I have an idea for a human subspecies in a sci-fi setting: Vampires. As in, they have sharp eyeteeth and need to drink blood from people to survive. Since I'm going with non-supernatural vampires I feel I should make some effort to justify this... and try to answer the question as to why they don't just drink cloned blood, given that it's sci-fi.
Could a creature theoretically not be able to generate it's own blood, but be capable of taking the needed components through oral ingestion? Is there some unique component to human blood that I can work with here?
And while I'm on the subject of biology/chemistry - I want to give vampire saliva a special component. Something that renders the victim docile upon introduction to the bloodstream and stays there for a while so they can be readily fed upon again later. How would something like this be classified? A venom? And how long can something stay in our blood before being purged by the system, assuming it isn't self-replicating, like a virus?
Could a creature theoretically not be able to generate it's own blood, but be capable of taking the needed components through oral ingestion? Is there some unique component to human blood that I can work with here?
And while I'm on the subject of biology/chemistry - I want to give vampire saliva a special component. Something that renders the victim docile upon introduction to the bloodstream and stays there for a while so they can be readily fed upon again later. How would something like this be classified? A venom? And how long can something stay in our blood before being purged by the system, assuming it isn't self-replicating, like a virus?
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