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Did the cluster lizards come from the same planet as the home planet of the Insect Civilization? Or are they one of the few examples in Lexx of a life form which isn’t human or Insect. They look a bit like insects, maybe in a larval form, but they are called lizards. Why? Their name suggests that they are found only on the Cluster, but can they be indigenous to this planetoid? Maybe they were genetically engineered out of nothing on the orders of His Divine Shadow to really put the wind up humans and make them obey him.
Rockham
*Ahem*
According to one published report, the Cluster Lizards are the last or only known species of native life from the Cluster. Hence the name ‘Cluster’ Lizard.
According to a treatment from December, 1997, for an episode titled “The Clizzards of Woz” the Cluster Lizard is an endangered species and the sole export from the planet of origin, Woz. The episode was extensively changed and the Cluster Lizards angle was dropped.
According to Dave Albiston and David Cullen, original storyboard and effects artists, the Cluster Lizard was originally just that, a reptile. It was a cross between a pit bull and an alligator. Drawings and maquettes (small sculptures used to guide production) were made. This goes back to 1993.
The Cluster Lizards shifted to rolling segmented creatures comparatively late in production, after July, 1995, Paul Donovan’s concept of Cluster Lizards changed to segmented rolling creatures.
The whole rolling, tail in its mouth thing, might be a reference to greek or norse mythology, a reference to the metaphor of time running in a circle, inspired by the American hoop snake, or perhaps something as simple as rolling a tire with a stick as kids sometimes do. Quite likely part of it was simply that a rolling creature is easier for physical effects to do than a four legged puppet, which almost always looks bad.
The segmented thing is trickier. But we know that Paul Donovan was into bugs right from the start. So eventually, he may have simply decided to make them more insectlike
and less reptile.Conceptually, the rolling segments of Cluster Lizards gave rise to the LEXX symbol, and to the development of the look
of the Gigashadow and its larvae. In a sense, the Cluster Lizards are ancestors of the Insects.Having said all that: Now allow me to go all geek boy and speculate.
Cluster Lizards are segmented creatures whose behaviour appears to include rolling.
They are capable of surviving vaccuum without trouble, are thought to tolerate extremely hostile environments, prefer heat
reproduce every seven years and lay eggs
which give rise to recognizeable but immature larvae. They were exclusive to The Cluster so far as we know.Cluster Lizards share many features with the
Insects. Particularly, the insects survive vaccuum without trouble, are segmented, can roll into a ball, and appear to lay eggs giving rise to recognizeable larvae. That bit about eggs comes from the early lexx web site from Jeff.My theory is that there are enough similarities to roughly place both the insects and the cluster lizards in the same evolutionary lineage. I think its likely that they’re related, and that Cluster Lizards were probably a parasite species
living on the insects, the way flees might live on a dog, or mice in a house.How’s that?
quote:
Originally posted by Valdron:
My theory is that there are enough similarities to roughly place both the insects and the cluster lizards in the same evolutionary lineage. I think its likely that they’re related, and that Cluster Lizards were probably a parasite species
living on the insects, the way flees might live on a dog, or mice in a house.How’s that?
Fascinating! Do you think that they roamed space a bit like the spider thing in The Web and The Net looking for Insects? It makes me suspect even more that Insects did not have a home planet but evolved in space, or evolved on a home planet (perhaps without an atmosphere) to live in space.
Rockham.
Hmmm, I think that the Insects were the space travellers. The Cluster Lizards just lived on/inside them and therefore didn’t
need that sort of ability. If they had,
it was a trait that withered.I suspect that the Insects were evolved for space. I cannot see how creatures even a fraction of the size of the Gigashadow could be planet based. How they evolved, I have no clue.
So a summery of all the ideas you mentioned(and a few of my own) is this:
The cluster lizards were parsites in the giga-shadow (posibly symbioticly).
When it burrowed in to the cluster planet they got out and people thought they lived in the cluster.And the web may be a subspecies of a race the insects fear (never a good thing for humans!)
I hope I summed that up correctly.
A Cluster lizard is a four meter long encephalophagous reptile inhabiting the Cluster, but originally from another, much hotter planet. Used by the Divine Order for cruel and unusual execution. Cluster lizards have no legs, but their ventral surfaces are equipped with two rows of pseudopods, allowing them to roll in hoops after prey. They have fifteen segments, twenty pseudopods, a pair of forceps-like tail filaments, and a four-part outer mouth that opens like a flower to reveal a three-part inner mouth lined with needle-like teeth. The color of cluster lizard scales ranges from green to red. They have no eyes, but a keen sense of smell and the ability to detect mild changes in atmospheric pressure. They will eat most forms of carbon-based flesh, but prefer brains. A single Cluster lizard can and will devour the brain of an Insect in minutes. Cluster lizards are non-sentient, but more intelligent than most animals. They have an innate curiosity and like to explore. They are territorial, and dislike excessive foliage in their environments as well as low temperatures, though they can survive in the freezing vacuum of space for at least limited amounts of time. Cluster lizard females enter œstrus once every seven standard years. They go into a feeding frenzy, and when the cycle reaches its peak they devour their mate after mating. Cluster lizards lay eggs, and the females rear their young. Young Cluster lizards imprint upon the first large life form that they see.
One slight wrinkle in the parasite theory:
A Cluster Lizard’s favorite food is brains.
If they were parasites on the Insect, what would they eat? When Squish got into the Giga Shadow’s brain, the Giga Shadow reacted violently, so you wouldn’t think they could feed/live on the Insect’s brain as a parasite would.
And if they are the only indiginous life on the Cluster, what the heck do they eat there? Each other?
I got no answers on this one.
There was a chimpanzee whose favourite food was ice cream. It is unlikely that wild chimpanzees have much access to ice cream. I assume that Cluster Lizards might enjoy or seek out food in artificial circumstances that they never get to enjoy in the wild.
As to the threat parasitic Cluster Lizards might represent to host insects, brain eating and all that, I agree. Parasites
frequently represent a potential threat to human and animal life and health. We evolve defenses and seek treatment to control parasite infestations.Squish apparently was able to bypass the Gigashadow’s defences. Defences which were proof against Kai. There are a number of possible reasons for this.
If they were parasites, then I imagine they would have fed upon accessible insect tissues, consuming dead skin flakes, gnawing at breaches in the armour, possibly performing hygeine functions. I would also assume some capacity for long periods of dormancy. It’s likely that their metabolic rates, like those of fleas, were tied to their hosts. My guess is that their normal feeding areas on the host insect were fairly benign. In humans, parasites in some areas of the body are fairly tolerable, but when they move internally, then we’ve got trouble.
I think that when the Divine Order was being established, some Cluster Lizards were found, or stragglers may have emerged. They
were adopted by HDS as guardian animals.
In that position, their diet became exclusively human. It may well be that
HDS used human science to try and control
or free the Gigashadow body of Cluster Lizard parasites. After all, who wants to wake up from a 30 year sleep with a bitching case of head lice.With all due respect to Dalektek790, I’m
not sure that Xev’s statements in the third
season about Cluster Lizards are definitive.
Cluster Lizards are apparently very tolerant of heat, or at least Xev is. But where does she get her information on the planet where Cluster Lizards come from? She grew up in a box.The speculation that the Web/Net creature might well have been an Insect predator/parasite is actually a fairly good one. It’s hard to imagine another niche for such a massive hunter predator. What else would they go for.
The question all parents on the 20,000 Planets dread: Where do Cluster lizards come from?
Okay, I’m getting serious, now…quote:
Originally posted by Valdron:
With all due respect to Dalektek790, I’m
not sure that Xev’s statements in the third
season about Cluster Lizards are definitive.
Cluster Lizards are apparently very tolerant of heat, or at least Xev is. But where does she get her information on the planet where Cluster Lizards come from? She grew up in a box.
I should think she received some kind of education in her Skinner box. She knew about the Arch Traitor Stanley Tweedle. I think it’s reasonable to assume she was taught some facts about other planets and life forms.
Alternately, she may have filled in what little knowledge of Cluster lizards she has with speculation. She knows that she has remarkable heat resistance, for instance, and has inferred that the original home planet of the Cluster lizards was a hot one. I’d imagine Xev has done a lot of thinking on this subject. After all, she didn’t seem to have much to do on the Lexx besides file her nails and stare at Kai’s frozen body, and Cluster lizards are naturally curious (or so she says).
Xev does seem to have limited knowledge of her own form. She told Prince that she was half Cluster lizard, while in Terminal it was established (if I recall correctly) that she was 17%.
Kai would really be the one to ask.
I doubt Cluster lizards were brought to the Cluster as parasites of the Insect. If they were than the people who brought them to the surface would have had to know that there was a big Insect in there, and suspicions would surround the creatures’ discovery. Plus there would be no ecosystem in which they could live in the Cluster, without acknowledging the existence of the Insect. It is possible that they were Insect parasites, but I find that unlikely (they seem more like a Brunnen-G instrument of Insect destruction). I also don’t think they are a subtype of Insects. I’m sorry, but I just can’t see insects no matter how hard I look at Cluster lizards. It is possible they are part of the same evolutionary lineage, but not the same phylum.
I think they were probably transported from a planet in the League of 20,000 Planets for use in executions. Their original home planet, which may have been destroyed, was a hot world (but not a desert planet, since Cluster lizard pseudopods are made for gripping hard surfaces, not sand). The pseudopods and rolling could be artefacts of a low-gravity environment. It may have been a Mercury-like world with a thin atmosphere and extreme temperature fluctuations, explaining the Cluster lizard tolerence for vacuum and cold. But it would have been very, very hot at least some of the time, and had very little foliage (at least in the regions Cluster lizards inhabited. Alternately, there could have been an impermeable, greenhouse-acting mist that made vision difficult, hence the Cluster lizards’ lack of eyes. Or maybe that is because of extreme darkness (they could have lived in caves or air pockets, or far away from their sun, the heat being generated geothermically). I have yet to formulate a sound theory as to why they have the “flowering” mouths.
quote:
Originally posted by Valdron:
The speculation that the Web/Net creature might well have been an Insect predator/parasite is actually a fairly good one. It’s hard to imagine another niche for such a massive hunter predator. What else would they go for.
There’s some speculation on the nature of the Net under Rockham’s “From what was Lexx bred?” topic.
In the actual conceptual development of the form of the Insects, the Cluster Lizards are definitely the direct ancestors.
In terms of my theory, I don’t suggest that Insects and Cluster Lizards are closely related. Rather, I suggest that there is
enough overlaps, segmented armoured bodies, rolling or coiling into a circle, predation,
egg laying, tolerance to vaccuum environment, to suggest that the two species
may be related. But we’re not talking Man
and Chimpanzee levels of relationship, but rather, Man and Lizard.As for the Cluster Lizards tipping off people on the Cluster as to the true nature and the hidden existence of the Insect within. But remember that through its history the The Cluster would have been ruled by His Divine Shadow and the Divine Order. No matter how their fortunes rose or fell, that was the one planetoid where His Divine Shadow would allow nothing less than an unbreakable grip. Cluster Lizards would not have emerged to the sight of anyone capable of understanding what it meant or living long enough to spread that message.
As I’ve said, the Insect survived a period of dormancy for a long long time. It’s likely that Cluster Lizards metabolisms followed their host, especially if periods of dormancy were part of the insects nature.
Parasites which remained active when the host went dormant would eventually either starve to death, or they’d consume the host and then starve to death.There’s ample precedent on earth for parasites that link their metabolism and life cycles to their hosts. Fleas on rabbits for instance, only become fertile when the female rabbit enters estrous. When rabbits mate, all the flees move to the female rabbit, temporarily leaving the male
free. There the flees await the birth of the rabbits litter and the colonization of a new generation of rabbits. That’s fairly sophisticated. Compared to that, it’s not unreasonable to assume that Insect parasite or symbiont species would link its metabolism and life cycle to the host Insect.We acknowledge there is no ecosystem on the Cluster and the Cluster Lizards would not have been viable in isolation. However, they were not in isolation, but clearly a part of the order of punishments and games used by the Divine Order.
The rest of the morphology of the Cluster Lizards conforms to an existence as insect parasites. This includes the pseudopods evolved to grip hard surfaces (Insect carapace), egg laying in which the eggs are literally cemented in place in a stable sheltered location but not otherwise protected (as in burying), the ‘swimming’ motion sometimes used instead of rolling, and the wide opening flower jawed mouth with inward pointing teeth which is designed for
biting large objects. The larger the object, the bigger the bite ratio. Their bite ratio is immense, essentially, they’re
evolved to try to gouge or scrape chunks out of large near flat surfaces.As for Xev, I suspect there was more than a little speculation on her part. Conceivably
she received edited or misleading texts while in her skinner box. Kai might be better informed, but remember, even Kai and the Predecessors didnt know the secret of the Gigashadow. So, if Cluster Lizards were part of the secret, that information may not have been accessible to him.
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