APTX theory

[kyuuketsuki]

Alright, so I actually thought up a theory that explains everything about why Vermouth didn't regress to childhood, and why some don't die. Also I am working on why Paikal seems to only work when sick.

The theory is based on the immune system and human genetic uniqueness. First off, I'm sure most of you understand that everyone's immune system is different, even to the point where some people are naturally resistant to a disease. Well if we consider APTX to induce a cell degenerating disease, then those that have a natural resistance to said diseases wouldn't die. So that naturally explains why people don't die on their first go, like conan and haibara. Now for Vermouth, I surmise that she built up a resistance to the drug on purpose. She likely noticed the lab rat becoming infantile again, and came up with a similar theory to mine. Immediately after she had an antidote made up, and began to take small doses which she assumed to be nonlethal, so that her body could build a resistance to the drug. Of course if she took too much she could take the antidote which was made for her (or she made herself). Then when she did that, she took a full dosage to degenerate her cells to a certain point, effectively regressing her age. Naturally if she took too much and regressed to an age too young, she could take the antidote and  try again. So she can control her age as she pleases using a drug meant to kill. As to why she didn't reveal this to the Org, I cannot say, possibly it is because she didn't want others to gain immortality, or she didn't want to be discovered making an antidote (or having one made) which could be leaked, which might be seen as being a traitor. Of course now that Conan is the same, she can't tell, lest she wants the person she wishes to protect dead.

Now as for why one must be sick for Paikal to work as an antidote. If it is linked to immune system, then if the body stopped the cell degeneration and normalized at that point they wouldn't get younger (or die), but if weakened, it couldn't stop the agents of paikal from attacking what the body thought to be normal cells that were effected by the APTX. Because the immune system is weakened they briefly return to their normal state, but as the Paikal stops working (runs through the system) the body allows those cells to multiply again, spreading the cell degenrating disease back to where it was where the body normalized its state. The reason the paikal derived antidote works without being sick is due to increased concentration, the more there is, the more the body has to fight. Or even she found a way to mask the key ingredients so that it would last longer.

[prince.ngoc]

Not a bad theory, I won't be surprised if Gosho comes up with something like this too.

Although, this may have a bad implication for Conan, since he took the drug so regularly. I wouldn't want Shinichi to be stuck as Conan forever -- or else I'll fly to Japan and force Gosho to write a sequel.

Plus wouldn't other members of the BO notice that Vermouth is not aging as well?

[kyuuketsuki]

Not a bad theory, I won't be surprised if Gosho comes up with something like this too.

Although, this may have a bad implication for Conan, since he took the drug so regularly. I wouldn't want Shinichi to be stuck as Conan forever -- or else I'll fly to Japan and force Gosho to write a sequel.

Plus wouldn't other members of the BO notice that Vermouth is not aging as well?

To their knowledge they are two different people. Remember, they still think she is Sharon Vinyard's daughter. Or so I would assume. I think only Jodie figured it out so far.

[Kaitoukidsama]

@___@

[Sedien]

0428.21 aeon: read this: http://forums.dctp.ws/viewtopic.php?t=1140.0
0428.27 Don't read it
0428.28 It's a trap
0428.30 it is awesome
0428.33 awesome trap
0428.39 lol

Jd <3

[Sol Falling]

Hmm, something seems a bit off here.  It's true, we already know that the immune system has something to do with the antidote, because of Shinichi's first and second experiences with the Paikal and the decreased duration in this 'Return' arc.  However, what you're suggesting here is both that the immune system inhibits the activation of the antidote as well as resisting the drug in the first place.  As much as that seems like a contradiction to me already, there's also a 'crappy storytelling' issue that brings up about how Conan and Haibara somehow 'conveniently' end up being the only people to have said natural resistance. 

Similarly, I'm not sold on the ability to cultivate an immunity to the APTX either.  Just because the antidote can be resisted by the immune system isn't any reason to assume the original drug could, too (not to mention, if you could become immune to it, trying too hard to manipulate its effects would be kinda stupid because that might mean you could only end up using it for a limited number of times).

Your scenario does bring up an interesting point, though.  Timeline wise, Sharon Vineyard's death is very recent, isn't it?  As in, approximately within the last year recent (Ran and Shinichi met Sharon when they were 16).  That means that it actually is possible that Vermouth's de-aging was accomplished via the APTX, as opposed to some earlier practice discovered during the B.O.'s '50 year old project'.  Unfortunately, the latter was what I had assumed from the existance of said 50 year old project, Vermouth's at least 20 year old affiliation with the B.O. and status as 'favourite', and what little we know about Shiho/Akemi's parents.  Now that's a little less certain for me, but, well, let's see...

I have a couple issues with the 'degeneration' explanation for APTX.  Although that seems to be the most immediately obvious (as well as scientifically plausible) approach, and indeed it does work at least regarding what Conan and Haibara experienced, on the other hand, though, you couldn't really call it 'regaining youth'.  Since the cells are being outright discarded, it seems rather more like wholesale destruction of half (or more!) your bodymass.  Seeing how DNA replication only allows for cells to regenerate a certain number of times, such a procedure would more likely shorten your life than extend it.  This problem seems even more dramatic if it were to be used on an old(er) person (the presumed targets): basically, what makes young people look young (skin, etc.) is actually the new cells that their body can still afford to produce--not an excess of them.  Given the premise of destroying them, if an old person were to use it it wouldn't make them look younger at all--worst case scenario, the same shrinkage young folks like Shinichi and Shiho experienced would occur, and what they'd be left with would be only a very wrinkly (and non-growing) midget body.

Anyway, there's also the issue with the antidote.  First of all, although the antidote's handling of mass conservation is irredeemably wonky anyways, with the whole 'cell destroying' theory it's bad on a whole other level.  Basically, if the APTX outright destroys cells without leaving anything behind (their mass I suppose evaporating into that cloud of steam), then how exactly is the antidote supposed to know how much to regenerate?  Although in the first place, cell growth at such a tremendous and unsupported (i.e. by nutrients; building blocks) is impossible, somehow stopping at exactly or even approximately the original mass without markers is plain unbelievable (not to mention, that wouldn't really make the antidote an antidote, but rather something which has the opposite effect of the apotoxin).  Furthermore, the antidote is actually only temporary!  Somehow, either the antidote itself (which just plainly makes no hyping sense) or some lingering remnant of the drug (which also just plainly makes no hyping sense, as in that case, why would it wait for new cells before attacking?  Also, there should be some presumption that the drug agent should be purged or at least reduced from the body after some time)  induces all those cells to melt away again.  In the end, this is just doubly harmful to (the supposed aim of) an extended lifespan.

So, onto my 'theory' (if you could call it that).  It's actually nothing special, just adjusting to accomodate the issues I highlighted above.  My idea is, rather than destroying cells, the APTX instead infiltrates a number of cells and 'deactivates' them through some sort of molecular or protein-based switch (re: the mass issue: still no explanation, so I guess it's just somehow sending all that cellular biological waste to the mythical anime hammerspace).  As far as (gradual) automatic reactivation goes, the question 'does Conan grow?' might be relevant here, because I don't really see it as necessary and it would seem to be rather difficult to engineer.  Anyway, the point is that the apotoxin makes a permanent modification to these cells, somehow flipping a 'switch' which causes the cells to release all their mass (somewhere) and enter into a state of diminished hibernation.  Thus, the active agent has some sort of 'target' to focus on.  Unfortunately, at least for the Paikal derived version of the antidote, the effect is only temporary (perhaps it only 'unflips' the switch rather than actually destroying it) so that eventually, the Paikal is all consumed by the immune system (or, alternatively, the active agent is de-enzymized/whatever in the liver) and the switch reattaches (and/or reflips due to a return to equilibrium?).  Anyway, approximately the same cells as originally targeted would then be deactivated again, and thus Shinichi etc. would shrink once again into a child.

As for how the apotoxin kills people, actually I'm partial to the theory that APTX survival is based on age.  Shiho and Shinichi, still only 18 and 17, still within a very approximate ostensible 'growing age', might have more 'flexible' cells/DNA/lysosomes lol whatever than adults.  Then when the APTX goes to do its thing on adults, maybe it fails to actually convert the cell, instead freezing it or exploding it or something like that and just causing the adult to die.  Or else, maybe instead of the cells, it's the amount of growth hormone or cell activity which would be higher in people at that age, which would prevent the cells from being messed around with by virtue of being busy replicating (or etc.) already.  This would be in line with Haibara's comments about the 50 year old project and the APTX not originally meant to be a poison by explaining that it just wouldn't work the way it's supposed to on adults.  Actually, it would be great if we could actually see a body which died from it because then we could see what actually happened.  Since the APTX is supposedly an 'untraceable poison' and the B.O. has actually managed to (generally) find and identify the bodies of their targets, my initial impression is that nothing actually happens to them.

Okay, so to conclude this tl;dr is the fact that both the above theories (cell destruction and cell deactivation) only actually work for the teen to child transition.  In addition, neither of them actually really does anything with regards to prolonging human life.  The thing is, shrinking a teen to look like a child is actually a far different task from making a 40 year old woman look 20; thus, with either of the above theories I highly doubt the APTX was Vermouth's method.  One the other hand, for the B.O.(and/or Shiho) to have created a drug which actually approximately halves a person's age no matter what the actual number is, I can't actually think of anything aside from plain old magic.

Sorry for the humongous wall 'o' text...this is how I tend to be, unfortunately.  Now to see if anyone actually reads it...

[kyuuketsuki]

There is one problem with your theory, that my theory covers... The fact that this is a MYTHICAL DRUG. And "no trace" is impossible. Well at least immediately. All drugs stay in your system until it leaves in some way, but it stays usually at least a day. It may be undetectable unless you use spectral microscopy... but undetectable is impossible. Furthermore, Shiho/ Ai mentioned it works by CELL DEGENERATION (destruction really), it is the concept behind APTX, that is the other main problem with your theory. I mean both of our theories have holes, but I can't forsee any other way to explain vermouth, and mine works into the theory. And i never did say it was only conan and ai, those are just the only two cases we are aware of. I mean if it were only those two then Ai would have no reason to fear it happening again, because they would be anomalies. This is obviously not the case. So I am sure there are others like them, but the drug has either not been used on said people, or we do not know about them. And ALL drugs you can develop an immunity to. That is called "dependency" for most addicting drugs. Take Vicodin for instance, if you take it too often, eventually you need to increase dosage due to resistance built up. My theory was more on the point of incomplete cellular degeneration (destruction), or apoptosis (see a similarity in name?). Therefore, considering its a mythical drug, my theory is applicable. But your theory does bring some interesting problems with mine. I need to think of a more complete theory anyway. This is still a working progress....

Oh right, one more thing... The immune system attacks foreign agents in the body. Whatever is not supposed to be there, it attacks. So the agents of the antidote would be seen as a threat even if its helping. Either that or the disease itself has the resistance and the disease is somehow linked to the immune system, like HIV is.... Still working on the antidote theory though as I said...

[Sol Falling]

Mm, my issue with the cell destruction theory is basically how the antidote knows how much to regenerate (if all traces of the original cells are gone), and why all those new cells die again.  It seems pretty much impossible without leaving some kind of indicator behind, but you're right, Haibara did basically say that the principle behind the APTX was apoptosis, so meh.  But as far as the reasoning for various people surviving goes, I'd prefer something a bit less random than just genetic resistance.  The reasoning behind Ai and Conan almost assuredly being the only survivers of the apotoxin is the fact that the B.O. aren't onto them being children yet; as such, I think a positive correlation between Conan and Ai and a negative correlation between Conan/Ai versus the rest of the APTX victims, such as the former being young, is more plausible than a purely random correlation such as genetic immunity.

Well, as for Vermouth developing a resistance to the apotoxin, I admit that's possible.  Aside from the incompatibility with cellular degeneration I already highlighted though (the fact that destroying your cells really isn't going to help you look any younger when you're ~40+ years old), there's also the assumption that the apotoxin actually always successfully induces cellular degeneration.  Like I mentioned before, since the Black Organization have managed to locate and identify the majority of its victims for the APTX, and also because they still have no idea that 'missing body = incomplete degeneration = child' for APTX victims, perhaps the people who do die don't suffer their cells degenerating.  Then we'd have the issue of whether Vermouth building up resistance for the cellular degeneration is even possible, since whatever factor controls the final outcome might have locked her into the 'die' effect.

Heheh.  Although I don't quite agree that I completely disregarded the 'mystical' aspects of the APTX drug, I guess I will concede that in the end the explanation will probably end up much more mythical than I'd like it to be.  To that end, given the timing, I do admit that Vermouth's apparent agelessness being achieved via the APTX is possible (although I also think it's just as possible that she did it through some other means; Haibara's drug can't have been the only breakthrough in 50 years of research, after all).  So, accepting all other premises of your theory, I do have one final objection: as you say, it should indeed be possible to build up a resistance to any drug, so the additional speculation that Vermouth already has an antidote to the APTX isn't quite necessary.  I think it adds more trouble to the scenario than it's worth, soo...lol .

[H...Haibara]

I would rather eat my own head than read that. You guys are thinking too complicated.

[haibarakudo]

I would rather eat my own head than read that. You guys are thinking too complicated.

Agreed......my head feels abit woozy now

[Jing]

That was a mouthful. I'm going to go lie down.

First, I'll say something a little on topic: I really wonder how Gosho plans to tie up every single unsolved mystery that deals with the Organization, which is maybe 10% of cases, without keeping the manga going for years. And to include so much science...it could be even longer. God help us.

[Jing]

That was a mouthful. I'm going to go lie down.

First, I'll say something a little on topic: I really wonder how Gosho plans to tie up every single unsolved mystery that deals with the Organization, which is maybe 10% of cases, without keeping the manga going for years. And to include so much science...it could be even longer. God help us.

Well, just like episode 345. I think he will make a long story arc with more than 10 episodes only about the BO and then we will watch a 2 hours special.

That's pretty much equivalent to 14 episodes, and the Clash arc was 13. It isn't enough to tie everything off. It'll either go on forever or leave some things unfinished.

[kyuuketsuki]

That was a mouthful. I'm going to go lie down.

First, I'll say something a little on topic: I really wonder how Gosho plans to tie up every single unsolved mystery that deals with the Organization, which is maybe 10% of cases, without keeping the manga going for years. And to include so much science...it could be even longer. God help us.

Watch,  he won't do anything, and before you know it, it will all be on Unsolved Mysteries. And people will begin to call in with crack pot theories until the day Gosho decides to finally reveal the truth in a book.

[Jing]

That was a mouthful. I'm going to go lie down.

First, I'll say something a little on topic: I really wonder how Gosho plans to tie up every single unsolved mystery that deals with the Organization, which is maybe 10% of cases, without keeping the manga going for years. And to include so much science...it could be even longer. God help us.

Watch,  he won't do anything, and before you know it, it will all be on Unsolved Mysteries. And people will begin to call in with crack pot theories until the day Gosho decides to finally reveal the truth in a book.

Agh but I can't consider that a part of the real story! It's just like What's-her-face calling Dumbledore gay. That isn't true!