On Fri, Feb 11, 2022 at 9:11 AM Alex Goodwin - alex.goodwin at
multitel.com.au (via tml list) <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> wrote:
>
> On 11/2/22 11:43, Jeffrey Schwartz - schwartz.jeffrey at gmail.com (via
> tml list) wrote:
> > IMTU -
> > All TL10 or above medical systems on ships include nanovirals. In some
> > cases there's biotech that replenishes it, or it's considered part of
> > the life support replenishment on reaching a new port.
> > Colds, flus,etc are ruthlessly crushed while in jump space.... and the
> > run to 100D+Jump+in from 100D makes a nice quarantine period
> >
>
> Jeff,
>
> What do you mean by "nanovirals"?
>
> Thanks for mentioning the quarantine intrinsic to at least Jump travel.
>
> What happens when a microbe (engineered, natural, or misc) that has a
> longer latent period (with an even longer incubation period - time from
> exposure to showing symptoms) than a typical jump cycle, given the
> selective pressure you've described towards that?  As you've said,
> anything showing symptoms more quickly gets either clobbered or the lid
> slammed on it, and thus does not significantly reproduce.
>
> Frinstance, if it takes (say) 14 days for such a cycle (including
> boosting in/out, jump itself, finding cargo, etc), what happens when a
> bug with (say) a 15-20 day (or even 30?) latent period gets off a planet?
>
> A potential nightmare scenario would be a hi-tech, hi-pop world (such as
> Terra, in the Golden Age) with wide panimmunity coverage (eg the +8 to
> HT rolls I mentioned in my last email - approx 96% resistance to the
> "average" bug population-wide), and a "grett, beeg, shneeky-pents" (to
> borrow from Girl Genius) bug makes it offworld to a TTL <10 hi-pop world
> with significantly weaker coverage.
>
> On a hi-pop world _where such a bug arises_, true, such a bug would
> probably be outcompeted by quicker-progressing bugs.
>
> How about other hi-pop worlds?
>
> Such as a bug arising on Terra getting away clean to Meshan, 3 pc away
> and thence to Zaggisi, another 3 pc away, before J. Random Poorsod
> (Patient Zero) starts showing symptoms?
>
> How about non-hi-pop worlds?
>
>
> Alex

"Nanovirals" would be short for nano-based anti-virals. Basically
something that cruises along in the body looking for unexpected
viruses. T5 mentions that injected nano that does gene changes is the
most common +1 to stat in character generation, so this technology
being available has some support in canon.

Latency on an infection - the stuff's still in the body, with a very
slow replication rate at first so it's unnoticeable. Such a thing
would still be susceptible to being stopped by nanovirals, and giving
the medicine a week or more to work should do the trick

Hipop worlds would be expected to have metabolic scanners in the
starports, so someone coming off the ship with an infection should
raise all manner of alarms.  Even low pop worlds with a decent (C or
better) port should have such defenses

I'd also expect Type-S's to have metabolic scanners in the airlocks,
and certainly in the medical area