Herecine IQ

[Plane]

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/faq/FAQ4-3.html#SS3.1.5

IQ 0 means you're a rutabaga. Per p. B15, at IQ 0, you're mindless and unable to act without somebody possessing you and operating you via remote control. You need at least IQ 1 to have a self and be able to perceive and act at all, which includes grunting and making gestures.

F47 assigns IQ 0 to the Herecine, who appear to be able to make Attack maneuvers for Affliction/Binding/Grappling/Biting. Does this imply some entity is possessing them?

You need to use attack maneuvers to launch Emanation, I think it was only 3e which had an 'always on' version which would just constantly launch infinite attacks. Closest in 4e is probably Aura w/ Always On, but that normally requires contact (melee) unless you enhance it with Area Effect.

I guess another way it might be done is just by taking Persistant on an AE attack (innate attack or affliction, for example) and then getting enough Increased Duration to either go to permanent or at least the expected lifetime of the plant... you probably want some kind of way where the persistent attacking shuts down when the plant does. Not using Requires Concentrate or Requires Ready though, since the idea is to not require constant maneuvers.

Maybe something like Environmental (attack persists on targets only so long as original attacker remains in the emanation radius -??%). I think that's probably what they were aiming at using Aura in PU4.

I'm wondering how to explain this and if maybe GURPS Fantasy has some hints on how to represent IQ 0 creatures as more capable than the FAQ implies.

F161 hints at this with Magic based on HT:

Any living thing, even a tree, may be capable of casting spells.
Nonsapient life forms will do so only by instinct,
and IQ 0 life forms only as their own physiological state dictates.

This idea of "dictated by physiological state" seems like we could represent stuff like venus fly traps (or fantasy versions like the herecine) doing a "grapple" or "attack" by getting crafty.

B15 "Nonsentient creatures cannot learn skills or have any purely mental traits." Perhaps we could give "Uncontrollable' and "Unconscious Only" to the attack capabilities of creatures like these? That way their lack of involuntary input does not matter, since you do not actually make attack maneuvers to use Uncontrollable abilities.

Plus since they are Will 0, they can never shut them off, so they'll just keep going. That seems like one way to do "IQ without IQ" in a sense.