A Prime Base Survivor

[tsofian]

Well he or they won't be alive when the Players get there, however

I find it hard to imaging an airborne disease that would infect EVERYBODY in a population of several hundred or several thousand and kill them ALL. Virgin field epidemics don't even do that. Even HIV had a statistical immune population. Anthrax might come close but even untreated anthrax isn't always fatal.

So there were probably a person or even a few people who were issued the suicide pills and waited until they felt very ill, as they were instructed to do, and never got sick. They may have ended up taking the pills anyway, because life in what amounted to a giant tomb where not only all the people they had known for years, but all their dreams and indeed the dreams of mankind had been brutally murdered would have to suck!

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by tsofian

Well he or they won't be alive when the Players get there, however

I find it hard to imaging an airborne disease that would infect EVERYBODY in a population of several hundred or several thousand and kill them ALL. Virgin field epidemics don't even do that. Even HIV had a statistical immune population. Anthrax might come close but even untreated anthrax isn't always fatal.

So there were probably a person or even a few people who were issued the suicide pills and waited until they felt very ill, as they were instructed to do, and never got sick. They may have ended up taking the pills anyway, because life in what amounted to a giant tomb where not only all the people they had known for years, but all their dreams and indeed the dreams of mankind had been brutally murdered would have to suck!

I would still write everyone off as dead. Even with statistical probability, the chance is remote.

However, as I see it the personnel awake prior to the war and awake and recording through the conflict are not the Project command team.

These are the base caretakers. The ones that oversee day to day operations and would keep the lights on until year three. Then at year three an assessment would be made as to awaken the Command staff.

So in my scenario, it is the Command Staff and not the Pheonix team in cryosleep.

[cosmicfish]

I agree that there should have been survivors, and that survivors should have been able to take steps to revive the Project. I disagree that the kind of people chosen to be in PB would give up so easily, so how (other than suicide) could they have met an early-but-post-outbreak demise?

[.45cultist]

You'd think that they might have used the automed's cryosleep on a few people in the hidden parts of the base. The infected are restricted to certain areas until the impromtu bolt hole is prepped, one is given sealed envelopes containing a briefing of events"just in case". Some personal gear stashed as well like the frozen watch.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

The infected are restricted to certain areas until the impromtu bolt hole is prepped,

Therein lies the problem. If we assume the bioweapon works as described, they would not know who was infected until it was too late. So this saved person would very likely have the infection and it would live again when they were revived and kill the players. Even if they were immune, as the thread assumes, they could be a carrier and by never showing symptoms be froze and again bring the bioweapon back to the player team. Kind of brutal.

[.45cultist]

Make that two sets of autodocs, with the uninfected either in th vehicle bay or one of t he side tunnels. It takes some "Haid 'rangling", but a plausible source of new PC's is possible, and they know where thier personal effects are!

[cosmicfish]

Look at this from a different viewpoint: It is essential to the story that everyone in PB is killed but that the facility itself survives essentially intact. So starting from a blank slate, how do we kill PB?

A biological agent would only work if the defensive measure was to preventively place everyone possible into cryosleep early on, and even then it would be a remarkable stroke of bad luck to keep awake only those who were susceptible. A chemical or radiological agent could be much more effective, but how does that get into a facility designed specifically to keep such things out?

It seems impossible to me that PB could fall physically intact but with no survivors without either some element of internal betrayal or some level of Krell superscience. Does one of those sound particularly plausible, or is there some solution I am not seeing?

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

Make that two sets of autodocs, with the uninfected either in th vehicle bay or one of t he side tunnels. It takes some "Haid 'rangling", but a plausible source of new PC's is possible, and they know where thier personal effects are!

You are assuming that that these uninfected aren't carriers (and they almost certainly are) and ignoring that some of the "infected" should have survived to wake them up and reactivate the Project.

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Look at this from a different viewpoint: It is essential to the story that everyone in PB is killed but that the facility itself survives essentially intact. So starting from a blank slate, how do we kill PB?

A biological agent would only work if the defensive measure was to preventively place everyone possible into cryosleep early on, and even then it would be a remarkable stroke of bad luck to keep awake only those who were susceptible. A chemical or radiological agent could be much more effective, but how does that get into a facility designed specifically to keep such things out?

It seems impossible to me that PB could fall physically intact but with no survivors without either some element of internal betrayal or some level of Krell superscience. Does one of those sound particularly plausible, or is there some solution I am not seeing?

Yeah, PB should have HEPA Filters and CBR sensors in the air
circulation system. The module would work better if it was the backup mention briefly long ago in 3rd ed.

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

You are assuming that that these uninfected aren't carriers (and they almost certainly are) and ignoring that some of the "infected" should have survived to wake them up and reactivate the Project.

I meant some would have been placed in automeds while research and a possible cure sought. the other group would be any scouts or personnel manning LP/OPs.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

I meant some would have been placed in automeds while research and a possible cure sought. the other group would be any scouts or personnel manning LP/OPs.

I don't see how that really addresses any of the aforementioned issues. How can you be sure that they are uninfected? And if they are, why not just put them in a decontaminated area of the base and have them keep working?

And again, what about the infected ones who survive? They get better and are never frozen... so why aren't they turning things back on and reactivating the Project?

[dragoon500ly]

You have to go with a bio-weapon, possibly injected into the hostages that were taken when Pahute Place was overrun by Krell, you can theorize that two or more types were used so that there was a greater chance of spread, but then you run into the universal antidote issue, why didn't IT WORK!!!???

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

You have to go with a bio-weapon, possibly injected into the hostages that were taken when Pahute Place was overrun by Krell, you can theorize that two or more types were used so that there was a greater chance of spread, but then you run into the universal antidote issue, why didn't IT WORK!!!???

Here is an idea a group I was in toyed with. It seemed to make sense.

Krell was able to take several Morrow bases. Some where in those bases is UA. So, reverse engineer UA, you get Universal Poison. IN PB module, the symptoms were diverse. No two people had the same symptoms. It seems to work.

My $0.02

Mike

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

You have to go with a bio-weapon, possibly injected into the hostages that were taken when Pahute Place was overrun by Krell, you can theorize that two or more types were used so that there was a greater chance of spread, but then you run into the universal antidote issue, why didn't IT WORK!!!???

Quite simply because it was overwhelmed. The bioweapon used was basically an aerosolized HIV strain on steroids. It essentially shut down the immune system of the victim and other benign diseases are now fatal. The Unidrug (as it is named in 4th ed) has to be tuned for the patient and the target germ. When they realized they needed to use the Unidrug, it was too late for most and what to tune it for becomes a problem, since the symptoms are of the other illnesses, not the bioweapon. So you cure the fatal cold, only to be killed by something looking like MRSA.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

You have to go with a bio-weapon

Why?

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

but then you run into the universal antidote issue, why didn't IT WORK!!!???

As that has already been addressed, I would point out that even with multiple diseases a 100% infection rate for that large a population is still very far-fetched. Most biowarfare agents have a modern mortality rate of around 50%, so even if you used 6 different such agents you would still expect 1 out of every 64 to survive even if everything worked perfectly.

The alternative, a superbug that kills 100%, seems really farfetched for an organization (Krell) that seems to advance through theft and not research. Heck, such a bug would be so deadly that an accidental release could literally kill everyone on the planet. Including Krell. Who would risk such a thing that had the skills to develop it?

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

I don't see how that really addresses any of the aforementioned issues. How can you be sure that they are uninfected? And if they are, why not just put them in a decontaminated area of the base and have them keep working?

And again, what about the infected ones who survive? They get better and are never frozen... so why aren't they turning things back on and reactivating the Project?

Automeds can serve as cryotubes, saving a patient for later treatment. One batch is waiting for a cure, the other is frozen for their protection without contact with other PB personnel. The rest need a reason the airborne plague spread. What if protocols were skipped while the hostage situation was ongoing? but still some would escape illness. Still have a problem.....

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Why?


As that has already been addressed, I would point out that even with multiple diseases a 100% infection rate for that large a population is still very far-fetched. Most biowarfare agents have a modern mortality rate of around 50%, so even if you used 6 different such agents you would still expect 1 out of every 64 to survive even if everything worked perfectly.

The alternative, a superbug that kills 100%, seems really farfetched for an organization (Krell) that seems to advance through theft and not research. Heck, such a bug would be so deadly that an accidental release could literally kill everyone on the planet. Including Krell. Who would risk such a thing that had the skills to develop it?

The Soviet/Russian labs didn't/do not try to weaponize anything with a cure.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

Automeds can serve as cryotubes, saving a patient for later treatment. One batch is waiting for a cure, the other is frozen for their protection without contact with other PB personnel. The rest need a reason the airborne plague spread. What if protocols were skipped while the hostage situation was ongoing? but still some would escape illness. Still have a problem.....

And that problem is why I was asking what this solved - even if some infected were frozen or if somehow there were people in the tight confines of PB who were unexposed (how??) then all that does is create more frozen people to be recovered, some of whom are likely to die and still lethally contagious if thawed without the right protocols. There should still be unfrozen survivors of the original infection.

Heck, if there uncontaminated people, why are they frozen and not suited up and operating out of decontaminated area? They could be decontaminating the base and sweeping out all the bodies or at least playing dead til the threat had passed and then waking up PB2 or the regional bases!

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

The Soviet/Russian labs didn't/do not try to weaponize anything with a cure.

There is a big difference between "disease without a cure" and "disease with a 100% infection and fatality rate". Most bioweapons lack a cure, just a set of procedures that can reduce mortality, but no one, not even the Russians, has a 100% lethal bioweapon. There would be no way to deploy it where there wasn't a significant chance of killing all human life, including the designers and deployers and the guys who said to do it.

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

And that problem is why I was asking what this solved - even if some infected were frozen or if somehow there were people in the tight confines of PB who were unexposed (how??) then all that does is create more frozen people to be recovered, some of whom are likely to die and still lethally contagious if thawed without the right protocols. There should still be unfrozen survivors of the original infection.

Heck, if there uncontaminated people, why are they frozen and not suited up and operating out of decontaminated area? They could be decontaminating the base and sweeping out all the bodies or at least playing dead til the threat had passed and then waking up PB2 or the regional bases!

The infected would have charts and be in a medbay, non infected might be wired into the recall system since they are sealed in the automeds and infected could then approach. If we were close with scratch paper to sketch, I could probably explain better. This is good to work out details, I wish I didn't flub my explainations.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Look at this from a different viewpoint: It is essential to the story that everyone in PB is killed but that the facility itself survives essentially intact. So starting from a blank slate, how do we kill PB?

PB needs to be killed for the 150 year delay..... but, does it have to be intact?

Can't it be permanently offline with a gutted ops cylinder?

A few clues and the PCs are off to find PB2 or the highest ranking Regional base commander.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

The infected would have charts and be in a medbay, non infected might be wired into the recall system since they are sealed in the automeds and infected could then approach. If we were close with scratch paper to sketch, I could probably explain better. This is good to work out details, I wish I didn't flub my explainations.

Okay, this adds flavor but doesn't address any of the core issues here - any bioweapon attack should leave survivors capable of reviving the Project.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

PB needs to be killed for the 150 year delay..... but, does it have to be intact?

Can't it be permanently offline with a gutted ops cylinder?

A few clues and the PCs are off to find PB2 or the highest ranking Regional base commander.

A reasonable question. If PB is effectively completely destroyed then that is a pretty big change to the game and a huge blow to the Project. Considering the other obstacles, and the inevitable questions about what happened to PB2 and/or the Regional commands, it might doom the Project to being a quixotic quest with no real possibility of success.

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

A reasonable question. If PB is effectively completely destroyed then that is a pretty big change to the game and a huge blow to the Project. Considering the other obstacles, and the inevitable questions about what happened to PB2 and/or the Regional commands, it might doom the Project to being a quixotic quest with no real possibility of success.

PB should have been frozen and had a computer glitch cause the delay or too damaged by the sabotage. and use the module's base as PB 2.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

Okay, this adds flavor but doesn't address any of the core issues here - any bioweapon attack should leave survivors capable of reviving the Project.

I think I have the fix.

Krell was playing a longer game. He knew Prime Base existed. He knew the universal drug existed, or that some sorts of antibiotics or vaccines were going to be sent to Prime base.

Yes the bio was introduced into the base and it was very quickly discovered and isolated. The physicians at Prime were able to determine they had medications to treat those ill and prevent tramisssion to those who were not yet infected. The medicines had been contaminated with either a toxin or an array of biological agents (an assortment of viruses and at least two prion diseases. Maybe something of all three.) The doses were lethal, but not immediately so. This way everyone in the base got a dose before the first symptoms began to appear and at that point it was too late to do anything about it.

The base NBC systems worked as designed, the medical staff performed perfetly and Now we have 100% kill on base personnel.

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by tsofian

I think I have the fix.

Krell was playing a longer game. He knew Prime Base existed. He knew the universal drug existed, or that some sorts of antibiotics or vaccines were going to be sent to Prime base.

Yes the bio was introduced into the base and it was very quickly discovered and isolated. The physicians at Prime were able to determine they had medications to treat those ill and prevent tramisssion to those who were not yet infected. The medicines had been contaminated with either a toxin or an array of biological agents (an assortment of viruses and at least two prion diseases. Maybe something of all three.) The doses were lethal, but not immediately so. This way everyone in the base got a dose before the first symptoms began to appear and at that point it was too late to do anything about it.

The base NBC systems worked as designed, the medical staff performed perfetly and Now we have 100% kill on base personnel.

I like the idea but you are talking about a very precise bit of sabotage there. I think if you want to go that route you need to consider how it occurred.

If the sabotage occurred outside PB then it would take a tremendous amount of luck for this to happen. Someone who had access to the drug would need to somehow identify lots going to PB, gain access to them, and then poison them. And if they didn't get every single dose going to PB then there would be good chance that some or even ALL of the staffers would get untainted meds and be fine.

If the sabotage occurred INSIDE PB, then what happened to the saboteur?

Sabotage raises a bunch of other questions that I posed in another thread, but sabotage in general should lead to much more losses. PB should be firmly in Krell hands, the Project should be in shambles.

As another question, if UA (or whatever it is called now) requires so much tinkering just to use, how did the sabotage go undetected?

[tsofian]

It would be tricky. I am going to assume that the actions were taken before the war. Depending upon who Krell is he could have done this as his last act out the door. Perhaps he didn't even do this to kill Prime base but to kill the whole project. Perhaps he assumed that ALL Project members, field teams abd base personnel would get this vaccine or drug cocktail before they were frozen so they would basically wake up just in time to die. This would be a very Krell thing to do. He was proabably pissed to no end that the teams he captured were not infected with the trajan horse. At that point he may have guessed that if the tricked out vaccine had not been destroyed it was at the Bases. He would give his guys doses of the real vaccine and then infect every captured Morrow Project Member with it and see what happened. They probably put some sort of tracking device on the infected people to see where they went. This would be quickly spotted and removed by standard protocals before the victims go anywhere near any base entrance, but would add to the concern in Prime. It would now be obvious that they were facing a prepared tech savvy enemy with some serious resources.

I think the refugee camp idea works fairly well. I would put it down on the valley floor though and the base is accessed through the long tunnel from the fake town ot paper recycling facility or whatever.

The colony is placed fairly close to the entrance, maybe a few hundred yards. The hostage/vector plan goes as in the book. The Krell do have a bomb. It was a variable yield weapon. The trapped Prime Base member, knowing the base could take the results (since it is ten plus miles away and under a lot of rock and such) dials up the bomb to maximum yield and detonates it.

This leads to a large crater which should be right over where Prime Base was thought to be. The follow on Krell teams find this much larger crater (filled with water) and absolutely no other evidence that Prime Base exists.

Krell's force keep a watchful eye out for any Morrow Team activations. For fifty years they keep a strict lookout for Morrow radio Traffic, for multiple team activations or for anything else that would indicate the Prime Base had survived and was functioning on sone level. During this period Krell teams cross and recross the area in which they believed the base was located. Heck to be certain they may pop a couple of other nukes or whatever.

In any case the Krell organization is absolutely certain that Prime Base was destroyed. After 150 years without the MP waking up except by internal means (see my post on that) they have no reason to suspect Prime wasn't effectively destroyed 3 years after the big OOPS.

[stormlion1]

Oh I can see a survivor or two. I just don't see them remaining sane.

[tsofian]

That was sort of my initial idea

[cosmicfish]

Originally Posted by tsofian

It would be tricky. I am going to assume that the actions were taken before the war. Depending upon who Krell is he could have done this as his last act out the door. Perhaps he didn't even do this to kill Prime base but to kill the whole project. Perhaps he assumed that ALL Project members, field teams abd base personnel would get this vaccine or drug cocktail before they were frozen so they would basically wake up just in time to die. This would be a very Krell thing to do. He was proabably pissed to no end that the teams he captured were not infected with the trajan horse. At that point he may have guessed that if the tricked out vaccine had not been destroyed it was at the Bases.

I am confused - only a fraction of the UA is tainted but it just happens to be the fraction that is used by all the members of PB? And Krell decides that if his miniscule sampling of captured Project personnel didn't get it, that it must be at the national HQ? Why would he assume that at all?

Originally Posted by tsofian

He would give his guys doses of the real vaccine and then infect every captured Morrow Project Member with it and see what happened. They probably put some sort of tracking device on the infected people to see where they went. This would be quickly spotted and removed by standard protocals before the victims go anywhere near any base entrance, but would add to the concern in Prime. It would now be obvious that they were facing a prepared tech savvy enemy with some serious resources.

I genuinely have no idea what you are saying here. If UA has to be tuned to the person and the disease by a skilled medic with specific gear, how is Krell using it as anything other than a straight poison at all?