from you)–enough so that it is not immediately obvious that there is another human form in the image. This would also account, to some extent, for a vampiric ability to “vanish” or otherwise approach or depart unseen: they take a step or two into a relative position that provides the maximum distortion, and rely on dim lighting and their camouflage to conceal them until the observer looks away. It sounds like a very useful adaptation for a nocturnal predator. > [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Garlic wards them off. OK, the strong smell of garlic may make it difficult for a vampire to approach, accepting that they have hypersensitive senses. As P. N. Elrod’s gumshoe vampire Jack Fleming puts it, “What good is something that smells bad against someone who doesn’t have to breathe?” ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/27 "2012-11-04T16:35:03Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > So what about running water? That’s usually a physical barrier-like they can’t swim? It doesn’t hurt them, per se. In Tim Powers’s _The Stress of Her Regard_ there’s an ancient race of beings that were the inspiration for vampire legends as well as most other humanoid mythical beings like trolls, gorgons, the Biblical nephilim, etc. I’m vague on the details now (IIRC they’re also left kind of vague in the book), but these beings are silicon-based instead of carbon-based and have a very high body electricity compared to humans. This gives them some special powers, but also makes them vulnerable to substances that are either very good or very bad conductors of electricity. Salt water falls into the former category, so these beings can’t easily cross oceans. This is also why a wooden stake (bad conductor) will harm them, although an iron stake (good conductor) is even better. It’s suggested that the belief that churches and holy symbols will ward off vampires is because in historic times a church was the only place accessible to commoners that was likely to be full of metal. The lead glass used in stained glass windows also helped keep these beings from entering. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/28 "2012-11-04T16:43:45Z")
A few random notes: (1) In the Buffyverse, there’s some inconsistency about what happens when vampires die. Most of the time they turn to dust, leading to all the typical questions about where there clothes went, what if you some evil artifact you needed to dispose of, could you put it in a vampire’s pocket and then stake the vamipre? And why did The Master (from season 1) leave bones behind when he got staked but no other vampire, even super-old-and-powerful-ones, ever did? (2) I just finished reading the excellent **The Passage** and **The Twelve** by Justin Cronin, which has some clever twists. In particular, they are visible in mirrors, but mirrors are a weapon against them, because the “Virals” retain some memories of their human lives, but are mainly controlled by evil super-vampires, and the mirror lets them see their faces and reminds them somehow of their awful state, which confuses or slows them down, etc. They can be killed by any normal kind of killing, but they have a kind of armor-y exoskeleton which has a weak spot near their solar plexus, leading to the “stake through the heart” plan. They dislike garlic, and also get easily confused by spinning shapes. Sunlight weakens them, although it never goes into details about why. I’m always a bit irked by vampires who are invulnerable to everything other than stake-through-the-heart and a few other such things. Modern military weapons are just SO destructive… you’re saying if I opened up on one of these vampires from close range with a gatling gun and plowed several thousand bullets into it it would just be fine because none of them were wooden stakes in the heart? If they’re purely magical creatures then I guess all logic and rules are off, but they’re usually depicted as generally obeying the laws of physics… (this is somewhat addressed in Buffy with “the judge” who no blade can kill, but who Buffy takes out with A Rocket Launcher ) ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/29 "2012-11-04T17:17:44Z")
I got nothing for reflections, but I can handle garlic. Vampires have a fatal, or near fatal allergy to [Diallyl disulfide](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diallyl_disulfide). This means that garlic is right out, being the most concentrated bearer of the compound. They might well have an aversion to all alliums as well. In a real-life predator, that would make garlic-oil based products quite effective against their predations. Small does might make them uncomfortable, have difficultly breathing, break out in hives, rashes, or other nasty effects. Large direct doses send them into a fatal allergic reaction. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/30 "2012-11-04T20:14:46Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > Well, that’s true. Just seems like Vampires go the blue-blood rich-guy route all the time. Tanya Huff’s Henry Fiztroy explains the blue-blood part as being due to the fact that nobles were more likely to be interred in aboveground tombs, while commoners were buried - and it’s a lot harder to escape a coffin buried underground than it is to break out of a building. > [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > So what about running water? That’s usually a physical barrier-like they can’t swim? It doesn’t hurt them, per se. One good explanation I’ve heard for that: vampires are highly territorial. And like humans, they often use streams and rivers as boundary markers. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/31 "2012-11-04T20:57:42Z")
Yet another way that you could get vampires visible in a mirror but not directly (i.e., the reverse of the traditional): The vampire’s skin is chameleonic, and they’re very good at controlling it: When confronted by a single person, or a group all in about the same direction, they can change their surface coloration to match their background, effectively giving them very good camouflage. But without metamaterials, that only works from one direction at a time: Put a mirror in the scene, and you can see the vampire from multiple angles at once, and it can’t block both of them. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/32 "2012-11-08T19:28:08Z")
It’s Bram Stoker’s birthday (1847). Check out [Google.com](http://Google.com) today. ---
**Author:** ![ministryman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@ministryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ministryman)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/33 "2012-11-08T21:59:29Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > We pulled _Shadow Of The Vampire_ off the ol’ shelf and watched it last week. There’s the scene where they’re filming Count Orloff in the bedroom, and Mina notices that ‘Max Schreck’ is not reflected in the mirror. > > The lack-of-reflection thing never made sense to me. We see the photons bouncing off of the things we’re looking at. A mirror bounces photons. If we can see a vampire, there’s no logical reason why we couldn’t see a reflection of one. > > ‘Logical’, you say? Yeah, I get that the stories are all about magic and myths. I haven’t seen any of the ‘sparkling vampire’ shows. Maybe they’ve addressed this already. But if you were going to build a vampire myth, how would they work? > > **Reflections:** I’ve got nothin’. > > \*\*Sunlight:\*\*Certain wavelengths of light (and other radiation) are deadly to various organisms. I could accept that sunlight would kill a vampire. Reduce it to dust? Not so much. Unless their physiology is such that application of these certain wavelengths causes rapid oxidation and/or combustion. > > Was it _Lost Boys_ where the vampires could be out at dawn if they wore sunscreen and dark shades? I don’t see any reason a vampire couldn’t endure some sunlight if he was properly protected against the deadly wavelengths. > > \*\*Making vampires:\*\*Vampires are created by people being bitten by a vampire. Sounds like a simple infection to me. > > \*\*Weapons against vampires:\*\*Garlic wards them off. OK, the strong smell of garlic may make it difficult for a vampire to approach, accepting that they have hypersensitive senses. Steak through the heart. That would stop just about anybody. Crosses and holy water? Um… I’m not seeing how they’d work against a ‘physical’ vampire (as opposed to a supernatural one). > > And so on. > > So here’s the question: How out you ‘design’ a vampire, such that it possesses as many of the traditional folkloric attributes, but possesses them in a more-or-less ‘plausible’ manner? That is, describe the vampire as a new species and leave the supernatural (God and Satan, for example) out of it. You want a being that has the powers traditional vampires have without having the supernatural in it? Can’t be done. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2012, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/34 "2012-11-08T23:32:29Z")
I have been thinking about this, and I think I can work with the no-sunlight thing. Building on the idea that vampires are made of non-human substance, lots of thing oxidize into less-stable or less-strong materials. For example, paper yellows and turns brittle (as does plastic) and I’m sure other things I can’t think of because I’m not a science person. So - vampires are held together by something like lignin (the bit in paper that makes it stable, and decays in sunlight) and in old times, vampires didn’t know enough science to know to stay out of the sun, they just noticed that they turned all wrinkly and yellowish. That’s why none of the classic stories have anti-sun, but the vampires don’t go out very often in it regardless. That also gives a reason for the classic vampires to be so ugly - they’re getting damaged by the sun. Same thing as leather-face for regular people, just takes longer. Then, some vampire scientist figures it out more recently, starts a vampire protection campaign to add “no sunlight” to the canon, and now we have nice pale, smooth, attractive vampires who haven’t been all nastified by the sun! The rest of it, I’ve got nothing better than what posters have already put forth. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2012, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/35 "2012-11-09T00:17:23Z")
Vampires don’t make any physical sense – they’re a collection of random spooky details that have largely been created in the past 200 years or so. The original vampires were obsesive-coompulsive walking dead people who drank blood, but weren’t very bright and wouldn’t be confused with living people, mainly because everyone already knew they were dead. They came out at night, but were easily defeated. Goethe (in _The Bride of Corinth_) and John Polidori (in The Vampyre\*) gave us the Titled Vampire who spoke and could pass for human, and vampires haven’t been the same since. **Mirrors** – Before Stoker’s _Dracula_, which established many of the features of vampire lore, nobody ever said vampires couldn’t be seen in mirrors. Stoker seems to have created it. It seems like a piece of ancient vampire lore (mirrors contain the soul! Vampires don’t have souls), but it’s not. And movie vampires often show up in mirrors. You can see Count Orlock in reflections in the riginal _Nosferatu_. And Bela Lugosi as Dracula was visible in a mirror in _Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein_ – even though Universal made a big deal about his not appearing in mirrors in the original 1931 _Dracula_ (wich got the idea from the Balderston/Deane stage play it was based on) **Stakes** – Vampires being done in by stakes goes way back, as our Perfect Master pointed out 'way back. A Vampire gets staked in the early 19th century _Varney the Vampire_, and also in the somewhat later _Carmilla_ and in Dracula\*. There were other ways to get rid of a vampire, but the stake is the Old Reliable. [B[Sunlight\*\* – Sunlight didn’t dissolve vampires until the movies. Varney didn’t dissolve, but it was moonlight that revived him. Dracula walked around in daylight in the novel. It wasn’t until the movie _Nsferatu_ that the idea first appeared – it was a dramatic yet unbloody and highly symbolic end for a Creature of Darkness. But for years afterward sunlight had no effect. the vampire in Carl Dreyer’s _Vampyr_ gets staked (with an _iron_ stake) in broad daylight. Kurt Siodmal seems to have revived the "dissolved in su=nlight’ meme when he wrote the stories for _Son of Dracula_ and _House of Frankenstein_, where I suspect it was liked because it was Hays-friendly unbloody. When the Hammer film _Horror of Dracula_ in 1957 used the idea, it was firmly in the public consciousness. So the vampire qualities are a hodge-podge of tried-out ideas. Who takes seriously the idea that the vampire must bite three times before it “takes” (as in _Once Bitten_), or that a vampire forcing you to drink its blood then controls you 9as in the novel _Dracula_)? It’s impossible to really make all of these physically realistic. Riochard Matheson tried, Og knows, in his novel _I Am Legend_, but he didn’t wholly succeed. They tried in the Universal film _House of Dracula_, but that did’t work, either. Vampires are just i,mpossible creatures of fantasy and magic. ---
**Author:** ![Scupper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Scupper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scupper)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/36 "2012-11-10T01:27:50Z")
Peter Watts and his novel _Blindsight_ got mentioned earlier, but he has lots of extra fake vampire science, including an awesome conference presentation by the company that “rediscovered” vampires. [Vampire Info](http://www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm#Notes) [Presentation](http://www.rifters.com/blindsight/vampires.htm) I don’t believe he deals with the reflection thing at all, though. That is pretty much the hardest one to come up with a plausible explanation for. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/37 "2012-11-10T04:04:46Z")
> [@Scupper](#): > > Peter Watts and his novel _Blindsight_ got mentioned earlier, but he has lots of extra fake vampire science, including an awesome conference presentation by the company that “rediscovered” vampires… Thanks. The zingers about Texas justice and corporate ethics are great. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2012, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/38 "2012-11-10T05:25:56Z")
Al Steiner, one of my favorite erotica writers, had a very interesting take on vampires. His wife enjoyed vampire fiction, and he had no interest in anything that depended on magic. His vampire stories are intended to be rational. He created a race called the Cognate that has lived alongside human beings, fed upon them, but did not kill. The source of their control over humans was overwhelming pheromones. They could go out in sunlight, but their heightened senses made it very uncomfortable. His stories are hosted on StoriesOnline. You have to create a free account to read them. Once you do the following link should work: [Al Steiner’s “A Correct Destiny”.](http://storiesonline.net/library/universe.php?id=529) ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2012, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/39 "2012-11-11T17:25:08Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > (2) I just finished reading the excellent **The Passage** and **The Twelve** by Justin Cronin, which has some clever twists. In particular, they are visible in mirrors, but mirrors are a weapon against them, because the “Virals” retain some memories of their human lives, but are mainly controlled by evil super-vampires, and the mirror lets them see their faces and reminds them somehow of their awful state, which confuses or slows them down, etc. They can be killed by any normal kind of killing, but they have a kind of armor-y exoskeleton which has a weak spot near their solar plexus, leading to the “stake through the heart” plan. They dislike garlic, and also get easily confused by spinning shapes. Sunlight weakens them, although it never goes into details about why. In **The Passage** , vampires _love_ garlic, in fact it’s used as a lure at one point. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733/40 "2012-11-11T17:39:13Z")
What about fangs? Either ones that permanently grow after vampirism, or those that can grow when needed to feed. Cecil mentions recession/tightening of the gums. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/build-a-working-vampire/639733.md?page=3)