Amalgam'verse Expansion: Dinocroc · 1:23pm Jun 28th, 2019
Small world building expansion to give folks something to chew on while I wrap up a chapter or 3
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Stats:
Species: Genetic Amalgamation, primarily crocodilian
Coloration: Mottled grays and browns with a darker dorsum, bright yellow eyes
Gender: Male
Height: 4 meters at hips
Length: 14.5 meters
Weight: 10 tons
Behavior: Cantankerous and wily. It’s survived numerous run-ins with people from hunters to law enforcement to military grade expeditions, deceptively high intelligence for an animal and memory has made it well aware of traps and human behaviors. While highly aggressive, to the point it can and will attack anything it sees as a threat or rival, it will be careful around people and not attack in the open. If encountering something new with a human smell all over it, after several instances of traps, it’ll avoid it and leave… After finding something to chew on for the road.
Origin: Possibly created by Dr. Jane Tiptree(?) at a BioSyn owned compound in 2001-2003. FBI and GDF investigating if Dr. Henry Wu’s rival actually did survive the 1993 Project:Carnosaur incident or someone is using her studies. First sighted in 2004 near Westwood, Texas.
Traits: Sharp claws and over 100 teeth ranging from 4-8 inches long for crown length, edged dorsal spines, constantly regrowing teeth, amphibious nature, able to hold breath for up to 6 hours, excellent senses of smell and night vision, nictitating membrane protects eyes, modulate ectothermic to mesothermic body temperature regulation, can drink salt water, an extremely powerful immune system, constant growth rate, and extremely durable hide.
Physical Prowess:
-Strength
Comparable in size to a large Theropod dinosaur, Dinocroc has comparable physical strength. Its arms, powerful enough to briefly be used as legs when crouching, can send a grown man flying with a smack and pick up a large, 500kg horse. A tail smack can overturn a multi-ton truck and snap tree trunks. A forward charge allowed the Dinocroc to bash its way out of a concrete silo with only a daze afterwards and force its way into a reinforced perimeter fence with minimal effort. It’s most powerful asset is the jaws. Dinocroc has a crush force in its bite comparable to the extinct Deinosuchus and a scaled up Saltwater crocodile, at over 20,000 PSI or roughly 95,000 Newtons.This can pulp a human even through thick body armor and chew up an automobile.
-Speed
More agile and swifter in the water, but by no means slow on land. Inertia and sheer size allow it to accelerate to 50 kmph in a burst, enough to catch up to most boats outside of speed vessels; with a slower cruising speed of 30kmph once it has built up some momentum. On land its top speed is 35kmph, slightly slower than a human sprinter but more than enough to bear down on most people especially considering inertia can allow it to keep this speed up for a reasonable distance.
-Durability
A majority of Dinocroc’s genome came from crocodilians so it is of no surprise that it bears the crocodilian family’s trademark armor. Contribution from both Sarchosuchus and the Broad-snouted Crocodile along with overactive keratin production genes from avians granted it body armor that is extremely thick even in proportion to its body by crocodilian standards. The weakest armor is on the belly, but this is only relatively speaking as to get to any vital organs one has to pierce through 8cm of keratin, another 6cm of osteoderm bone, and then the gastralium secondary rib cage.
The armor on the back and the sides is up to twice as thick. So while not exactly bulletproof, a vast majority of small arms fire end up getting deflected due to bad angles or just getting lodged in the thick hide or upper layers of muscle to eventually be pushed back out. Shotgun shot outside of extremely large loads will almost never penetrate even at close range and handguns are virtually useless. Rifles might be able to penetrate, but scoring a lethal hit is virtually impossible. During one incident it was fired upon by a squad of six private security personnel using automatic .223 caliber rifles and shrugged off both the gunfire and the shockwave of a grenade that went off very close to it. Another incident involving a C4 activated dust explosion ended with the animal being set on fire and thrown back 20 meters. Outside of surface burns and being in a daze from the shockwave, it survived. It has been suggested from analysis of a scale knocked off in 2009 after a fight with another monster, that Dinocroc's creator engineered a point mutation in the protein generating cells that create its scaly hide. The keratin generating cells within the hide actually metabolize and produce thin strands of iron compounds, creating a meshwork of biological metallic weave inside the keratin; further bolstering its resilience. This also might explain the animal's ravenous appetite, as most of the iron it would need to ingest would come from the bodies of its prey.
Adding to this durability Dinocroc has been able to withstand large amount of punishment due to a thick skull protecting its brain and its adjustable metabolism allowing it to keep functioning long enough to go dormant and focus on healing back grievous injuries. This is how it was able to recover from getting hit by an (albeit small and relatively slow-moving) full load train and having a rebar shoved into its left eye. Within a few minutes after falling unconscious it was able to get back up and limp off to the swamps to heal.
-Endurance
Dinocroc’s stamina can vary, but if riled up and having its body metabolizing a massive amount of adrenaline causes it to take more after the former part of its name. Crocodilians largely have very poor stamina, but Dinocroc is only susceptible to this while extremely cold and starving. On one occasion after killing a surfer in San Jose Island, Texas, a dolphin carcass with one of its teeth lodged in it washed ashore at Apalachicola, Florida a mere four days later. This means the animal crossed 1,100-1,300 kilometers in the span of less than 96 hours. Assuming it rested 6-9 hours per day and wasn’t going in an exact path, it was maintaining a cruising speed for over 10 hours per day.
-Other
While not sapient Dinocroc has intelligence comparable to a raven and is capable of a deceptively acute problem solving ability. While known to bluster into traps and ambush attempts by humans early on, it has since wised up to many attempts to kill it and won’t fall for the same mistake twice. And considering kill and recapture attempts have been carried out for almost 10 years, it has been taught by experience not to fall for everything from poisoned bait to cages to kill zones with awaiting fire teams. It also knows the difference between objects like a wall, window, and a door, large or small, and the implications such as “human will come out through a door, not a wall or window”; or “human pointing stick thing at me means weapon, hide or flank”; or perhaps most troublingly “human stick weapons don’t work underwater, attack the boat from below and go for the back to disable it”.
Powers:
Constant Growth Rate - Normal crocodilians initially have a rapid growth rate that tapers off and slows as they age. Like prehistoric crocodilians, Dinocroc only barely has slowed down. A normal American alligator will grow up to 30 centimeters a year until it is roughly 7 to 8 years old, after which it will slow down drastically to less than a single centimeters a year by the time it is 15 years old. Most recent estimates show Dinocroc was growing at double that rate when it was a juvenile and since its first attack in 2004 it has only slowed down to just under 30 centimeters very recently. During its 2004 attack the animal was estimated at being roughly 9 meters long; whereas a recent sighting near Cuba in 2013 put the animal at just over 14.5 meters.
Quasi-healing factor - Dinocroc does not, thankfully, have a regeneration abilities similar to some kaiju; however it does have the ability to survive what would have been mortal injuries easily and be brought back from the brink of death in record time for a normal animal. This is a side effect of the genetic augmentation fueling its rapid growth rate via an unprecedented amount of stem cells, the very reason the creature was created in the first place. Very large chunks of skin, damaged muscle, and even one of its eyes have been known to completely been replaced in a matter of weeks to a few months.
Despite Tom Banning ramming a piece of rebar through the creature’s eye in 2004, a hidden wildlife camera 100 kilometers away snapped a photo of the beast a year later showing the eye complete repaired. An incident in 2010 were the creature was caught in a dust explosion that severely burned its entire front half was healed away in a span of six months. This would also explain the creature being all but immune to most diseases and infections, as an extension of an exaggerated crocodilian immune system.
Body temperature modulation - Dinocroc is not truly cold-blooded or warm-blooded, or scientifically exothermic or endothermic. When going dormant the creature will match its body temperature to its surroundings with only a degree of gigantothermy raising its core slightly. This can severely cut back on its metabolic rate and allow the animal to, at the cost of being more sluggish in cold weather, go weeks without eating. It also means it can survive on far less food than a warm-blooded animal of comparable size. By default its temperature is warmer than its surroundings, but not as much as a mammal or dinosaur; making it extremely difficult to track with thermal sensors especially in a hot climate like it prefers.
However should the situation require it, Dinocroc has displayed the ability to switch to being virtually endothermic. This can allow it to stave off the cold for some time and enjoy prolonged periods of activity. It will resort to this by default as soon as it senses humans or a potential rival, flooding its system of adrenaline to prepare for rapid action and a fight or flight.
Underwater pressure sensing - Just like normal crocodilians Dinocroc can detect movement in water by special sensory nerves across its face and body. It can use this to navigate and hunt even in pitch black new moon nights as well as extremely murky swamp water. This ability is accurate enough that the creature completely evaded prolonged search efforts within the Arkansas sulfur river bottoms by hiding underwater and resting at the bottom any time a group of boats started to come close… Unfortunately several boats that went out alone never came back. Dinocroc was sighted a week later swimming off into the Gulf of Mexico.
Story:
In the 1980s there were five names in genetics that stood miles above all others. Dr. Norman Atherton, Dr. Laura Sorkin, Dr. Genshiro Shiragami, Dr. Jane Tiptree, and Dr. Henry Wu. Unfortunately by the early 1990s the two oldest were no longer amongst the living. Dr. Genshiro Shiragami, creator of the anti-nuclear bacteria as well of accidentally the kaiju Biollante, was gunned down by a Saradian agent in 1989. Dr. Norman Atherton died of heart complications in 198- (*REDACTION* Dr. Norman Atherton died in 1997 on Isla Sorna after unleashing the Ultimasaurus hybrid, killed by his own creation. - Dr. Richard Levine, Isla Sorna ‘97 expedition).
Of the younger three, Dr. Henry Wu and Dr. Laura Sorkin were recruited by John Parker Hammond of InGen for some secret project, later revealed to be the resurrection and cloning of genetically engineered dinosaurs on Isla Sorna a.k.a “Site B” for exhibition at the Jurassic Park attraction on neighboring Isla Nublar. Dr. Jane Tipree also what off the grid in the mid-1980s, but photographs and documentation placing her in the company of industrial saboteur and former Bio-Major agent Louis Dodgson indicate at some point she was recruited by BiSyn CEO and founder, rival to John Hammond, Lord Darren Penward.
The body count unfortunately rose in 1993 when Dr. Laura Sorkin, accidentally left behind on Isla Nublar during the hurricane evacuation and subsequent sabotage that released the animals, was pulled underwater by the park’s Tylosaurus mosasaurid when she tried to release it.
For a time it seemed Dr. Jane Tiptree had stepped into the public light and was no longer under the employee of Lord Penward, but this is now known not to be the case. In fact the actions she unleashed on an Arizona town word an adaptation of her employer’s own misanthropy. Considered a prodigy genius and the first recorded hybrid child of a Mysterian Xilian and human, Dr. Tiptree had been under the employment of an agricultural biotech company, Eunice and had earned recognition and fame for wiping out several diseases and pest species with retroviruses. This earned her a claim and she used it as a power-play against Eunice Corporation to permit her near total autonomy with no oversight, or else she’d go somewhere else as her skills were very much in demand.
This is what permitted Project:Carnosaur to become a nightmare that would plague areas of the United States Southwest for years. Details were covered up by the United States government for fear of copycats one day potentially trying the same thing, but it is known that Dr. Tiptree managed to create a retrovirus that not only eventually killed the host, humans and several species of domestic animal, but converted parts of their biomass into eggs that hatched into genetic abominations, nightmarish versions of several species of predatory dinosaur; namely Deinonychus and Tyrannsaurus. It was thought that the malefic doctor perished in the incident, as witness Doc Smith reported, before he was terminated by his own will to avoid a slow death from the virus, reported that she too had been infected. Several adult female bodies were found at the location he indicated however none of them could be positively identified as Dr. Tiptree due to being scavenged by a Deinonychus and the material needing to be destroyed to avoid a biohazard incident while the government scrambled to contain the virus.
Officially this was the end of Dr. Jane Tiptree. Unofficially sightings continue to this day with association of watched groups such as the arms manufacturer MARS and the genetics firm Jericho. At the latter it is now currently believed that Dr. “Catherine Viciy”, chief geneticist at Jericho might have been a pseudonym. The exact origin of the way where Jericho got genetic samples from two giant prehistoric crocodilians, the African Sarcosuchus (often nicknamed “SuperCroc”) and the Australian terrestrial predator Quinkana, is still unknown but there is some evidence to suggest they somehow got knowledge of Amber sites InGen previously had a monopoly on. Dr. Tiptree and Dr. Sorkin were old college friends and it has been suggested Tiptree either stole information from Dr. Sorkin or Dr. Sorkin might have accidentally leaked some information.
The genetics firm mostly dealt with agricultural and pharmaceutical applications, patenting several kinds of drought resistant wheat and new breeds of cattle. The reason that they cloned Dinocroc, according to Jericho personnel, was that both of these prehistoric genera had a protracted and exacerbated growth rate compared to modern crocodilians, helping them reach their great size. If they could isolate this hormone producing gene, they could attempt to transplant it into both crops as well as livestock to produce everything from apple trees that would bear fruit within months and cattle that could reach milking or slaughter age in a quarter of the time. They would need a live animal to ensure this worked properly and they had the right hormone genes, and the idea of using it as a sort of company attraction and mascot as proof of concept to investors and a means of dazzling consumers was considered attractive. With the loss of Jurassic Park and Site B being closed off to the public, the idea of seeing anything genuinely prehistoric seemed lucrative so it was considered a win-win situation. If the entire project failed to get the right hormone genes, they could still use the asset for other purposes.
Initially everything said to be going well, Dr. “Catherine Viciy” successfully created two individuals after reportedly patching up the Sacrosuchus and Quinkana DNA, which had been combined due to budgetary reasons, with that of modern crocodilians. However everything went south and sideways when one of the assets slew the other after a fight. Officially it escaped because the biologist on hand had a moment of confusion and rushed into the chamber while leaving the door open, the juvenile, wolf sized Dinocroc ambushing her and mauling the scientist to death before fleeing out the open door. Unofficially, informational records show somebody with high-level credentials unlocked several of the facility doors remotely and the already wily, polar bear sized Dinocroc figured out how to open the closed door after dispatching a containment team and the second asset, a Deinosuchus hybrid nicknamed 'Supergator', was not killed.
The rapidly growing hybrid went on a rampage in the small Texas town near the facility, picking off swimmers in the lake, killing livestock, and dispatching any Jericho personnel sent to recapture it. By the end of the 2004 incident, the creature supposedly killed five Jericho personnel, six County police officers, and over half a dozen civilians including a 12-year-old boy. It was seemingly finally killed by the combined efforts of animal control officer Diane Harper, County Sheriff Royce Harper, herpetologist and crocodile wrangler Richard Sydney, and welder Tom Banning. After being hit by a train, Tom Banning drove a piece of rebar through the seemingly dying creature’s left eye and watched it stopped breathing. The survivors limped back to town and reported the incident… But when the authorities returned to the area they and a very confused train driver who had reported hitting a “-expletives redacted- Dinosaur!” stated the body was, all they could find was disturbed earth, a bloody piece of rebar, a shed tooth, and slide marks showing something heavy limped off into the nearby river.
Months later several cattle 200 kilometers away went missing…
Since the 2004 incident Dinocroc has become both a folk legend and blight upon the equatorial Americas. Never staying in one place it has been glimpsed as far north as Arkansas, East to Florida and the Bahamas, West to Texas, and as far south as the Yucatán. There’s even a scattered set of reports indicating the creature has occasionally made venturers across the Isthmus of Panama into the Pacific. Numerous searches, photographs, and hunts have been conducted but the creature has eluded recapture and attempts to slay it.
Almost immediately after several good photographs and leftover teeth were recovered, it became abundantly clear that Jericho had indeed been hiding something. Both Sacrosuchus and Quinkana were strictly quadrupedal animals and closely resemble modern crocodilians, albeit with different proportions. But despite Jericho claiming Dinocroc had two thirds of its DNA composed of only those two extinct genera with the rest being modern crocodilian, Dinocroc clearly looks like something completely different. Numerous paleontologists and herpatologists asked to be consultants during attempted hunts instantly keyed in on several Jericho personnel stating, “Dinocroc was cloned from the dinosaur ancestor of crocodiles from Africa”, notifying others to the fact crocodilians were not descendants of dinosaurs, just related. And that several times Jericho employees seem to be confusing several types of dinosaurs that resembled crocodilians with actual crocodilians.
“The vast majority of that thing being Sacrosuchus? Hell no! I’m starting to think it’s name ‘Dinocroc’ is scarily accurate. Somebody call InGen,” - Dr. Robert Bakker, remarking after a Jericho press conference.
After numerous public appeals when the creature evaded traps based on scaled up versions of normal crocodilian traps before ransacking a beach party, in 2005 the United States government approached InGen CEO Peter Ludlow for assistance and clarity. InGen’s Dr. Henry Wu was flown in from Isla Nublar’s Jurassic World as an expert consultant to analyze a tissue sample and several teeth.
The results came back…
- Sarcosuchus imperator, 35%
- Quinkana fortirostrum, 20%
Archosaur “Filler” DNA (modern crocodilians and birds), 10%
- Osteolaemus tetraspis (Broad-snouted Crocodile)
- Alligator mississippiensis (American Alligator)
- Corvus corax (Common Raven)
- Spheniscus mendiculus (Galapagos penguin)
- Casuarius casuarius (Southern Cassowary)
The two extinct crocodilians were indeed found making up over half of the genetic material, along with contributions from to modern crocodilians, Osteolaemus tetraspis (Broad-snouted Crocodile) and Alligator mississippiensis (American Alligator). However, Dr. Wu instantly grew suspicious when he found bird genes in the mix as well.
“I used to have to use null genes to fill in the code. The original park and most of the first generation Sorna stock we used West African Reed Frog, that was a mistake. Not only did it lower the success rate for the embryos but it had… Some unforeseen consequences. Ever since then unless were going for something distinct, like having more teeth per say, we would use the closest living relative. There are two dozen species of crocodilian, all of them in captivity present at two facilities in Florida not even a one-day flight from where this thing was created in Texas,” Dr. Wu quoted after reviewing the results to a press committee, “-there simply would be no reason to use bird DNA as the other surviving Archosaur family would still be distant from the two extinct species…. That’s because I found this.”
During his presentation, Dr. Wu projected his findings to the display board and one could hear a pin drop in the room when he revealed what was the last contribution to Dinocroc’s genome.
- Suchomimus tenerensis, 35%
He handed the podium to his apprentice, former InGen employee and now GDF personale, Dr. Joanne Alabaster Johnson.
“It is the belief of myself and my mentor that internationally wanted criminal, Dr. Jane Tiptree, left behind notes and materials that went into the creation of the creature known as Dinocroc. I also believe, though have no direct evidence for, the reverse that Tiptree yet lives and was operating under an alias with or without Jericho Company’s awareness. Whoever is behind this monster did a good job at covering their tracks. The random assortment of bird genomes masked the Suchomimus contribution so much that it would have been virtually impossible to distinguish without those very genomes getting our attention. Crocodilians and dinosaurs, of which birds belong to the latter, are close relatives that have been separated for over 200 million years. There’s no telling how this creature will behave now but that’s not the only thing that concerns me.”
Dr. Johnson, photographed for the cover of numerous newspapers whilst at the presentation, gave a worried look to the genome projections, “As per international law, non-avian dinosaur genetics are tightly managed. Only InGen should have this but I can tell they had nothing to do with this one…”
For the first time since Project:Carnosaur, another company other than InGen had been meddling with dinosaur DNA, a highly illegal activity banned by the Gene Guard Act put in place several years prior.
This inflamed rumors that Dr. Tiptree was still alive over a decade after her reported death. The presence of dinosaur genes in Dinocroc, instead of Jericho’s reported genetic makeup of only prehistoric and modern crocodilians, and Dr. Tiptree being one of extremely few non-InGen personnel with access to such genomes increases the likelihood. Considering that Suchomimus genes were found in the mix from a DNA sample, another can of worms had been opened. InGen was cloning that exact genus before 1993, and Tiptree’s associate Lewis Dodgson, during a prison sentence, admitted to having stolen a few genomes before he recruited InGen personnel Dennis Nedry to get him more. The timeline matches up.
Instantly a full search and seizure of all documentation belonging to Jericho was issued by the United States and Mexican government. The two took the extra mile and did a full survey of all other genetics firms that could possibly have the same capability Jericho had emulated from BioSyn and InGen. It turned out, Jericho and Dinocroc were not alone. Nor was the catastrophe that followed. With the GDF and world governments occupied by rampant Gyaos attacks, Anteverse incursions, alien assaults and infiltration, Red Bamboo (later redubbed Red Dawn) activity, and even reports of what some investigators could only report as black magic, over four dozen genetics facilities scattered across the United States suffered catastrophic failure. Systems were shut down, archival computers overheating so much they burned, and the gates were left open.
Monstrous pythons, anacondas, and boas, giant arachnids, crocodile attacks in Lake Placid of all places, a gargantuan ‘supergator’ similar to one reported years prior, and sea beasts of every variety and combination. Some battled each other, Dinocroc proving to be extremely territorial, but many others escaped into the wilderness. Dr. Catherine Viciy, and half a dozen other female researchers that may or may not have ever existed, seem to disappear into the ether. A new era had started with the return of Godzilla, an era where humans were reminded monsters exist. And it seems, if she is still alive, Dr. Tiptree has forced many rural folk to know kaiju are not the only monsters. It’s the smaller giants that have a taste for humans….
Trivia
- American B-Movie Extraordinaire Roger Corman has created a series of movies dramatizing the attacks of some of Dinocroc and homegrown monstrosities, from supposedly ancient demonic snakes to genetic aberrations. While some have criticized them for being in bad taste, Corman has made good on seeking out permission from affected families first and uses the films as a means of spreading awareness of the problem many officials turn a blind eye to due to being preoccupied by other catastrophes that often involve much bigger monsters. Initially making the films fairly gritty, especially his iteration of the Project:Carnosaur incident, the low-budget special effects and encouragement for the actors to be a little hammy helps keep the tone light enough to be accepted. Many of them premiere on Sy-Fy channel.
The movies detailing the crocodilian behemoth’s real life exploits are-
- Dinocroc (2004)
- Python (2004)
- Dinocroc 2, released as “Supergator” in some places (2004)
- King Snake (2005)
- Dinocroc: Reborn (2005)
- Feedback 2: Dinocroc vs. Megasnake (2006)
- Legend of King Konga (2006)
- Boa (2007)
- Dinocroc: 3-D to the Max! (2007)
- Blood Orchids: Anaconda (2008)
- MegaPiranha (2009)
- Dinoshark (2009)
- Sharktopus (2009)
- Dinocroc vs. Supergator (2009)
- Sharktopus 2: Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda (2009)
- Batman vs. Dinocroc vs. The Nazi Meteorologist (2009) *
- Dinocroc vs. Konga (2009)
- Boa vs Python (2010)
- Dinocroc vs. Gryphon (2010)
- Dinocroc vs. Dinoshark (2010)
- Piranhaconda (2011)
- Continuation: Dinocroc vs. Konga (2011)
- Miami Beach Dinocroc Attack (2012)
- Boa vs Python vs Anaconda (2013)
- The Bride of Dinocroc (2013)
- Sharktopus x Dinocroc x Piranhaconda: Giant Monsters All Out Attack on Cuba (2013)
*Collaboration with DC Comics, Entirely work of fiction
Are all the movies listed at the end real? Because some of these are just to crazy to be real.
5080909
Nah some are just parodies of unmade kaiju films.
Imagine me, Dive, V, Xan, and Drift having to fight this thing in a roleplay session.
Wow! What a new addition to the timeline of The Bridge!
Aw man i remember this movie. its awesome your taking the monster movies and putting them in one shared world
Yes more monsters
How did Dinocroc survived getting stabbed in the eye?
Interesting addition to the amalgam verse. What influenced you to bring this beast into Bridge canon?
5081291
Kind of stated that in the profile. Low key healing ability. Besides getting stabbed in the eye is usually not lethal.
5081398
To bring in some more human scaled threats and show this world populated by monsters is not exclusively Kaiju.
Dinocroc was a real thing? I thought that was just a fever dream I had.
How much did Roger Corman made with his DinoCroc movies?
I always figured Dinocroc was just basically a Spinosaurid-Crocodilian hybrid, and that Supergator was just...a B-movie-aggression-level Deinosuchus. But...I have no words for Sharktopus. At least you didn't add Whalewolf.
This SyFy Channel stuff is giving me another headache...
Damn! I remember watching the first movie at my grandparent's house on Scfy!
I feel old.
Dinocroc fought Dinoshark? That movie happened? Who won?