Elemental Rot
"Elemental Rot, known coloquially as Rot, is a destablization of Ziel. This destabilization causes the Ziel to consume more than it needs to propagate, and turns the skin black with spots of scarred flesh. This is a disease of the Ziel itself, but it is also used towards hosts that it claims for its unending hunger. The only way to halt its growth is to have it fight unaffected Ziel."
---Unknown author of 'Ziel: The Symbiotic Lifeblood of All Solarian Creatures'
Transmission & Vectors
Elemental Rot's transmission vector is Ziel itself, as it only directly affects Ziel. On non-Ziel individuals, however, the transmission can be through an almost unlimited amount of vectors: air, water, land, and the hosts that the effected Ziel is manifested within. It has the lowest transmission rate in industrialized cities, however.
The quickest way of contamination through hosts is through the exchanging of fluids into the unafflicted host's body: this can be done by breastfeeding, kissing, sharing needles, or otherwise ingesting the fluids of the infected host either through an orifice or via a cut on the skin. Breathing the same air as an infected host can transmit this disease, but only if the Rot has infected the host's respiratory system.
Unlike normal, healthy Ziel, Rotted Ziel is conspicuous to a host body's immune system, and will be attacked by it once detected by T-cells. If a host has a low T-cell count-- in the case of individuals with a weak or developing immune system--, the Rot will propagate, and it will take around a week for the host to become infectious.Causes
The direct cause of Elemental Rot is the nuclear warfare utilized by Humans during the events of The Great War. The nuclear material used was scientifically-enhanced crystals of Ziel design, where it was forcibly mutated into cancerous growths due to the crystals' explosive quality. As the weapons used were more or less cancerous strains of Ziel, when the natural Ziel came into contact with it, it absorbed the cancerous traits of it.
These new strains of Ziel, experiencing a type of cancer for the first time, lost the ability to go into stasis, and became voracious for the energy of living hosts at all costs. This caused an entire half of the continent to be walled off from the rest of the human world, in fear of it becoming an epidemic once again.Symptoms
Rot symptoms are the result of a delayed or resistant immune response. Symptoms may appear for a week after infection, and may disappear for a month until more concerning symptoms start to develop. The most common symptom is dark, almost leathery skin, with abrasions caused by the skin's abnormal growth.
Initial symptoms of Rot infection may include:- Fever or chills
- Night sweats
- Headaches
- Nausea
- Fatigue
- The appearance of a new cluster of moles or freckles
- Weakness or numbness in the appendages
- Swollen or painful lymph nodes
- Reoccuring infections
- Bone or joint pain
Treatment
If caught early, Elemental Rot can be stabilized by the usage of regular, subcutaneous dosages of Rot-resistent Ziel. If the Rot-resistent Ziel destroys the cells that were created by the Rot-afflicted Ziel, and create new cells to replace the missing parts, an individual can be completely cured of that specific strain of the infliction; this, however, is a lengthy and expensive process, and does not protect against future Rot afflictions.
If the Rot's point of entry is a limb, and the individual has been taking stabilizing drugs for around six months, amputation of the afflicted limb will technically "cure" the Rot from them. The replacement of said limb, if desired, would cost more than if an individual tried the long-term route of curing it, if not insured.
In the civilizations of non-human sentients, where immunopathology sciences aren't as developed, Rot-afflicted hosts are given a Ziel creature known as a Symbiont: this creature latches onto a portion of the body that is most afflicted-- usually a limb-- and acts as a combination of both medication and prosthesis.
As these creatures are a product of husbandry, the availability of such a creature is fairly high, and although it is somewhat costly, one can obtain a Symbiont by either trade, grant, or being gifted one by a generous farmer.Prognosis
The initial symptoms of Rot infection are a fever and dehydration, both lasting around four to eight days, before disappearing. If the host's body hasn't rejected the afflicted Ziel in that amount of time, the next symptoms are cutaneous: dark freckles will start to appear on the site of entry, and the skin will start to look wrinkled and dry.
Individuals may be improperly diagnosed with a pseudo-condition known as "reverse vitiligo". Vitiligo is the lack of skin pigmentation, and unlike Rot, is not contagious or nearly as life-threatening. To tell if dark skin is showing symptoms of Elemental Rot, the dried sections of the skin are erratic, and will not absorb liquid if moistened.
After a while, more and more freckles will start to appear across the body, followed by blistering that leaves flesh-colored stretch marks across the skin. The affected Ziel will start to spread into the internal organs of the host, if applicable to the site of entry, and may start to cause inflammation of those organs.
What follows next is necrosis, as the Ziel exhausts all of the energy that part of the body can produce and destroys all of the original cells that section of the body has. Afflicted organs will start to malfunction, and those that have most of their cells replaced with the Ziel will start to fail. At this point, a host roughly has a 10% chance of survival.
At the point of no return, the body will act similar to that of a healthy Ziel system that has become deceased, though the host is comatose, not dead: necrotic tissue will start to slough off like dust, and organs will cease to function. The host's body will start to emaciate until it becomes mummified by the cancerous Ziel.Sequela
When under the effects of Rot, carcinogenic sequelae are the most reported, as the Ziel contributes to an abnormal growth of cell duplication with its own genetic code mixed into it. The cancers that can prop up are wholly dependent on where the Rot is located: this means that, if the Rot is allowed to propagate without intervention, an individual can have multiple types of cancers develop through the Rot.
If the Rot ends up propagating somewhere in or around the main spinal column, the host may suffer a variety of neurological sequelae, including partial to total paralysis. If it is able to propagate in the brain, psychological sequelae may occur, though it is highly unlikely due to Ziel generally preferring the extremities, Rotted or not.
If Rot is caught early on, where a prescribed dosage of Rot-resistant Ziel is able to completely remove Rot from a host's system, they will have no noticeable sequelae of the disease after a year's time. Some will, however, be able to get Elemental Exhaustion from the introduction of Ziel into their body, though it is hardly fatal.Affected Groups
Individuals most vulnerable to Rot are those with weak or developing immune systems that lack a Ziel symbiote in their cell makeup. This means that the groups heavily targeted by Rot are developing fetuses, children up to age 8, immunocompromized individuals, and the elderly. Note that the older an individual is, the more likely they are to have a Ziel symbiote. Living in synthetic, industrial civilizations, however, significantly lessens that chance.
Every single living organism on the planet, however, is capable of being affected by Elemental Rot. The likelihood of certain individuals obtaining it, or even becoming carriers of it, will be outlined in further detail below.Hosts & Carriers
Carriers of Rot are fairly rare, as the disease is incredibly destructive. If an individual is of a certain Ziel Affinity, and the Rotted Ziel is of the same affinity, however, that individual may be consumed by the initial Ziel. Consumption of a Rotted Ziel adds portions of that Rot in the DNA of the healthy individual, and allows it to be immune to that type of Ziel. This means that, functionally-speaking, a host can carry two strands of Rot and be perfectly fine.
What would be most at risk, however, is if that carrier becomes pregnant, as the Rot DNA will be carried over to the developing fetus, potentially creating cells with the carcinogenetic Ziel's DNA; this becomes more likely if the fertilizing agent of that initial ovum lacks a Ziel affinity. This is the only known pathway towards congenital Rot.
That being said, there is no creature on Solaris that has an immunity to Elemental Rot. The ability to carry a somewhat-dormant strain of the Rot is seen in a majority of sentient races that live westwards of The Zelotian Wall, and in the flora near Elemental Rot's so-called Ground Zero: the Helian Ruins.Prevention
The way that Humans go about preventing the Rot is to never go beyond The Zelotian Wall; Rot is extremely rare on the eastern side of The Wall, as humans don't tend to become the hosts of Ziel. Those that are granted explicit permission to go beyond The Zelotian Wall-- usually individuals with an entire organization backing them-- bring with them warding crystals of various Ziel Affinities, as "vaccines" are hard to afford due to insurance agencies only covering their egregious cost in "cancer and cancer-like treatments".
Prevention in non-Human civilizations, however, does not happen. Sometimes it is because Rot was never carried over to a location, like the Daemon in Typhon's Teeth; for others, being given Rot is seen as a divine blessing, as in the case of Shi'a's Descendent, Jabari Obasi. As the Rot was brought on by the humans, the other sentient races see it less like a curse, and more like another way that Nature goes about life.Epidemiology
During The Great War, the bomb that was the initial carrier of carcinogenic Ziel blasted what was once the great city of Sunovia, and spread its noxious gas throughout the area. Continuous usage of these bombs caused the natural-growing Ziel to corrupt, and that corrupted Ziel was able to latch onto hosts that either shared an elemental alignment or had an "empty space" for it. This means that it was hard to pass it from non-human sentient to non-human sentient, as most of them were naturally blessed with being a Ziel system.
For humans, a species that seemed to never inherit Ziel as part of their natural biological systems, this spread easily, as the Ziel would immediately be attracted by their "Pur" bodies. In the days of the Great War, transmission was incredibly easy, as it was radioactive. It was so severe that it demanded The Zelotian Wall's construction.
In the modern day, however, the only way for a Rot outbreak to occur is by the mishandling of radioactive Ziel waste, or by the improper quarantining of an individual that has come back from the other side of The Zelotian Wall. Were an infected individual to go to a large event, such as a concert or festival, transmission would be ultimately dependent on the safety protocols that sanitation workers take.
A single drop of blood, or a scrape of dead skin from a Rotting part of the body, can transmit the disease to anyone that comes into contact with that material. This can even pass onto food products and water pipelines, but as long as there are thoroughly-enforced cleanliness guidelines, outbreaks are preventable.History
The first recorded case of Elemental Rot was in the very facility that produced the first nuclear bombs of The Great War. At the time, it was seen as a pox-like rash, but it became more and more severe as treatments were largely inaffective. Proper amounts of PPE were used, so thankfully there wasn't an outbreak of the disease at the facility, but the first case did, in fact, die in a grotesque, mummified manner.
When the first bomb dropped, however, the cases of Elemental Rot skyrocketed, being seen at first as a textbook definition of "radiation" to the humans that read up on human history; to the non-humans, however, it was seen as a manufactured design made by the humans to try to kill them. This proved to be largely inaffective, in theory, as non-humans had the Ziel antibodies to fight off this disease.
Only when the numbers of humans starting dropping from Rot, did the bombs stop dropping, and the humans started to cull those that looked the least bit effected by enlisting them to war. It took a long time, but the Rot was contained to one side of the continent by the construction of The Zelotian Wall, and the separation between humans and non-humans was solidified.
Elemental Rot stayed fairly dormant for a few milennia, affecting non-human sentients in small, contained amounts. It still exists in the present day, but remains contained in the communities west of The Wall. The most famous person afflicted with Rot is the aforementioned Jabari, Descendant of Shi'a.Cultural Reception
There is some reverence held by individuals that are afflicted by this condition in non-human sentient societies. Even though it is ultimately destructive to the body, its proliferation allows these unwell individuals to harness elements that the non-affected members of their community cannot possibly harness themselves. Many attempt to get the Affinity-granting magic that Symbionts grant them, but without an active Ziel infection for the Symbiont's venom to fight, there is no elemental focus for those abilities to project from.
In human societies, it's another story entirely. Not only is it a stark reminder of The Great War, but it is also the most infectious through humans, who are the least likely to attract the healthy Ziel that would protect them. Not even the scientific community wants research on it public. As it becomes a so-called "cosmetic" disease in its more severe cases, individuals with Rot in human societies are immediately ostracized as "mutants".Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
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