Skin-Suit or Meat Puppet?

I have this alien character whose real form is a plant-based lifeform from planet Venus in the near distant future, but I have trouble explaining how and describing what by which she actually controls her own humanoid disguise. I actually was going for the skin-suit option, but that has been way too overdone. The other options are the Meat Puppet, Big Dumb Body and Living Bodysuit which would way be trickier to explain. Or even using a human's discarded corpse as a puppet.

What other options would be good for explaining and exploring this?

edited 13th Feb '15 6:37:06 AM by sabrina_diamond

A remote puppet controlled through spores.

Okay, that could be one option available, but what about the other options being using a human corpse as a disguise, living body-suit or others? Could we at least discuss the other options as well?

It could be that the plant alien somehow infiltrated a human corpse—whether it created that corpse or simply picked it up somewhere is of course up to you—and then spread an extensive root system throughout the body that interacts with the central nervous system. Or this "root system" could merely interact with the muscles of the corpse. This would theoretically allow the alien to have at least a general method of controlling the body's movements and mimicking human behavior. However, it would not be able to speak in this method—at least not very intelligibly and the movements would probably be sporadic and jerky, giving a clue to others that something is not quite right with the "person" they're seeing.

Disclaimer: This is very, very pseudoscience-y and probably has no basis in reality. One other thing is that to use a human corpse, the alien would have to have some way of preserving it, otherwise it would quickly decay and fall apart.

What about possessing or infiltrating another (living) human?

Take examples from nature. The gordian worms for example use living hosts and control their behaviors through their little nervous systems.

Can you explain more about the Gordian worms and various other species that do that type of parasitsm?

edited 15th Feb '15 11:59:27 PM by sabrina_diamond

What about the Spore Mushroom that infects it's host and then slowly turns it into a mushroom?

That sounds useful, can you explain more about the spore mushroom's capabilities?

Here is a Wiki link to it. Incidentally the Last of Us is based around Zombie Mushrooms.

Another useful link.

A thing to note about these parasitic organisms is that they don't control their hosts like puppets per se; they just override their host's brains with two simple commands, usually 1) Do X then 2) Die.

But that is why I mentioned mind control spores. Because a Alien plant will obviously have some weird biological facts about them.

So feasibly if you come up with some sort of weird science explanation people will accept it.

A reader's suspension of disbelief can be stretched incredibly far, so long as all internal rules are consistent. First rule broken? The illusion breaks down.

gordian worms infect the creature's nervous system and encourage simple behaviors that allow the parasite nutrients to survive, and assure the creature's continued existence. If the host it controls is no longer useful, it will "suggest" the creature to visit the nearest body of water and drown itself, enabling the parasite to break free into water (it's preferred habitat). It uses the host as a means to travel long distances out of water. The parasites are usually ingested as eggs, and will grow inside of the creature, infecting their digestive tract but keeping close tabs on the systems responsible for behavior.

Not all creatures die before the worm can escape, and sometimes the host can kill the worm as its crawling out of their anus while its drowning, but other times the worm hides inside until the victim's body is filled with enough liquid to allow escape.

Basically the host is primarily used as a vehicle to navigate terrain or environments to harsh for the creature, or because being transported by the host is more energy efficient than just walking themselves.

As mentioned before, the fungus that infects ants causes the ants to ascend to an area where the fungus can best proliferate its species via spores. Once the ant reaches the peak, it will kill the air and burst its spore spreaders through the ants body.

I could use the gordian worm's approach, that would be best... Any other consequences I should think about?

edited 17th Feb '15 10:24:53 PM by sabrina_diamond