Wow. I love that you're so good at putting the Sanctuary meta out there to make me think. :)
This is what I think happened: I think that somewhere between 1886 and July of 1888 (preferably as close to July of '88 as possible), John teleported and picked up the energy being. Then he got very sick, because the being was killing him. To save him from death, Helen injected him with her blood effectively making him the perfect host. Then he started killing people under its influence.
Huh, that's an interesting take. I was always under the impression that The Five were all normal human beings to begin with. Granted, they were all brilliant (they'd have to be, to get into Oxford), but still genetically normal human beings. They all gather together while there, slowly getting involved in their experiments and Helen in her father's work, which is how she obtains the untainted Source Blood. The Five geek out over it and run their experiments (with Adam Worth scratching at the door, wanting to come in and play too), before they finally get to the point that they can't learn anything else unless they can observe a live specimen injected with the Source Blood. Since Helen was the one who brought the SB into their midst, she maintained that she'd be the first to inject the stuff [see the flashback where the boys try to talk her out of it ("No unnecessary heroics!"), but fail].
So, they inject her, and we saw at the end of that flashback that Helen seemed to be in some pain right after the injection. I figured she might have been ill for a little bit, as her body changed and learned to accomodate the SB. Then, once she's well, The Five start comparing new blood samples she gives them to ones she gave before the injection. They might be able to see some difference in her DNA, but they don't know what it actually means. I figure it would take them a little while to see that Helen's stopped aging. As a result, they figure that the side-effects won't be too bad, and inject themselves. Only it effects them all quite differently than it effected Helen -- Nigel goes invisible, James is able to use a higher percentage of his brain, John is able to teleport, and Tesla goes all vampire (I think it was speculated that Tesla had a vampiric ancestor, hence why the SB affected him the way it did -- his latent vampiric characteristics were brought to the fore).
Let's face it, The Five have their moments of arrogance, and I'm betting the aftermath of them injecting themselves was one of them. They probably went a little crazy with their new powers, using them however they could, so they could study the experience as well as glorifying in it. Nigel probably had a ton of fun running around naked and invisible, pranking people left and right, and John probaby teleported everywhere he could (think the Weasley twins in OotP, apparating every few feet just to annoy their mother). It might have been around that time that he picked up the Abnormal.
As for how things worked between John and the Abnormal, I kind of figured it was kind of a twisted symbiotic relationship, as it were. Everyone has a darker side in them, but most people are able to control them. I figure that once John had the Abnormal inside him, it worked on his darker instincts continually until he lost control, thus beginning the Ripper Era. But while he's doing all these horrible, terrible things, John kept fighting it, however unconsciously. Eventually, that battle exhausted both John and the Abnormal, allowing John to make mistakes enough in the killings that James and Helen were able to figure it out. Helen shoots him, and he goes on the run for the next couple of decades until he and the others are recalled to deal with Adam Worth.
As for the idea that the Abnormal might have been in control when Helen and John were intimate... *shudders* Yeah, I can see why that would squick you out. Squicks me out too. But maybe it wasn't? Perhaps it was like I said above, that the Abnormal influenced John until he snapped. So it was John that Helen loved, but being blinded by that love, didn't see that he was crumbling under the constant battling with the Abnormal?
no subject
This is what I think happened: I think that somewhere between 1886 and July of 1888 (preferably as close to July of '88 as possible), John teleported and picked up the energy being. Then he got very sick, because the being was killing him. To save him from death, Helen injected him with her blood effectively making him the perfect host. Then he started killing people under its influence.
Huh, that's an interesting take. I was always under the impression that The Five were all normal human beings to begin with. Granted, they were all brilliant (they'd have to be, to get into Oxford), but still genetically normal human beings. They all gather together while there, slowly getting involved in their experiments and Helen in her father's work, which is how she obtains the untainted Source Blood. The Five geek out over it and run their experiments (with Adam Worth scratching at the door, wanting to come in and play too), before they finally get to the point that they can't learn anything else unless they can observe a live specimen injected with the Source Blood. Since Helen was the one who brought the SB into their midst, she maintained that she'd be the first to inject the stuff [see the flashback where the boys try to talk her out of it ("No unnecessary heroics!"), but fail].
So, they inject her, and we saw at the end of that flashback that Helen seemed to be in some pain right after the injection. I figured she might have been ill for a little bit, as her body changed and learned to accomodate the SB. Then, once she's well, The Five start comparing new blood samples she gives them to ones she gave before the injection. They might be able to see some difference in her DNA, but they don't know what it actually means. I figure it would take them a little while to see that Helen's stopped aging. As a result, they figure that the side-effects won't be too bad, and inject themselves. Only it effects them all quite differently than it effected Helen -- Nigel goes invisible, James is able to use a higher percentage of his brain, John is able to teleport, and Tesla goes all vampire (I think it was speculated that Tesla had a vampiric ancestor, hence why the SB affected him the way it did -- his latent vampiric characteristics were brought to the fore).
Let's face it, The Five have their moments of arrogance, and I'm betting the aftermath of them injecting themselves was one of them. They probably went a little crazy with their new powers, using them however they could, so they could study the experience as well as glorifying in it. Nigel probably had a ton of fun running around naked and invisible, pranking people left and right, and John probaby teleported everywhere he could (think the Weasley twins in OotP, apparating every few feet just to annoy their mother). It might have been around that time that he picked up the Abnormal.
As for how things worked between John and the Abnormal, I kind of figured it was kind of a twisted symbiotic relationship, as it were. Everyone has a darker side in them, but most people are able to control them. I figure that once John had the Abnormal inside him, it worked on his darker instincts continually until he lost control, thus beginning the Ripper Era. But while he's doing all these horrible, terrible things, John kept fighting it, however unconsciously. Eventually, that battle exhausted both John and the Abnormal, allowing John to make mistakes enough in the killings that James and Helen were able to figure it out. Helen shoots him, and he goes on the run for the next couple of decades until he and the others are recalled to deal with Adam Worth.
As for the idea that the Abnormal might have been in control when Helen and John were intimate... *shudders* Yeah, I can see why that would squick you out. Squicks me out too. But maybe it wasn't? Perhaps it was like I said above, that the Abnormal influenced John until he snapped. So it was John that Helen loved, but being blinded by that love, didn't see that he was crumbling under the constant battling with the Abnormal?