I'm still putting together campaign material for my alt-history technothriller Shadowrun campaign (Altered States). The following is a second draft writeup of VITAS, annotated in Shadowrun style (though not by the usual gang of criminal lowlifes). Apologies for length.
EDIT: This should have been much shorter. To compensate, I've put additional information—the classic Shadowrun-style comments—in spoiler tags. This should reduce the info overload.
Those who want to read the original article can, those looking for the details in the comments can do that, as well. Apologies for those who smacked too hard into the wall of text.
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###Classified###
“De-Federalization; Causes and Consequences”
Task Group Aztlan
The Office for Strategic Analysis
24 June, 2032
> The current internal and external political and military crises are linked by a common chain of causes: VITAS - The Collapse - The Awakening - The NAN War - Defederalization - The Long Depression. The military dis-symmetry between Aztlan and the United States is a result of these events.
If the current ceasefire is broken (and projections indicate an 85% likelihood within the next 2 years), that vulnerability means the United States, in all probability, will not survive the ensuing war. Some parts will be annexed by Aztlan, the rest will become satellite states dominated by same.
Our purpose is to break this chain of events.
- The Director
File #001 - VITAS Plague (Annotated)--begin file--
Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome (VITAS)
Source: The American Encyclopedia, 2021 Online Edition. Dr. William Kohl, MD; Pathologist, USAMRIID.
Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome (VITAS) was a deadly viral epidemic that spread world-wide in 2010. The disease was the most severe pandemic in human history, killing approximately 20% of the world’s population through direct effects (1.38 billion), and another 25% through secondary effects (such as famine, civil unrest, and consequent diseases). VITAS caused permanent allergies even in survivors, which prompted the development of advanced hypo-allergenic materials. Political after-effects of the disease included a global economic depression and the Balkanization of many large countries (including The People’s Republic of China and The United States of America).
Outbreak
VITAS began in July of 2010 in a remote region of India, near China and Burma, and spread rapidly into all three countries. The first deaths from the disease occurred 1-2 weeks later, thereafter escalating rapidly in number. The mounting death toll in the region prompted healthcare workers to notify the World Health Organization (WHO) of the possible existence of a new and more deadly strain of the seasonal flu. (At this time, neither Burma nor China had reported any deaths from VITAS, though later investigation revealed significant casualties in both countries, concurrent to the deaths in India.)
A month after the first casualties, Dr. Prasad Kapoor of India’s National Institute of Pathology in New Delhi first identified VITAS as a novel plague, unrelated to the flu virus. A report detailing his findings, and blood samples from infected patients, were provided to WHO and the Centers for Disease Control, and work on isolation and gene sequencing began immediately.
Dr. Kapoor’s report prompted the first widespread media coverage of the virus, under the names “The New Delhi Plague” or “The New Delhi Flu”. The Indian government began efforts to contain the virus, but by the time of Kapoor’s report it had already spread to Australia, Egypt, the United Kingdom, and Panama.
The disease spread quickly, and in almost all cases went untreated. Potential treatments for the disease existed, such as steroids, but there is no recorded instance of them being used.
> Due to its unique characteristics (many of which we still don’t understand today), VITAS moved faster than anyone could predict or cope with medically. We didn’t treat, because we couldn’t treat.
Identification of the symptoms and progression took a year. Conclusive identification of the pathogen (the first step towards developing a diagnostic test) took another year and gene sequencing another six months. Even the name “VITAS” wasn’t coined until two years after the the initial outbreak (by a pair of researchers from USAMRIID).
By the time all this was completed, the epidemic had long since burnt out. During the epidemic, those of us “on the ground” just didn’t know what the disease did, how it killed, or how to treat it.
VITAS is considered the modern Black Death for good reason: we were just as vulnerable to VITAS as Europe was to the Black Death. No prevention, no treatment, no cure.
- Broke-Down Back-Country DocMedical Effects
VITAS was fairly unique among infectious diseases, as it had no observable primary symptoms. Its only effect was to induce new allergies in infected patients. All other symptoms came from anaphylaxis, their own immune system’s reaction to the newly-developed allergy. Observed anaphylaxis symptoms matched those of natural allergies, and included mild reactions (syncope or loss of consciousness, rashes, shortness of breath) as well as lethal manifestations (myocardial infarction or asphyxiation).
> VITAS was wholly unique, in fact. No other disease prompted allergic—Type 1 Hypersensitivity—responses by the immune system, even indirectly. We know it caused allergies by modifying some part of the immune system, but which parts and how it did so are unknown.
Hematopoietic stem cells in bone marrow that produce white blood cells? The white blood cells themselves, specifically mast cells and basophils? We can only speculate.
- Asclepian
> “Wholly unique.” No other natural disease operates like VITAS did. This strongly argues that VITAS wasn’t natural.
- Paranoid w/ Enemies
> Whose? Everyone got hit, everyone died at pretty much the same rate. 2010’s genetic engineering was insufficient to the task. It had to be natural.
- Lost Cause
> Or paranatural. There are a lot of unknowns in biology and medicine, a lot of mysteries and idiosyncrasies. And that was before magic entered the picture.
- Atlantean in ExileMost people never develop allergies severe enough to be life-threatening. Prior to VITAS, only .5% to 2% of the population experienced anaphylaxis during their lifetime.
In contrast, all those infected with the disease became sensitive to a few allergens, and many became allergic to a multitude of allergens. (Common allergens being, e.g., wheat or milk, metal or vinyl, and pet dander or dust mite excretions.) The danger to specific individuals varied according to which allergens they became sensitive to and how severe their anaphylaxis symptoms were.
> Something not mentioned, but important: these allergies were acquired for life. The virus changed the host’s body so you became allergic, and the allergies stuck around after the disease was cured.
(There’s a reason hypoallergenic materials became a boom industry. It wasn’t just for the sake of us metahumans.)
Talk to anyone who survived the plague (70% of those who caught it survived), and ask them what’s it’s like to be allergic to half a dozen random things, like metal or vinyl. Know how many things are made out of metal? Imagine that every time you touched a spoon or a car you got a rash, or fainted, or had an asthma attack.
Plus, each time you’re exposed, there’s a good chance your reaction becomes more severe. Touch metal too much, and you can find your windpipe closing or your heart stopping.
VITAS is still killing people, decades after the disease itself went away.
- Ork Rights Crusader
> A classified Federal Task Force with multi-national participation? Glad I don’t have to police it.
- El Tee Charlie Six
> Above your pay grade. Aztlan has numerous enemies, and many have a seat at this table. Even those from former US states.
- The DirectorTransmission and Progression
VITAS was an air-born contagion, transferred by bodily fluids (sneezing, speaking, coughing) and dust. Outside the body, it could survive for up to a day, in dust or on surfaces.
The disease was highly contagious. In the United States alone, it is estimated that 80-90% of the population were exposed, and 75% of the total population developed the disease.
Once contracted, the disease has a latent period of 12-24 hours, then an asymptomatic period of 3-6 days, during which the patient is infected but not symptomatic.
The first symptoms were extremely mild, consisting of a light rash, shortness of breath, or lightheadedness. Severe symptoms, present in 25%-30% of all patients, usually began 12-24 hours later. In most cases, VITAS infections lasted 5-6 weeks from the onset of first frank symptoms. During this time, those with mild or moderate symptoms were only sporadically symptomatic.
> The contagiousness of the virus and this progression gave VITAS its characteristic “death spike”. The disease spread quickly, as those carrying it didn’t appear to be ill. (In both the asymptomatic and symptomatic period.) Once a person became severely symptomatic, they usually died within a day.
So the progress of the disease was a fast, quiet spread through the population, followed by a quick burst of deaths, then a slower spread from those with intermittent symptoms. The disease hit hard, killing 20% of the total population, but after the sudden wave of deaths, the disease seemed to go away. Many otherwise uninfected people contracted the disease from apparently healthy people.
-Asclepian
> So where did it go? Like a lot of lethal pandemics, it just burned itself out. It spread too fast, killed too often. Evolutionarily speaking, it was just too vicious to survive. Thank God.
- Global AnarchistGlobal Effects
VITAS transformed global society. It caused economic and civil disruption on a scale never before seen. It ignited civil and regional wars and lead to the creation of several new countries as larger nations Balkanized. Trans-national bodies, such as the United Nations, ceased to exist as did nearly all multi-national alliances, like the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Economic devastation lead to the Second Long Depression, and a huge increase in global poverty levels. Life expectancy, standard of living, and literacy all tumbled, in many cases to pre-Twentieth Century levels.
Cultural changes were widespread, in some instances causing a resurgence of traditional culture, in others radical changes away from pre-VITAS cultural norms. Religious observation generally increased, which had a significant impact on the later Awakening of magic.
Debate on the full impact of VITAS continues in academic circles. Most agree that a full accounting of its effects won’t be possible for decades, perhaps centuries.
> I guess this is where I come in. So far as vague generalities go, I have little to add to the above. Later, when we get into specifics, I’ll have more to say.
As for VITAS, Doc is right: VITAS was a modern Black Death, only more lethal and global in reach. BD caused massive political and cultural upheavals, so did VITAS. (See vague generalities above.)
For the United States, it lead directly to defederalization, effectively the same as Balkanization without the honesty of admitting it. Thus our current “internal and external political and military crises.”
The current global climate was shaped by two events: VITAS and the Awakening. And we haven’t seen the end of either’s effects.
- PoliSci Perpetrator--end file--
###Classified###
