Several common varieties of Necromorph.

"More of what?! What the hell are those things? Is that the crew?!"

—Kendra Daniels

The Necromorphs are the reanimated corpses of the dead, reshaped into horrific new forms by a recombinant extraterrestrial infection. These creatures are extremely aggressive, and will attack any uninfected organism on sight. The sole purpose of almost all the Necromorphs is to create more bodies to infect and spread the infection. They are believed by some to be the heralds of humanity's ascension, but on a more practical level are the extremely dangerous result of exposure to, and tampering of, presumably alien technology.

Biology Edit

Infection, Recombination and ReanimationEdit

"Holy creatures, transform me into your humble servant. Show me the path to enlightenment as you alter my flesh and free my soul." - Samuel Irons

In order for the Necromorph pathogen to infect a host body, the host must first be killed; for reasons unknown, living victims who come into contact with the microbes do not undergo transformation, although symptoms of paralysis, catatonia, and impaired breathing can occur. While these symptoms do not necessarily ensure the death of the host, they can make it easier for nearby Necromorphs to catch and kill the victims.

Once the host is dead, the recombinant properties of the infection take hold. The process is extraordinarily rapid, and predictably violent. Cellular functions go into a self-destructive overdrive, creating new biologically active compounds which are then metabolized by reanimated flesh to fuel further mutation of once dead flesh. Bones are broken, put together in new configurations, or reshaped into entirely new forms. All of this takes place in a matter of seconds, and generates tremendous amounts of heat. More often than not, the violently spasming corpse becomes so hot that stagnant blood boils in the veins and arteries, rupturing the skin. Vital and digestive organs that are no longer needed are turned into additional musculature, giving all Necromorphs increased strength.

Pure Necromorph tissue is light pink and translucent; it is capable of independent movement and sticks to surfaces. The pink tissue is capable of consuming and reconstructing necrotic flesh, and can transform living flesh when injected directly into a living person's blood stream.

The type of Necromorph created during infection largely depends on the location and circumstance, for example Lurkers are created specifically from infant humans, and Stalkers are believed to be created from pairs of siblings. However, some Necromorphs are clearly composed of more than one human (see Brute, Tripod or Graverobber), which is an indication that some form of intelligence is at work allocating biomass for specific use. This is especially troubling, as it shows a degree of planning and forethought not found in simple creatures.

All Necromorphs are extremely hardy and capable of surviving in lethal environments such as the vacuum of space. This evidences a total lack of respiration or reliance upon vascular activity. It is this lack of a vascular support system, more than anything else, that is the primary reason for their hardiness. As experience shows, shooting them in the torso where a normal organism can be counted to go down due to internal bleeding and vascular shock is ineffective. While shots to center mass are still disruptive and will kill them eventually, it is extremely wasteful and potentially lethal; a person may waste a large amount of ammunition, or may be attacked by other Necromorphs while they are concentrated on one.

The Necromorph infection is not only limited to humans, Dead Space: Martyr describes a Necromorph fish which behaves like all other Necromorphs, as it attacks another fish in order to kill and infect it.

Not all dead flesh appears to be used for mobile Necromorph forms; a massive, mat-like growth known as The Corruption is present. The Cyst, Nest, the Guardian, and the Drag Tentacles are also present.

Behavior and Ecology Edit

"They're not monsters, they're animals. Deadly animals."

—Catherine Howel

Necromorphs are extraordinarily aggressive; they attack any non-Necromorph being on sight, regardless of species or age. The sole purpose of this behavior is to spread the infection quickly. Despite being viewed as mindless killing machines, the creatures sometimes display tactical planning and cooperative behavior. They commonly hunt in small packs (see Pack) of mixed individuals with semi-specific roles, and use stealth, ambush, or pack tactics to gain the upper hand on their victims. This requires a degree of strategic thinking, and points to a certain amount of individual intelligence and communication. Examples of this include using ventilation shafts to sneak up on prey, playing dead, not attacking until the victim is well within striking range or their back is turned, or using a lure to draw known threats into an ambush.

Creatures not currently engaging a non-Necromorph target have been observed as performing several different behaviors. Many will wander aimlessly, almost passively, with no real destination, until they are aware of a new victim to kill that they will immediately engage. Some will drag bodies to a different location, possibly to make it easier for an Infector to find. Some will hide themselves inside ventilation shafts, setting up new or resetting previous ambush sites. Some will simply stand in place, waiting for a new victim to come to them. When a target is present but out of range, they will often watch the victim and attempt to intimidate them with loud growls and threatening poses.

Beyond pack tactics the creatures have never really been observed to directly interact with one another (other than the Stalkers, and The Pack see below). They do not audibly talk to one another, they do not touch each other in a social sense (though one might get in the way of another during an attack), and they have not been recorded exchanging more subtle chemical signals between each other, i.e. pheromones are never mentioned.

The scope of their behaviors is expanded upon in Dead Space 2 with the introduction of Stalkers. Outside of the Hive Mind, Stalkers seem to have the strongest sense of pack cohesion and individual intelligence shown from Necromorphs, as they will often peek around corners to lure Isaac while another will charge from a different direction. They are also the only known Necromorphs to directly communicate with one another. The noises they make seem to hold some significance, e.g. the Stalkers will make a noise while or just after Isaac has moved his location, alerting the other Stalkers. It is also possible that they communicate with each other, such as the Pack and Stalkers.

Dismemberment Edit

Dismemberment is the only way to eliminate the Necromorphs.

"Take their legs out, and they'll drag themselves toward you. Shoot off an arm, and they'll use their other arm to rip into you. Nope, the only real way to take these creatures out is to completely rip them apart."

—Glen Schofield, Dead Space Executive Producer ^[1]

As said in the previous section, Necromorphs do not suffer from the vulnerabilities associated with a body that needs interconnected vital organs, centralized nervous system, respiration, or vascular support. Injuries that would kill an ordinary human, such as a shot to the cranial cavity containing the brain, have little effect on them.

Countless have died due to not knowing the Necromorphs' only vulnerability: dismemberment. The only effective way to kill the creatures is to literally chop them to pieces by removing the head, arms, legs, and other appendages until the creature is killed. Some Necromorphs like The Hunter and The Ubermorph cannot be killed by dismemberment as they are able to regenerate all of their body parts after dismemberment.

The act of strategically removing the limbs from the creatures is dubbed "Strategic Dismemberment" by the Dead Space game team.^[2] Each creature has its own strategies when it comes to dismemberment: some creatures will simply die after enough limbs have been removed, some creatures will die instantly if a specific limb is cut off, while some creatures will become even more of a threat if shot in the wrong place. Learning how to dismember creatures is mostly done through trial-and-error. However, dismemberment is the only effective way to truly stop the reanimated horrors in their tracks and is the best way to survive.

TriviaEdit

• Necromorphs have similiarities to the creatures called "Xenomorphs" in the movie "Aliens" in that they will travel by vent or other areas that they climb from for the element of suprise in addition to the similar names.
• Necromorphs are most similar to the creatures from the movie "The Thing" because like the Necromorphs, the creature in the movie could infect and than take over the host using parts of the host's previous form. In one scene of the movie, one of the characters head's fall off and the result is something that looks almost identical to a Divider spawn head.
• The term "Necromorph" is a neologism comprised of the root words "necro" (from the greek word 'νεκρός ~ nekros') meaning "dead" and "morph" (from the greek 'μορφή ~ morfee') meaning "form" or "shape"; thus "Necromorph" can be translated into the synonymical morphologically parsed term "Dead-Form", an apt name for the creatures given their nature.
• According to the design team, the key idea of the Necromorphs is that they are made up entirely of human body parts: scythe arms were once the bones of the human host, tentacles are made up of a host's intestines, etc. All of their parts are made up of re-purposed parts of the previous host. The team studied medical, autopsy, and accident photos in order to recreate the effect of a ravaged human body, to give a sense of realism as to how the human bodies in the games have been twisted into monsters. ^[3]
• The Necromorphs seem to be less inclined to attack those under the influence of the Markers, as shown in the comics. Natalia Deshyanov was not attacked by the Necromorphs as she was making her way to the rover bay, only observed.
• The name "Necromorph" was first coined by Dr. Kyne, according to this log.
• As evidenced in Dead Space 2's multiplayer, Necromorphs can see neuron strands in the human body. It is possible to speculate that Necromorphs can sense electric impulses.
• Every known Necromorph form has been shown to be dismember-able in some way, excluding the Creeper from Dead Space: Martyr and the Wheezer from Dead Space.
• If a Necromorph places Isaac Clarke or Gabe Weller in a quick-time event with other Necromorphs around, the other Necromorphs will just wait patiently to attack while Isaac or Gabe fight off the holding Necromorph.

GalleryEdit

An artwork depicting Isaac fighting against the overwhelming Necromorphs.

In-game picture of the Slasher.

Concept art of the Grabber.

Concept art of the Flyer.

The Slasher from Dead Space: Downfall.

A Brute, as seen in Dead Space.

A Lurker, ready to strike

Concept art of a Necromorph boss.

Concept art of Necromorphs.

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SourcesEdit

See alsoEdit

• Black Marker
• Red Marker
• Unitology

Known Necromorph formsEdit