subnautica | telepathy

Entry tags:

skullgirls: valentine

telepathy

A follow up to my announcement earlier in the month. My full report can be found on URSULA's databases, and there is a version on the datapads as well as one hand written in the lab. Read those for more details. The short form is as follows:

1. The antibiotic is synthesised from a natural resource found inside the Jelly Shrooms that grow in their eponymous cavern. From lab analysis, the antibiotic can completely eliminate any viruses or diseases based around abnormal cell division. They are an excellent resource and I would recommend getting many of them to stock the med bay. Unfortunately the disease itself lays dormant in the Jelly Shrooms, and a risk-reward assessment ought to be conducted when gathering.

2. Unfortunately for us, the disease was neither one of abnormal cell division or viral. As I said before it appears to be a symbiotic relationship between bacteria and fungus. It targeted the blood lived primarily in the respiratory and digestive system of infected individuals.

3. Blood samples from crew who did were not ill showed that they were also infected with the disease. It simply remained dormant.

4. Sick crew members showed a very high white blood cell count to combat the disease - futilely. Neutrophils were unable to locate, kill, and ingest pathogens effectively, meaning the disease was winning against the body. This is unsurprising as this is an alien planet - it is unknown if the body would be able to adapt in an adequate amount of time. The disease appeared to be turning parasitic in visibly infected crew members compared to the dormant state inside the non-symptomatic.

5. The antibiotic will not clear the disease entirely. It will cause it to go dormant inside of us rather than outright kill it. This is the best that can currently be done. The parasitic relationship will vanish once the antibiotic has run its course. However, prepare to feel miserable while it does just that.

6. Finally, when introduced to native flora and fauna the disease lay dormant just as it did in the Shrooms. Roughly one week after introduction, native life appeared to grow healthier and stronger. Plant growth time and appetite for both fish and plants were increased. The results faded after the first week and there appeared to be no trace of the disease inside either after this time.

For the time being, we are living with a dormant bacterial-fungal infection. It will not harm us, however I will require monthly blood tests to check its state inside the body.

I would advise caution when searching new biomes and interacting with new life forms. This disease clearly has a place among the native flora as something beneficial and could be found in anything. Perhaps a scanner to test for its presence could be uploaded to URSULA's database, and anything scanned in a new biome will show its presence.

But someone else can work on that today.

I'm going to the hot springs.

[[Feel free to respond to Valentine telepathically or meet her in person in the springs!]]

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[Hopefully Valentine's not too comfortable in the hot springs, because a Turtle's going to be bugging her.]

So we don't know the prognosis for long-term infection with this disease, and by now probably everyone in the base has it... this could get ugly if we don't keep tabs.

[He's a little reluctant to offer this, but it seems like the smartest idea:] If you don't mind me using some of your samples, I might be able to make some kind of scanner to test for... whatever's causing the disease. Could be any kind of weird misfolding stuff that we can't easily detect yet, like prions on Earth.

[ She's comfy enough. It's a relaxing atmosphere, being in water while not totally immersed. Despite what she said, she actually didn't mind working a little more on it - just in this way. ]

I don't mind. I have plenty. Some for this exact circumstance.

Bacteria and fungus living in symbiosis isn't unheard of, but you could be right. We should see what causes the symbiosis as our next stage of attack.

For now, though, that scanner is most important.

URSULA might have something I can base it off of, but if not I'll have to raid for transistors and specialized parts to build the actual biological part of the scanner. Let's see, I'll need some kind of microchip setup that can handle the data load in a reasonable time - oh, right, wasn't there something like that already in the labs? I could probably reverse-engineer it and then build something more targeted -

[Wait. He was rambling in his head again. Everyone probably heard that.]

- Yeah, anyway, I can probably pull it off. I'll just need some time. Dirk might even lend a hand; that guy's as bad as I am when it comes to making stuff. [Maybe even worse.]

[ He'd already proven himself to be a rambler, but Valentine was actually interested in what he had to say. Since she was relaxing, she let it just lap at her consciousness rather than focus on it with lazer precision. That could come later. ]

With or without him, I'll be waiting to see the results soon.

[That's probably a good idea when it comes to dealing with Don's thoughts. He's used to having people just glaze over listening to him anyway.]

Until then, I'd like to get your opinion on whether this infection seemed predictable across all your tests. Do you think it's possible it could affect some kinds of people differently?

[He's a little concerned for others, as well as himself; the uncertainty just barely bleeds into his mental voice.]

The native life's one thing, but we have no idea what it'll do to anything from Earth, or really, any planet's life that isn't Iniidae's.

Everyone I tested had at least a latent infection. Without fail. They may not have been symptomatic, but I would hazard a guess that ever biological person on this base has it in their blood.

[ Although. ]

I was exclusively given human blood samples, however. I do not think that that is a factor, as non-human people were not only infected but symptomatic. I only include it out of transparency.

[He mulls over the implications of this for a little bit.]

So this bacteria-fungus hybrid is incredibly adaptable and doesn't seem to need much time to adjust to new hosts, but it only seems beneficial to native life. Gotta wonder precisely how it's doing that. And the dormant infections... is there something else going on there?

[This is just more of a reason to make some kind of scanner.]

If it's blood-borne, it's probably in most tissues too. I'm not sure if there's any way to safely scan other kinds of organs for it, especially with all the high-powered future tech in the base. What do you know about that?

I had to do that to discover where it lived, of course. [ On herself. She figured that, if she was irreparably damaged by it, then she could test URSULA's claim of resurrection.

Though she hadn't expected it. Why would she put herself in that sort of danger if she knew it was unlikely? ]

My guess is that its passed on in any such way it can be. Airborne, bloodborne, contaminated water... [ Her sharp smirk isn't audible over telepathy, but she felt it. A nasty disease, for sure. ]

Either way, it lives primarily in the lungs and the digestive tract. It's all in the report.

There's not much I can do for dormancy other than keep an eye on it.

[ And for the first time, she didn't seem to be happy at all. ]

Geez. I'm glad its symptoms don't seem to be lethal. Even with URSULA's nanites, I'm not completely sure about what'll happen to me - or, well, anyone. [Shit, awkward slip. Don knows he's just worried about certain... other things that have happened, though.]

If something goes wrong, though, the first symptoms will probably be related to those organ systems. That'll make it easier to figure out what a horrible hacking cough might be related to, at least.

Same as would happen to anyone else, I'd assume. Unless there's something special about you even in your species. [ Or... he didn't have a species...? No, no, that was too big a conclusion to jump to. He was probably just showing a bit of selfishness that he then chided himself for.

... All the same, what an odd thing to say. ]

Regardless, knowing where they are and how to combat it certainly means medical emergencies would be better.

Nothing I can think of. [This is at least true, because his species-of-four doesn't suggest he's particularly unusual.] It's partially because I'm still a little skeptical about the properties of the nanites. Call me paranoid, but I don't think anyone's tested that resurrection claim, have they?

I'd hate for a medical emergency to be the first time we get an answer.

Edited 2016-09-16 04:21 (UTC)

Well, call me cold, but I'm not going to be the one offering myself for that test.

[ She sounded amused, and not at all as if she were insinuating that was what he said. ]

I wouldn't want anyone to offer for a test like that... but at the same time, I don't know how else we'd get an answer.

[Don's weirdly somber response seems to suggest he's put some thought into this.]

It's still kinda weird thinking about how the nanites work. I've seen nanobots before, but they worked on their own, kinda like a collective.

They remind me of parasites from back home.

[ Well, some parasites, anyway. She'd heard about one that lived inside its host as its skeleton in return for vampiric abilities which resulted in eternal youth.

Really, the one that just lived on the back of that amnesiac's head was so much easier to explain away. ]

How did your nanites work? You seem to be implying that they were sentient?

[That idea gives Don the heebie-jeebies, so he focuses on the sentient nanobots thing instead.]

That's because they pretty much were. They - he - was a collective we started calling Nano. He acted like a little kid... one who had some pretty terrible parents.

But he was his own thing. It's not like he could take over people and make them into himself.

Interesting. [ Very interesting. She was reminded of the Avery unit and the Gae Bolga Matrix. Unlike Avian's foolish creation, Gae Bolga hadn't been endowned with a personality of its own... but the potential had been there.

Oh, well. ]

And what exactly could he do?

Mostly, what he did was mess with existing machines. He could kind of take them apart, and then rebuild himself with whatever was around. At one point he used half of Coney Island to make a giant robot. [And then Don turned a roller-coaster into a giant electromagnet to fight him, because logic.]

Even though I don't think he was always trying to hurt people, he was dangerous. [There's a hint of melancholy in the mental voice here: Don had always felt bad about killing what was essentially a child.]

I see.

You know, your background in this might make you useful in understanding Ishmael.

ISHMAEL's programming is different. He's... a weapon, right? A focused death-bot kinda weapon. Nano was just the mind of a little kid in a nanobot cloud. ISHMAEL's dangerous in a whole different way.

Do we have any idea how ISHMAEL even works, or are we completely in the dark? The nanobots in our own bodies are way smaller than the ones Nano had - I could see those with a microscope, but I definitely can't see any of our nanobots. I figure they'd need an electron scanner microscope, at least.

Ask Dirk for more information. I'm waiting for clues and cues on location before I even consider abandoning the labs to find out more.

[Oh hey would you look at that, a new troll has just entered the hot springs.]

Sorry to bother you, but since I was planning on stopping by eventually, that the 'two birds with one stone' metaphor would apply here.

[She's all hot spring ready and slowly lowers herself into the side opposite of Valentine.]

I was wondering if us who arrived after the sickness was fading have the infection.

[ She'd been on the base long enough to have seen first Feferi, then Karkat, and finally Kanaya herself, if not interacted with them. Valentine didn't raise an eyebrow at her appreance, though she had to admit she'd love to get an in-depth look at her alien biology.

Oh well. ]

Am I just so good at my job it couldn't wait ten minutes? [ There was a wry smirk on her lips; she wasn't actually annoyed. Rather, she was impressed - it was the sort of thing she would have done at that (apparent) age.

She leaned back, cracking her back, and gave a small grunt of satisfaction. ]

If I didn't recieve a blood sample from you - which I know I didn't - then I can't one-hundred percent guarantee that you are infected or uninfected. However, every person who came here after the initial burst of sickness was also found with the pathogens in their blood. It was simply dormant.

[ She opened her good eye. ]

So my guess would be 'yes, you have it'. It's an educated guess, but still a guess.

We could find out for sure, of course...

I do not mind letting you take a blood sample from me. It is best to have confirmation then just guess.

[Kanaya shrugs.]

If you want to do it after your break, I do not mind meeting up later. Although if you don't mind, I can just wait here too.

[The water is nice and warm.]

Do what you like.

[ It wasn't great that there was a reminder of work she immediately needed to do, but hey, she was interested. Alien samples! ]

Anything I should know about your blood? Type? Proteins? Things of that nature?

Thank you. Ah, anyway, my blood is jade colored, so I am in the middle of the hemospectrum. I am unsure if my status as a rainbow drinker affects it in anyway, though. Erm, a rainbow drinker is roughly equivalent to a vampire.

[She lists these off, only stumbling when remembering that she had to explain what a rainbow drinker was.]

Jade coloured?

[ Valentine cracked her eye open and fixed Kanaya with a look of interest. She had certainly seen weirder things than green blood, but it was still fascinating. She'd love to get a look at its make up. Protiens and types be damned - this could be an entirely new composition.

Vampires? Not so interesting. The name though... ]

Do all people of your race have differently coloured blood?

Yes, we are classified into 12 different colors normally, disregarding mutations and the wiped out lime bloods. There's rust bloods, bronze bloods, gold bloods, olive bloods, jade bloods, teal bloods, cobalt bloods, indigo bloods, purple bloods, violet bloods, and tyrian bloods. There shades vary of course, but all are classified into those categories. Once again, disregarding mutations.

[Gee, that sure is heavy emphasis on mutations.]

[ ... Interesting.

Not least her heavy emphasis on mutations. ]

I see. How... fascinating. I'd dearly like to examine the entire spectrum.

[ From a scientific standpoint, it would be amazing to see how the blood was made up and what affected its colour. She couldn't help but imagine that the 'cooler' the blood got, the less iron was present...

Oh, and: ]

So which of your friends here is the mutant?

[Kanaya freezes.]

....shit.

[There really is no point in hiding it, but...]

It is not my place to say.

[Because that would be like really rude.]

[ She couldn't help but give a small laugh. At least she knew she'd screwed up. ]

Well, it's no matter. I don't know what to look for in non-mutants in your species for it to have much of a pressure on any study I do here.

[ It's just professional interest. ]

[Kanaya respects that she is willing to not press on, so she decides to illuminate somethings.]

Those who possess detrimental mutations or blood color mutations, particularly bright candy red, are culled upon discovery. While I am aware the stigma does not carry over here, it is still a sensitive subject for my friend.

[ A rigid caste system. Everyone was probably supposed to have a place in some kind of empire. Deviations would threaten a system; not a species. Deviations in a species were important for survival, if they could fit a niche. ]

I suppose depriving them of oxygen would make the blood less... 'bright candy red'.

That is... definitely one way to put it.

[ Kanaya pauses slightly before continuing onto describing more about the troll species.]

The violet bloods and tyrian bloods are are semi-aquatic, while the rest of the hemospectrum is land based. It is easy to tell is someone is a violet blood or tyrian blood, as they have gills and fins on their face.

[Kanaya taps the sides of her face to show where the fins would be. If Valentine has seen Feferi before, then Kanaya has just inadvertently given her enough information to deduce the mutant by process of elimination.]

Those lower on the hemospectrum are more likely to develop psychic powers, but are more frail and have a shorter life span. The opposite is true for those on the high end of the hemospectrum. As a jade blood, I am in the middle of the hemospectrum.

[ Well, Valentine did now know who the mutant was. In truth she was less interested in him and more in the ones with blood entirely unlike her own. Not that alien blood wasn't fascinating on its own, but the make up of other proteins... ]

I see. And are you considered 'low' enough to have developed psychic power? Or is yours on the more physical side of the scale?

I am not considered low enough to be expected to have psychic powers, my cast does have the ability to become rainbow drinkers, like I am now. I am unsure as to the exact process, although I am fairly certain that it involves the death of the individual.

[Kanaya died and became a rainbow drinker, so that's her hypothosis.]

Or grievous bodily harm to kick in a latent genetic survivalism. [ She said it off hand. What did she know, right now? ] Either way, it seems like your... caste? Has quite the advantage in that respect.

That sounds plausible actually.

[She's able to guess the gist of what that means through her wide vocabulary and from all the frog breeding she had to do.]

I suppose so, although we are balanced out by being rare. Jade bloods are also unusual in being generally female, although males still do exist.

[ Valentine was glad that there wasn't a similar race - caste - of people back home. The Skull Heart had enough women ill at ease with their place in life without that. ]

Fascinating. Humans have no such diversity. Well, [ and she gave a faint smile, ] by nature, at any rate.

[Yeah, the Skull Heart would have a field day with Alternia.]

I've noticed that. We did not have a large selection of Humans to observe or interact with outside of a small group, but it was still noticeable.

We're a mixed bunch here. It's really quite fascinating.

[ Especially the ones who couldn't get sick. ]

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telepathy

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