Irken Physiology

Background

Irkens are a race of green-skinned humanoids, with three fingers and three toes. They are the primary enemy faction in Invader Zim. Irkens have a skeletal structure, not unlike that of a human's, but theirs are much more resilient and heal much more quickly. An Irken's muscular system has never been fully explored, however.

Irken skin is hairless and green, with some slight variation in its shade from individual to individual, like Humans. For example, the skin color of both Tallests is ever so slightly lighter than Zim's, whereas Tak's is exceptionally pale in comparison.

The antennae on the tops of their heads are unusual in structure, bending back at the ends at a sharp angle. The manner in which they bend, however, differs between genders: males' antennae end in simple perpendicular angles, whereas female antennae curl at the ends. The curled antennae may be a styling choice, however, as Commander Poki has straight

Uses

• Superhuman Physical Characteristics: Irkens like Zim have shown feats of strength such as judo flipping a fully grown human, breaking open a door with his foot, and could crack a door in half through opening it.

• Body Control: Gaz in Zim's body was capable of growing extra arms, with her noting it's apart of his anatomy.

• Enhanced Senses: Irken antennas can pick up vibrations.

• Self-Sustenance
  • Respiratory: Irkens have shown the ability to breathe in the vacuum of space.
  • Nutritional: Zim could stay within a toilet for months without showing any form of body degression, even mocking Dib for his human composition making him fatter and weaker, implying all Irkens do not have the same body regression.
  • Restful: Irken's do not require sleep, with the very idea being disgusting to Zim.

• Longevity: Irkens have a very long life span, with characters like Zim and Tak not changing much in appearance after 50 years.

• Cyborgization: Partial; Irking's PAK's are cybernetically connected to them after their birth, with the PAK having all the important components of them and the body just being something there to hold the PAK.

• Parasitic Immortality: An Irken's PAK is everything that they are, it holds their memories, personality, emotions, etc. The Zim we see is merely a pseudo-avatar made by the PAK and his death is truly not the end of Zim but merely a Zim body, his PAK also serves as his brain.
  • Avatar Creation

• Supernatural Resilience: Irkens like Zim have been able to still do actions and be alive after their brain has been replaced with an inanimate object.

• Regeneration: Low-Mid; Irkens have a regenerative healing factor, Zim had his entire skin burn out of his eyeballs and regenerates it back in the course of a day to night cycle. Zim quickly healed his head after it was greatly deformed from the beating he took from one of the planet jacker's. Zim noted that his broken skeleton would heal.

• Adaptation: An Irken's body can develop immunities, such as when Zim’s body developed an immunity to earth foods which beforehand poisoned him.

• Possession, Information Manipulation, Data Manipulation & Memory Manipulation: If an Irken’s body is separated from their PAK, then the PAK will attach itself to the nearest thing, in the case of “Ten Minutes to Doom” Dib has the PAK connected to him as it slowly implants all of Zim's personality, memories, data and information into Dib.
  • Life Manipulation: An Irken's PAK stores and controls their personality, their memories, and their motor functions, which the Emergency Attachment Protocol can be activated after an Irken PAK is removed from its body, and even attach to and upload a personality to other objects inanimate objects, giving them life.

• Mind Manipulation: Irken’s can grow a pimple that has hypnotic powers that target those who see it.

• Energy Manipulation
  • Energy Projection: An Irken’s PAK can create a blast of energy that has shown potency such as destroying a portion of an elevator door.
  • Forcefield Manipulation: An Irken's PAK can generate an energy forcefield to protect them from attacks.

• Lice Destruction: Irken skin can scare away lice and kill them.

Resistances

• Mind Manipulation: The PAK can prevent Zim from getting amnesia, and also can reactivate Zim after being exposed to a wave of stupidity turning him braindead.

• Memory Manipulation: As their memories are stored within PAK, getting amnesia or brain damage can easily be fixed by PAK.

• Biological Manipulation: Irkens are unaffected by having their body contain dozens of organs that aren't theirs, along with noting that they're very healthy after this.

Weaknesses

An Irken’s skin cannot tolerate Earth meat, water, or beans, the former burning them terribly and sometimes even fusing to their skin. As confirmed by Jhonen in the commentary for "The Wettening", it's the pollutants in Earth water that causes the burns rather than the water itself. Paste suffices to completely nullify the effects of tainted Earth liquids. It seems that there is nothing that can protect them from Earth's meat, however. Irkens cannot survive for more than 10 minutes without their PAK. The PAK can only take over those with Irken biology or an inanimate object (as it worked on a chair), should a human take it or those with incompatible features, they would die in 10 minutes.