To Boldly Go... (a Starfleet quest)

[Simon_Jester]

If this is the case then no wonder their trying so hard to get the arcadians under control. Their mentats were a serious threat. Not only were they capable of creating technology able to threaten them, the super nova weapon would have been just as bad if not worse for them as it would have been for us, they also prevented the singers from infiltrating the empire. Remember the entire reason the mentats existed was because the arcadians had a near doomsday scenario with ai, causing them to abandon advanced computing and rely on mentats. Kinda hard to infiltrate a society that literally hates the infrastructure you need to infiltrate them, and im betting that mentats are too far gone to coop on top of the fact that the arcadians dont do cybernetics would make them even more of a pain. Our actions to take out the mentats while justified and right gave the singers the opening they needed to crack open the arcadians.

Click to shrink...

Random Licori:

"They all LAUGHED when we said thinking machines and psionics were the REAL galactic menaces! They LAUGHED! WELL WHO'S LAUGHING NOW!? MWAHAHAHAAAA!"

I imagine that the mad-scientist tendencies of the Licori species are enhanced by the mentat process, not entirely created out of whole cloth.

I wonder how much of the Bolian government is under control of the singers by now. It goes without saying that the group that abducted Thuir is probably also under the singers control as well. When this gets out and it needs to be gotten out to the general public as soon as possible there will be far reaching consequences for everyone involved including the Bolians.

Click to shrink...

I'm pretty sure the group that grabbed Thuir was a thinly disguised Harmony special operations force, so yes, their being under Singer control probably goes without saying.

If he didn't before getting kidnapped he sure has now. Speaking of, we're going to need a plan to get him out of there, and probably to de-Singer him. Time to borrow a cloak from the Romulans!

Click to shrink...

We have a captured Klingon Bird-of-Prey.

We dont even know where he is!

Click to shrink...

It's the Corps. The difficult, we do immediately; the impossible takes a little while.

 

[brmj]

We have a captured Klingon Bird-of-Prey.

Click to shrink...

Two of them, in fact. Though people might miss the Bounty and there's a decent chance the cloaking device has been removed so no one gets any ideas.

 

[Goat]

It goes without saying that the group that abducted Thuir is probably also under the singers control as well.

Click to shrink...

Given the way that the Ensign was killed, I strongly suspect that was a Singer assuming direct control.

 

[MTB]

the impossible takes a little while

Click to shrink...

... and that's just because of Office 0 ...

 

[sunrise]

I worry about the singer commanding the wolfpack, its the kind of job where you put someone not afraid to do horrible things and Singers have a habit to go crazy if their plans get derailed.

 

[Enerael]

No, it's anything that'll keep you safe from it. And we don't do just conventional vaccines. We were able to figure out how to vaccinate against the Biophage, which wholly outmatched any natural immune system. That almost certainly took either nanotech or exotic isotope doping people in ways that should have caused omnicancer in twenty years...but didn't. I submit you are greatly underestimating the UFP's medical tech and willingness to reach for such technology.

Click to shrink...

I believe that the vaccine you speak of was for starships.

Biophage Vaccine Research Rush [REQ: Medical] (1 turn)

10 / 10 Perform full analysis of the properties of the Biophage.
20 / 20 Sample Bio-laboratory Containment Procedures
20 / 20 Sterilisation Procedures
30 / 30 Vaccine Development I
40 / 40 Vaccine Development II
20 / 20 Structural Integrity Field Modifications I
30 / 30 Structural Integrity Field Modifications II

Click to shrink...

Note the SIF modifications.

The Biophage can still nom our people, it just cant use those weird beams to infect and nom our ships.

And that is a completely different thing from immunizing our entire multispecies population.

 

[Night]

I believe that the vaccine you speak of was for starships.

Click to shrink...

Nope.

Research has further continued, with the Infectious Diseases Institute claiming to be closing in on a vaccine that will prevent the Biophage from coopting sapients, and one that will allow ships structural integrity fields to completely resist attempts to spread the Biophage.

Click to shrink...

However, until the personal variant of the Vaccine has been distributed, Starfleet is still prohibiting return to the Romulan Border Zone.

Click to shrink...

However, this is most likely at an end. With the addition of Commodore McCoy, the Infectious Diseases Institute has made the breakthrough in developing a vaccine that will render a person immune to the reshaping effects of the Ulith III Biophage, and will shortly have a system that renders the hulls of ships likewise.

Click to shrink...

Try again. Vaccine II was specifically for individuals, and researching it was what ended the State of Emergency.

 

[Enerael]

Nope.


Try again. Vaccine II was specifically for individuals, and researching it was what ended the State of Emergency.

Click to shrink...

That... how does that work?

You can do a lot with SIFs and doping hulls with exotic particles and stuff, but somehow teaching the immune systems of a bunch of species to win over an absurdly versatile, powerful, and adaptable bio weapon?

Or do we have UFP wide nanotech augmentations? That would be news to me. Also wouldn't fit with what we have seen of the UFP and its technology much, but eh, the TV shows were plenty silly.

 

[Thebigpieman]

That... how does that work?

Click to shrink...

It's Star Trek dude. Miracle medicine is the name of the game.

 

[Enerael]

It's Star Trek dude. Miracle medicine is the name of the game.

Click to shrink...

I am aware, but I would like at least some semi-plausible technobabble for it.

Like, say, nanites.

Otherwise, SoD suffers.

Perhaps its not a vaccine, but some easily produced generator of some weird energy field that interferes with Biophage infection? Would be far more plausible to me, if not without issues.

Or some probably expensive exotic compound that temporarily immunizes you until it flushes out of your system...

 

[ilbgar123]

I am aware, but I would like at least some semi-plausible technobabble for it.

Like, say, nanites.

Otherwise, SoD suffers.

Perhaps its not a vaccine, but some easily produced generator of some weird energy field that interferes with Biophage infection? Would be far more plausible to me, if not without issues.

Or some probably expensive exotic compound that temporarily immunizes you until it flushes out of your system...

Click to shrink...

If they did it right, it would take like 7 years to flush out of most people. Though they'd have to convince the Yan-Ros immune systems to accept the stuff.

 

[OneirosTheWriter]

I am aware, but I would like at least some semi-plausible technobabble for it.

Like, say, nanites.

Otherwise, SoD suffers.

Perhaps its not a vaccine, but some easily produced generator of some weird energy field that interferes with Biophage infection? Would be far more plausible to me, if not without issues.

Or some probably expensive exotic compound that temporarily immunizes you until it flushes out of your system...

Click to shrink...

We can come up with something but at that stage it was all rather an after-thought.

 

[Enerael]

We can come up with something but at that stage it was all rather an after-thought.

Click to shrink...

SoD aside, it is good to have an idea of what is possible, IC.

If we can make a "Vaccine" for the Biophage, then that sounds a lot like we can mass produce something to inject a bunch of species with that makes them immune to an absurdly versatile, powerful, and adaptable bioweapon. And come up with such very, very fast.

Which would make it reasonable to expect, rely on (to some degree), and pursue something similar for the Singer psy-nanite implants, and more besides.

This is probably unwise.

I would retcon it to only a starship vaccine, that part is unproblematic and should be enough to stop the Biophage cold, especially if we have good enough sensors that it cant hide from us and sneakily infect a world.

 

[Nervos Belli]

SoD aside, it is good to have an idea of what is possible, IC.

If we can make a "Vaccine" for the Biophage, then that sounds a lot like we can mass produce something to inject a bunch of species with that makes them immune to an absurdly versatile, powerful, and adaptable bioweapon. And come up with such very, very fast.

Which would make it reasonable to expect, rely on (to some degree), and pursue something similar for the Singer psy-nanite implants, and more besides.


This is probably unwise.

I would retcon it to only a starship vaccine, that part is unproblematic and should be enough to stop the Biophage cold, especially if we have good enough sensors that it cant hind from us and sneakily infect a world.

Click to shrink...

I think you're the only one who has an issue with this, and that retconning an event from twenty years ago in quest is really not necessary.

 

[Derpmind]

The Biophage isn't something that needs a more technological solution, but rather a biological one. Replace the idea of extremely-complicated nanites or exotic physics with a much more simple/plausible reinforcement of the natural immune system. If the mechanism the Biophage used to convert organic material was some kind of viral subversion of cells, then it's not at all impossible for a more "mundane" vaccine to inoculate against that same mechanism.

If that doesn't work for you, just keep in mind this is a setting where they can cure cancer. I don't know how the setting's genetic engineering usually causes Episode Of The Week while that same setting can space magic away someone's cancer, but that's just how the cookie crumbles in Star Trek.

 

[Enerael]

I think you're the only one who has an issue with this, and that retconning an event from twenty years ago in quest is really not necessary.

Click to shrink...

Its not necessary, there are other explanation. Just sharing the one that makes the most sense to me.

Its not like it would be a noticeable retcon, it was never relevant that I recall.

The Biophage isn't something that needs a more technological solution, but rather a biological one. Replace the idea of extremely-complicated nanites or exotic physics with a much more simple/plausible reinforcement of the natural immune system. If the mechanism the Biophage used to convert organic material was some kind of viral subversion of cells, then it's not at all impossible for a more "mundane" vaccine to inoculate against that same mechanism.

If that doesn't work for you, just keep in mind this is a setting where they can cure cancer. I don't know how the setting's genetic engineering usually causes Episode Of The Week while that same setting can space magic away someone's cancer, but that's just how the cookie crumbles in Star Trek.

Click to shrink...

Curing cancer is trivial compared to this. Cancer is an accident, Biophage a bioweapon of terrifying ability. Its observed capabilities would make a mundane vaccine, especially one that works across several species, pretty SoD straining.

If we really need a personal vaccine, I say use some exotic magic chemical compound that lasts a while in the body instead.

 

[Redhead222]

one was a high agro bio treat that BS SCIENCE fixed.

next problem some BS nano-teck thing that we first have to find before we can put someone on it to fix it

 

[Godwinson]

I mean, Star Trek has inoculations against radiation. (First Contact)

Whether or not something can or can't work is entirely unpredictable based on anything approaching verisimilitude, instead being entirely up to whatever the plot needs. Suspension of disbelief, anything even remotely approaching logic or common sense, none of that need apply. It's all just random technical gibberish white-noise to pad the air time and provide a veneer of science fiction.

 

[SynchronizedWritersBlock]

It seems most likely to me that the biophage just isn't as good as it seems. Very possibly it requires a single key common vector against all organics... because precursors or something. Having isolated this vulnerability, the "vaccine" basically patches it. That's also why a single "vaccine" works for all races, and possibly all living organic material even as merely inoculating people wouldn't be enough. Yes, that's not how a vaccine by our definition works, but it's likely more along the lines a genetic modification project like what happened to the Klingons in canon, except non-transmissible or with a very short life.

 

[ilbgar123]

It seems most likely to me that the biophage just isn't as good as it seems. Very possibly it requires a single key common vector against all organics... because precursors or something. Having isolated this vulnerability, the "vaccine" basically patches it. That's also why a single "vaccine" works for all races, and possibly all living organic material even as merely inoculating people wouldn't be enough. Yes, that's not how a vaccine by our definition works, but it's likely more along the lines a genetic modification project like what happened to the Klingons in canon, except non-transmissible or with a very short life.

Click to shrink...

Maybe they just called it a vaccine because that didn't have the same negative connotations.

 

[Thors_Alumni]

Guys The Biophage was a whole other ballgame and an existential threat to all life everywhere which is why 3 peer super powers that pretty much hated each others guts wound up teaming up together to fight it.

The Singers of the Horizon are not that big of a threat that they threaten all life. The two situations are completely different and Biophage level medical treatments may or may not even be applicable here. Yes Starfleet Medical will be looking for the implants now that we know what to look for. The problem is that the implants are most probably Organic in nature thus making the job of finding them and getting rid of them a process that will as with the Biophage research take a while since we are starting from scratch.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Guys The Biophage was a whole other ballgame and an existential threat to all life everywhere which is why 3 peer super powers that pretty much hated each others guts wound up teaming up together to fight it.

The Singers of the Horizon are not that big of a threat that they threaten all life.

Click to shrink...

Well, they definitely won't destroy all life, but left to their own devices without us coming up with a way to stop them, they will continue trying to enslave all life.

 

[ilbgar123]

Well, they definitely won't destroy all life, but left to their own devices without us coming up with a way to stop them, they will continue trying to enslave all life.

Click to shrink...

It's the difference between the Tyranids and the Empyreal Tyrant. Which is to say, not much of one.

 

[Night]

Very possibly it requires a single key common vector against all organics

Click to shrink...

Or the vaccine actually attacks the Biophage somehow, via killing chemical process it needs or disrupting DNA or something similar. The Biophage is different enough from other organic life that what kills it may not kill others.

 

[Enerael]

Biophage was very clearly a bioweapon made by a terrifyingly competent and advanced intelligence.

If it was designed with the traits shared by ST species (because precursors) in mind, then for it to be defeated so completely and so fast by a polity with our level of biotechnology (or more accurately what biotechnology we had back then) seems very unlikely. It would be a very bad weapon if that was the case, and in all other aspect, it was a very, very good one.

Well, if its makers could control it that is.

Unless... it could adapt and overcome the vaccine. It just never had the chance to do so before we destroyed it. If it returned, it would have to put some work into adapting, and we would have to make a new one.

That would be perfectly plausible to me.

If it was not designed with the traits shared by ST species in mind, then it would have to be far more robust, versatile, and adaptable to work, which would make a vaccine like that even more unlikely.