In “Full Moonster”, a most excellent Bureau 13 novel, the contact of a werewolf with a chunk of moon rock caused a massive, massive psychic and mystical explosion that took out most of the world’s telepaths and psychics.
The basis of the werewolf change is in direct response to being exposed to moonlight. In most modern werewolf stories, the werewolf can control the change, but during the full moon, MUST change.
The exposure ON the lunar surface would mean constant exposure to moonlight - even the light reflected from the dirt itself. Direct exposure to the lunar master would be a constant and immediate shapechange to wolf form, and they’d never be able to change back.
The Sun is so much larger than the Moon that, despite the 93-million-mile distance, it shines on considerably more than 50% of its surface. This effectively increases the length of time that the near face is fully lit from our perspective.
But really, how does moonlight make a werewolf change? It probably isn’t some physical effect of the light hitting the skin or something, as a half-moon is still shining moonlight down. Surely it is more likely a psychological factor - the moonlight and the roundness of the moon conspire to create the change. In this case, leaving the atmosphere would alter these conditions so much that the change would not be triggered.
Unless of course it is a physical change, and the werewolf’s physiology adapts so that change is triggered by the maximal exposure to the moon in any given month, which is the full moon. In this case, exposure to the Moon’s light beyond the atmosphere would trigger immediate transformation. The werewolf may adapt again, but adaptions become less likely as the werewolf ages. You could wind up with werewolves from Earth being permanently stuck as wolves on the Moon’s surface, and moon-born wolves who will never change on Earth, though how their cycle would manifest itself is unknown.
Also, it could be a property unique to the side of the Moon that faces the Earth. The dark side of the Moon might trigger no change, due to unique types of soil or something.
As for vampires, they would have an excuse to wear a spacesuit or otherwise be shielded from the Sun. This would be most advantageous for them - no mysterious and suspicious night stalking necessary.
Yeah, but biting through a containment suit is a bitch. Especially those with the plexiglass bubble for a helmet - it’s like bobbing for apples, only worse !
You could modify a spacesuit, let’s see… it would have claws, with needles in them with powerful suction. Slash the suit, pierce the skin, suck up the blood, drink it. Hell, even a giant hypodermic would do it. Less glamorous than traditional neck-biting, but why the hell would a tradition respecting vampire be on a spaceship?
As a frequent visitor of Transilvania (seriously!), I might be able to shed some light on the situation.
First concerning the lycanthropes. Although modern literature continues to create variations on the age old theme, here in Europe it is well known lore that the face of the moon attracts wolves (hence their howling to it). It takes the full face of the moon on certain days (not any full moon will do) to bring out the “loup garou”.
It is therefore likely that passing the moon at a relative short distance will have an effect on lycanthropes, regardless of whether they are exposed to its reflection. A stay on the moon will certainly cause permanent transformation.
As for the vampire, it is unclear to me where the myth about sun allergy started or why it’s so persistant.
Apart from the risk of skin cancer when over exposed, the sun doesn’t bother me one bit.
The ‘sun allergy’ for vampires started in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. Jonathon Harker wrote about the Count’s aversion to going into any kind of sunlight in his journal.
If the werewolf’s transformation is triggered by a specific amount of moonlight, the threshold of which is crossed on Earth sometime around the full moon, he might transform when only exposed to a relatively small percentage of lit moon surface when the spaceship nears the moon, i.e. it occupies a greater percentage of their field of vision. Of course, this might eventually exceed any given amount of moonlight ever incident on any werewolf on Earth, so I guess the most probable thing to happen is that we end up with an immensely amped-up super-werewolf.
As for the vampire, now I have a picture of a Slavic looking man in a cape, frantically paddling through the air after a couple of floating blood bubbles. Does vampiric flight work in microgravity?
The vamp couldn’t suck the blood in space. Suction is created by the gauge air pressure around. With no atmospheric pressure (no atmosphere=no pressure) there would be nothing to “push” the blood into his mouth.
Roosh, I am shocked that you of all people don’t know how this would work. The astronauts would band together, and spend about 120-144 hours deciding who the werewolf is. At the end of that time, they’d hold a vote and throw the loser out of the airlock. Then they’d spend 48-72 hours drinking heavily and sleeping, while any surviving werewolves would pick a single astronaut and kill him. This cycle would repeat until all the werewolves are dead, or the werewolves outnumber the astronauts.
Since vampires also cannot cross running water, presumably this is some kind of metaphor on a vampire’s aversion to purity. I would venture to guess that in a spaceship’s filtered-air environment, near a fuel source of purified liquid oxygen, plus filtered water, and all the other carefully controlled elements, a vampire would be pretty uncomfortable.
The real problem is that vaporizing a vampire into duston board a ship means you get grit into all of the mechanisms and computer consoles.
This was going to be my guess - they just have it around 28 days and tend to synch up with phases of the moon, but in the absence of that they just go on an internal cycle - or maybe like women in an office, they sync up to the other neighboring werewolves.
In Elite Beat Agents or Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! (I think, I haven’t played the game) A poor teenaged werewolf has to resist the urge to wolf out at the sight of any round object. (Though the survivability of this breed in general would be quite slim, methinks.)
