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Infectus

“The Infection” or Archaean Infection

Polymorphic bio-weapon – can copy biological entities and any inanimate object it has a database record of, provided it has the physical matter to do so. Infectus is a direct answer to the Fermi paradox (where are all the aliens?). It destroyed or absorbed them all.

“Great horror shows us how dark and sinister the human psyche can be. It plumbs the depths of the black places we can go when pushed to extremes. Transcendent horror shows the insignificance of humanity in a universal scope. It is the realization that we are insignificant, and that no god, weapon or technology can aid us. It is dread, knowing that something truly awful is going to happen, but not knowing its vector (magnitude and direction) or form.”

  • See: Cosmicism
  • See: The Koronah (alien species)

“Those that suffered least, were ones that saw what it was capable of, and self-destructed. The ones that suffered most tried to fight it. For they had to watch in horror as their loved ones were consumed by it.”

  • Archaean refers to the geologic eon that the Infection was at its height. (the end of the Eon, which is about 2,500 million years ago)
  • Polymorphic, nano-crystalline structure capable of being dormant for millions of years (being partially in-organic), and bootstrapping its genetic blueprint via simple chemical feedstocks, inorganic and and organic matter.
  • 5 stages of growth
    • 1. simple mycelium-like tendrils, direct contact leads to infection
    • 2. Simple plant life, immobile, but infectious, due to it releasing spores
    • 3. Simple Animal life, any contact can cause infection
    • 4. Complex animal life (up to and including human). Any contact can cause infection
    • 5. The manifestation of the original alien’s genetics, when enough organic and inorganic matter (of particular types) has been collected to re-assemble the original form. A colossal organism. (Bobby Prince becomes this)
  • The spores come from an ancient race of aliens who were all but wiped out in a cosmic war with them. All alien and machine races had to band together to stop their ceaseless replication and spread across the galaxy. They failed.
  • The result was the complete annihilation of all sentient life in the Milky Way.
  • Only a few of the machine races survived.

Symbolism

  • The infection is the corrupting influences that are destroying our bodies, minds and society.
  • It’s the pesticides and the genetic modification of our food
  • It’s mis-information on the Internet
  • It’s cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Mad-cow disease, schizophrenia or any disease that corrupts the mind and body.

Morphology: polymorphic / polymimic

  • When masked, the infection looks like any normal person, animal, plant or object.
  • When un-masked, the infection looks like a completely alien, fractal geometry. Subsurface color cycling/bleeding. It’s difficult to describe the unmasked Infection, because it is constantly changing it’s form and color to blend-in with it’s environment. This process is more like a cuttlefish or octopus, rather than the “Predator” type active, optical camouflage. The result is a form that the human eye has difficulty focusing on.
  • When someone/something is being absorbed, the color is drained/de-saturated at the points of contact, making it look like the life-force is being sucked-out.
  • When exposed, the Infection is both organic and inorganic. A horror show of human and alien viscera, as well as a mixture of finely connected, high-tech (and often alien) electrical, computer and mechanical components. In dark places, sometimes fiber-optics or other light source may emerge, as needed.

Sound

  • When moving, sounds like wringing your hands together, skin sliding rapidly over skin.
  • When absorbing someone or something, sounds of stomach or intestinal digestion, along with alien sounds from a synthesizer, for something truly alien.

Vectors / Methods of attack

  • Can send tendrils or threads of material at you.
  • Can liquefy itself and squirt itself at you.
  • Can rain droplets down on you.
  • Can coat the surface of something, awaiting for you to contact it. (For example, a park bench, or counter-top)
  • Can ooze up out of the floor, or drop down from the ceiling
  • Can be vaporized / atomized / (mist) to become an airborne contagion.
    Notes:
  • Aerosols – Gases with suspended particles: Fire is a useful vector for the Infection because smoke can have intact suspended particles.
  • Colloids / Slurries – Liquids with suspended particles: Any liquid can contain the infection, and depending on the concentration, would not effect the index of refraction—making detection very difficult.
  • Ambush: It can form the appearance of an injured or trapped person (or part of a person), to lure in the unsuspecting, then attack them. It can mimic any sounds, voices and personalities, so it can cry out for help to draw others in for the kill.
    “Help! I’m trapped under this thing! Can you help?”
    “Hey, come here! My leg is broken! Please!”
  • Flushing / Hounds to the hunters: It can make scary sounds or voices to push people into a trap or secluded area,
    Whispers: “Over here. Turn around.” the person runs away from the direction of the sound, and into a room where a larger Infection mass attacks them

Touch

  • The most common reported sensation upon being taken over by the infection, is the sense of cold. “It’s so cold” or “I feel so cold”.
  • It is the opposite of a warm, welcoming, loving thing.
  • It is a non-caring, non-feeling, alien thing that only wants to make you a part of its collection, a part of its library, a part of its database. You are simply the next conquest…the next mission objective. Fuck and move on. Fuck and move on. It is the animal side of us—machinery that compels us to do what we must do to survive.
  • It is the part of us that will fuck-over another person to keep our way of life. It is a Politician who will lie, cheat and steal to keep the status-quo, or worse: to get the business or defense contractor to build that new factory or base in their district.

SUPER-SPEED, HYPER-VICIOUS

Multi-channel optical networks and nerve conduction velocity

  • The infection uses multi-channel, coated, fiber-optic networks to relay information between cells and organs. Organic, chemical nerves can’t compete in terms of speed and data transfer rate.
  • Alien / mechanical muscle fiber has the potential to move multiple times the speed of Earths fastest animals.
  • If it chases you, you’re caught. You can’t escape.

Nanotech Disassembly / Re-Assembly Factories

  • The surface of Infection cells are covered with industrial dis-assembly factories with giant combine mouths for rapidly harvesting cells and reducing them to their constituent parts (atoms and useful molecular assemblies.)
  • Inside the cell are multi-scale re-assembly factories which can, to the extent allowable by physics, rapidly construct polymorphic cellular geometry—any surface, any material, any organism, rapid assembly.

Alert Phases / Attack Pattern

  • The Infection is clever. It won’t just alert the world to its presence. It will be subtle and creative about its initial infiltration.
  • If exposed to a new location, it will study the world around it.
  • After careful analysis, it will create a game-plan about how to proceed with the takeover of it’s indigenous population.
  • It will attack the easiest target first, followed by the next easiest. By the time it gets to the hardest target, they will be severely compromised, and therefore easier to take over.

Deposition Mass / Deposition Phase (Traps)

  • When Infectus is fairly certain is has control over a certain area or volume, it will begin the deposition phase, which is distributing small particles of its mass onto surfaces that people or animals are likely to touch. Depending on the environment, it may also create an aerosol to make an airborne trap (particles that can be breathed-in, or that can land on exposed skin).