Icarus is not a story about the limitations of humanity.
It is a story about the limitations of wax.
| From | Dr. Simon Torres |
|---|---|
| Subject | Project Asclepius |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|LLA#ics.suipelcsA|LLA |
All right, everyone, this is a global push. If anyone here has been living inside VNP-3001 for the last few months, the PENTAGRAM made a highly communicable virus that permanently seals all magical potential of almost all living creatures. mRNA and other dynamic vaccines seem ineffective here, so don't expect this to be as easy as curing malaria or HIV.
This is our top priority; if your project has anything to do with thaumaturgy or biochemistry, your project is being suspended to work on this effective immediately. Everyone else, your access to priority resources has been deprioritized.
We have a year to fix this mess that the US government caused. Let's show the world what the global scientific community can do.
We will not go back to dying in the dark.
Simon Torres, CEO of Phoenix Technologies
Icarus is not a story about the limitations of humanity
It is a story about the limitations of wax.
Fox News
| foxnews.com |
Breaking: One Nation Under Quarantine.
"Total violation of American sovereignty" according to President Crenshaw.
| From | Dr. Laurent: Director of Phoenix Thaumic Biochemistry |
|---|---|
| Subject | Analysis of the virus |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|SISYLANA#ics.suipelcsA|SISYLANA |
The PENTAGRAM and JOICL are not cooperating at all in how they made this thing, so it looks like we need to reverse-engineer it. Attached is the genetic sequence of the virus's RNA and the predicted proteome, complete with structures. The fact that this thing can infect so many different organisms is at least an advantage, as there are almost certainly no post-transcriptional modifications that are not encoded into the virus. Normal viruses tend to only target one species, which allows them to modify enzymes using processes built into the host cell.
The problem is that this is the largest human virus I have ever seen at 300 thousand base pairs and there is significant usage on nontranslational and possibly anomalous base pairs as well.
Dr. Laurent: Director of Phoenix Thaumic Biochemistry
Where humanity failed, science must succeed
3 Attachments:
| From | Dr. Eisenberg |
|---|---|
| Subject | Mechanism of thaumic action |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|SISYLANA#ics.suipelcsA|SISYLANA |
From a thaumic perspective, this looks to be ingenious, the virus seems to have figured out how to synthesize scrantonite-353. For people who do not work in thaumic engineering, scrantonite is very effective at shutting down local magic due to the relativistic motion of quarks inside the Nuclei. See Scrantonite Symmetrization of the Mill Field, Dr. Cyprog, 1989 Prometheus Publishing.
The one good decision these guys made was using scrantonite-353 as opposed to the much more stable scrantonite-354 used in SRAs and advanced thaumic shielding. So at least the antimagic effect will be constrained in the person affected. However, this also means slow radiation poisoning and some good old-fashioned heavy metal poisoning in the long run.
Dr. Eisenberg
Professor of Ontological Studies, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Applied linear algebra isn't magic. Magic is applied linear algebra.
| From | Dr. Hansen |
|---|---|
| Subject | Basic analysis |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|SISYLANA#ics.suipelcsA|SISYLANA |
This virus has a very odd structure. It is a negative-strand RNA virus that acts as both a traditional virus and as a retrovirus. I am unsure how this virus creates scrantonite other than that it requires significant amounts of local EVE, however, the DNA reverse transcriptases are scrantonite-activated while the RNA polymerases are scrantonite-inactivated.
Effectively the Virus replicates rapidly like the flu in the early stages and tries to produce scrantonite, if it can produce scrantonite with local EVE quantities, then it integrates into the DNA of cells to continue to produce scrantonite.
Dr. Hansen: Doctor of virology, Cambridge University
| From | Dr. Tinad |
|---|---|
| Subject | The perfect anti-vaccine measure |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|SISYLANA#ics.suipelcsA|SISYLANA |
Bingo! We figured out why we cannot use regular vaccinations against this virus. Normal vaccinations work by providing examples of spike proteins to the body. The immune system then makes antibodies against said spike proteins and remembers how to make them.
The thing is that something about this virus's coating is antimemetic on a cellular level and the immune system cannot 'remember' how to fight it. The folks in medical are currently trying large numbers of recombinant sequences for mRNA vaccines, but we are uncertain that would work.
Dr. Tinad: Caltech Department of Antimemetics
| From | Dr. Aquevist |
|---|---|
| Subject | Novel Scrantonite Synthesis pathway |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|SISYLANA#ics.suipelcsA|SISYLANA |
Enzyme 27 has been fully identified and we think we found how this thing is making scrantonite. It is alchemically transmuting a mixture of nitrogen, iron, and cobalt into scrantonite. Now this normally requires a full-on transmutation circle.
We have designated it as Mal-EVE.
Based on our simulations, the people making this did a fantastic job. They figured out how to use the natural vibrations for the enzyme to act as a form of somatic component for the ritual to create the scrantonite. I have attached a video with the "atomic hands" highlighted.
Dr. Aquevist, University of Copenhagen
1 Attachment:
| Financial Times |
Carter Courier Channel now operational, restarting the flow of essential goods
| From | Dr. Laurent |
|---|---|
| Subject | Mechanisms of the Virus. |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|llA#ics.suipelcsA|llA |
Now, as per the attached paper, we can safely say that we have a good grasp of the virus and how it works. Now let's see ideas here on how we can stop this virus. I want to hear as many ideas about this as we can. Traditional methods have failed, so let's see what the brain trust can think of.
Dr. Laurent: Director of Phoenix Thaumic Biochemistry
Where humanity failed, science must succeed
1 Attachment:
| From | Dr. Leep Andrews |
|---|---|
| Subject | Project Warlock's Wheel |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|ERUC#ics.suipelcsA|ERUC |
Something we have seen is people in high Hume environments, like the Rocky Mountains, seem to have a slightly lower rate of uptake of this virus. As we know the virus's retrovirus phase is activated by scrantonite which in turn requires available EVE. In areas where EVE is naturally suppressed, like high hume areas, we see that the scrantonite doesn't build up to a high enough level to trigger the retroviral components.
We think that a powerful anti-magical field can act as a cure if performed before sufficient scrantonite build-up. We are currently conducting animal trials.
Leep Andrews PhD, Director Office of Virological Anomalies and Research
Vanguard, Lighthouse-234.
Viral packing of information into a narrow genome is the peak of efficiency we should all aim for
Vanguard ROMP channel: Lighthouse-234
Sherry: What kind of differences are we looking at here?
Leep: by our numbers its going from 99.9% effective to 99%
Sherry: Wait, is that even statistically significant?
Leep: yep, N = 10,000 in high hume areas alone. millions everywhere else. MOE of 0.2%.
Sherry: Jesus. I need a stiff drink.
Leep: agreed let's put that budget hike to good use
| From | Dr. Eisenberg |
|---|---|
| Subject | re:Project Warlock's Wheel |
| To | Dr. Sherry Andrews |
There are only a handful of American facilities that can support this treatment program, and that includes Paramax. The cost of doing this would be insane on a per-treatment basis.
Dr. Eisenberg
Professor of Ontological Studies, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Applied linear algebra isn't magic. Magic is applied linear algebra.
| From | Dr. Small |
|---|---|
| Subject | Project Nevinyrral |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|ERUC#ics.suipelcsA|ERUC |
The antimemetic shielding that this virus has seems to be fairly specific. I think that we can create some form of nanobot that can counteract the virus early in its life cycle. We will want to make sure said nanobot is not self-replicating to avoid what happened with Ceres, but such a system can be both deployed via injection and also deployed at a very widespread level.
Dr. Small: Nanoforge, Lichtenstein
Big things are made of many small things
| From | Dr. Yossarian Leiner |
|---|---|
| Subject | Project Roze-Kattee |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|ERUC#ics.suipelcsA|ERUC |
On my annual Pratchett reread an idea struck me. Could we create a god of plague and medicine that would be able to fix this issue? We would need to modify the Rite of Solomon to create a different form of Demiurge and theoretically, such a god could be created, and be able to cure such an illness.
There are a couple of major issues with this, firstly we will need permission from Vanguard and the GOC to know about the details of the Rite of Solomon. In addition, we have zero idea how to control a god. We presume that we can reverse engineer the Rite to figure this out, but it will require serious experimentation.
The final issue is getting people to believe in said god, the faith must be sincere to work, and generating a new religion is not exactly something we can do ethically. Though looking over some old foundation records, we could do it using widespread memetics. This could potentially be considered a crime against humanity, but it might be what is needed. We will be looking into alternatives there that are more ethical.
In a fit of irony it looks like the old Foundation figured out how to do what the PENTAGRAM was hoping for back in the 2010s using said memetics.
Dr. Yossarian Leiner: Tactical Theology, Vanguard, Lighthouse-27
Baruch Shem Kavod Malchuto L'Olam Va'ed
| From | Dr. Wagner |
|---|---|
| Subject | Project Project Piranther |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|ERUC#ics.suipelcsA|ERUC |
The issue here is the production of scrantonite. So let's double down on this, frequent injections of some kind of magic-enhancing material could counteract the scrantonite in the bloodstream. Colloidal silver is mostly nontoxic (apart from turning you into a Homestuck troll) and has magical enhancing properties.
Dr. Wagner: Esoteric Materials, Berlin
It would be a scientifically interesting way to die screaming.
Washington Post
Democracy Dies in Darkness
| Washington | July 3rd, 2049 |
Para-Pandemic
30% of all thaumically active Americans have been infected by the Washington Viron.
| From | Dr. Yossarian Leiner |
|---|---|
| Subject | Project Roze-Kattee is a bust |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|ERUC#ics.suipelcsA|ERUC |
While Vanguard seems interested in project Roze-Kattee the GOC has said that they will not let the Rite of Solomon out into the wild, saying that it is far too dangerous to use. Citing that it could very much be used to also cause the death of all magic, or worse restrict magic into only being used by a select group. While I would say that is better than the death of all magic that we are staring down, it is also understandable.
Dr. Yossarian Leiner: Tactical Theology, Vanguard, Lighthouse-27
Baruch Shem Kavod Malchuto L'Olam Va'ed
Caltech Teams server chatlog:
Tinad: Well good news and bad news on the mnestic project.
Tinad: Good news is that we have something that works. Bad news is that the only formulation that works is the old 2010 version.
Ebbs: It's what I am thinking of, no?
Tinad: Yep, the one that causes pancreatic cancer and hallucinations of a five tentacled monster, killed basically the entirety of the foundation antimemetics division.
Tinad: To make things worse, you need constant doses of the stuff otherwise it's a new shot for you!
Ebbs: Can we fix it?
Tinad: Probably, the issue is that we seem to have lost all data about mnestic development, and literally no one I know can remember anything about it.
Ebbs: Again?
| From | Dr. Wagner |
|---|---|
| Subject | Unacceptable levels of beryllium leeching in Project Piranther |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|ERUC#ics.suipelcsA|ERUC |
With all nanoscopic coatings on the Beryllium Bronze nanoparticles, all have either produced unacceptable levels of beryllium leeching or are highly carcinogenic in some other way. While a coating of 6-thiohexanoic acid does stop all copper leeching into the bloodstream, beryllium ions are small enough to slip out between the surfactant tails.
The layered fullerene approach does stop beryllium leeching, however, the number of layers required and the interface layers between the Beryllium Bronze nanoparticle, the fullerene, and the environment make the nanoparticle far too large to be useful.
Dr. Wagner: Esoteric Materials, Berlin
It would be a scientifically interesting way to die screaming.
Washington Post
Democracy Dies in Darkness
| Washington | May 7th, 2049 |
Pittsburgh in the dark
| From | Dr. Small |
|---|---|
| Subject | Project approved |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN#ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN |
Alright, so project Nevinyrral has been tentatively approved as a potential route to a cure. Now how do we do this?
- How do we make a form of nanobot that can target and kill the virus?
- How do we manufacture the number of nanobots we need?
- How do we make these things small enough?
- How do we make sure that the immune system doesn't murder these things with extreme prejudice?
- What energy source can these things use?
- How do we manufacture the number of nanobots we need?!
Dr. Small: Nanoforge, Lichtenstein
Big things are made of many small things
| From | Dr. Kumar |
|---|---|
| Subject | Detection |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN#ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN |
We have antibodies we can attach to the nanobots, that should work fine for detection, we can hook that into some fairly simple molecular motors and a peroxide injector to engulf the virus and kill it with hydrogen peroxide. This can be done fairly similarly with any kind of energy source and access to oxygen, fairly easy for the bloodstream and external usage.
Dr. Rahul Kumar: NexGen Biosciences, India
| From | Dr. Visethreach |
|---|---|
| Subject | Power Generation? |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN#ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN |
Now how do we even begin to power this thing?
Dr. Visethreach: Biomechanics Devi-Agri
| From | Dr. Subramaniam |
|---|---|
| Subject | Shielding the nanobot |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN#ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN |
Alright, how do we stop this thing from getting murdered by the immune system?
Dr. Subramaniam, YHIgen
| From | Dr. Wong |
|---|---|
| Subject | Scale concerns |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN#ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN |
Not to hurt everyone's feelings, but if we want to fit in all of the features that this project will need, we end up with a superstructure that is far too large to be acceptable. It is a hard requirement that this nanobot can fit into the smallest blood vessels, which usually require red blood cells to line up one at a time. Unless we can fix this, we will need to significantly scale back the effectiveness of Nevinyrral.
Dr. Wong, nanomechanics, Peking University
| From | Dr. Small |
|---|---|
| Subject | Congratulations everyone! |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN#ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN |
We have a prototype for how to make a nanobot that can fight this virus. Now how do we manufacture it in large enough quantities to be useful? The people at the top banned us from making it self-replicating as they don't want what happened to Ceres to happen to Earth.
Dr. Small: Nanoforge, Lichtenstein
Big things are made of many small things
| From | Dr. Li |
|---|---|
| Subject | Bacterial assembly |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN#ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN |
How about assembling the system inside of a bacterial colony? These things are too large to assemble inside of bacteria unlike some of our older nanobots. So perhaps some kind of extracellular assembly system could work. I spun up EnzymeGPT and I do have a set of plasmids that can assemble all of the components, see attached for the proposed reaction pathways.
Dr. Li: Feng Huo technology
2 Attachments:
| From | Dr. Small |
|---|---|
| Subject | Synthesis issues |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN#ics.suipelcsA|LARRYNIVEN |
Alright, so we have inducted each of the component pathways into the bacteria. The following pathways have not produced usable outputs.
- Synthesis of the macroantibodies
- Synthesis of the peroxide generators
Dr. Small: Nanoforge, Lichtenstein
Big things are made of many small things
| From | Dr. Small |
|---|---|
| Subject | Total success! |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|ERUC#ics.suipelcsA|ERUC |
We have done it, we have constructed a nanobot that can counteract the virus. See the attached files.
The nanobots have been successful at stopping infection of class 3 thaumaturgically active mice! We have also not seen any significant negative side effects of this process, even with significant overdoses.
Some issues still need to be ironed out, but we are ready to go into large-scale testing and production now.
Dr. Small: Nanoforge, Lichtenstein
Big things are made of many small things
2 Attachments:
The New York Times.
All the news that's fit to print
| From | Dr. Small |
|---|---|
| Subject | Let's cure this thing! |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|GNIRUTCAFUNAM#ics.suipelcsA|GNIRUTCAFUNAM |
Here are the plans and information on how to manufacture the Nevinyrral nanobot. It is now up to you people to mass manufacture this nanobot and distribute it.
Dr. Small: Nanoforge, Lichtenstein
Big things are made of many small things
| From | Dr. Kirsty |
|---|---|
| Subject | The problems of scientific scaling |
| To | ics.suipelcsA|GNIRUTCAFUNAM#ics.suipelcsA|GNIRUTCAFUNAM |
What were the people who developed this procedure thinking?! Their method requires a decent-sized fermentation vat to produce singular doses of the nanobot, we need to figure out how to increase total production by two orders of magnitude before we have something that can be deployed on any sort of scale.
Dr. Kirsty: Synthitase biochemistry
Replicating a better world
| From | Zhang |
|---|---|
| Subject | Major order of new Fermentation vats |
| To | moc.ygoloiBoooS|LLA#moc.ygoloiBoooS|LLA |
听好了伙计们，我们收到了新款纳米发酵缸的订单。生产流水线要007排班生产，我们所有人得尽快训练好发酵缸的新操作人员。不是每一天你会听到世界的命运依赖着我们，但今天这句话我是必须说的。我们人类需要这项发酵缸来阻止华盛顿纳米病毒。
Automatic Translation generated by LLaMa-7.1-400B
Alright, folks, we have a massive scale order of a new kind of fermentation vat. The assembly lines will be running 24/7 now, it will be everyone's job to train new workers on how to make these things as quickly as possible. It's not often we can say the fate of the world depends on our work, but currently, it does.
Zhang: Sooo Biological Manufacturing.
NPR
| World News |
Proposed impeachment of President Crenshaw fails 224-223
The impeachment failed by the slimmest of votes due to Megan McCain falling ill to the Washington Virion.
| From | Jeremy Johnston |
|---|---|
| Subject | Distribution of the vaccine |
| To | gro.nu.ophw|NORIV-NOTGNIHSAW#gro.nu.ophw|NORIV-NOTGNIHSAW |
We have identified ideal locations for the manufacturing of this nanobot, namely easy logistical access and high local population densities, especially of anomalous beings. We have drafted up plans on how we can get this vaccine to the 11 billion people who need it.
PEPFAR and Operation Warp Speed provided a very useful set of guidelines here.
Jeremy Johnston. World Parahealth Organization
| From | Olivia Brown |
|---|---|
| Subject | Scaling of the preventive system |
| To | gro.nu.ophw|NORIV-NOTGNIHSAW#gro.nu.ophw|NORIV-NOTGNIHSAW |
What exactly is the plan for spreading the externally applied nanobot? While we can inject people and captive anomalous entities with the nanomachines, we can't exactly do that with creatures in the wild.
Olivia Brown. World Parahealth Organization
| From | Jeremy Johnston |
|---|---|
| Subject | re:Scaling of the preventative system |
| To | gro.nu.ophw|NORIV-NOTGNIHSAW#gro.nu.ophw|NORIV-NOTGNIHSAW |
The current plan is what New Zealand did to fight possums in the country before it sunk below the waves. Mass aerial spraying via helicopters and planes.
Jeremy Johnston. World Parahealth Organization
1 Attachment:
Washington Post
Democracy Dies in Darkness
|
Washington |
Oct 17rd, 2049 |
The nightmare is over!
Distribution of the Asclepius vaccine is in full swing
2056: Stockholm, Sweden. 6 years after the crisis
Dr. Small walked onto the stage and shook hands with the Queen of Sweden. A prize named after a merchant of death was bestowed upon him for his work curing the greatest threat to the world as we know it since the Impasse.
"I would like to thank the Nobel Prize committee for this great honor. Of course, I cannot say that I was solely responsible for this great work. The Asclepius nanomachine and its many derivatives that have made life so much better for everyone was a massive collaboration between thousands of scientists. Every grand advance is built from many small ideas and minor innovations."
Dr. Small waved to the audience of scientists.
"The Asclepius nanomachine is quite frankly a scientific miracle. The Washington Viron was the result of decades of advances in biological warfare to create the most incurable epidemic possible. However, with the massive mobilization of the global scientific community spearheaded by Dr. Torres, we managed to create the miracle for ourselves. We reached for the heavens and grabbed what we could, pushing past the limits of what we thought to be possible."
He looked down at his carefully prepared speech, a lovely bit of PR by Nanoforge and Phoenix.
He decided to ignore it.
"However there is one major failure. While the scientific community created miracle after miracle fighting this virus, the rest of the world failed at it. Starting of course with Crenshaw creating this abominable virus to begin with. Though the man was very clear he was going to do something like this in the build-up to his election, we cannot lay the blame on one man's evil, but we need to look at the country itself. A nation so wrapped up in a fear of the other, that they are willing to elect anyone who claims they have a solution, no matter how evil or how unlikely it is to work.
"On the other hand, we have the UNGOC, whose response to this crisis, ended up causing yet more problems. The starting attempts to seal off the United States and various cities likely saved the world from a much worse fate. However, their actions afterward seemed to imply an organization more focused on its own power than on actually stopping the virus. Its heavy-handed actions inspired more resistance to the isolation needed to keep the virus contained, which ultimately led to the virus spreading more than it would have otherwise. The GOC treated this crisis as an opportunity to cover up their crimes in Silesia with good PR.
"Science saved us from this calamity, but it was a failure in the humanities that got us into this mess. We have a general public who is okay with othering a massive section of the population and a leadership that is more obsessed with power and revenge than any kind of ethics.
"Science bailed us out this time, but it may not in the future. The only way we can do that is by knowing each other better.
"Knowledge is power, but it is up to us to figure out how we use it."
