Xarkar

A Harkas purposed organism acting as a bioweapon.

Content Warning: Parasitism, Body Horror

The Xarkar was initially a microbe that came under the influence of a harkas' bioengineering fluids to become a horrific weapon of mass destruction. These diseases were starting to be used shortly before the arrival of the HF to the Beta Targos System despite being initially created as a last resort weapon. Upon its creation, many of the scientists protested against its use as it was simply too dangerous to use, and the risks of severely damaging the various nations was far too great, if not rendering the harkas species endangered. Xarkar could also infect purposed or otherwise organisms, which would theoretically allow it to continue long after the harkas have passed.

The Xarkar have a large number of different stages which occur in different situations. The microbe could be deployed in the vacuum of space and photosynthesise (making use of Beta Targos' Nutrient Emission) to reproduce. It would seek out nearby organisms if it exists in large enough numbers and attempt to infect them. As it was created for the purpose of efficiently damaging one's immune system, by people that understood the immune system function to a large degree, it would easily penetrate a cell wall and digest materials inside the host cell to reproduce rapidly. By releasing certain chemicals, they can deceive a target organisms immune system to fight itself, allowing the xarkar to reproduce rapidly. Normally, it slowly liquifies the inside organs of its target and burst out, in far larger numbers, leaving a heavily infected husk.

Sometimes, it may instead use the nervous system of its host to navigate to their brain, to focus entirely on liquifying the target organism's brain. It could then reconstruct itself using these materials and gain complete control of the host body. The result of this is known as a 'zombie' organism. Zombies will constantly seek to infect other organisms but they may be sentient themselves...

Upon spotting and capturing other organisms, zombies may chose to either eat, merge with or infect them. If a zombie is eaten, the host will be completely digested but the xarkar that inhabited it will infect the new host. It is acid resistant for this reason, so it will become an intestinal parasite until it accumulates a large enough mass to penetrate the barrier and infect the rest of the organism. A similar process happens if individual xarkar microbes are swallowed. If a zombie choses to infect a target, they will attempt to insert a large amount of body fluid containing xarkar microbes inside the target. Upon merging with them, they will bind to the target organism tightly while xarkar microbes fuse the zombie to the target's body. The host zombie organism will not eat anything for a long time, allowing the xarkar microbes to enter the target and digest it for the zombie. It can also use this biomass to grow to a much larger size depending on the relative size between the original zombie and target host.

The xarkar are capable of detecting if they have infected a harkas specifically. In this case, they prioritise turning them into a zombie as their bioengineering capabilities are highly useful.

Upon detecting a HF starship for the first time, they initially perceived it as organic and attempted infection. This failed, but it infected several nearby harkas instead. The HF crew soon discovered the disease, realising that it could threaten the entire harkas species they began to eradicate it. As they have proven that some zombies are sentient, they put a number of them into cryosleep instead. Even if thawed out, they no longer threaten the entire harkas species but a number of individuals might be killed.

The Hyperion Ethics Committee has placed very strict restrictions on this disease. Its existence is very well-hidden in the Archive in a similar level as antimatter warheads. However, in an alternate universe, the Xarkar might have won, turning the entire star system into a biological singularity, which would go on to infect FTL-capable arkanian animals and become its own Kardashev-3 civilization. The HF would have been its next target...