Terminal Shoggocity
By Toren Atkinson (reprinted from "The People of Innsmouth" VOL 26 pt 2)
In the field of Planar Zoology, it sometimes transpires that the experts are
faced with a problem that has real life applications, i.e. what would be the
effect on a shoggoth if it fell from a height of about 10,000 feet? Would the
shoggoth be killed? Would it break, splatter, or just create a large hole? We
asked our panel of experts to comment on this sadly neglected area of
scientific research.
If the shoggoth is a particularly clever or wise specimen, Lynn Willis of
Chaosium suggests that it might “spread itself out to become its own
parachute, avoiding a serious fall entirely. So what must first be determined
is whether the shoggoth is smart before it dropped out of the plane, or is it
just a big, dumb malevolent thing? If the shoggoth cannot overcome its likely
fear and consequently smashes as a little frightened ball into the ground at
terminal velocity, well, it’s dead. The drama fits the crime. Not even a
shoggoth is immortal.”
Jordan Bassior, internet thinktank, suggests that shoggoths are intelligent
enough to deal with such a plummet. “In atmosphere a falling object quickly
reaches “terminal velocity” (well over 100 mph for objects of human shape and
density), the speed at which aerodynamic lift equals gravitational
acceleration. A falling shoggoth would presumably flatten itself out to reduce
its terminal velocity (possibly to the point of flying as in the case of the
shoggoth-like Vampyr-steeds in author Brian Lumley’s universe).”
Professor Bernard Bustoffson, founder of S.P.O.N.G.E., and instructor at
Miskatonic University, has a different opinion: “Shoggoths, being of a
singularly uncomplicated state of mind, would no doubt have little regard for
the fall itself. No amount of shifting, resizing, or aerodynamics will even
occur to its gelatinous brain-caste. On the contrary, it will not even really
notice the change in its surroundings, and upon impact, will scarcely bat an
eye (or several).”
But is this an accurate assessment of a shoggoth’s state of awareness? If we
are to believe what we are told in H. P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of
Madness” (and we’d be fools not to), the shoggoths were created by the
super-intelligent Old Ones (also known as Elder Things). The Things
genetically engineered the shoggoths as beasts of burden, just as they
created, for the sole purpose of entertainment, the beginnings of what we have
come to consider “native” life on Earth. We must consider, then, that it is
very likely that shoggoths and terrestrial life are cast, if you will, from
the same genetic mold. It is reasonable to assume that all semi-intelligent
life knows fear— it is a basic survival mechanism without which a species
suffers to the point of extinction— and must be cognizant of its environs to
survive. As to the full extent of a shoggoth’s sentience, and its
correspondence to what we humans consider “emotion,” we are left to wrestle
with unknowns (q.v. Zach Desrocher, charter member of People for the Ethical
Treatment of Shoggoths). Still, we must assume that, since the shoggoths long
ago set a historical precedent by breaking their bonds and revolting against
their Old One oppressors, the average shoggoth fosters at least a basic
acumen.
That presupposed, a plummeting shoggoth might find itself with a number of
options. It may, as noted, stretch its mass into a thin, broad surface,
essentially forming a parachute or glider shape to slow its descent.
Alternately, the shoggoth may “bud.” Mik Clarke, of MIT, brings to light the
capacity of smaller creatures, like ants, to survive falls of great distance
simply due to their diminutive size and therefore increased resistance to
falling injuries. “If a shoggoth learns to survive a fall by breaking itself
up into thousands of little, tiny shoggoths (micro-shoggoths - only a few
micro-grams each).... you get a cloud of shoggoth descending - maybe 50m
diameter by 200m high. Within it the air is saturated with micro-shoggoths.”
Bustoffson takes this one step further. “Upon striking the earth at whatever
speed its formless mass would reach, the shoggoth would then burst into a
plethora of smaller shoggothian pieces. Each piece, however, is still part of
the whole, and would continue on its course (whatever that may be- probably
something along the lines of “keep moving, keep eating” and so on). As
individual pieces come into contact with other pieces, they will reattach in
quite a casual manner (a sort of “oh, how nice to see you again, let us
continue on to the smorgasbord together”).
We can go no farther before we must address the exact limitations of a
shoggoth’s plasticity. While it is readily known that shoggoths have the
ability to form locomotive and tactile pseudopods and even varying sensory
apparati from their main mass at a moment’s notice, is it reasonable to assume
they can perform such feats as separating their body into countless bits, and
then presumably reforming, like the Schmoo? If they can do that, then perhaps
shoggoths can simply pull themselves together after hitting the pavement at
high velocity even if attempts to reduce the impact fail.
“I’ve never heard of a shoggoth reforming.” retorts Willis. “Smashed is
smashed, as a shoggoth might say. (They are, ummm, decisive creatures.) As to
the implicit question of a high impact generating lots of little shoggoths,
nope, won’t happen. The Elder Things would have been smarter than that!”
Indeed, while it has been established that shoggoths reproduce by budding
(Petersen’s Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters), no evidence exists to the effect
that shoggoths can multiply at will into numerous proto-shoggoths. John
Goodrich (Independent) agrees: “there are probably less than a dozen shoggoths
living in modern times. Even old Al-Azrad had never seen one. Aside from the
six or so living off the New England Coast, there just aren’t that many
around. If shoggoths were able to splatter and reform (like the T-1000), then
there would be no shortage of shoggoths—ever. Just break off a piece and let
it grow—tadaaa! You quickly have two shoggoths for the price of one, plus
feeding.”
That theory satisfactorily discounted, we are forced to consider the parachute
hypothesis. “A straight drop would cause enough hydrostatic damage to
seriously impair [a shoggoth], fluid or not,” remarks Derek A. Petrey,
metaphysics consultant. “Cell walls are only so strong. If the shoggoth avoids
being coated by the ice layer in the clouds and turned into the mother of all
hailstones, they might have the presence of mind to flatten out or form a
parachute. Note that several mentions of a rapidly dissolving jelly fragments
have been recorded in Charles Fort’s books. Maybe they [broke apart], lost
consciousness and died, thus dissolving away.”
There are still more considerations. If, intelligence or no, a shoggoth
becomes panic-stricken or confused during its fall, it will not flange itself
into a parachute form. It may also fail to maintain this form if there is
significant muscle/cellular fatigue, or simple lack of dexterity among the
specimen. If, on the other hand, all of these conditions are adequately
met—intelligence, presence of mind, dexterity and the physical ability to
perform the feat—we may reason that it is not beyond the realm of possibility
that a shoggoth could spread itself thin enough to glide to safety like some
horrific, featureless flying squirrel, and save itself from injury or death
from a 10,000 foot fall. More likely, however, the shoggoth would fall victim
to the same inherent doom that any wingless creature—mammal, amoeba, or
other—inevitably does.
Jason “Knygathin Zhaum” Thompson points out: “aerodynamics would cause it to
smooth out into a perfect, raindrop-like sphere as it falls. (It might appear
tear-shaped to human eyes, of course, but that’d just be due to the velocity.)
I wouldn’t expect even this thunderous, cannonball-type collision to have any
permanent effect on the shoggoth. These creatures can survive the incredible
pressures of the ocean floor, so it seems to me that they’d probably take no
serious damage from even terminal velocity, assuming they didn’t land on
something sharp like a church spire (a very strong one) and inadvertently rip
themselves open. ‘Stunned’ sounds like a good possibility; ‘flattened out into
a patty-like shape in the middle of an impact crater’ sounds like another one.
On the other hand, I’m thinking of a pretty rubbery shoggoth here, whereas
they might exist in more tissuey, liquescent forms — maybe it has something to
do with nutrition.”
A more concrete supposal is here presented courtesy of Michael Tice, M.S.:
“Stokes’ Law gives the drag force impinging on a sphere moving through a fluid
at low velocities when laminar flow predominates. Although other researchers
(Willis, 1998; Clarke, 1998) have suggested alternative shoggoth descent
geometries, I think it is clear that sphericality is the most likely. No doubt
we are all familiar with the traditional autonomic reflex of the shoggoth to
unfamiliar, distressing and painful stimuli such as sodium hydroxide or the
Spice Girls: the shoggoth contracts itself into a ball in order to minimize
its exposed surface area. (No doubt the effect of the air during descent would
tend to ablate the falling shoggoth into a teardrop shape reminiscent of
tektites, but for a first order approximation, the sphere will have to do.)
“Consequently, Stokes’ Law gives the drag force as 6 p h rv, where h is the
viscosity of the fluid, r is the radius of the sphere and v is the velocity of
the sphere. We immediately come up against the problem of determining the
radius of a shoggoth. I estimate 5 meters. This is somewhat larger than the
only other published value I have come across (Chaosium, 1992). However, this
figure probably results from an erroneous reading of the ambiguous primary
research: “rubbery fifteen-foot spheroids infinitely plastic and ductile”
(Miskatonic University 1930-31 Antarctic Expedition Research Note #3) —taking
the fifteen feet to refer to the diameter instead of the more likely radius.
The M.U. note goes on to describe the shoggoth as comparable to a subway car,
which tends to support my figure.
“A similar question concerning the average density of the shoggoth arises. My
own rough estimates put the shoggoth very near to or a little higher than the
density as water (1 kg/litre). Consequently, my shoggoth weighs in at a little
over five million Newtons. Plugging in the viscosity of air (.019
millipoiseuilles), the equilibrium condition gives a terminal velocity of 2.85
billion meters per second.
“At first glance this seems absurd. And again at second and all subsequent
glances. A quick calculation of the Reynolds number in this case (N = 2
trillion) shows that we are well in the region for turbulent flow, and Stokes’
Law is as useful for our calculation as a fondue fork is for sexual
gratification. The Reynolds number is so large that the drag force cannot even
be approximated by the usual velocity-squared law, which would otherwise yield
an answer of about 10 thousand meters per second.
“Therefore, we are left with the final tool of the physicist: hand waving
arguments. For laminar flow, the terminal velocity increases as the square of
the radius of the object. For v-squared drag forces, it increases as the
square root of the radius. As higher order terms in the expansion become
important, the terminal velocity increases more slowly. Since the shoggoth
radius is about ten times a human radius, shoggoth terminal velocity must be
roughly two to three times that of a human, on the order of 300 to 500 meters
per second.
“That settled—at least tentatively—we must consider the impact. A shoggoth
moving with that terminal velocity has a kinetic energy of 40 billion Joules.
This is equivalent to the energy released in the explosion of ten tons of TNT.
During the rapid deceleration of the shoggoth that takes place upon impact,
this energy will all be released. Part of it goes into deforming the ground,
part goes into deforming the shoggoth, and part contributes to the kinetic
energy of the hunks of shoggoth that are flung about in all directions as it
hits the ground like an enormous sack of wet cement. Although I would not
entirely rule out shoggoth survival, I confidently predict that it would occur
with less frequency than human survival under similar circumstances.”
While it is obvious that many powerful scientific minds are grappling with the
question of the falling shoggoth, it is clear that further research is
necessary—no mean task considering the short supply and high value of the
protoplasmic beasts. Were a donated shoggoth’s mental state and cellular
resilience subject to scientific quantification, perhaps a reliable computer
model could be set up for the purpose of resolving this debate.
No shoggoths were harmed in the writing of this article.
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