'She'll Be Crushed!' What Does It Mean?

One line that always bugged me was the statement 'she'll be crushed!' made by John in 'Rules of Luton,' when Maya was caged as a falcon, and was approaching her time limit.

For years, I could never quite figure that line out, at least in a satisfactory way. Then, I realized it probably refered to two things: her size, and her mass.

First, her size.

She was a falcon in a cage. If she had reverted to humanoid form while in the cage, she could have easily ended up with a wire cage trapped inside her body -- which would most likely be fatal. Or, if the process is a little different, she could have ended up sliced and diced like cheese into cubes -- and that would, without a doubt, be fatal. So she couldn't expand unless the cage were opened.

What about transforming directly from one animal to a smaller one that could slip between the wires? She did, after all, go directly from a dog to a ferret (?) in 'The Taybor.'

The 'Taybor' incident was a little different, however, because the trap she was in was so much larger than the bird cage in 'Luton.' One could imagine she had more 'working room' to make a direct transformation; i.e. perhaps in animal-to-animal metamorphoses, she doesn't have to return to full Maya (humanoid) size, but does need to momentarily expand a little.

In 'Taybor,' she was a medium-sized dog, but was trapped in a cage that left a lot of extra room (heck, Maya herself probably could have fit inside!) perhaps leaving enough 'working room' in which to transform directly from dog to ferret.

In 'Luton,' however, both she and the cage were considerably smaller, so she wouldn't have had the minimum necessary 'working space' in which to transform. It was too cramped! Even if she tried to transform from the falcon into a bug (for example), she may have had to momentarily enlarge to the size of a dog -- but the cage is in the way, just like before!

As a side note, one could imagine Maya reducing the 'working space' needed as she gains more experience over the years. At first, she may have had to return to her humanoid form between every transformation. Next, she could have learned to transform directly between forms, but still needing a human-sized 'working space' in which to do it. Then, she could have steadily reduced the amount of working space needed, down to medium-sized, and then smaller size, until she could transform between two small forms without needing any extra space at all. As she gains experience, she gets better at it! (And yes, I know 'Luton' is after 'Taybor,' but it could take years to improve her abilities.)

Okay, so she can't break out of the cage by transformation, without getting cut up or ending up with the cage in the middle of her body. So why didn't Koenig shout 'She'll be cut!' or just 'she'll be killed!' Why 'she'll be crushed!'?

That is where the second factor--mass--comes into play.

When she transforms into something smaller -- or more accurately, lighter -- she loses some part of her original mass. So where does it go? The Law of Conservation of Energy indicates that if the mass simply disappeared, it would turn into an absolutely horrific amount of energy, equivalent to the matter/anti-matter annihilation of the same amount of mass. Picture Maya causing a Breakaway-sized explosion, or destroying a continent, everytime she transformed!

The mass must go somewhere. I always imagined the extra mass was shifted into another dimension. That's another subject in itself, which I won't get into here. Suffice it to say that she holds the mass somewhere else, temporarily 'storing' it.

Once she started approaching her time limit, the 'extra' mass she's 'stored' would start trying to return to our normal universe, 'pressing' against her, prompting her to attempt to shift back into her humanoid form or another creature. Trapped in the cage, however, she could not transform. But the urge to revert would grow stronger, I imagine -- one reason she got so frantic as a caged falcon.

Now, here's where the 'crushed' part comes into play.

Once the time limit was up, she would be out of time, and the mass would return, whether she was ready to transform or not. Trapped in the cage, unable to initiate a transformation to receive and reorder the mass properly, it would simply reappear around her, with no molecular organization -- a nasty, smothering mess that would signal the end of her.

Or, even more to the point, her normal mass might try to force itself into the space currently occupied by the falcon, literally crushing it internally with unexpected mass in trying to stuff 50 or 60 kg of Maya's normal mass as a woman into the small space occupied by the falcon -- that would crush the falcon quite thoroughly, and the resulting mess would be quite dead as well.

The limit was there, and the mass could only be held 'elsewhere' for so long before it would have to return, and if she wasn't ready to revert or to shift directly to another form to start it all over again, the mass would still return one way or another, and crush her. Notice this idea still leaves the control of transformation with Maya, in whatever form she's in, at least as long as she's conscious--until the ultimate time limit is reached, at which time she is helpless to prevent her own death, crushed under her own mass.

Early on, Maya may have explained just this possibility to other Alphans. Thus, Koenig's line,

'She'll be crushed!'

What if she was knocked unconscious, as when she was stunned in 'The Exiles'? Perhaps the reversion from a cheetah (?) was automatic and instantaneous. Or one could go further and say she retained just enough consciousness to make the reversion. After all, she and Dorzak tended to react a little strangely to stun 'energy' (remember when Maya- as-a-Psychon-male was stunned in 'Space Warp'? S/he had enough time to spin around and face the person who fired on her, before collapsing to the floor at convulsing before transforming to a monster.

Psychons in their own native forms seemed to have a few moments of grace before either being knocked unconscious or going into convulsions (itself an unusual reaction). So perhaps when in another form, they had some means of temporarily holding off the chaotic energy of a stun so they could safely transform before the chaotic energy knocks them unconscious.

Just a few thoughts on this fascinating fictional subject, based on a note I sent to the mailing list.

Back to Commentary page

[11/01/95, 05/03/96, 12/19/96]