Ashin Varanin
Professional Enabler
Intent: A much less powerful, much less volatile, entirely secret strain of Alpha Red.
Development Thread:
Model: Zerek Red
Affiliation: Personal
Modularity: No
Production: Minor
Material: Bioweapon
Description: Zerek Red is a stable strain of Alpha Red. Its symptoms and communicability are comparable, but less severe, and take longer to manifest. This is for two reasons. First, a longer incubation period improves Zerek Red's ability to spread without notice. Second, the bioweapon's reduced power is the cost of increasing its stability. It is believed to be less likely than Alpha Red to mutate and attack non-Vong-derived life-forms, though Alpha Red itself was labeled similarly. In truth, Zerek Red will certainly mutate to affect other species, but only rarely and at random; Caluula-level extinction events are off the table. Zerek Red might operate with complete reliability until it suddenly spreads to peko-peko or Ghostlings or something else equally random, allowing researchers to compare similarities and close off one of Zerek Red's avenues of attack. Being a variant strain, Zerek Red is not likely to be susceptible to unlikely potential countermeasures against Alpha Red; being adaptive, immunization is very problematic, certainly requiring a different regime for each sort of biot.
In terms of symptom severity, while Zerek Red can be lethal and produce the symptoms noted with Alpha Red (yorik corak weakening, villips losing function, amphistaffs experiencing dysfunction, Yuuzhan Vong bleeding from their eyes, etc.), there is no recorded case of a Zerek Red test subject liquefying. Instead, death usually occurs through multiple organ failure within a matter of days rather than hours. Due to individual genetic quirks, natural immunities, highly variegated subject body mass, etc., individual cases can vary widely too. As bioweapons go, Zerek Red is toward the lower end of the lethality spectrum, but maintains Alpha Red's high transmission rate and multiple infection vectors. Like Alpha Red, Zerek Red is communicable by air, contact, or fluids. If crop-dusted Alpha Red can turn armies to sludge, a similar dispersal of Zerek Red can give them a collective migraine, and kill them and their dropships on their way home. Though not to the same extent as Alpha Red, Zerek Red is adaptive, and three main stable substrains have been noted and cultivated. The above changes to Alpha Red were enacted via horizontal transmission, combining Alpha Red with genetic elements of an obscure flu from a pre-technological world in the Rishi Maze. Zerek Red can be treated with massive amounts of market-grade bacta or kolto, or large amounts of better healing substances, which are prohibitively expensive. In a sense, it is an economic weapon as much as a biological one.
Primary Source: None
Development Thread:
- Selka hires Orcus to help her procure Alpha Red (start, finish, with delivery)
- Orcus obtains Alpha Red (here)
- Selka shows Carach the development of Zerek Red (here)
Model: Zerek Red
Affiliation: Personal
Modularity: No
Production: Minor
Material: Bioweapon
Description: Zerek Red is a stable strain of Alpha Red. Its symptoms and communicability are comparable, but less severe, and take longer to manifest. This is for two reasons. First, a longer incubation period improves Zerek Red's ability to spread without notice. Second, the bioweapon's reduced power is the cost of increasing its stability. It is believed to be less likely than Alpha Red to mutate and attack non-Vong-derived life-forms, though Alpha Red itself was labeled similarly. In truth, Zerek Red will certainly mutate to affect other species, but only rarely and at random; Caluula-level extinction events are off the table. Zerek Red might operate with complete reliability until it suddenly spreads to peko-peko or Ghostlings or something else equally random, allowing researchers to compare similarities and close off one of Zerek Red's avenues of attack. Being a variant strain, Zerek Red is not likely to be susceptible to unlikely potential countermeasures against Alpha Red; being adaptive, immunization is very problematic, certainly requiring a different regime for each sort of biot.
In terms of symptom severity, while Zerek Red can be lethal and produce the symptoms noted with Alpha Red (yorik corak weakening, villips losing function, amphistaffs experiencing dysfunction, Yuuzhan Vong bleeding from their eyes, etc.), there is no recorded case of a Zerek Red test subject liquefying. Instead, death usually occurs through multiple organ failure within a matter of days rather than hours. Due to individual genetic quirks, natural immunities, highly variegated subject body mass, etc., individual cases can vary widely too. As bioweapons go, Zerek Red is toward the lower end of the lethality spectrum, but maintains Alpha Red's high transmission rate and multiple infection vectors. Like Alpha Red, Zerek Red is communicable by air, contact, or fluids. If crop-dusted Alpha Red can turn armies to sludge, a similar dispersal of Zerek Red can give them a collective migraine, and kill them and their dropships on their way home. Though not to the same extent as Alpha Red, Zerek Red is adaptive, and three main stable substrains have been noted and cultivated. The above changes to Alpha Red were enacted via horizontal transmission, combining Alpha Red with genetic elements of an obscure flu from a pre-technological world in the Rishi Maze. Zerek Red can be treated with massive amounts of market-grade bacta or kolto, or large amounts of better healing substances, which are prohibitively expensive. In a sense, it is an economic weapon as much as a biological one.
Primary Source: None
