Re-Thinking the Fungus...

My recent look at the Solar System and its various Mythos features and literary sources, set in motion an interesting train of thought that has led to some curious thinking. I would like to share these cogitations with you, dear reader, but I warn you to steel yourself – some of what I’m about to reveal flies in the face of canon Yogsothothery and may trample some sacred cows.

My thoughts lingered on what appeared to be a conflation by de Longnez concerning the Mi-Go and the Shan. In his writings he seems to merge the two species together. This seemed harmless enough, after all he was writing at a time when thoughts of creatures living on other planets was about as far-fetched as it got, and, when it comes to the sources of Mythos knowledge, “garble” barely begins to scratch the surface. So I went back to look the material over and some interesting things popped out at me.

Firstly, it’s a Mythos given that there are Mi-Go roaming around the solar system, and – whether “Yuggoth” is the dwarf planet Pluto, or some other “Planet X” lurking out there in the void – that’s where they come from. Secondly, we know that the interstellar insect race known as the Shan invaded Uranus at some point, enslaving the locals before becoming seduced into the worship of the god L’rogg, for which they were driven out by Azathoth. Third, there’s that throwaway reference by de Longnez about fungus-creatures living on Neptune. It’s possible that the fungus creatures and the Mi-Go are one and the same entities and that de Longnez lost something in translation; but suppose they’re all the same creature?

When you look at one of the Mi-Go, what do you see? Basically, it’s a big bug with an acne-d football for a head. They’re called a fungus, but they look like lobsters, or some other kind of exoskeletal invertebrate. Not unlike a Shan. Suppose there were “mushroom men” living on Neptune: what if they were actually a particularly virulent strain of fungus? What if some of the Shan, fleeing the anger of Azathoth on Uranus, stopped off at Neptune and encountered the “mushroom men”, only to be infected by them? What if the Mi-Go are actually a kind of composite creature, a parasitic symbiote, combining fungus and insect?

Here on Earth, there exist a range of fungi under the collective name Cordyceps. They are normally found in humid jungle settings and they reproduce by infecting ants and other insects and arachnids (one species Cordyceps ignota, particularly encroaches upon Tarantulas). The fungus lives within the insect’s body slowly growing fibres called mycelia within the exoskeleton, throughout the creature’s body, which begin to replace the host’s tissue. When it comes time to release spores, the so-called “zombie ant” is directed to find a perch on the underside of a leaf or branch and grasp on firmly with their pincers. Then the entrenched mycelium of the fungus produces an elongated fruiting body called an ascocarp, which bursts, releasing spores into the environment with which to carry on the cycle.

Looking at the standard image of a Mi-Go, it’s remarkable how similar the head of the creature is to the fruiting body of a Cordyceps fungus. Might it be possible that, under certain circumstances, the Fungi from Yuggoth can forestall the bursting of their ascocarp and maintain a parasitic control over the corpse of their victim, effectively creating a robotic armature to allow them to move about in their local environment?

One argument against this theory is that, traditionally, the Insects from Shaggai aren’t as big as the Mi-Go, being only roughly the size of a human head. However, we do know that, within insect species, there are caste divisions, with certain modified members of the species being dedicated to specific roles within the hive/nest. Mightn’t the Shan have larger versions of their race – say, a warrior caste that defends the rest of the hive – which might have been an ideal vessel for the Mi-Go spores? This also answers that other question about the Mi-Go and the fact that they seem to be made of some extra-terrene matter, unable to be photographed: the Shan share this same extradimensional quality.

Under this view of the Fungi from Yuggoth, we see that the fungus is actually just that – a nebulous mass of self-aware mycological matter, capable of parasitizing other living forms for its own ends. This opens the way for these creatures possibly invading the bodies of other creatures, even human beings, although there is mitigating evidence to refute this. Through this lens, the traditional Mi-Go brain cylinder begins to look like a means whereby the fungus tries to replicate its own intelligence translocation by mechanical means, for hosts which it is unable to parasitize. Still, there are also those Himalayan legends about yeti (the migou) which might indicate that there’s at least one other form of life on this planet that the fungus can adopt as a host.

The invasive sentient fungus theory has another terrifying aspect: telepathy. This is explained by the fact that the fungus is simply one overly-extended mass of matter, and that what happens to one part of it, happens to all of it. This means that knowledge is shared equally by all “representatives” of the race and that regular returns by outlying cadres must occur for newly-discovered information to be assimilated (that is, scout parties must return to the main body of the growth in order that knowledge can be shared). It has another aspect as well: the Fungi, having no sensory organs themselves, are able to psychically “tap-in” to the sensory input of the creatures around them. That is, what those with eyes and ears in their vicinity know, they know. This makes it very difficult to surprise them, but it also explains why they hang out with other species so often (and, again, why they are so fond of carrying peoples’ heads around in jars).

Another aspect of this psychic facility is the ability to manipulate the sensory input of those around them, allowing the Mi-Go to affect how they are perceived by others, or if, in fact, they are perceived at all. This lends extra weight to the “Whisperer in Darkness” scenario, in which the expedient of using a man’s dissected face and hands as a disguise has greater force when backed-up by the sensory manipulation of the target.

A final issue is the notion of Mi-Go technology and whether it actually derives from the Fungus at all. Perhaps the “Electric Gun” and the “Mist Projector” are actually weapons made by other races which the Mi-Go have encountered and which have been replicated using their own ingenuity. It has been said that the alien “Greys” are automata manufactured by fungal technology – are they perhaps robots, or a kind of telemetrical apparatus, created by mycological processes? Only further research will reveal the answers…