Personnalized viruses

Viruses may be considered the only remaining natural predator of humanity. For millennia, our species has been engaged in an arms race against these invisible killers. For most of that period, the contest took place at the scale of entire populations. A viral strain would emerge, infect a portion of humanity, and spread its mayhem until significant immunnity developed. Devastation was as random as genetic variability. One virus would affect the young, another would decimate the old. One virus would wreck havoc in a given population, the next would infect another. Viruses would attack, humans would react.

In the 23rd century, this age-old struggle took a different turn. Persisting global inequalities, obscurantism, and plain negligence, coupled with the infinite creativity of these microscopic apex predators ,meant that large-scale epidemics were still a common occurence. However, among the ebb and flow of contagion appeared a form of hyper-specialized predator: the personalized virus. The high level of genetic engineering involved in the production of these organisms certainly blur the line between natural predators and biological weapons. If a natural virus is a tiger attacking a village, the personalized virus is a tiger trained to attack one specific person. But given that the village, in this instance, happens to be most of the Solar System, and that we are not talking about one tiger, but trillions upon trillions of them, we could argue that in this case nature and technology fuse seamlessly, as personalized viruses turn the whole environnement into one toxic weapon against one specific individual. Imagine a pandemic in which everybody eventually becomes an asymptomatic carrier... everybody except one person, whose specific genetic makeup means that he or she will have the most violent reaction to the disease. The tiger lives peacefully with everybody, but goes berserk when it meets its target.

The first recorded use of such a particular predator can be traced back to the Lathrop consortium. It is not known whether they were the first ones to engineer such an organism, but they were certainly the ones to bring it out of its absolute secrecy. As any of its corridori competitors, the Lathrop consortium is always on the lookout for every and any advantage it can gain in the quest for the Sirakoth. This means looking for information about this prize, but also to hinder any headway other organization might make.

In the wake of the Balthazarian Revolt of 2234, the Deuterian Order had to abandon most of its footholds on Earth and relocate its installations aboard space stations and bases on the Moon and on Mars. This massive reorganization nearly destroyed it. It drained most of the Order's resources, but it also provided the substantial benefit of placing most of its assets out of reach of many of its competitors. Of course, the most powerful corridori families and corporations already had significant space infrastructures, and groups such as the Corbu, the Kirle, and the Ruyerist Gnostics did not hesitate to launch direct assaults on the Deuterian installations encroaching on their areas of influence. But the Deuterians were able to hold their own against these forces, and defended their installations effectively. For other, more Earth-bound corridori, including their old Absalom foes, the Deuterians had become out of reach. So an alliance was formed between the Absalom family and the Lathrop consortium. The latter was tasked with developing the ultimate long-range weapon: one that could travel for years before inevitably reaching it target in any corner of the Solar System inhabited by humans.

When specific genetic samples were obtainable, the Lathrop consortium used it to program its viruses. When it was impossible to obtain samples from Deuterian targets, their relatives' DNA was used as a template. That meant that the virus would sometimes destroy the whole family instead of just one specific individual, but neither the Absalom nor Lathrop cared much about that. Once the beast was engineered, it was just let loose and left to do its thing. Lathrop lab technicians would voluntarily infect themselves, go home, have parties, travel around the world, and -- basically -- just live their lives normally. All the while, the virus would reproduce, spread, and infect larger and larger numbers of people until it reached its mark. It is said that the first confirmed kill by personalized virus took one year to spread from a test tube in a Lathrop lab to a maximum security Deuterian compound beneath the surface of the Moon. It killed the head of that lobo-monastery almost instantly. Two months later, the whole staff of the facility had died from one wave or another of invisible contamination.

Genetic Ancestor(s)