Intergalactic Summit

I'd also like to see a responsible period of testing and observation to provide a reasonable level of assurance that these things won't develop a replication glitch that leads to disastrous side-effects.



In other words, you offered up completely unfounded speculation as on-site information, and waited two days to clear that up? I mean, it's not like even my original objections stated that the persistent nanomachines angle was a massive red flag.

Of course, there's very little else that could function like this—a normal vaccine won't help those already infected, and whatever drug treatments would constitute a 'cure' would be purged from the bloodstream... unless there were, I dunno, nanomachinery in there churning it out, which gets us right back to where we are...



It was, as I'm pretty sure my statement made clear, a reference to your earlier insistence that because voting was involved, the Gallente Federation's Senate represented a form of authority that the people can and should implicitly trust.



You say something utterly irresponsible and dismissive of the long-term threat that incautious introduction of a potential nanoplague after extremely limited testing poses, and then don't like having that threat laid out in the kind of detail that seems necessary to make you understand why what you're saying is, frankly, monstrous on a scale I can't even apply to the Day of Darkness. Maybe... don't make the monstrous statement in the first place?

I'm asking the people who were there, who were involved, and who have, of their own volition, offered up information as to the nature of the plaguecure. That doesn't make this my only line of inquiry, mind you, and if I get more reliable information from people who aren't, it seems, just offering up wild speculation, I will most certainly make that information available.

A) Four sites, under quarantine and travel restrictions. Five, if you count the Keepstar, also quarantined. That is not an immediate threat against all human life in the cluster. It's not even close. I mean, I really do hate to sound callous here, because I'm not at all immune to the plight of those in the quarantine zones, but a few hundred million deaths in already-contained outbreaks is not 'the very real potential for loss of all human life in the cluster'. Even if it were a billion lives, that's less than 0.001% of the Amarr Empire alone.

The problem with releasing the treatment now, after such limited testing, is pretty simple: How long have we known about Kyonoke? How long has it taken to get this far in developing a treatment?

If there is some catastrophic 'knock-on' (and wow, what a dismissive and perjorative term there) effect from this, how widespread will it be? I mean, let's remove the 'people will travel to/from these places after receiving treatment' issue. New Eden is run by the profit motive. There's a vaccine/cure for the most terrifying plague ever known to man.

Anyone wanna place odds this won't be the go-to gift for the holiday season this year? No matter which holiday you pick? People will be lining up for this thing in droves. They'll be trying to get it for their kids to keep them safe. They will likely be screaming in the streets if they can't get it, and someone near them has a cold.

So...

Q: How wide-spread will the side-effects be?
A: We don't know.

Q: How debilitating will the side-effects be?
A: We don't know.

Q: How much lead-time will we have from the first test subjects displaying side-effects to their expression in the general public?
A: ABOUT AS LONG AS THE TESTING REGIME RUNS BEFORE GENERAL RELEASE.

Q: So what's the worst-case scenario, since, you know, 'hope for the best, plan for the worst'?
A: 3 days.

Q: What are the odds a cure for the cure can be developed in that window?
A: Pretty damned small, so we're back to hoping for the best.

Q: Is a longer testing period pretty much guaranteed to answer those questions?
A: Yes.

Q: Are we sure there will be side-effects?
A: There is no medical treatment in the history of man that hasn't had them. Anti-biotics are poisons, Aspirin taken for headaches thins the blood and can inhibit clotting. Caffeine spikes blood pressure, heart-rate, and stresses the kidneys. There will be side-effects.

You aren't being callous, really, but do consider that my welcoming of this treatment is based on the fact that there was no guarantee of sterilization of any of the sites, AND!

This is important.

The fact that it was being weaponized. Factually. We still don't know exactly where the stocks are that were used to induce this outbreak in the first place, and presumably they still exist. In this very forum, right here, attempts were being made with varying credibility to foster Kyonoke's spread. YES, it was and is a real threat to all human life.

So.

And no, for the record, a specific date for disclosure was not specified other than "immediate".

Oh for the love of all the rotted damn worlds.

It is your job to fuss where other people shrug and say "Oh, it isn't my job to fuss about that". That is right and proper. One is glad to share a cluster with this fuss, and wholly delighted one doesn't share a station with it. One is going to go put some jam in some yoghurt and reflect on this multifoliate bloom of good fortune.

Thanks, Ms. Raske.




I'm rarely certain of anything. Maybe my tendency to express things in tentative terms can be troublesome when I really do mean I think something's the case.

But yes, the guess was based on exactly that kind of analysis.



I'm not sure when I made such a statement. As far as I can remember, democracy is a form of government of which I'm particularly skeptical precisely because it places power in the hands of the worst-informed and least-qualified.

I'm Caldari, Ms. Culome. More particularly, I'm culturally Achura. We're probably the world's strangest theocracy: rule of the remains of a once-mighty (in its own one-planet context) feudal empire by its monks, supported by scholars from other fields.

Those are the people I tend to trust to lead: thinkers. That's presumably how I was brought up, though of course I can't remember; just, my head's full of explicit or implicit arguments in favor of this. The Caldari generally trust their Executive caste in similar ways, and for similar reasons.

I trust people who, by their very position, are best-situated to see matters clearly. To me the greatest mystery of the Federation is how it's survived centuries of what to me looks a lot like rule-by-ignorant-mob.



... I'm getting tired of having things I say to try to explain things concisely and tentatively taken as though I'd (1) stated them without ambiguity and (2) submitted them for review at some scientific journal or something. We're waiting for more information, too. I didn't think that was so unclear.

AND using those to make a stream of unflattering judgments about me. Have you been taking lessons from Miz or something? You seem to be getting along really well lately.

I'm not a very principled person to begin with; there's not much I really believe in. A lot of positions I take are just how things look to me at the moment, or reflexes I have, left over from before. So, I guess, please feel free to consider me a horrible irresponsible person if that's what you really think I am. From certain points of view, you're definitely correct.

Think what you want. I don't ... care. I guess.

Right now ... I thought I'd come to terms with death, that it wasn't something I was really afraid of anymore. Staring it in the eye for an extended period, having that long to see it coming, and then never quite arrive.... It's not even as though it was very last-minute, but, I'm not used to having an extended period to consider how a timeline I'm currently experiencing is completely unique to my current body and that experience is shortly going to end. Probably horribly. Only ... it never did.

I know you kind of like chewing on people, Ms. Culome. Usually I kind of enjoy discussing stuff, but right now I'm ... I don't think I'm up to it. It's not like what happens now is in my control in any real way. I'm in quarantine. A prisoner, again, and my head's kind of all sideways.

Just for now, I'd be grateful if you could please find another sparring partner.

I'm waiting for the eccentric medic who will claim this vaccine causes autism in capsuleers. Because there will be a correlation.

I meant after the arrival of equipments. Everyone chill headed and all with the reclusion time ?

Right now people seem mostly pretty relieved; the festive mood hasn't really died down around here.

There's some concern about the whole situation, of course; just because we're not going to die immediately and there's hopefully relief on the way to other quarantine zones doesn't quite mean the crisis is over, and, also, we've just had a brush with a near-mythic plague whose full nature and characteristics aren't fully known. It's hard to say what the long-term effects are going to be, of either the pathogen or its cure.

I'm hoping to find out more about the cure, but, now that my role as a delegate's been exhausted information's gotten harder to come by. There were some indications at some point that the cure might have damaging neurological side-effects-- psychosis, that kind of thing, and not on the kind of extreme-term time frame Arrendis is talking about. I'm not clear on whether we ever found out for sure.

(My reference to the possibility that I might become violent wasn't me poking fun: it's an actual possibility.)

For now, there's a lot going on. I'm just kind of trying to stay out of the way.

You diseased and guinea pig Caldari capsuleers are no longer welcome in the State. You were warned about working with outside sources.

Look at you now, diseased and guinea pigs.

Ill petition the CEP to renounce your status as Caldari citizens , we admire what you have achieved, with your international friends , cure , good, but we don't your disease ridden bodies back in the State. Ill push for medal for you , how does the glory outcasts sound?

If you see them in the State , kill them , cause brain damage so they can't clone properly, burn'em. Its only way to protect State citizens.