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by **DartBrat701** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 12:01 am

This is a bit of a loaded question, which I nevertheless shall ask.

*Moderators, should you feel that this might be inappropriate, feel free to delete it, with NO questions asked.* :wink:

Suppose, Capt. Scarlet and a woman decided to mate, and she produced a child. Would his offspring also have the ability of retrometabolism?

by **Marion** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 1:03 am

Looks like a perfectly reasonable question to me.
The answer though is less obvious.
In Classic CS we are not told anything about the nature of Mysteronisation or how retrometabolism works. Only that it produces 'an exact copy'.
Assuming Paul Metcalfe could have children - then the retrometabolised Captain Scarlet - I'd assume - would be able to as well.
Personally - and I suspect I'm in the minority here - I don't think any children of his would have any 'extra-terrestrial characteristics' or - if they did - they'd be watered down so much as to be negligable. (Maybe never catching a cold, for example?) When I wrote a story that included 'Scarlet's children' they were perfectly normal people.
Other fan fiction writers have chosen to think and write differently. I have no problem with that view either.
[I am very good at sitting on the fence :wink:

]

NCS might be different - and here I admit to being hazy. Doesn't Gold say - the changes are at a molecular level - and they take DNA to test for Mysterons, don't they?
Maybe that'd mean he was changed enough to pass on his 'abilities'?

Personally, I prefer to think that Paul Metcalfe is unique.
He has a 'gift' no one else has ever had or is ever likely to have. Maybe even the Mysterons don't understand why he continues to heal without their assistance?
Creating other characters that have similar or greater gifts than the original series hero, does - IMHO - rather detract attention from Scarlet. For me, his very uniqueness is part of what also makes his 'gift' into a 'curse' and turns him into an heroic figure.
As Lt Green says - its easy to be brave if you're indestructible - but the real bravery in Scarlet is knowing that he's going to be doing this for a very long time - and without his (original) friends.

There are other options and views about this: any one is as valid as any other, given that we are never told exactly what happened to Paul Metcalfe in the car crash.

Website · by **Sage** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 1:05 am

There are a few schools of thought, with theories being developed/defined in fanfic ...

Yes

No

Then of course there's ...

Scarlet can't even have kids in the first place

My own thoughts ...
Shall pretty much agree with Marion, as usual

The 'yes' seems a bit too mary-sue/deus ex machina for my taste; but hey, free [cyber] world and all.
So I tend to go more with the other options. As to my 'master plan' for their futures ergo how I'm writing it... that's more along the lines of option/theory three. Appeals to my sense of logic ... and penchant for Scarlet angst (but it's OK, he gets to be happy in the end).

by **Intensity Angel** » Tue Jun 17, 2008 3:47 pm

I'm using genetics to back my theory.

Now Captain Scarlet has Retometabolism; he suffers with it just to make things easier (I suppose he does if he's rumoured to keeping needing hair cuts!).

Lets say he and Rhapsody Angel has a child, well Rhapsody doesn't have Retometabolism,

Now the offspring would either be a carrier or sufferer of Retometabolism. There is a 50/50 chance the offspring will have Retometabolism.