Baron of hell, what is he made of?

[RiffRaff1138]

Death-Destiny said:

We're jumping to conclusions here. This whole argument assumes that demons even have skin to rip off. Just look at that sketch. It's not stringy or fibrous enough to be muscle or smooth enough to be skin. It's much more likely that it is some sort of membrane demons grow, to protect them from their own environment or the things they hunt, or simply to hold them together, since they're basically a pile of bones and muscles otherwise.

So then, it's skin, but not as we know it?

[myk]

I wouldn't put much thought to the hell knight. It's just a simple hack of the baron made a year after it, which could have been done in 5 minutes ignoring whatever inspired the baron's design.

Death-Destiny said:
This whole argument assumes that demons even have skin to rip off.

Not really, as it could also mean it never had any skin, just raw exposed muscle. I'd rather just look at the sketch (and sprite) and apply the KISS principle than speculate on non-evident explanatory possibilities.

Another thing; the fluid that flows out of defeated barons of hell is green like their attacks. Likewise the cacodemon's mouth turns blue when it hurls a ball or bites, and it spills blue goo when taken down. Since they have red blood, it seems that these fluids are instead what fuels their attacks.

[GreyGhost]

Reinchard666 said:

http://www.hardlin0r.com/phlebiac/ida/phlebiac_ida_22.jpg
Look at the original sketch of Baron. His muscels looks like really without skin.

Well spotted. I wonder if it was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical studies - with extra muscle to make it look more imposing?

[KuriKai]

In that picture it looks as if his head has no skin or muscles.

so maybe
Legs are hairy, the body is exposed muscles and the head is jsut a skeleton?

Or his head and body could just be dried up skin?

[Inferno]

myk said:

Another thing; the fluid that flows out of defeated barons of hell is green like their attacks. Likewise the cacodemon's mouth turns blue when it hurls a ball or bites, and it spills blue goo when taken down. Since they have red blood, it seems that these fluids are instead what fuels their attacks.

That's like saying the imp's blood (which is red) helps fuel their fireballs (which are also red). More of a coincidence if you ask me.

[Necros20]

I disagree that the baron's skin is ripped off. I always thought of his legs as being covered with a thin layer of light brown fur while his top half is hairless. What makes you think his blood is red any way.

[myk]

If its blood isn't red, what's that red stuff that sprays when it's hit by a firearm?

Inferno said:
That's like saying the imp's blood (which is red) helps fuel their fireballs (which are also red). More of a coincidence if you ask me.

Not really, because I'm saying these fluids aren't blood. They don't seem to be, either, by the way they flow out (and see here). The imp's blood might or might not fuel its attack, but the consideration is irrelevant, as it bleeds out rather normally. It's not possible to determine whether it's a coincidence (you'd likely have to talk to Adrian Carmack who's always been a hermit in regard to the fan community), and the association is reasonable.

[Death-Destiny]

Necros20 said:

I disagree that the baron's skin is ripped off. I always thought of his legs as being covered with a thin layer of light brown fur while his top half is hairless. What makes you think his blood is red any way.

When you shoot a Baron, red blood flies out of it. =)

Hey Myk, that explanation for the color of the fluids that leak out of their corpse fueling their attacks is a really nice correlation that I never thought of before, and I agree completely.

Back to the topic at hand, I don't think it's excessively speculative to claim that Barons are enclosed in a membrane that is not skin. It simply arises from the conclusion that it appears to be enclosed in something unfamiliar. While purposing uses for such a membrane becomes more like guesswork, it seems not to be beyond the realm of reason that such a membrane is likely specialized to the demons functioning and environment. Since demons are not from Earth, it seems fairly likely that their anaotomy would not entirely resemble that of Earth-like creatures (skin, bones, muscles, organs, etc.) and as such it is likely that they will have anatomical features we've never seen before, and therefore it might be an oversimplification to assume that it must have either skin or muscle instead of something totally different. Also, Barons, being from Hell, probably possess some type of otherworldly power. For example, given that the green stuff in their bodies fuels their attack, I suspect there is no purely physical explanation for how exactly they channel that power into their fireballs.

[Lord_Z]

I don't think the skin was ripped off but we will never know for sure one way or another.

...Unless of course Mars really turns out to have had an ancient alien civilization and we start playing with teleportation technology...

[Death-Destiny]

Lord_Z said:

...Unless of course Mars really turns out to have had an ancient alien civilization and we start playing with teleportation technology...

Haven't you heard? We've already got people on that project. =P (Scroll down to Fraggle's 1st post)

[Lord_Z]

Well, at least we as a Doom Community will know what to do if it happens ;)

[Dutch Doomer]

I've stolen the Baron's furry sweater, now he's half naked.

[Creaphis]

Formulating a functional, complete theory of how the baron functions as an organism is not applying the KISS principle, as this forgets that in, in fiction, things do not have to fit together or make sense. Here - I'll show you how to keep it simple.

Blood: Red. Some fluid of other colours leaks out of a dead baron because it looks cool.

Attack: The baron is able to chuck hot green globs of something-or-other because of hell magic (which is loosely related to Esselmagic).

External covering: The baron has skin as we know it (and any other sort of protective "membrane" is skin by definition, anyway). The sketch shows skin and musculature similar to this dude:

The baron appears to have a shortage of tissue on his face because a wizard did it.

Debate. Over.

[Stupid Bunny]

I've never been the kind to overthink things like the biology of demons. The game is more interesting to me if I just think of them as being impossible to describe scientifically...after all, they DO come from Hell. Because the next step would be to wonder...how do Pain Elementals spawn Lost Souls? And how come they both explode without a trace when killed? Do arachnotrons have compound eyes or what? Where do cyberdemon rockets come from? And so forth.

IMO, not all questions need answers.

[myk]

You might have to answer some of those questions if you try to make more detailed versions of the monsters. Base materials (such as sketches or models) also provide additional insights about what the artists were thinking when they designed the monsters.

[RiffRaff1138]

myk said:

If its blood isn't red, what's that red stuff that sprays when it's hit by a firearm?

Blood. But it's only red there due to technical limitations. Barons really have green blood, and Cacos have blue blood.

[myk]

Of course, we all know now that the source has been released that color translations for the blood would have been technically impossible in the DOOM engine.

Besides, indeed, now I recall that the other day I was playing soccer, and one of the guys was a baron of hell. At one point he accidentally scraped his leg against a wooden fence... and he bellowed like they always do and bled green blood!

[Necros20]

Also how come when the baron dies, he dosen't bleed red?

[myk]

You can find many things like that. Another example: the bosses (cyberdemon and spiderdemon) blow up, but aren't full-bright while doing so. The cyberdemon's explosion also looks somewhat ambiguous; it could be flames but also mostly blood, or blood and flames.

[Dreadopp]

Necros20 said:

Also how come when the baron dies, he dosen't bleed red?

Because red blood is boring. ;P

[Creaphis]

Hey... myk deleted his first post after my last one! Shucks. I had a good response ready for it.


Anyways, I've always considered the cyberdemon's death sequence as essentially depicting his loss of structural integrity - his body simply takes too much abuse and just falls apart into a fine mist. It probably is intended to be an explosion, though. It doesn't look very fiery when a cyberdemon dies, but it doesn't look very fiery when a rocket explodes, either.

Come to think of it, it would be more satisfying to kill a cyberdemon if it perished in a massive, gorey firestorm.

[myk]

Maybe the idea was that some of the rockets in it blow up, and since they're encased under a lot of flesh, it just bursts into a shower of bloody smithereens.

[RiffRaff1138]

The wires in/connecting to the Cyb's torso seem to suggest that he has some sort of internal cybernetics. Perhaps the critical failure of said internal machinery is what's blowing him up?

Of course, it could just be the Rule of Cool in action. There's no more awesome way for a giant enemy to die than to blow up.

[Stupid Bunny]

RiffRaff1138 said:

Of course, it could just be the Rule of Cool in action. There's no more awesome way for a giant enemy to die than to blow up.

I always hate it when I am fighting some big dangerous enemy and I get some wimpy death sequence. I remember being quite disappointed when I killed Korax in Hexen...I had hoped for more. (At least the Heresiarch is pretty awesome when it dies.) My personal opinion on the cyberdemon death sequence is that it could have used a more spectacular sound; as it is, the cyberdemon just kind of grunts and the explosion isn't that loud.

[Death-Destiny]

StupidBunny said:

My personal opinion on the cyberdemon death sequence is that it could have used a more spectacular sound; as it is, the cyberdemon just kind of grunts and the explosion isn't that loud.

Blasphemous! The Cyb's death sound is awesome. I love it!... The Spider's is better, though.

*Gaaaaaa- Aaaaaah... Va-BOOM!!!*

[GreyGhost]

Creaphis said:

External covering: The baron has skin as we know it (and any other sort of protective "membrane" is skin by definition, anyway). The sketch shows skin and musculature similar to this dude:
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/8/85/The.Way.Of.The.Dragon.1972.Bruce.Lee.flex.front.jpg

Debate. Over.

We shouldn't assume that alien biology is going to conform to what we consider "normal". For all we know the Baron's body might be coated with a layer of pigmented mucus which functions as both a moisture trap and hazardous-environmemt suit.

[MmM]

StupidBunny said:

I always hate it when I am fighting some big dangerous enemy and I get some wimpy death sequence. I remember being quite disappointed when I killed Korax in Hexen...I had hoped for more. (At least the Heresiarch is pretty awesome when it dies.)

I thought Korax's death was cool, with his stomach opening up and all of those spirits escaping from within, a la Wraithverge.

[Rotting Corpse]

When us MMA fighters go for a photo shoot we fast for at lest six hours. So your skin sticks to your muscle and gives you more muscle definition. It could be the BOH has little to no body fat so that its skin sticks directly to the muscle giving it the look that it has no skin.

[Inferno]

^ I forgot to mention this in my earlier post. Besides being extremely built, I too think the Baron has practically no body fat, giving his muscles a much more defined appearance.

[_bruce_]

So the baron was an avid bodybuilder lifting hell's victims instead of barbells?