Intergalactic Summit

It's more questioning that they're locking these procedures behind amongst other things a massive paywall - not payable in ISK by the way - and other things ensuring that only a few get to be part of it, when it's affecting potentially all of New Eden. That really drives home a few important facts about the powers that be.

What are you going on about? Paywalls? Did I miss a news article?

A cure that's gonna be available in sufficent quantity to purge the Keepstar where the cure's being produced?

Honestly, who didn't see this coming? Dire warnings about how freakin' stupid it is to put all your eggs in one basket, and criticisms of single-point-of-failure systems aside, even the vaccine for this thing makes people nutjobs. And now the cure's under security lockdown because hey, guess what, everyone where the cure is is gonna die, and they turned off all of the communications systems. Wouldn't want anyone transmitting the cure to other production facilities, I guess.

It's times this that I really think we should've just blown up that keepstar before the scientists started arriving.

While I thank you for your measured response, something about this whole situation smells.

I would imagine it is. You gave a very thorough yet concise description of the situation... as you see it. But you will forgive me if I don't take you at your word. I hope you prove me wrong, by practicing what you preach.

Not for nothing, Makoto, but on a facility of that size, there's really no way to be completely sure that someone hasn't slipped off into the dark parts of the structure, bearing the pathogen in their own system. Not in such a short amount of time. That's one of the reasons quarantines exist: you wait long enough that if there was anyone still infected, they'd be nice and visible and busy with the process of dying.

So how long does something the size of a Keepstar remain quarantined to ensure there aren't still carriers secreted away in the bowels of the structure, stuffed into a cryotube somewhere to try to wait out the authorities? How thinly do security forces have to spread to comb every nook and cranny of the structure, knowing that the more thinly-spread they are, the more likely they are to be insufficient to deal with a small, fortified group of armed maniacs with a biological weapon who can hit them from ambush? After all, if they don't spread out, the search takes longer, it's easier for a small group to move from place to place to evade the search, and if the searchers do get exposed, there's more chance of it getting back ot the general population of the Keepstar.

That's not a search you conduct in a matter of hours, or probably even days. Not if you want to be sure. Not if you want the rest o the cluster to believe you're sure. And until that's done, the whole thing has to stay locked down. Which means none of that cure is getting out. Heck, the cure can't even be produced until the facilitiy can be guaranteed clear, because again, it needs to be trusted.

Start producing the cure before the facility can be credibly and thoroughly searched top to bottom, and the next move by the terrorists is a no-brainer: start spreading rumors that the cure has been tainted, that they got to it before security caught them. Hello wide-spread panic! So the cure gets delayed... because everyone thought it was a great idea to introduce a single point-of-failure to a system that didn't need one.

And for the record: suddenly there's a cure? Three whole days of collaboration—much of it in conferences—and there's a cure already tested and independently verified by completely uninvolved parties? The long-term side effects are understood? The virus is definitely completely gone, and won't flare up again in a year, turning all those 'cured' people into carriers to deliver bioweapons to all the places they've spread out to?

Do the rest of us a favor while you're all locked up there: take another two weeks, heck, take a month, and solve all the problems of cluster-wide peace and resource management.

Do the Servant Sisters have any representatives at the inquest? Given their humanitarian mission, their low profile throughout this whole saga has been bothering me.

Apologies for the idle question and my thanks to all those putting themselves at risk to help.

You weren't there. You haven't seen the amount of data, reports and patient dossiers there is. It is huge. I've personally seen my colleague Morwen Lagann go ahead with vaccination procedure, and it is well within the abilities of SOCT to establish a quarantine in the station environment. The situation is as secure as it can be.

We haven't encountered any SOE delegates.

Hee ... well, it's maybe not something we should go blithely walking out by shuttle even after receiving, even if I very strongly feel like doing that exactly. The plague is still here, after all, even if our bodies aren't safe environments for it. It'll probably be a while before, especially, the basic form of the speck is fully removed from the environment.

It seems the bodies of treated persons have some use in manufacturing and spreading the cure to others. I wonder if the medical teams here would have use for mine if I jump away?

Basically, Ms.Culome, it's not exactly a normal vaccine; rather, it's a treatment, I think probably nanite based, that cleanses the body of specks and sticks around to prevent the subject picking up more.

First-generation administration is uncomforable, but nothing we don't already experience as capsuleers. ("Start intubation" are slightly alarming words to be surprised by while lying on a procedure table. In the researchers' defense, they were kind if in a rush.) (I apologize if that was maybe more information than was wanted.)

Side effects ... it's a little hard to say. I don't think it'll follow me through a clone jump, but, at least, neither should any nasty malformed proteins be getting themselves copied along with the rest of my neurochemistry.

I think we'll wait a little longer before trying such things; the cure cleanses the body only over time.

Still, I get to see home again! I'd kind of given up on ever getting to do such a thing, myself, that is, as this version of me. I really thought I was going to be dead by now.

Edit:

By the way, Ms. Culome, you were right, along with Miz: the authority directly leading the Inquest did indeed know exactly what he was doing-- which was to intentionally undermine the Inquest while passing irregularities off as incompetence. Since it was a clonejacking, any damage to the victim's reputation was presumably irrelevant.

... I hope the real Doctor still has a recoverable backup somewhere.

That is why the last resolution is in place - we will get all research data.

That is why we amended it to include third party audition of the data ;) still, I believe Makoto Priano will be able to provide more details.