Future Fungus

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This article's title is a nickname, based upon conjecture or similar. The correct title is unknown.

The fungus in it's natural form.
Scientific name	Unknown
Home era	Future
Creature type	Fungus
Deaths caused	Lloyd Mark Baker Richard Bentley ARC soldier
Appearances	Episode 3.5 Fire and Water (mentioned) Episode 4.1 (flashback) Possibly Episode 4.2 (picture)

"Well, this'll be tricky to explain to the next of kin: good news - he's not technically dead. Bad news - he's turned into a mushroom!"

―James Lester^[src]

The Future Fungus (also known as Killer Fungus) is a deadly species of fungi from the future which infects and literally takes over a living host.

1 Abilities
2 Origin
3 History
4 Trivia
5 Gallery
6 External links

AbilitiesEdit

The fungus is parasitic, literally taking over any human who comes into contact with it. Victims are overwhelmed, becoming a hideous shell of their former selves intent only on spreading the fungus further. The Future Fungus “eats” its victims, but retains a vaguely human shape, making it both sinister and frighteningly dangerous. This is a terrifying evolution from present day parasites that can alter a host’s behaviour to reproduce effectivelty. The team initially think the answer is to burn the organism but that proves to be the worst possible approach because it causes the fungus to reproduce or sporulate. Eventually it is discovered that cold is the answer and it is killed when it is trapped in the frozen ARC.

The effects of temperature on the fungus may also have an effect on the rate in which they take over their victims. As Sir Richard was an art collector, he would have kept his apartment at a lower temperature, and as such, he first felt unwell before the fungus grew on his neck and hand before only fully transforming within an hour.. Along with this, the lab at the ARC was set at a much higher temperature and humidity for the plants, and the spores in Sir Richards apartment hadn't been exposed to the saline solution. These factors in favor of the fungus at the ARC could explain why it took over Baker so quickly. Sir Richard also inhaled the dust of the fungus, while Baker touched a growing patch of mould. The dust would have had to extract moisture from Sir Richard.

OriginEdit

The fungus makes it's home in a Future Rainforest, which appears to be a lush, warm, sun dappled woodland, located at an undetermined point in the Future. The forest opens out onto a clifftop, from which can be seen distant mountains, wreathed in fog. There are some dubious rumours that the Future world of the Future Fungus is set 500 million years in the future, when it is claimed that the Sun is 'expanding', causing the Earth to heat up. This could cause desertification, but to fit with the tropical forest appearance of the fungus' home, it seems that this may also cause humidity level on a global scale to increase considerably. Therefore, the warm, moist climate is ideal for oversized fungus creatures to evolve and thrive in this climate of the future. It is very much unclear whether this is true, but the 500 million years in the future rumour is more than interesting.

In the fungus' home, the calls of unknown animals can be heard. It's possible that the fungus' special abilites evolved to take over these animals in response to possible threats they posed. However, it is also possible that these future animals have a stronger immunity to it than humans from living in the same environment as the fungus. If so, then the way it affected human hosts would not be the way it natually feds.

HistoryEdit

An anomaly opened up in the Future Rainforest home of the fungus, linked to the flat of London businessman, Sir Richard Bentley, in the present. Despite being one of the shortest anomalies on record, lasting only a couple of minutes, it still managed to cause trouble.

Richard's assistant, Lloyd, was waiting in his boss's flat to collect some paperwork when he saw the anomaly. Unaware of what it was, believing it to be a piece of modern art, he went through it, finding himself in a future woodland, overlooked by cliffs. As Lloyd explored, he came into contact with the fungus, which spurted a cloud of spores into his face, leaving him dangerously ill. He tried to return to the flat, but the anomaly sealed shut on him, though not before he vomited several spores into the flat. Lloyd presumably transformed into a fungus creature afterwards.

When Sir Richard returned to his flat to collect the paperwork, he came into contact with the spores and rapidly began to succumb to the infection. The anomaly was detected by the ARC when the Anomaly Detection Device reactivated after damage from a Diictodon. The team went to the apartment to investigate, taking a sample of the spores and Connor was sent back to the ARC to analyze them. To his horror, Connor discovered the spores were from an extremely aggressive and highly contagious fungus: he told Jenny to quarantine the flat and find anyone who may have come into contact with the spores. Fearing that Sir Richard had, and on discovering that he was heading to catch a train at St Pancras Station, the team went after him: however, Bentley evaded Abby, Jenny and Becker at the station, before escaping into underground tunnels, where he completely succumbed to the fungus.

Meanwhile, Christine Johnson arrived at the ARC with her associates, Captain Wilder and Mark Baker. Danny Quinn saw Baker skulking round the ARC. Baker broke into Connor's lab and touched the growing fungus, rapidly succumbing to the infection. The lab was quarantined and Connor and Danny, clad in hazmat suits, went in to assess the damage. Johnson furiously accused Lester of her's man's death (though Lester coldly retorted he shouldn't have been trespassing) and stormed out.

Unfortunately, the team were forced to contain the infected Baker, who, like Bentley, had transformed into a fungus creature. The team sealed the creature in the contaminated lab and, at Sarah's suggestion, tried exposing it to extreme heat in the hope of killing it. The plan seemed to work when the creature exploded in the extreme heat, and Danny was dispatched with a number of flamethrowers to Jenny, Abby and Becker, who were trying to contain Bentley in the tunnels. However, when Connor went back into the lab to rescue Sid the Diictodon, he discovered that heat only destroys the fungus's host body, and causes the spores to spread more virulently: if they used the flamethrowers, the team could end up infecting half of London with the spores. Sarah managed to get this information to Jenny before the team used the flamethrowers on the creature. Connor discovered that cold stopped the spread of the fungus and told Sarah to turn down the lab's temperature to as low as she could, ignoring the risk of himself freezing to death. After the temperature reached -25.0 degrees, the fungus died and the team rescued Connor from the lab. The team then decide to use the cold to kill Bentley.

Jenny and Danny managed to lure Bentley to the surface and trapped him in a security van. They then transported him to the ARC where, in the Operations Room, Connor lowered the temperature to below zero, allowing them to kill Bentley once he entered the room. However, Bentley escaped into the ARC, and while Lester evacuated the rest of the staff, Jenny, Abby, Sarah and Danny gone to find CO2 fire extinguishers to lure Bentley into the Operations Room. However, Jenny was trapped in the room by Bentley who, slowly dying from the cold, was focusing on the only source of heat left in the room: Jenny's body. After holding Bentley off for a few moments, Jenny succumbed to the cold and collapsed, unconscious. With Bentley seconds from killing Jenny, Danny burst into the room and attacked him. As the creature turned on him, it finally succumbed to the cold and died. The team rushed to Jenny's aid, only to find she was infected: although she was dying, the team couldn't remove her until the cold had killed the fungus. Eventually, the fungus on Jenny died from the cold. (Episode 3.5)

When New Dawn created the Sterile Earth Future, the Future Fungus was presumably erased from the timeline. (Episode 4.1)

It is likely that the picture of the Area 51 Creature is a Fungus Creature which came through an anomaly before the Predator-Megopteran War Future was negated. It may have also started the Area 51 "Alien" and possibly "UFO" sightings. (Episode 4.2)

TriviaEdit

Although it's barely noticeable, what looks like human eyes can still be seen on the fungus creatures.
The concept of fungus taking over a person seems to be based on the Japanese cult film Matango.
This is the first non-animal threat that has come through an anomaly (discounting the Precambrian mist in Episode 2.2).
This is the second creature that uses Humans as a host. The 1st was the Parasite (see Episode 1.4.)
The concept of the Future Fungus is similar to the Flood from Bungies Halo videogame series. The Flood are parasites that convert hosts into fungus looking creatures.
It made a cameo in flashback during Lester's recap of the previous three series in Episode 4.1.
The Fungus is mentioned in Fire and Water, which says that the creature's attack was days ago.
This is the last creature Jenny Lewis encounters before resigning from the ARC.
The Future Fungus could have evolved from the cordyceps fungus.
While both Richard Bentley and the soldier were shown infected by the fungus, only the Bentley creature was exterminated in the end.
The Future Fungus could be the Area 51 Creature shown in Episode 4.2.
This is the only creature in Series 3 to be carried into the present by a human host.
The fungus in its natural habitat is shown not attached to any creature. It is possible that although the fungus takes over its victim first, trying to infect more creatures to spread, after a certain time it finally kills its host and uses its body as a framework for its new place to live, until a new creature encounters it, where the fungus will infect it and repeat the enitire process.
The era in which the fungus is from is never specified but is most probably the future. This can be supported because when Sir Richard's assistant, Lloyd enters the anomaly he stumbles upon a concrete ledge that has weeds and other plant material growing on and near it. (also, the BBC website confirms that it is from the future).
Along with the Ankylosaurus, this is the only creature to be resistant to gunfire.