Baby Raptor Squad thoughts

[spoilers for the Jurassic World movies]

Some things I thought of while writing that latest crying-about-raptors fanfic. (You don't have to read it for context, but in any case, the Raptor Squad stuff is all in the 7th chapter.)

The I.B.R.I.S. raptors, as they would more officially be called in-universe (as in Integrated Behavioral Raptor Intelligence Study, the project they were created for), are named after letters in the ICAO phonetic alphabet, with Blue as the exception but obviously still standing for "B" in the theme naming, and mostly in alphabetical order according to their ages from oldest to youngest. Charlie is the exception there, being youngest instead of second-oldest.

I think a likely explanation is that Charlie is a bit later addition, and is in fact Charlie version 2 after something happened to the chick that originally hatched next after Blue. She could have gotten ill or suffered an injury, or she might have been put down due to behavioral complications that made her considered unsuitable for the project. That last one is what happened to Subject V-2, and I guess despite the concept art of her that exists being of an adult raptor, it's not out of the question that Subject V-2 was the first Charlie, with Blue being V-1 before getting a name.

Owen referring to Delta in the video logs as both "one of the survivors from the second group" and a "holdover", and Blue as being "from the new group" is a bit confusing, though, if Blue is supposed to be the oldest. It sounds like there was a group of hatchlings/eggs that was lost entirely, then another group that at least Delta is part of ("one of" implies at least one of the other raptors is, too), and then a third one which included Blue, making her possibly the youngest. The raptors' ages being Blue, Delta, Echo, and Charlie from oldest to youngest is info from outside the movies, so, fair enough, it might not actually be canon.

But, if I'm still treating it as canon,

"Group" isn't necessarily synonymous with a clutch of hatchlings who were incubated and hatched together, rather it could refer to the method of creating them.

All the I.B.R.I.S. raptors are made with a slightly different cocktail of bingo! dino-DNA and something else mixed in. "Holdover" could refer to Delta being one of the last tries of using an older version of the formula, while Blue is an experiment with a new one, despite them having been incubated at the same time. I don't think it's ever actually been clarified what modern animal Echo is a hybrid of. Blue's and Charlie's are both lizards, though different kinds, and Delta's is some unspecified modern bird(s). Maybe Echo is another holdover, and also part avian like Delta, and the new plan is using lizards instead.

The two of them do seem to work well together. Birbs of a nonfeather.

Delta and Echo could also have been eggs meant for an earlier clutch, as fertilized eggs can be stored for a time before starting to incubate them, and perhaps the people in the lab wanted them to hatch at slightly different times so they can deal with one hatchling at a time. Maybe something went wrong before it was Delta and Echo's turn to be added in the incubator, and that clutch needed to be discarded? And then the two of them were just put in with the newly created clutch that included Blue, and Charlie vesion 1, who hatched before Delta and Echo did due to having already started incubating, despite Delta's and Echo's eggs having been created first.

Anyway, leaving speculating about their ages be for now, another thing is baby Delta's reaction to Owen "showing any sign of weakness whatsoever" contrasted with baby Blue's. Not a favorite moment for a lot of fans who like the raptors, I think. Blue's the only nice one now who loves Owen while the others just think of him as prey? Lies and slander.

And that would be, but I don't think what we see in the movie is necessarily inconsistent characterization. The raptors all see Owen as a parental figure. But they have different personalities and ways of approaching things, and always have had.

During the stand-off at the paddock, when Owen gets between the raptors and their prey, Delta is the only other raptor besides Blue to snap her jaws at him, and also the first. She does this right as he runs to them, while Blue waits to be sure he's done approaching and won't be so close when she snaps at him that she'll actually bite him. I don't think Delta was trying to bite Owen, either, and I don't think she wouldn't have cared whether the bite would connect. I think she's better than Blue at quickly assessing how much force can be used before it starts inflicting damage, or at least relies on her ability to do so more than Blue relies on her own.

At the end of the paddock drama, Delta seems mildly unsatisfied with how Blue handled the situation, and though Blue's behavior towards Owen during that scene is quite scary, it's negotiation, just in a raptor language. Had Delta been in charge, things might have gotten more aggressive, to scare him out of pulling stuff like that again so they don't have to have this argument a second time. Still not necessarily enough to cause wounds, but I think from what Delta reads of the situation, she can tell they have room to be less delicate. She can see Owen tell the people with the taser guns not to shoot (both with a hand sign and a word I'm sure she recognizes, he's told the raptors "no" enough times for it to be familiar), and she can see Owen has a clear escape route and that Barry is right there to help him. Dad will be fine, stop being so polite, Blue.

Delta, Blue, and Echo from left to right, with Charlie being behind the Indominus in this shot

But that's how Blue handles things, her first instinct is to communicate. When the raptors meet the Indominus, Echo hisses at her, Delta tilts her head curiously before doing anything else, observing the situation and assessing whether the new creature is friendly or hostile before interacting, Charlie doesn't do anything before Blue does, and - what does Blue do? She hears the Indominus make one raptor sound and responds with the bark that we've seen raptors use before for calling for or announcing their location/presence to packmates. In other words, Blue asks if she would like to be their friend.

Baby Blue sees Owen show signs of being hurt and sad all of a sudden and goes ask him what's the matter, even though he has no obvious causes for this behavior, because whether his distress is genuine or not, she's interested in trying to understand why he's acting this way. Baby Delta sees Owen show signs of being hurt and sad all of a sudden with no obvious causes for this behavior, correctly concludes that he's faking it for one reason or another, and calls his bluff by using her knowledge that Owen has a thing on his arm that the raptors can't bite through. That seems perfectly consistent to me.

 I mean, the arm guard is the only thing she's actually even trying to bite or scratch there, and she clearly aimed her jump to land on that forearm. That's not an attempt to do harm, that's a kitten play-hunting its parent's tail.

Blue is remarkable in how interested she is in communicating in ways that creatures that are not her species understand, and her default approach to figuring something out is to ask, while Delta's is to draw conclusions from her own observations. I think Delta, Echo, and Charlie show their affection and respect by treating Owen as an honorary raptor even though they know he's human, while Blue would like to find a common language instead. Which makes the other three no less capable of love, but, as stated in the movie, it does make Blue more suited for the process of domestication.