Microbial Balancing

...I believe these organisms could be invaluable to our people. The fact that they appear to be symbiotic is even more astonishing...

— Excerpt from biologists first report

Introduction

Some Ecai can suffer from a condition known as Excessive Bio-energy, which until recently there has been no known cure for. The discovery of Symbiotic Microbes has led to a major breakthrough in the treatment of this condition, and significant improvement in the lives of Ecai who suffer from it. The treatment involves delivering the microbes into a patient suffering from this condition, via tiny robots.

Discovery

The microbes were first discovered on Horus 5, by an Ecai settler who was also a biologist. They had been studying a species of eel on the planet which seemed to give off a similar bio-energy to the Ecai. During the course of this study they cam across the microbes, once they realised what the microbes were capable of doing, they immediately shifted their focus to the study of these micro-organisms.
Quickly realising that the implications led way beyond his limited expertise, he reported his findings to the Ecai generational ships. They quickly despatched a fully equipped and experienced science team to the planet, to begin intensive studies on the microbes. After several months, the report they gave back to the Ships caused quite a stir. The microbes fed off bio-energy, which wasn't an unusual finding, what was unusual, in fact unique, was the fact they formed symbiotic relationships with their host.

Major Breakthrough

The symbiotic nature of the microbes, led the scientists aboard the Ships to begin research into using these microscopic creatures to treat Excessive Bio-energy, it was soon determined that they would need to experiment on affected Ecai in order to get any viable results. The difficulty came in trying to find a suitable delivery method, since the microbes have about a ten second lifespan outside of a host.
Then one clever scientist came up with idea of tiny robots, the bots would be injected into the eel where they would collect a sample which contained several microbes. They would then extract the bots, and deliver them via injection into a new host. The bots would then be able to extract the microbes from the sample and deliver them to wherever they were needed within the new host.

A long lasting cure

The second most remarkable trait of these microbes is their ability to regulate their reproduction in order to keep the system they inhabit in balance. For an Ecai suffering from Excessive Bio-energy this means that once they have received a dose of the microbes they shouldn't need any further treatment. It does in effect seem to be a permanent cure, although the condition itself isn't eradicated. There is a caveat to this, as this technology has only been around for the last twelve years, long term effects still haven't been fully documented or researched. As a result, the Ships have kept this as an important ongoing research by their scientists.