Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-34954086-20120922085545/@comment-4928331-20121016061028

We have seen the Beetles bust out many different configurations in "Before the Dawn". The most impressive is where both arms combine to form a really huge cannon. Now, I'm going to torture you with physics questions about that.
 * 1) The Reach is traditionally considered technological, and not magical in nature.  So you can't claim non-newtonian universes and alternate dimensions to draw power or mass from.  We've seen what a scarab looks like - it's small, light, and very vicious.  Where does it draw all that mass from?  It can't be doing this at the expense of density, because the scarab calculated it could survive a Reach bomb detonating at point blank range.  Even when diluted to armored form, it's more resistant than solid rock, and yet light enough to lift casually with a few fingers.
 * 2) Where does Blue Beetle and Black Beetle draw all the energy from?  The scarab does not look to have any kind of power source, and yet it is capable of devastating attacks.  Perhaps we might think it's drawing power from the host, in the vein of Kid Flash, but Jaime Reyes before the scarab looks just as skinny as Jaime Reyes with the scarab.