Suppose we sent into space a crew to explore the Moon. We successfully launched the ship upwards and out of the atmosphere about 2 days after the full moon. And it just so happened that one of the crew members was a werewolf.:eek: So there’s no immediate risk of Wolfage that night just due to a Full Moon… buuut… now they’re in SPACE. So what rules apply there?
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At what point would they turn into a werewolf to attempt to consume the rest of the crew?**
As soon as they caught sight of the moon? When they were ON the Moon? When the ship was halfway in between the Earth and the Moon, or about 26-28 days later (because as everyone knows, werewolves are hormonally a metaphor for the feminist anima agenda)?
Also, suppose on that Crew, we included a Vampire (what a crazy random coincidence!) who just happened to be in the cargo bay at the time of launch (so he avoided the sun during the Day of the launch. But now, he finds himself in Space, and floating around- at what point can he come out and interact with the crew? Anytime the Sun isn’t being shined in through the windows of the ship? Or is he also too on a Day/Night cycle that’s now gone completely awry? If he put on a space suit, would he be fully protected from the Sun and free to move about?
How long could a sufficiently NASA-trained Werewolf and Vampire be able to live off the crew on the space station and then return to Earth safely? Or would they need a few more fellow monster crew members?
Who’d be the most useful? What factors would they have to consider for the other monsters’ living issues/changes in Space?
Man, I wish I could say “Need Answers Quick!” for this one. :eek:
The rules of the game for werewolves and vampires depend so strongly on who’s writing the story that it’s simply not possible to give a general answer. Of course, if you can find a real live vampire or werewolf, we can try it out, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.
I thought werewolves needed a full moon … or full sun reflection off the moon in their direction. So, the spacecraft would have to get around the moon to hit that point before werewolfage occurs, IMHO.
As to the question: there’s no coherence whatsoever to werewolf mythology. Maybe if there’s a full moon as seen by Earth and they’re struck by moonlight.
The full moon can only be seen at night (it rises at sunset and sets at sunrise), as it is directly opposite the sun. Moonlight is just reflected sunlight, so there must be something mystical that happens to the light from the sun after it reflects off the moon.
Some werewolf stories have the transformation occur even indoors or in cloud-cover. Others make the dramatic effect where the clouds part, revealing the full moon, and thus spurring the transformation.
The question is, is it the exposure to the full face of the moon that causes it? If a werewolf were in orbit around the moon, then it would transform whenever it crossed into the daytime side of the moon.
Or perhaps it’s something to do with the opposition of the moon from the sun, and therefore it only transforms when the moon is “full” as seen from Earth. Then would the werewolf transform even if on the night side of the moon?
Maybe it’s a combination of both factors? A werewolf has to be in the full reflected moonlight when it’s opposite the sun from Earth? How far away could the werewolf get from the Earth-moon system before becoming immune? Would a werewolf still transform if it were at Mars? (perhaps Mars’s moons would create some new transformation schedule?)
I would think with multiple moons it should certainly affect the scheduling of the transformations.
And I’ve always gone with the classical B-horror film views of old on my Werewolf knowledge- so they need the light of the Full Moon, and it’s not voluntary. Though, that cloud thing is a good one- it always seem to be that when the PERSON NOTICES the moon, opportunely shining through the clouds that they transform more often than not… You never just have them turning into wolves as soon as the sun goes down and right after supper. It’s always late night and all. So perhaps it IS the full effect of the Moon on the Wolf, or maybe it’s psychosomatic? The Werewolf needs to THINK the full moon is out and SEE it in order to experience the changes?
So… any one want to tackle the Vampire side-query? Or is it again “depending on your cultural mythology?” If so- then share your cultural mythology and let us know how that vampire would be under those conditions.
Since starlight and moonlight do not generally hurt vampires, we can assume some low level of sunlight will not harm them. So presumably a vamp far enough from a star is safe. However, sunlight in space would be stronger as it would not be filtered by atmosphere. Again, more research needs to be done.
If you’re willing to wait a couple of months, there’s a new comic coming out (probably in June) featuring werewolves vs vampires set on the moon.
I don’t have the catalog handy to tell you it’s name, though.
If the criteria of a full moon is “moon directly opposite the sun”, wouldn’t that mean that a full moon is never visible from earth, as the closest you’d get is the moments immediately prior to a lunar eclipse?
But isn’t the sunlight more INTENSE when you’re on the Moon than when you’re on the Earth? I’d think the distance from the moon to the Earth doesn’t really diminish the impact of the sunlight, and also you’re right about that atmosphere issue…
So it seems that the Sun’s size and distance are the settings at which Vampires will go ashy on us, or explody if that’s your mythos. I’d think while in space/on the Moon/ traveling he’d still have to worry about critical distances from the other stars…
That’s why I say it’s easier just to put him in a space suit. Don’t those things filter out the UV light of the sun and protect the astronauts? I think that’s his best optimal solution. Though it does make it sort of hard to go around biting people when you’re confined to being in a giant space suit like that…
I would guess that werewolfing is similar to the menstrual cycle. It will continue to happen every 28 days regardless of anything. (Though a Google search on menstruation in outer space failed to turn up anything–which possibly is an indication that everything happens without change.)