Tales of the Amalgam'verse: Jurassic Park - Lord of Sorna · 7:16am Feb 19th, 2018
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Early 1994, 333 Kilometers from Costa Rica, Isla Sorna
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Dr. Henry Wu recoiled away from his workstation and rubbed at his eyes. Inevitability, that was something that seemed to frustrate and antagonize him more than anything. No matter how hard you work, no matter what precautions you take, some things will just always happen. The sun will rise, rain will fall, and things die. Right now though, the worst part about it was seeing a slow death. He looked out of his window at the embryonic compound as the memories all flooded back to him.
He’d seemed to have been on such an upswing since the 1980s. Prodigy undergraduate thesis at MIT, direct apprenticeship under Dr. Atherton, letter of recommendation from Dr. Shirigami before his passing, noticed by the leader of a mass mega corporation for an astounding project.
Wu always liked John Hammond, shrewd a businessman as he was. The old man carried such a drive, such an energy and good will that one couldn’t help but smile at him even as he talked about doing the impossible. And yet, they did it. After an initial plan in San Diego, location scouting found them not one, but two splendid islands in the Pacific.
Isla Nublar was grand as it was proud as it basked in the cloud covered shade of Mt. Sibo, but Isla Sorna was the real monument. Nublar made for a lovely showroom for the main attraction, Jurassic Park; whereas ‘Site B’ as it was labeled would be the research facility and factory floor. And ever since the late 1980s he’d been toiling and working. Through multiple failures before a momentous first success, containing and negating a prion outbreak that could have spoiled it all, devoting time and energy into reinventing and improving on past versions. It took him months to finally patch up the Deinonychus genome such that the result wasn’t some scaly freak driven half-rampant by Carnosaur genes, and instead producing in a feathery, dark creature favorably compared to a saurian or avian black panther.
In the back of his mind in 1993, Wu wondered if the Nublar incident wouldn’t have been as horrific if he had managed to work with Muldoon on getting the scaly, insane raptors put down and replaced with the more controllable versions. Unfortunately the one thing Wu didn’t like about John was his stubborn refusal to see any of his creatures harmed, even if they were mutated butchers. But, alteration or not, people died and Jurassic Park did as well. Isla Nublar was overrun with the prehistoric within a few hours and abandoned within a few days. He could feel a twinge of regret despite having initially felt some small measure of satisfaction in knowing that that annoying, condescending, misanthropic witch Sorkin was done in by her own hand. But, as much as he hated to admit it, he found the lab work to be lonely without her. And the lab work continued for another year on Isla Sorna.
Why? Wu wasn’t really sure.
Maybe there was some hope Isla Nublar could be resettled, maybe the aging Hammond was in a holding pattern while in talks with the like-minded but much younger Simon Masrani, or maybe the now rapidly aging, on account of stress, old man was just trying to make sure his creations on Isla Sorna were taken care of long as he could with a fully staffed Site B.
The answer finally came when he got a message from Hammond. At face value, it was a simple inquiry about the health of the animals.
But Henry read between the lines.
Hammond was conversing with naturalists and ecologists, asking Wu about the dietary intake of the species. Animals need only two things to survive in the wild, adequate food and water, and mates. Wu was already well aware of the latter part being true from Alan Grant, one of the survivors of Isla Nublar’s incident, telling him about finding a wild nest in the old raptor enclosure.
There was only one logical reason Hammond would be asking about diet, let alone giving Wu an enthusiastic response when Henry told him how the island’s native and imported feral crops were used to feed the herbivores in abundance: The dinosaurs were going to be turned loose, set up their own ecosystem on Isla Sorna like they had on Isla Nublar but on an even bigger scale. Making this place, once it was abandoned by man, a lost world right out of a Conan Doyle book.
One way or another though, Wu saw the writing on the wall. Sooner or later, Isla Sorna would be abandoned. There was only one problem with Hammond’s wish. One Wu was reminded of when he heard a roar he could never forget bellow out from one of the paddocks outside.
Tyrannosaurus rex.
Over six tons of muscle, bone, and killing instinct. Isla Nublar only had one. It was voracious for sure, but it was still only one. That meant only one Tyrant Lizard to avoid, only one to feed, only one to eventually die of disease, prey, falling, or old age. Isla Sorna was much larger than Isla Nublar, but they had cloned several Tyrannosaurus. Discounting the one shipped to Isla Nublar as a star attraction and the one juvenile one that had its own shipment canceled, that still left five healthy, fully grown, sexually mature superpredators to roam about. Even though they couldn’t check, Wu was already speculating two of the five which had taken on a more greenish coloring and had started to grow a throat waddle for a deeper roar were females transitioning to males thanks to that blasted sex changing frog DNA he filled in the genome with. Males that, after spending weeks able to smell the females close by, would immediately do what males and females do to propagate the species. And given the huge genetic diversity between versions and specimens, inbreeding would hardly be a problem even with a small population size.
He ran through the math again.
Two Tyrannosaurus could potentially lay up to five eggs. Assuming even just two of those eggs survived to maturity, they’d go from six Tyrannosaurus to ten in a year. Factoring in their heightened growth rate, as well as the necessary function to get them ready for Isla Nublar quick as possible, those offspring would be able to propagate in about three years. By 1997, they could have tripled, maybe even quadrupled the Tyrannosaurus population count. At that point, even one or two dying from natural causes or disease would be negligible. The island would be overrun by a superpredator within a decade, and that wasn’t even factoring in the harsh population pressure the herbivores would be under from the other carnivores species. Carnotaurus, Allosaurus, Deinonychus, Coelophysis, Dilophosaurus, Ceratosaurus, the damn list just kept going!
Wu smacked a fist on the table. They had been designing a theme park, not a nature preserve! The public largely didn’t want to see multitudes of herbivores outside of some star players, and while InGen had kept the new species they cloned on Sorna regardless of if they fit the wow-factor mold or not; they hadn’t produced large numbers of them. Park goers would want the equivalent of lions and wolves with the occasional elephant and rhinoceros, not deer and horses. And in their quest to fulfill Hammond’s and every child’s dream, they’d cloned far too many carnivores!
The ecosystem would not balance, it would crash. Isla Sorna would be a place of slaughter for several years before it burned itself out. And with Isla Nublar already a tenuous ecosystem due to smaller species population sizes, the dinosaurs had a very real chance of going extinct again.
All his work, all his effort, struggle, toil, all his genius; it’d be for what? A few deaths, millions in losses, wasted years, and self-destruction to his own creations? Wu snarled as his eyes burned. Never, he could never leave a legacy like that! It all had to be for something lasting. Isla Sorna could support a population of dinosaurs, it had the flora, space, and habitats to do so, he just had to do something about keeping the blasted superpredators from exploding on the onset. Keep their numbers from swelling to such a degree they’d outpace the herbivores long enough for everything to stabilize.
Wu growled and gripped at his hair, wincing as he struggled to think of some way towards salvation. The frog DNA, the God Damn frog DNA had both given his creations longevity he hadn’t predicted and now seemed poised to destroy them. He needed something, something to control and contain the carnivores to kill off some and give them competition, just enough until the herbivore populations had built up. He could try to mass produce more herbivores in the time he had left, but that wouldn’t be enough. A safeguard needed to be in place, something that could halt even the superpredators. But there was nothing! Nothing in the fossil record that dined on flesh that could compete with and kill a T.rex! There was news of that other new big meat eater from Argentina, Giganotosaurus, but they hadn’t gotten any amber from that zone so it was out of use and even then it wasn’t a guarantee. He growled as he thought back to the frog DNA and how something seemingly so innocuous could have caused so much mayhem. If they had just bred an extremely small number of males naturally they wouldn’t be in this situation. If he had just not spliced it in he could ha-......
Wu froze as the second hand of the nearby clock ticked. He heard over six hundred ticks before he finally moved, slumping back into his desk chair.
Splicing.
He’d been splicing in genes of different animals into new genomes for years. None of the dinosaurs were 100% pure of breed but the splicings he’d done thus far were just taking mostly complete dinosaur genomes and patching up a few spots with modern animal genes. If he could do that with modern animals into the ancient and had mapped out the genome to know which genes could go where, he could do whatever he wished to. He could control the outcome, control nature and engineer what he needed. Henry Wu shot up from his chair with a renewed vigor.
One particularly irksome guest Hammond brought to Nublar once said to him how life cannot be controlled and contained. Wu optimistically objected. He was a year older and a good many years worth wiser. And Dr. Henry Wu didn’t deal in absolutes. Control nature or not, he could steer it. Dr. Malcolm would not have the last laugh after all…..
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With the increasingly skeleton crew manpower on Isla Sorna over the last few months, Wu’s last project was kept secret extremely easily. All he had to do was work a few weeks late in the lab with no oversight, bury his progress in a myriad of data entries on mass producing more herbivores so no one would find it and risk objecting to it; and keep the species off the official list. But then, after several failures who either never made it past the divide in the embryo stage or even failed the hatch, it finally seemed to have worked.
It was late at night, storming. Thunder rolled outside, but thankfully Wu was content that the power remained undamaged from the storm on account of its geothermal nature. Rain pinged off the roof as he stayed alone in the hatchery, careful to swipe the egg and replace it with a dud Suchomimus egg when the security camera was looking away. He carried it off to a small, cart mounted structure composed off a glass dome and metal grill surrounding an illuminated artificial nest. A backup incubator he’d pilfered from the storehouse, the egg was nestled cleanly inside. He made to sneak it off to one of the quarantine pens where it would be out of sight by the other geneticists and only tended to by the worker joes who wouldn’t ask too many questions. He did not want this leaking. Merely log it as an ‘accident’ left behind in the future if any noticed was gained, which could be interpreted as anything, and leave it be. After all, he doubted he’d be on Sorna much longer. Hurricane season was coming.
However, fate took an unexpected turn. The dark, speckled egg shook and started to show signs of imminent hatching. Instantly Wu cringed and gauged how quickly he could get to the quarantine pens, especially with the storm outside.
“Damn it!” he cursed when he realized he couldn’t make it in time, let alone risk the survival of the hatchling in the cold rain right out of the egg.
He looked to any other place he could go, but the nursery was out of the question. Too much exposure and if his modifications took, the biologist and veterinarian teams were sure to notice something! With great reluctance and much effort, Wu shoved the kart and incubator, artificial nest and all, into the elevator leading up to his residence. His quarters were large in comparison to the other workers, a living room, small kitchen, guest room that was never used, and his own bed and tiny bathroom. About the size of a hotel room or small apartment, but it was larger than the other worker residence if mostly just by merit of him insisting on being close to his lab resulting in the uppermost level that would have been a storage room being refitted for his use. Aside from jaunts to Isla Nublar before 1993, he’d been effectively living here for almost a decade. And evidently, at least temporarily, something else would too.
The quarters were dim, only lit by some wall lamps and the occasional flash of lightning outside that illuminated through the small window. Placing the incubator in the living room, Wu rushed off to the guest room and started throwing things out of the way to clear it enough so he could stash the incubator inside for at least a day or two. He’d just grabbed an arm full of plastic bins and pillows before he heard it. A crack of an egg shell.
Wu froze as he listened.
Another crack.
Then another.
A tiny, almost pitiful chirp.
Memory of a man he admired flooded back, recalling the last time he truly saw John Hammond happy. It was on Isla Nublar a year ago, when the guests were going to their tour and a Deinonychus egg started to hatch right on time. The elderly billionaire was quick to throw on a pair of sterile gloves and rush to the incubator. He said something Wu was keen to remember, having seen it played out time and time again every time they had a major hatching on Isla Nublar or Sorna.
-”I insist on being here, when they’re born.”-
There was that glow to Hammond again, same one he had when he toured the facilities and always insisted on calling his employees by their given names unless under stress. Dr. Henry Wu could count the times his employer called him anything but “Henry” with one hand. The flash of memory at seeing John eagerly help the baby Deinonychus out of its shell, surrounded by Dr. Grant, Sattler, and Malcolm was as vivid as the dim room before him.
-”They imprint on the first creature they come in contact with.”-
Hammond’s words echoed with the thunder and the weak, scared chirps. Wu had intended to be as hands-off as possible, let nature take its course and fuel his apex predator. But as the seconds wore on, he felt his grip on his cargo loosen after he let it to the ground. Swallowing into his dry throat, Henry Wu slowly walked back into the living room. With a shaking hand, he gripped the top of the incubator.
-Hammond insisted on being present. Those were his dinosaurs, his legacy. I just built them.-
His body tensed, fighting for its own decision.
-This is my legacy.-
He opened the incubator and witnessed a slender snout poke through the shell and squeak. Fitting on a pair of gloves, Wu gently pried a piece of stubborn eggshell aside. He gazed into a pair of tiny lime green eyes that looked back. The chirp was sounded again and the infant fought to free itself of the egg even more, spilling out as a slimy mess on the artificial nest. Gentle hands wiped the embryonic fluid off it, pausing only when it started to sniff at his exposed wrist. Content to just poke at the curiosity, it curled up closer to the extremity for warmth. Feeling its steady breath against his palm, Wu picked the kitten-sized creature up and ignore its surprised wriggling until it finally went still in his hands. He studiously looked it over, inspecting for any deformity, any shortcoming that would make it unsuitable for its mission.
Tyrannosaurus was a mighty beast, but Wu was privy to a little known fact. Dubious new rival in South America aside, there was one predator whom might just have a chance to exceed the Tyrant King. Only the fossils were destroyed some thirty years after their 1915 discovery in Egypt. The species was cataloged but no major study or follow-up specimen could be recovered, leaving it in obscurity. It just so happened they had an amber sample from mid-Cretaceous North Africa that was coming up as relative to the Baryonyx but distinct from it, one whose genes indicated adaptation for supporting great weight. Weight of a superpredator. He took his gamble, but it was worth it for the goal.
A massive, strong creature that would prioritize hunting in the water and make use of the abundant fish in the region without putting as much pressure on herbivores; yet still put the pressure on the carnivores and stunt their growth in numbers. Combining it with a seemingly African Baryonyx sample that would later be reclassified as Suchomimus years later for massive arms, modern saltwater crocodile for jaw strength, Allosaurus genes for larger claws, common raven for intelligence and cunning, and a myriad of other genotypes except frog DNA; he’d made a Frankenstein’s Monster in his own thunderstorm. If the natural creature from Egypt stood a chance of defeating a Tyrannosaurus, Wu’s modifications guaranteed it.
But as he gazed upon his sail-backed creation as it held onto his thumb and regarded him curiously, Wu did not feel Viktor Frankenstein’s disgust. He felt awe, excitement, and pride. The creature, a male and the first one Wu ever made on purpose, was totally free of deformity, taking to the modifications and splicing process without flaw. It was perfect. The beast was brown in color overall, with a slight bluish beige color across its neck and back, and crowned in a deep red on its top jaw, face, and sail. It was clearly something entirely new. A bipedal theropod with a crocodilian-like snout, it nevertheless sported a pair of large arms that could reach all the way to its knees and already sported impressive power in how they gripped Wu’s hand so their talons could poke into his glove. The tail swayed as the tilting head’s eyes studied him, clear signs of intelligence beyond mere instinct. Right out of the egg and he could tell it was already bigger than the Tyrannosaurus. Right out of the egg, and it already showed the greatest of promise.
Wu’s pulse quickened and he cracked a elated smile. He’d done it! The control mechanism for the coming Lost World, a beast to grow and rule Isla Sorna as its apex predator and stabilize it in its reign as a keystone species. Even tyrant kings answered to an emperor.
He held his greatest creation aloft, letting the light above wash over it as it gazed at the human holding it.
Sorna would have it’s emperor. Big things had small beginnings. He couldn’t help but think of another famous tale of a rising ruler, even if his final success would not bear that name in time.
“And as for Caesar, kneel down, kneel down and wonder...”
The modified Spinosaurus, the first and only one of its kind, raised its head and chirped as it gazed out the window, catching a glimpse of its future throne, Isla Sorna’s jungles, in the flash of lightning. For now the world was tiny, as was he. And while his infant brain wouldn’t remember it clearly, for his world was tightly focused on just his nest and bizarre looking father; instinct told him all would grow in time.
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Two weeks later and it was time. Wu’s creation, now the size of a large dog, voraciously scarfed down a shipment of fish, throwing his head back to wolf it down before his nostrils picked up a familiar scent. It peered up from the quarantine pen it had been housed in, a zoo-like enclosure with some plants and a pond. Standing on the railing above was his creator, the one instinct and scent told him was a mammal but imprinting identified as his father; despite that connection ebbing away with growth.
Wu sighed and checked his watch, responding to the beeping on his PDA that sounded for one of the final evacuation notices. The hurricane he predicted was on its way, a great big category five wrath of God. Even without the kill switch for the power, the storm was sure to tear into the facilities and free the masses of prehistoric beasts within. The time of man on Isla Sorna was at its final hours.
Wu sighed, “Looks like our time here is over.”
The Spinosaurus tilted its head, more perplexed at human speech than understanding a word he said. It still sounded so bizarre to him, why did his father look, act, smell, and sound so wrong?
“Hurricane is due in the next four hours, I’ll leave the door open for you to get out early. Try not to get eaten out there, I designed you to carry out your purpose at the size of a whale, not the size of a wolf. Even with the growth accelerant, you need to stay in one piece for three years.”
Henry Wu shrugged, uncertainty and even, dare he say some fear stinging at him. In the back of his mind he’d try to figure out some way he could cart the hybrid off site to raise it to maturity and then release it, but the logistics were impossible. Not to mention he had to make sure its aggression would be to suitable levels, something he couldn’t guarantee or might even hamper if he raised it in captivity. He did consider trying to ship it off to Isla Nublar and have it grow there with comparatively tamer wilds, but then there was the problem of recapturing it as an orca sized subadult, much less a humpback whale-sized adult. He couldn’t just trust it to follow him and do as commanded. Most dinosaurs went feral around their keepers eventually, even the more docile ones. He’d need a whole team to pull that off, something he could never keep secret. And Hammond was far too attached to his Tyrannosaurs to ever support knowing Wu built something to counter them.
He’d have to leave it here, on the most dangerous island on the planet, alone and being the only person to know it really wasn’t a weird looking Baryonyx. He was afraid for it. Wu tapped at the controls to the paddock and a mechanical whirl caused the Spinosaurus to jump back in surprise. Machinery shifted and the gate to the enclosure started to open. Henry Wu sighed as he took one last look back at his creation as it eyed the opening gate curiously before looking up to him.
“Keep Sorna balanced and stable, or else the predators will overrun the place before the numbers can stabilize. Do as you were built for, born for; at least ‘til we come to put the lights back on or whatever else Hammond has planned. Until then-”
He departed with only hope in hand as he headed for the evacuation chopper.
“Grow strong, grow mighty, and make this island your own.”
The Spinosaurus ticked once before looking to the now fully opened gate. When it was first conscious, the world was tiny. Then it broke free of its shell once it was big enough. Then the world grew until it was his father’s guest room, until he was able to stand above his odd parent’s ankles. And now, the world seemed vast and enormous as he beheld it with wide eyes. He’d have to grow to match it. Sorna’s future emperor stepped out into his domain and let out his first roar, one Wu heard and briefly turned to before running towards the chopper.
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Late 1997, Isla Sorna
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It was drizzling through the light cloud cover as Dr. Henry Wu stepped out of the helicopter after it touched down on the roof of the Embryonic Compound to help the expedition team aboard. Composed of Richard Levine, Randy Archer, Bill Stewarts, and Gary Paladecki, their task had been to catalog Isla Sorna’s species and document the island’s ecosystem so InGen and Masrani Global could get the UN to label the island a biological preserve. It was a success, but not for lack of struggle. A BioSyn invasion, loss of their trailer base, and far too many close calls to count had run the team ragged by the end. By the time the rescue chopper was approaching, there was word some BioSyn doctor had conjured up some nightmarish beast that was threatening to rip the facility apart. The radio had been clogged with static during the flight, but it did keep transmitting. Sound of several Deinonychus, shouting, gunfire, a Suchomimus bellow, some ungodly roar of whatever they were fighting; and falling rubble. But through it all, Wu heard something.
Through the static he heard it. A fantastic crash, one he would later find was something ramming the perimeter fence down, followed by a very familiar roar that wasn’t a Tyrannosaurus’, but bore an equal volume. It was deeper than memory, but he recognized it. He hurried to join the chopper in getting the team to safety and in the back of his mind, hoping he might see what he sought.
In the present, after helping agent Hallie We'en get an injured Dr. Levine into the chopper, Wu paused when he heard a low huff of breath. He paused and approached the edge of the roof to look to the source. That’s when he realized, in the low light and moody gray of the rain and fog, one mound of rubble wasn’t all debris. When an insane misanthrope had released a creature to destabilize Isla Sorna, the current leadership gave a strong rebuttal.
Shaking off a deluge of debris that had fallen onto it during a final blow, a broad sail emerged above the edge of the roof. Thirty feet away, a titanic form stood up and looked over. They were now the size of softballs, but that familiar pair of lime green eyes beheld Dr. Wu. He was marred in cuts and riddled with bite wounds from a titanic battle the humans and Deinonychus had helped him win, but the creature the expedition team called ‘Snoke” stood tall and let a slow exhale of mist pour for his nostrils. Below him was an equally large corpse obscured by the fog and rubble, but Wu thought he could make out a pair of fanged jaws suited for a Tyrannosaurus and the snapped stump of a brow horn akin to those of a Triceratops. One of Snoke’s arms was covered in red, and had Wu arrived some minutes earlier he’d have seen the final blow came when the Spinosaurus rammed the limb, talon-first, into a pre-existing wound upon its rival’s chest after smashing it into the side of a building to finally kill it.
Wu and Snoke watched on, creator and creation regarding each other for a time. Snoke slowly turned away and started to walk off to take some much deserved rest. Wu watched his beast turn before he did the same, departing without a word said. None were needed for duties done.
The helicopter departed Isla Sorna minutes later, rousing many of the animals to call out in confusion and stress. They were silenced by their emperor’s roar, order reasserting itself upon the lost world.
such wubz, much epix, also unexpected cameo.
As much hatred as the Spino has met over the years, I have always loved it. It was a unique yet still powerful super-predator that had the right mix of awe-inspiring and terrifying for me to enjoy. Yes, he killed a T-Rex and that was a clear one-upmanship for the sake of establishing the new dino's credibility as a threat, but hey, it worked didn't it? Dude killed a T-Rex, that should show how powerful it really is. And hearing this just makes me respect the old dino all the more, for his purpose is important, his cause just.
All Hail the Emperor of Isla Sorna!
4800378
Killed a fully grown T.rex after getting shot at multiple times by an anti-vehicle rifle, crashing through multiple trees, getting rammed by a friggin' airplane, tearing apart said airplane, sprinting through a jungle, and only getting a minute of rest tops. It then shrugged off a bite to the throat, getting slammed into a tree hard enough to snap it, getting headbutted, gaffed across the side, and then ending it in one big hit.
The Spinosaurus can be hated to the moon and back by T.rex fanboys but feats don't lie, the thing is an absolute juggernaut as far as dinosaurs in the franchise go!
This is really cool. Nice origin story.
4800377
What cameo?
4800379
That last line is the exact reason why I hated it actually. The thing was established as being so ridiculously broken in its opening apperence and then goes right back to being around T Rex levels for the rest of the movie after that kill, and in a series that treated its dinosaurs with a semi realistic angle, this giant space flea from out of nowhere stood out like a sore thumb. He had, at best, a throwaway line of exposition to explain and nothing else. Say what you want about I Rex, the film was built around having such an OP threat and they devoted a good chunk of the exposition to how it opperated and why.
In short, I didn't hate the Spino because it killed a T Rex (not even Rexy, just a random Rex), I hated it because it made little sense in series context and the film wasn't written to have such a creature work.
Also, is there a reason he's called Snoke? The only place I've heard that name is Star Wars and I though you weren't a TLJ fan.
4800396
Snoke name came from the RP players (Tem, Vman, and Diverse) naming all the dinosaurs they found. They summoned the Spinosaurus to fight the final boss after previously encountering it, in which they nicknamed it 'Snoke' (this was before TLJ came out but they actually did make a joke about hoping it didn't die as easy).
As for the fight itself, that actually is a bit of a fault in production. You see it was intended to be longer, both storyboards and glimpses of behind the scenes footage show it.
2.bp.blogspot.com/-b6WSl1eE3CQ/UYHRfTriNcI/AAAAAAAAEXM/ixHeiiniYHA/s1600/Jurassic+Park+3+-+20.jpeg
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2.bp.blogspot.com/-iTn95hlZVn0/UKaVBU0_j6I/AAAAAAAADUI/F4_dJfiUm70/s1600/Jurassic+Park+3+-+39.jpeg
There was an accident on set however when the Spinosaurus animatronic was put up against the Tyrannosaurus one, which was a repaint of the 1997 Lost World Buck Rex. Due to being a much newer and larger machine, the Spinosaurus animatronic was much stronger and they underestimated how much. During a shot when the Spinosaurus was supposed to smack it in the face with its claws (notice how it never uses them in the film fight?) an accident happened.
Here's the wind up-
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/jurassicpark/images/9/99/Sizeup2lg.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130403175647
and this-
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/jurassicpark/images/2/27/Sizeup3lg.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130403175658
Is when the Spino Bot accidentally knocked the Rex bot's head off, causing hydraulic fluid and sparks to fly. Oops. This shot here is actually where the Spino bot was perched atop the decapitated Tyrannosaurus head and angled so you can't see the broken off body
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/jurassicpark/images/4/44/JP3SpinoRexDefeat.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120918003300
It caused shooting problems along with the other script rewrites and resulted in them having to greatly cut down on the fight. Resulting in the Tyrannosaurus landing blow after blow before getting one-shot.
In practice I'd never have done what they did and made it a draw to keep the Tyrannosaurus' dignity while letting the Spino stand as a competant rival, but what happened happened. None of the Jurassic Park animals were accurate by the third movie (trust me on this one, even T.rex has had a lot of issues since movie 1), so I just mostly tried to justify the Spinosaurus' exaggerations here. JP3 was a mess from a writing standpoint with constant rewrites and reshoots, but I hope I managed to mine something usable here.
As per usual, your writing is engaging and well thought out. I'm a little torn on if I would want something like this in the movie though, on one hand it's an awesome backstory, on the other hand: JP3 biggest advantage over its even worse predessessor is its blessedly short run time and Spino is actually not a very big part of the movie.
Aw well, fun read all the same.
4800403
Ah, that's a nice shout out, though i imagine most wouldn't get it. Of course the big adventage Spino has over the Supreme Leader as uber powerful characters is lacking the worst case of "your over confidence is your weakness" in their respective franchises history.
Nice insight into the backstory of the film, wasn't aware of that, but it actually dosen't really explain why he lost all his OPness afterwords or why he was so OP as to tank a plane hit. But yeah JP3 is a writing mess, though still better then 2 by my reckoning.
i noticed the original version of this post had a short list of scientific inacuracies, i want to clarify that my "semi-realistic" statement came from the series treating its dinosaurs like animals and not from scientific accuracies.
You know, I actually really enjoyed this little fic man. It was amazingly well written and something I could see being canon to the franchise itself.
4800403
That was mostly me. Apparently, I was the only one who'd seen the movie at the time, so Tem didn't really get the joke (Vman never commented). I'd go on some long rant about why Snoke being gone is aces in my book, but this is about our Lost World RPG play through, where I honestly thought you killed us in that final post during what turned out to be my character's nightmare (you godd
mn troll). Plus, just to show none of us got enough of the reference barrel, Snoke and his mate (a Suchomimus we'd met earlier and nicknamed Castiel) allegedly had four babies, all of whom we named:
Oldest Daughter: Miku Hatsune
Oldest Son: Avdol
Youngest Daughter: Ruby Rose
Youngest Son: Kylo
Oh, and during the final battle, we got a twofer with me making both a Planet of the Apes reference, and a JoJo reference.
EDIT:
sses by saying the Rex the Spino fought in the movie was young and inexperienced, but come on, you built this bad ass rival, just own it. That being said, despite everything, Snoke barely scraped out a win at the end, against a creature that was mostly Rex. Even then, he needed the help of his mate (who'd wailed on it for about six turns before Snoke tagged in), some modified "Raptors," and, of all things, us, who stuck road flares in its eyes (once again, you proving power scaling is bullsh
t). I'll always love the mother f
ckin' T-rex (even though, lately, you seem to be trying to tear it down recently *shakes fist*), but this thing saved our rear ends from what is basically the Indominus on steroids, so I'll give credit where credit is due.
Also, in post, the filmmakers tried to cover their
You made me like the Spinosaurus from Isla Sorna!
You deserve an award for that!
I never hated the Spinosaurus I thought he was kind of cool, but I definitely didn't like the T.rex scene. It just felt like the creators were saying you have to like the Spino more than the Rex. Despite the fact the T.rex is the face of the franchise. It would be like Toho deciding to make a new monster and then have it take Godzilla out easily.
I definitely agree with the way you said you would have done it. Having it be a draw or maybe even it injuring a Rex would have been enough to show how dangerous it is.
Either way I liked this story. I like how you gave a reason why the Spino was so strong. It was Kent to control the predator population which makes sense. This story makes me think the Spino is actually sort of like a prototype to the Indominous Rex and Raptor.
So since this is part of your tales series does this means Jurassic Park is cannon to the bridge series?
Okay, wow! You really are a fan of Jurassic Park, Tarb! You managed to create a backstory that humanizes Dr. Wu prior to him becoming an antagonist and you got a likeable origin story to the Spinosaur. It was amazing that Wu realizes the disadvantages of having an overpopulation of Predators due to the frog DNA and Hammond’s insistence of creating a natural reserve despite using the same procedures for a theme park. The fact that he figured out that using splicing would solve the problem by creating a superpredator that would keep the number of carnivores low was cool as it justified the creation of the Spinosaurs. It was also heartwarming that Wu and the Spinosaur developed a genuine bond as father and son due to Wu being present at Snoke’s birth and feeling proud of its development. It makes me wonder if the Spinosaur’s death hurt Wu and if it caused his face-heel turn. Overall, thanks for the entertaining story, Tarb.
4800570
My thanks for the lovely comment! And damn straight I'm a JP fan, the Crichton novels were some of the first large books I ever read and I even used to be an admin at a JP forum (RIP JP Legacy). Dr. Wu might be on a dark path now, however in the 1990s he was a rather nice fellow. In the novel, where he had a much larger role, he was arguably one of the kindest InGen workers and even showed express concern to modify the dinosaurs in the future to make them safer; dying to warn Sattler of a raptor. Plus his movie version, which this is based on, showed every sign of being loyal to Hammond until his death in 1997. As for the Spinosaurus, it had the making of an interesting origin abnormal to the other dinosaurs in behavior and not being listed, and recent viral marketing material even heavily implies it was a genetic hybrid made by Wu. This is me saying why he made it in this canon.
Also just to clarify, the Spinosaurus from JP3 is actually just missing in action since 2001. The skeleton in JW belonged to a different creature and probably wasn't even a cloned dinosaur at one point (sail and head crests are all wrong).
4800591
Is this a clue to another bridge spinoff.?
4800596
No, just the backstory for the Spinosaurus from JP3. This came about from the Lost World RPG that Tarb hosted a while back (which I was part of, so I know) where the Spino came in and fought against the final boss.
This makes me wonder, how on Earth does a place like Skull Island keep its population from crashing when predators seem even more abundant than on Sorna, not helped by some of them being Kaiju-sized?
So on the subject of the JPRPG, since you had put in a sequel tease after the end of the Mauve Shirts playthrough. Will there be a sequel when we have the time? Odd question it is to ask. Also, how did Wu in this timeline end up treading the darker path?
4800394
Hallie We'en, she's soon to show up in Humanity's stand and is part of the prequel me and shane have been working on called "The Langoud Legacy", she works alongside her boyfriend Travis Gaster and Dominic Guierra[AKA The DOOM Marine] as part f the GDF spec-ops 'Black Cats' and worked with them for the US armed forces doing emergency search and rescue in hostile environments. I.e. exactly the type of person who'd be diving in to help folks on Sorna.
4800709
Wu's darker istory will be given some good clues in future Humanity's stand chapters and if me and shane cang et rolling on "The Langoud Legacy"[the fore-mentioned prequel] we may get a first-hand look at it during Joanne's arc. [Each f the founding Langoud members is getting a full story arc through it, and with it all of the people important in HS as well]
Correct me if I'm wrong, haven't keep up with the story and thus not sure what exactly has been shown, but this sounds an awful lot like an Ultimasaurus.
4800874
Interesting story to show things from Wu's perspective before he started heading down his current path and the origins of the Spinosaurus from JP3. Can we expect another like this, perhaps one detailing the origins of the dinosaur protection group from Fallen Kingdom?
You know, I always felt the Spinosaurus from JP3 was unrealistic; all evidence at the time indicated this "Super Predator" was heavily adapted to feed on aquatic life significantly smaller then itself, not large land animals; it had conical teeth for gripping slippery prey and comparatively weak jaw muscles, among other things.
This story, on the other hand, shows the modifications done to turn a creature poorly adapted to hunt large land animals into one well adapted to do so. Well done, my good man, well done indeed.
4801672
Awesome post my man! ;)
Spinosaurus is, for lack of better words, the "weird" super theropod. A paleontologist once told me "There is literally no depiction of that genus that stays accurate for more than 5 years". I plan on doing a Paleo Profile in the future because, yes while it actually wasn't that far off at the time, the JP3 depiction is off these days. Lots of misconceptions due to how its depiction and description keeps changing. For instance we know it did eat fish, however said fish actually were quite huge.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Spinosaurus_with_contemporaneous_taxa.jpg
(Need proof of that update thing I said? This picture is from 2016 and it already probably has an inaccuracy with the legs being possibly too small. This update clause is a nightmare!)
It had weaker jaws compared to T.rex, though as far as Theropods go Megalosaurids (Spinosaurids included) actually were a bit above average and it's cone shaped teeth were extremely pointy. It did hunt prey on land at times, but isotope analysis showed favoring to water-based prey.
So taking inspiration from viral marketing implying the JP3 creature was a splice of some sort made by Wu, I got the idea of this story when the players summoned the Spino in the RPG's finale. Here, Wu exploited the fact the Spinosaurus is so different from other predators to engineer something that could fight terrestrial predators, but wouldn't put that much pressure on the terrestrial herbivores. I actually cut out a scene where you got to see it going about its business, ignoring a herd of Hadrosaurs to fish until it heard a Tyrannosaurus roar and a 'attack' instinct kicked in as Wu built it to be extremely territorial to any threats as my way of explaining why it doggedly chased the JP3 cast across the island (they shot it and hit it with a plane) and according to Eric Kirby it seeks out and attacks other carnivores if they mark their scent in its territory.
4800950
Perhaps, will need to wait until the film comes out.
4800553
Yes the JP series is more or less canon with The Bridge, just as a side story that didn't really influence the kaiju side and vice versa. There were however some changes here and there though, so it's still being ironed out. Glad to could make the tale an enjoyable one. As I like to say, there very rarely are genuinely bad ideas, just bad executions. The JP3 Spinosaurus I think was a fantastic idea, introducing a new big predator distinctly different from the classic T.rex, but suffered the problem of not the best use.
4800418
My great thanks, coming from a well-regarded author this gave me a big grin!
One of my favorite things to do is take things others might pass over and expand upon them. Many JP fans despise the Spinosaurus, but I felt there was an opportunity.
4801717
In 2011, I came upon a documentary that described Spinisaurus as favoring fresh water rivers and estuaries, and targeting an 8 meter long sawfish like animal that may well be number 9 in that image and which acted like modern salmon. (Swimming upstream to spawn so as to avoid marine threats to their young, that is.) While number 9 is the largest fish in that image, I must wonder how many of those fish were fresh water as opposed to salt water species? I know in Lake Ontario, the only things that get bigger then the salmon are Sturgeons, some Steelhead, and the occasional very lucky carp, while most local fish are far smaller, especially in the rivers. It stands to reason the same factors that limit the size of fresh water fish today as compared to salt water species would have also been present then as well.
(Mind you, I then came across a NOVA special a few years later which, based on a newer, more complete find, suggested the Spinosaurus was too "front heavy" to walk on two legs, and used it's arms to walk on when on land. At the time, said conclusion was.... controversial and the evidence was being reviewed. As such, I expect conclusions about this animal to be subject to change. Perhaps constantly.)
4801757
While you say they don't influence each other I could easily see the JP scientists accidentally making a kaiju monster just do the old classic add Godzilla's DNA where it's not supposed to go like with a T.red or velociraptor and boom!!! Instant Kaiju!!!!
Though what happens when the Spino dies of old age? Wub did only make one. Does he plan to ever make more?
Waaaaaiiiiit.... I thought Solitaire was Lord of Sorna.
4801832
Thankfully use of Godzilla cells (only kaiju really to pop up from 1954-1991) was banned and only a tiny number of groups got their hands on them. So hopefully, put a damper on engineering kaiju.
As for Snoke's lifespan, Wu only intended to make 1 to counteract the predators long enough for the herbivores to abound in the ecosystem without a carnivore population explosion breathing down their necks; a temporary measure. However given a big chunk of Snoke's genome came from Suchomimus and Spinosaurus is compatible to it, Snoke could (and eventually did) mate with a female of that species.
4801904
Wrong canon
But I'd have little issue installing some LtL/RTNL cast in future stories on Sorna. Only real tweaks are no-mutants aside from Snoke, Snoke being the sole Spinosaurus, and all the JP3 Deinonychus are fully feathered. RPG even had a throwdown between the fully feathered raptor and a scaly one.
4801831
The really big fish is Mawsonia libyca, and yes it is known from the same strata as Spinosaurus and thus a likely prey item. While Spinosaurus might have lived primarily in or around freshwater, the region it inhabited had a lot of deltas and thus entrances to the sea. This means it is likely it made temporary forays into saltwater, like modern alligators and non-marine crocodiles; and saltwater fish could be jaunts into its domain. Similarly Spinosaurus likely did dine on terrestrial prey from time to time, it just likely wasn't a big game hunter because it didn't need to be and doing so only made it compete with the likes of big Carnosaurs. This terrestrial predation is suggested by isotope analysis which shows Spinosaurus did have more similar isotopes to crocodilians and turtles than land carnivores, but not quite to the same extent. Related genera also show signs of preying on things as ranged as crocodilians to pterosaurs to hadrosaurs. While some of this was undoubtedly scavenging, it does stand to reason Spinosaurus might have been a fishing expert, but it wasn't so derived into that it couldn't afford to be flexible.
As for center of gravity more recent study has found it seems Ibrahim's short legged, quad-walker design has a good chance of accidentally mis-sizing some remains by a margin of them actually being 25-27% larger due to some vertebrae getting mixed up and the illustrations not matching the raw numbers. Scott Hartman and others have reviewed it and revised it, which can be summarized here
http://www.skeletaldrawing.com/home/theres-something-fishy-about-spinosaurus9112014
static1.squarespace.com/static/51bf1cd3e4b0a897bf54112b/t/541297bae4b05a9f6b767e9f/1410504637680/?format=1000w
This along with the extremely large and muscular tail (essential for swimming), which was something NOVA didn't take into account, would shift the center of gravity back in line with the hips. Spinosaurus also lacks structures to support knuckle or wrist walking so while its arm were long enough to touch the ground, they probably couldn't really walk on them because the ideal means of supporting weight is with a whole hand that can pronate; something Theropods can't do. In essence it seems while Spinosaurus could walk on all fours for a short time, it's main terrestrial locomotion even if it did have short legs was still bipedal.
4801759 - I'd more than happily read more JP stuff from you~
4802047
Hehe, might just happen. Me and Dinos4Ever used to be a part of the biggest JP RPG group to ever cross the web and it was all text based. Trust me, we could tell you stories; like what happens when the song 'Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting!' applies to every single raptor pack at once when they're in the same area.
You already know my feelings towards Spino Snoke, but I never really gave my thoughts on the Spino from JP3. I never really hated the Spino as a kid, I just wasn't a fan that the film makers seemed to be blatantly saying, "this thing is better than the T. rex, you have to like it now." Granted, now that I know what actually happened, I'm a little more forgiving, but it still doesn't sit right with me.
I know I already said this a few comments ago, but the filmmakers seemed to try to cover their
sses after the film came out by saying the rex in the movie was young and inexperienced. This is somewhat backed up by the fact that the much older and more hardened Rexy was able to go toe-to-toe with the Indominus (a seemingly much tougher foe) for a short time in the next film (granted, that might just be because Colin wanted to give the Rex its dignity back).
Creating something meant to usurp the face of a franchise is always a very tough thing to do, but this wasn't the way. Granted, they couldn't really do much about it because of the accident. I can definitely see the pieces for something cool there, they were just poorly arranged because of what happened.
4801940
Out of curiosity, can you please elaborate on what LtL/RTNL is?
4802049 - That sounds like a trip and I love it already.
4802059
Heheh, memories my friend. Memories. Live the Legend (LtL) and its continuation (Return to New Lands) was one of the longest running text RPGs ever and certainly the longest JP one. In a nutshell you took the role of a dinosaur on Isla Sorna (though a later expansion opened up Isla Nublar and even the mainland) and, well, lived your legend. It was played realistically so you had to get good at conveying things without dialogue and writing out your actions in paragraph form. It closed down a time ago but I was a player, then mod, and even admin of it for a time. All the writing skills I got for later use in Bridge basically came from it. My longest running character was a Ceratosaurus named Ryu and a Triceratops named Gawain; but I had many roles.
4802071
Hmm I'd be curious to see some of these creatures in a future Mauve Shirts playthrough...
4802073
Expect quirks. Every character had em. Ryu hanged around with a Herrerasaurus named Myxol who acted like his extended eyes and ears from the trees and Gawain absolutely hated the color blue. Just hope you never end up getting on Sombra's bad side...
4802079
Sombra?
4801940
My own interpretation of the data regarding Spinosaurus had been that it filled a niche somewhere between a crocodilian (primarily an aquatic predator who used ambush to catch land animals at the water's edge) and a bear (fishing from the water's edge, scavenging, and occasionally hunting, but large enough to steal kills from most other animals when full sized.) Based on the most current data, what would you think is the most likely interpretation of the Spinosaur's typical behavior?
4802222
Pretty dead on. There actually is one animal today I think perfectly embodies the Spinosaurus in overall habits, just scaled down and that's the Great Blue Heron, Ardea herodias. The GB Heron (or Great White one often in Florida) primary eats fish, they're very large and powerful birds and can eat a variety of foods. They'll peck at carrion, swallow young alligators, eat other birds, and have been known to impale and devour even large muskrats almost equal size to them.
i.ytimg.com/vi/3-oHjnz4zOI/maxresdefault.jpg
i.ytimg.com/vi/UWf2C-aMat8/hqdefault.jpg
GB Herons are also, while not as devotedly equipped as dedicated "super predator" birds like eagles, quite capable in a fight if they need to get physical. Records show they're even capable of defending themselves (sometimes lethally) against even large Golden Eagles.
So I see, like you noted, Spinosaurus as an excellent opportunist. Its good in the water, but maybe not quite as good as a large crocodilian. It's capable on land, but maybe not as good a big game predator as a Carnosaur. But it's not shabby anywhere and better than the other two big competitors in the other domain.
4801940
So here's an interesting question. How would Snoke do against the indominous Rex?
On one hand I think the I.rex has is the faster, smarter, and has camouflage. Snoke though I imagine has the strength, size, and durability advantage. So I'm not sure who would win. Though if this did happen in Sorna the I.red could call on raptors to help it out. So maybe that would give it an advantage?
What would have been the inspiration for the Expedition team to give Snoke his nickname?
4802639
Presumably it came from Snoke from Star Wars, (you'd have to ask them specifically) but ironically enough Snoek (pronounced the same sometimes, spelled slightly different) are a type of large, predatory fish.
4802639
It was just a spur of the moment
4802638
Difference is most of the Isla Sorna Deinonychus (raptors) would have spent decades in the wild by the time the I.rex was created. Unlike Owen's pack, they are also much closer to the real thing in terms of behavior because wild pack behavior has had time to settle. They haven't been confined to an enclosure and were raised by their parents, aunts, uncles, and possibly even grandparents. Thus I doubt they'd follow her command and see her as an outsider at best and threat at worst.
As for a 1v1 between Snoke and the Indominus, depends. It's a big toss up. If there is one predator who stood a chance at at beating her in a one to one, stand up brawl, it's Snoke. The Indominus is smart, but doesn't fight too smart and tends to go into a berserker role in a fight; clawing and biting without much strategy. I attribute this to her having too much gene splicing and having conflicting instincts that helped drive her even more insane. Snoke is a splice hybrid too, but not to such a heavy extent. The Indominus' weight is unknown, but given size I wouldn't gauge her as that much heavier than a comparable sized Tyrannosaurus; likely in the 7-8 ton range. The Spinosaurus clocks in at 10.5 tons meaning he has a slight weight advantage. They both have other advantages though, Indominus having slightly more armor to protect her neck and back; whereas Snoke has claws much better for rending and ripping out chunks (Indominus' claws are long and can slash decently but not really beyond flesh wounds). Toss up.
4800403
Wow, did not know that about the behind the scenes stuff.
Also shows just how dangerous those animatronics ACTUALLY are, given they could easily kill a human if something went wrong.
Like the story, and interesting to, again, see how this kind of stuff can go with a human raising a creature. Makes me wonder how things may have gone had Wu actually been able to raise Snoke to adulthood.
4803326
Makes looking the first three, especially the second film all the more impressive to me. Not to crap on the fourth film, it was great! It's just the sense of appreciation for the danger and difficulty makes seeing the craft all the more better. In the first film, a largely untested Tyrannosaurus, drenched in rain, really did bash up parts of a car with people inside it. The scene Rexy rammed her snout through the top of the car's roof window was partially an accident, the screams of the kids are genuine. Then in the second film two more advanced models of the original design which really did destroy a car, pull a guy out of it by his leg, and yank another guy off the stairs in the same manner without harming or killing the actor. And in the third film it reached a new high with a full size Spinosaurus that had to rip apart an airplane, pull and thrash around a guy in its mouth, and then assault a boat while getting rained on and half submerged in water.
As for Wu raising Snoke, I doubt he actually would have wanted to. Snoke is smart, but only by animal terms. Wu needed him to be a wild animal with developed killing instincts and survival skills to rule over Isla Sorna. He could try to do this as a semi-wild rearing like he considered raising Snoke on Isla Nublar, though this be difficult; especially as the attachment bond might weaken in time as Snoke grew. In a nutshell Snoke is similar to the trained raptors in JW, less of a trained dog or Junior echo and more of a semi-tame lion. Granted he'd be less inclined to attack humans as he wouldn't see them as a threat with some exceptions (in the RPG he did kill a hunter who shot him).