Ariel's Blush

[Beatmeclever]

SO, if Ariel has the green blood of the invid, why is it that the team never noticed her greening when she blushed or became flushed from high activity? In humans, when we have been active for any period of time and our core temperature rises (when we have been running or otherwise active enough to begin sweating) our body moves more blood close to the surface of the skin in order to cool it faster -- this makes us appear redder, flushed as it were. The same tends to happen when we become embarrassed and we "Blush."

The fact of our blood flowing so close to the surface of our skin is what gives all humans a pinkish tinge and what changes our color just slightly when blushed (white people become red, black people become purple-ish; asians become orange-ish, etc.). This would make the Stage Five Invid greenish even when simply sleeping.

With that in mind, the Stage Five Invid would take on a decidedly green hue in these situations. So I can't understand how Team Bernard never questioned that Ariel was so sick that she was green for the entire trip to Reflex Point or that they never sought out a physician to help her with her liver failure?

So, does any one have a theory about this?

[Jefffar]

Most likely - the authors never thought about it.

In story possibility - given her apparent frail health, her occasional seeming a little "green abut the gills" might not have seemed so unusual.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Maybe they just though she was getting a bit of motion sickness or something.

[taalismn]

"Hah! See, Lunk! It's not just -MY- cooking that's responsible!"

[Lt Gargoyle]

Maybe they thought she was half zentreadi. Or as said already, the writers did not think about it. As it was written in the 80s.

[Beatmeclever]

*snip*given her apparent frail health, her occasional seeming a little "green abut the gills" might not have seemed so unusual.

Maybe they just though she was getting a bit of motion sickness or something.

I'm not so sure I like this idea. I mean, she seemed to be suffering from some severe form of PTSD for a bit, but she never seemed unwell and, like I said, if she had been sick, they probably would have sought out a physician or something. I think.

*snip*But, the humanoid invid we see created are either hatched from a glowing green egg hot enough to melt glass and can survive being dropped during flight or transmuted from an invid & it's commander mecha to human form. Given the extremely high fantasy nature of their creation, it would also seem plausible that they can blush a color inapproprate to their blood color. Maybe they have extra parts that we don't.

Agreed. Scott's really in for a shock when he finds that, huh?

I don't recall ever seeing her "green" in the anime. Perhaps they simply didn't see what wasn't there.

You acknowledge she is alien but assume that her body functions completely human-like.

I simply assumed that if the Regis was recreating the human form, she had recreated the functions of the human body; but you are probably right.

Maybe they thought she was half zentreadi. *snip*

That's an idea.

So, I guess this just gets written off as:

Most likely - the authors never thought about it.

I think I'll have greenish Stage Five Invid in my games. Not too green, but green anyway. Thanks for the comments.

[avollant]

I'm not sure but I think I've read that Marlene was in fact an Hybrid Human/Invid developed as part of the Regis experiment to devellop a humanoid form and also an undercover agent.

The other "Prince" type Invid were more of an Invid in humanoid form.

[Jefffar]

But she still had green blood. Blushing is your cheeks changing colour because of a rush of blood to the blood vessels in your face. So her blush should have been tinged green instead of red.

[avollant]

I was thinking more like Terminator.... Ariel was deseigned to mimic human biological response.... including blushing! Or else, she would have been spotted right away.

[ShadowLogan]

But she still had green blood. Blushing is your cheeks changing colour because of a rush of blood to the blood vessels in your face. So her blush should have been tinged green instead of red.

Unless there is a membrane between the blood vessels and skin to alter the apparent color. An over powering red membrane would work. Ariel was supposed to be able to blend in with humans. I can't imagine that she'd make an error like that, having been known to experiment on humans (Dusty Ares ex.)

Perhaps as an Invid she was sending out subconcious psychic messages that caused them to ignore the green tint, but it fell apart when she actually started bleeding. The Regis did possess Annie in the Genisis Pit, so maybe the Invid have a psychic ability to make people ignore things unless you know what you are looking at. Sort of like a "Somebody Else's Problem Field" in the "Life the Unverise and Everything" by Douglas Adams. Or a subconscious form of Obiwan Kenobi's "these aren't the droids..." seen in the original Star Wars movie.

It did not seem to occur to anyone that some of the humans seen working for the Invid might in fact be Invid until they started bleeding green, previously they thought they where dealing with traitors. Lancer's first impression of Sera was that she was a human pilot working for the Invid. Scott didn't want Rand to shoot down the no-name in "Reflex Point" because he wanted to find out what was going on.

[Jefffar]

The membrane makes it seem like the invid are putting way too much thought into something that probably didn't occur to them. If they were thinking that much they would have looked for a way to make her blood red.

[taalismn]

Don't think so...typically when we see characters in anime blush...it's usually really exaggerated, and for comic relief...About the only ones I can think of that might blush in New Generation are Annie and Rook...Like Lisa Hayes, when Ariel needs to express sublime emotion, she looks away and looks whistful....

[taalismn]

Entirely possible...the EASY answer is: the animation lacked in-depth subtlty...the PRAGMATIC answer is: "We went through over two years of creating this series, and we're not about to let a major plot thread get derailed by something as simple as THAT!", the MECHANISTIC answer is: Marlene's engineered pale skin covers for the underlying green blood...Clever, insideious Invid, no?...The PROSAIC answer is: It's part of the 'Unearthly beauty' Ariel has, as described in the RPG bio-profile....that strange sublime pallor, that lack of blushing...her eyes, voice, and manner say it all, and nobody notices the missing other cues...they just think it's part of her exotic appeal....

[glitterboy2098]

well, her horizont snapped in half while re-entering the atmosphere. (we see the invid scout blow up, but it looks like the rear part of the ship was semi-intact, so the cockpit might have survived..)
the ship was relying on some sort of 'thermal shield" to let it enter the atmosphere without burning up, but untill we know wether this refered to physical heat shielding on the ship itself of some sort of energy field, we can't make assumptions on if the cockpit could survive re-entry. if it was an energy field, not much of a chance. physical tiles? maybe.
we see the horizont rand enters was missing it's cockpit area, with signs that it might have been 'ejected', perhaps as an escape capsule. so if the cockpit survived the explosion, and it could survive the re-entry, it is possible they crew reached the ground.

that said, 3/4ths of earth is water, and on an unpowered re-entry the odds are good they either hit water (where they'd have trouble being rescued) or hit land (where they may have undergone destructive lithobraking...) (scott's alpha still had power, which would have allowed him to steer and reach ground,

[Lt Gargoyle]

That was in the novels? So I guess she had a Marvel Superheroes Death (TM) where it looks like they die in some way that noone could possibly survive... but they survive so they can be the focus of some "the return of..." issue a few months later.

This would be like a VT pilot that is going to die as his base ship folds and the alien travels through space at the speed of light and saving him while he confuses her with his dead sister.

Um, was that energy shield inserted via Robotech dialog? In Mospeada that was just the re-entry burn.

Well lucky Ariel this is Robotech

[ShadowLogan]

The membrane makes it seem like the invid are putting way too much thought into something that probably didn't occur to them. If they were thinking that much they would have looked for a way to make her blood red.

True, but how long did they intend for Ariel to be among humans? Short periods might require the "blush" protection, but not the "blood" identifier.