Vrag
The Second Seal, broken.
Name: Pazhkic'Dau
Designation: Non-sentient
Homeworld: Selvaris
Language: N/A
Average height of adults: 1-2 μm
Skin color: Transparent, with speckles of gold and red
Hair color: N/A
Breathes: Type II
Strengths:
- Aggressive: Capable of passing the blood-brain barrier. Due to its flexibility and size, the creature can squeeze through the barrier formed by the endothelial cells of the brain and into the brain extracellular fluid.
- Breeder: Once it's inside a cell of the host, it starts propagating very quickly, leading to exponential spreading across the whole organism.
- Choker: The creatures, once their numbers are sufficient, proceed to weave tight nets around the midi-chlorians in the cell, effectively forming a Force-dead lattice around each organelle.
- Dependent: Incapable of surviving outside its host. Once the creature is extracted from the host organism, it will die in a matter of seconds.
- Eager: In the beginning of its life inside a host, the Dau is exposed due to its aggressive nature, making it easy prey for species with especially resilient immune systems.
- Frail: It has no protection to speak of, not to mention that its size alone makes it susceptible to mechanical damage. One need only brush against it, and the Dau will die.
- Extremely small
- Extremely flexible
- Amorphous
- Force-dead
Races: None
Estimated Population: In the order of billions
Diet: Simple proteins, lipids and carbohydrates
Communication: Signal peptides
Culture: None
Technology level: None
General behavior:
- If left to their own devices inside the nutrient broth where they are bred, the Dau merely propagate and die.
- Inside a host, however, the creature seeks out the source of the Force, the midi-chlorians, and spreads across the organism.
Without wasting another precious moment, the Shapers went to work, their goal not to transform the body, but that which was the most alien of all to the Yuuzhan Vong; the Force. Instead of removing a limb, the Shapers sought to remove the connection to the Force that all beings in their adopted galaxy shared. It would bring the wayward souls closer to the Yun'O and salvation, granting them a chance to join the ranks of their proud children, should they prove themselves in the eyes of the gods.
The… noble intentions of the Shapers aside, the Commanders of the Legion saw another, more practical use in the creature; control. The infidel races, once severed from the Force, would be as weak as newborn babies, and therefore easy pickings for the Yuuzhan Vong. In their broken state, the victims could (and would) be turned into empty vessels, easy to remold to whatever image they saw fit.
The first experiments with the newly created creature, dubbed the Pazhkic'Dau, were conducted during the final expansion of the Legion Yun'Do across the vongformed planet of Selvaris, upon none other than the inhabitants of the world that were captured. Casualties of war — if one could call the one-sided conflict war — given to the gentle hands of the Shapers without a thought to their protest or well-being. Many of the captives died during the process, due to a multitude of reasons: ranging from infection to the overly-aggressive propagation of the Dau, it was safe to say that the few that survived could count themselves lucky.
Time, experience and extensive experiments led to the perfected organism that the Shapers than declared as fitting to execute the will of the gods. Contrary to the usual Vong beast — a hulking, well-armed monstrosity that had the enemy soiling their pants at a mere glance — the Pazhkic'Dau was altogether invisible to the naked eye, but nonetheless dangerous. Arguably even more so than many other, seemingly deadlier creations of the Shapers.
In the end, however, no amount of isolated testing can prove the usefulness of a product, and so the time came to set the creature free.
Well, not literally, seeing as the poor creature can't survive outside a host and could be killed by something as mundane as a strong gust of wind; no, the Shapers decided that the Pazhkic'Dau was ready for field testing, so to speak. Its effectiveness had been confirmed in controlled conditions, but every bird must leave its nest and venture out into the unknown.
Any unfortunate beings who lost to the unyielding advance of the Legion — provided they were still alive, of course — would henceforth find themselves at the mercy of the Pazhkic'Dau.
And what a cruel mercy that was!
Upon entering the organism, the creature would immediately seek out the nearest cell and enter it via the endocytic pathway (or phagocytic, where applicable). Afterwards, the Dau would extract itself from the endosome with the help of enzymic lysis of its membrane and enter the cytosol proper. There the creature would begin to propagate, using the nutrients and resources continually provided by the cell to further expedite its replication. Due to the inherent simplicity of the Dau, the division itself takes little time to begin with, which results in a fairly short incubation period. This depends both on the size of the host and the strength of its immune system, but it usually takes anywhere from 4 (for the smallest and weakest) to 7 (for the biggest and strongest) days until the creature has "infected" every cell of the body.
Once this stage of the creature's expansion across the organism is complete, the Dau begins to execute its true purpose inside the body of the host; sever the Force. The idea behind it is indeed a very simple one, relying on the beautiful concept of Occam's razor to work. The many Dau form a lattice around each organelle in the cell, connecting amongst themselves with their amorphous "bodies". The Shapers have so far failed in making the lattice formation specific only to the midi-chlorians, but in the end it matters little. Due to the nature of the creature, its presence in the cell hardly interferes with its natural cycle. After the Dau is done propagating, it requires very little sustenance, and usually three to four specimens are enough to form a lattice around any given organelle (with the exception of the nucleus). While the repercussions of being severed from the Force are fairly obvious if the host is a Force-sensitive, the effects on the "ordinary" people are somewhat diminished. Since the Force is something that permeates everything in the known galaxy, even the common folk feel the consequences of being cut off from it, but it is nowhere near as severe as it is with the Force-sensitives. They may experience discomfort, confusion, distress, and other negative emotions, but ultimately they will usually recover.
The end result is a multitude of Pazhkic'Dau residing in the host organism, replicating only when the cells themselves go through mitosis. What creatures remain outside the cells are eventually excreted through urine or feces (or other applicable means, depending on the species). They die within seconds of leaving the host body, provided they even make it through the digestive system alive.
Its inability to survive outside a living organism presented some difficulty with transportation and route of administration, but the Commanders — the more practical sort compared to the Shapers, who would often overthink certain problems — eventually realized they could use their own people as a way to kill two mynocks with one stone.
Anything and anybody from the lowest of Chazrach to the most respected of Warriors could be a carrier for the Dau; the former weren't left with any choice in the matter — and it meant the slave soldiers were severed from the Force in the process — whereas the creature could do nothing to harm the Yuuzhan Vong themselves. The only side-effect of volunteering to be a vector for the Dau was a bout of exhaustion in the first few days of accepting the Dau into their body, when the creature was propagating at a heightened rate. Afterwards, however, the Vong had no difficulty going about their tasks as if nothing had changed.
In the end, this meant two things; any carrier, willing or not, would find themselves severed from the Force; they could transfer the Dau to another living being by any exchange of bodily fluids, e.g. saliva, blood, sperm, etc. So long as even a single Dau remained alive within the fluid, it could force its way through the tight junctions between the skin cells (provided the species didn't possess some sort of natural armor). The preferred — and faster — route was, of course, a direct injection of the Dau within their nutrient broth, usually into the bloodstream, though a subcutaneous injection (or even an intraosseous one) would do. In short; so long as the Dau could come in contact with the cells of the organism, the Dau could enter the organism.
Despite its unassuming size and inconspicuous behavior, the Dau is obviously a creature not many would voluntarily accept inside their body, unless their intent is to lose their connection to the Force. As such, the less willing of hosts might someday want to get rid of the creature. To accomplish this, a cure of some sort would have to be conceived and developed, one that could only target the Dau while leaving the rest of the host organism alone. Seeing as the creature eventually comes to reside in every cell of the host, designing such a cure would be quite the feat of science to say the least.
Notable Player-Characters: None.
Development thread: Here; Laguz Vald is exposed to the Pazhic'Dau (24 posts total)
Intent: To create an organism that would aid in the subjugation and conversion of the population of vongformed planets. No PC may be infected with the Pazhkic'Dau without the express permission of the writer.
