OK, looking back at the posts, I see there was a sea change I missed. My bad. This is substantially less horrifying. ;)
 
That's not veekie's plan at least. He's insisting that only the trade mission will work because it brings us test subjects. Unless I'm missing something...

You are.

Trade missions are a vector, and people lacking inoculation, probably by their free will, since they did not want to be poked by needles will be sent there as part of the mission.

If some of them become ill while none of the inoculated ones will, we receive our confirmation.
 
That's not veekie's plan at least. He's insisting that only the trade mission will work because it brings us test subjects. Unless I'm missing something...
I'm pretty sure veekie mentioned the nomads we're incorporating somewhere. But i might be wrong.
And redzonejoe's is one variation.

There are several which explicitly do not involve deliberately infecting someone. I'm... honestly not sure where you got the idea that we would be deliberately infecting someone.
Ah, corrected to say the plan as i understand it.

Honestly we don't have a lot of control over how the chiefs will choose to study it, but this way makes sense to me.
 
I'm pretty sure veekie mentioned the nomads we're incorporating somewhere. But i might be wrong.

Ah, corrected to say the plan as i understand it.

Honestly we don't have a lot of control over how the chiefs will choose to study it, but this way makes sense to me.
Sorry for double post. There'll probably be several variations. Good and bad, but it is a wide enough effort that we should get confirmation.

Really hoping hard here. *sacrifices blood and shinnies to the dice gods*
 
[X] Send missions to the chief belligerents (Secondary Trade missions to Highlanders and Thunder Horse)
[X] Main provinces (Chance of stability loss, +2 Econ)
[X] Challenge the validity of the Sacred Warding (???)
 
That's not veekie's plan at least. He's insisting that only the trade mission will work because it brings us test subjects. Unless I'm missing something...
Missing something big:
-We need people who are not innoculated unless we want to use children for it. Children generally don't go on trade caravans to dangerous areas.
--We got this handy batch of new migrants, who we can simply not apply the ritual to. Additionally, nomads tend to have less tolerance for starpox than lowlanders as it is difficult to make a disease endemic in their low population densities, so they don't tend to get much genetic resistance .

-We need a source of star pox. Theres no source in our own polity due to the Sacred Warding.
--Sending traders down to the Lowlands means exposure to the star pox. This is not a concern for our traders generally, as they are innoculated and can't get infected. However, any refugees-turned-traders not innoculated and going on the same journey has no such protection.
---Meanwhile the Carrion Eaters going along take notes.

Question do we have salt cured meat and/or fish
If not we got the salt and it will help with food and mil rations
It's one of the earliest uses of salt, no worries there.
 
There is one guaranteed way of sparking an epidemic.

Start a massive war against the southerners - lowlanders , disease will spread like wildfire
 
[X] Send missions to the chief belligerents (Secondary Trade missions to Highlanders and Thunder Horse)
[X] Main provinces (Chance of stability loss, +2 Econ)
[X] Challenge the validity of the Sacred Warding (???)
 
[X] Send missions to the chief belligerents (Secondary Trade missions to Highlanders and Thunder Horse)
[X] Main provinces (Chance of stability loss, +2 Econ)
[X] Challenge the validity of the Sacred Warding (???)
 
[X] Send missions to the chief belligerents (Secondary Trade missions to Highlanders and Thunder Horse)
[X] Main provinces (Chance of stability loss, +2 Econ)
[X] Challenge the validity of the Sacred Warding (???)
 
--We got this handy batch of new migrants, who we can simply not apply the ritual to. Additionally, nomads tend to have less tolerance for starpox than lowlanders as it is difficult to make a disease endemic in their low population densities, so they don't tend to get much genetic resistance .
Didn't we first learn about this technique through observing that nomad populations tended to sporadically be more resistant to starpox than our own people? And then we realized that it was some of the women who handled their cattle who were immune?
 
Didn't we first learn about this technique through observing that nomad populations tended to sporadically be more resistant to starpox than our own people? And then we realized that it was some of the women who handled their cattle who were immune?
Actually no, it was specifically that only the women were resistant but the nomads died to the star pox under the DOOM comet like everyone else.
Turns out if only your adult women handling cows are innoculated it doesn't actually DO anything for herd immunity or overall developing immunity at all.
 
What makes you say that? We have the protocols literally written down. They're not going away.



Yea pretty much. If we fail sacred warding the effects will be fairly immediate and very obvious. As in: A smallpox epidemic. Bad, yes. But we have sanitary procedures and quarantine management. Also, our shamans are pretty good with the medical side of things, so... Fixable, yes. We also will have the knowledge to fix it in a readily available form. It's written down, at least the basics of it.

If we fail sacred forest, we won't see the damage for a century or more, and by then nobody will know what the fuck happened and how to fix it. They won't even remember that we really had a sacred forest belief.

I do feel the need to point out that the sacred warding only works because of a large, expensive-to-maintain, and professionally manged reservoir of cowpox. If the reservoir is neglected and the cowpox supply collapses, simply resuming the rituals won't make it work again. The People will have to isolate another strain of cowpox.

They originally got it from a lucky break with the Nomads and their huge aggregate cattle population, but that little bit of information may not have carried through the ages. That's if there are enough Nomads left to begin with. They've been thoroughly wrecked, especially in the People's lands. The ones who survived seem to be in the process of being absorbed by the various settled peoples.



So, you're telling me that one of the most important beliefs of the people, a belief that was established after writing became widespread among the shamans, is not written down? Somewhere?

Also, yes it is possible for our test group to 'get lucky' but read this abstract:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249962585_The_Infectious_Dose_of_Variola_Smallpox_Virus

What this basically says is that a single viral particle can cause an infection. Smallpox is rediculously infectious. The likelihood of someone not catching the virus if they've never been inoculated with vaccinia or haven't had a booster in a long time is extremely low.

Keep in mind that smallpox immunity is for life. If you start with a 100% inoculated population, and then inoculation rates start to drop as the process is questioned (It almost certainly won't stop immediately nation-wide. Traditions linger and fade), and combine that with the low rates of migration in this era and the fact that the migrants will for the most part have already survived the disease, it could easily take more than a generation for herd immunity to drop low enough for a conclusively compelling demonstration to occur.
 
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Keep in mind that smallpox immunity is for life. If you start with a 100% inoculated population, and then inoculation rates start to drop as the process is questioned (It almost certainly won't stop immediately nation-wide. Traditions linger and fade), and combine that with the low rates of migration in this era and the fact that the migrants will for the most part have already survived the disease, it could easily take more than a generation for herd immunity to drop low enough for a conclusively compelling demonstration to occur.
That's why we're taking in refugees who are not innoculated and have not yet been exposed. The migrants are from the steppe tribes, whose low population tends to kill off smallpox outbreaks by running out of people to spread to in times of stress(and with the recent massacres, it's a LOT of stress).

Smallpox is strongly endemic in settled populations due to higher population density, but Nomads tended to be overall more free of disease...mostly due to them living on the margins and dying pretty fast when punted off them(i.e. they generally go Healthy -> Dead rather than a settled population's tendensy to stay at Sick without actually expiring entirely). Nomad populations generally couldn't afford to keep feeding the non-productive sick for very long without the whole tribe going with them...
 
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I've just had a thought.
Currently the People believe eating Venison is a sacred duty, if we start questioning Sacred Warding, which birthed that part of Ymaryn culture, will it go under threat?
 
I've just had a thought.
Currently the People believe eating Venison is a sacred duty, if we start questioning Sacred Warding, which birthed that part of Ymaryn culture, will it go under threat?
As far as AN's indications go, they're questioning why we're keeping so many smelly and noisy cows near the city more than anything else. If the challenge fails then we'd probably still keep the meat(which is a convenient part of the practice that's good for the modern Ymaryn), but likely move them out of the city and just use hospices instead of these outmolded cow shrines.
 
I wonder if people remember that the Sacred Warding was originally Bynwyn's creation? He's ascended into legend at this point, right?
 
[X] Send missions to the chief belligerents (Secondary Trade missions to Highlanders and Thunder Horse)
[X] Main provinces (Chance of stability loss, +2 Econ)
[X] Challenge the validity of the Sacred Warding (???)

The option most likely to get what we want, i.e. that it's important to challenge beliefs because some are wrong (metal is cursed) but some are right (sacred warding). I'm a little hesitant because with a crit fail I could see us losing our smallpox inoculation program. But I think it's very unlikely-vaccination is SO GOOD that it aught to be fairly obvious.
 
As far as AN's indications go, they're questioning why we're keeping so many smelly and noisy cows near the city more than anything else. If the challenge fails then we'd probably still keep the meat(which is a convenient part of the practice that's good for the modern Ymaryn), but likely move them out of the city and just use hospices instead of these outmolded cow shrines.

As a still fairly primitive agragrian society, they will certainly not care about the smell or noise. Even as recent as the 18th century it was fairly normal for farmers to share living space with their livestock. The same holds true for people in towns and cities of that era.

What the Ymaryn are questioning is the resource expense of the sacred warding. They probably don't even notice that the smell is a big issue because it's normal for them.
 
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