Study 6: Big Chill

Study 6: Big Chill is the sixth episode of Alien Biology with CaT. It focuses on trying to explain the biology of Big Chill.

Introduction
Big Chill is one of those aliens I thought I would really have a hard time with, but in examining his powers, I actually realized the explanations were fairly...well, not mundane, but reasonable, I guess. That being said, let's get started.

Overview
A lot of Big Chill's biology just from appearance is rather unassuming and/or is explained already. He's a big 'ol bug boi who reproduces asexually (like some real-life bugs) and flies using his big 'ol wings. Then the ice breath and intangibility comes in and things get weird. As such, those two things are what we're covering here today.

Ice Breath
This one I actually figured out while studying Heatblast's biology (which there will be a study on, don't worry); specifically how his fire works and why it turns into cold blasts when he gets sick (which I'll elaborate on in his dedicated study just be patient with me pls).

The main realization I had was that the ice powers displayed by Ben's alien really can't be explained by them physically lowering the temperature in their bodies, at least not to any reasonable extent. That got me looking for a way to freeze things without inducing refrigeration, and as it turns out, the answer was sitting on my desk waiting for me to notice it.

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/hella-hotlinks/images/7/73/ULTRA_DUSTER_INDUSTRIAL_STRENGTH_REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/100?cb=20190313013555

Yeah, turns out if you've ever used an aerosol can, you've probably used the same mechanism underlying Big Chill's ice breath. When you start spraying stuff with the can, the can gets cold, and if you get the can too close to the surface you're spraying on, it might frost over for a second. What's going on here?

Inside every aerosol can is a propellant that yeets the contents inside of the can to the outside of the can. This propellant is usually propane or butane in modern times, although any gas could potentially work in theory. During the manufacturing process, the gas inside the can is pressurized until it forms a liquid.

Under normal circumstances, this process would require extremely low temperatures, but pressurization is kind of a "cheat" for the freezing process in that it manually squishes all the molecules making up a substance together. This is why the earth's inner core is solid instead of molten like the outer core; the pressure at the center of the earth is so great that it forces the core's molecules together despite the intense heat.

When you pull the trigger on an aerosol can, you release some of that pressure, causing the liquid propellant to turn back into a gas and shoot out of the container. Turning back into a gas requires thermal energy to excite the molecules and keep them spread apart, and that exact energy is sucked out of the surrounding environment, turning the can cold and causing the frost effect.

So, what does this mean for Big Chill? Well, it implies that Big Chill's lungs are strong enough to compress the air he breathes in, and when he releases his breath, said air comes shooting out as a freezing-cold gale. Of course, his lungs would have to be incredibly strong in order to do this, potentially requiring a significant amount of metal in their makeup; fortunately, that's exactly what we've seen newborn Necrofriggians eat, which would allow their lungs to develop a strong cell structure that allows for this compression phenomenon.

(Note that this might also be how Arctiguana's ice breath works but OV decided that he fires an actual goddamn ice ray beam while Big Chill still breathes vapor so like don't quote me on that)

Intangibility
Uh this one's pretty basic but also kind of weird; basically, Big Chill probably has the ability to move in a higher spatial dimension. This would let him seemingly "phase" out of existence just by moving across an axis we can't see, although other objects with higher-dimensional properties (such as the various items we see counter his intangibility) would render this ability useless. This explanation could also apply to Ghostfreak, but Ghostfreak even being a living thing subject to normal physics is debatable as the series presents it.

Conclusion
Big Chill is a metal-cronchin' bug boi with stronk aerosol lungs and a 【﻿ｈｉｇｈｅｒ　ｐｅｒｃｅｐｔｉｏｎ　ｏｆ　ｂｅｉｎｇ】.

Q&A
If there's something in this theory that confused you or you want me to expand on, just ask me about it either on Discord or in the comments section below and I'll answer it here.