What is the Gulag Virus?

[Onrai]

This is a question that's admittedly been bugging me since I came here. The Gulag Virus forms an integral part of our timeline, and yet we don't entirely know what it was, how it turned into a galaxy-killing plague... Feel free to speculate here until someone tosses out a solid answer.

I assume it's a virus that dissolves a human body, turning it into airborne gas that can infect others by touch.

 

[Hannibal Oryen]

It's a plot device.

Trust me, I'm a doctor.

 

[Jaxton Ravos]

It's a clean slate. A plot device. A way to make the galaxy completely empy of governments, so we as users can shape the galaxy as we choose. Without the Gulag plague things like the Moross Crusade would have likely never happened, or at least would be far, far more difficult, and conquering and Dominion new worlds wouldn't be possible. It allows us to expand in the universe.

 

[Helmut Todstern]

It's the perfect thing to take samples off, mutate and release again on the populace as a newly evolved pathogen, since the previous version led to an immunity developing. So a newly evolved form would catch that immunity off guard. Plus, if you allow it the biological opportunity to constantly evolve, the immunity would become useless and the epidemic would strike the galaxy again.

 

[Ayden Cater]

It's a plot device.

Primarily this.

It's the perfect thing to take samples off, mutate and release again on the populace as a newly evolved pathogen, since the previous version led to an immunity developing. So a newly evolved form would catch that immunity off guard. Plus, if you allow it the biological opportunity to constantly evolve, the immunity would become useless and the epidemic would strike the galaxy again.

You can try, the problems you encounter are two-fold.
1) Gathering an intact, unmodified sample of the virus. The virus stopped killing people and being a general threat more than 100 years ago, 200 according to some estimates. And like a real world virus, the problem with the Gulag Virus was that its lethality outpaced its infectivity. It killed faster than it could infect others. It killed its own living space.
2) All aspects of the Gulag virus, including but not limited to its creation and exact effect, are tightly, tightly controlled by Tef. So while one is free to try and make a new Gulag Virus, odds are Tef is going to tell you no.

 

[Nikolas Faselli]

I think the Gulag Virus is something like any other virus, but it's so strong and it takes effect so fast, that it's impossible to treat someone who has been infected. And also, I think it infects really easily. Not by just touching, but maybe via blood, saliva, coughing, sneezing and other things. But I don't know what to think about how it actually works. Like what it does to us. Maybe it raises fever really quickly or maybe it destroys our bodies from the inside or...

 

[Tefka]

People have tried to find out more about the Gulag virus before, but they've all disappeared....

No sign or trace....

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>_>

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<_>

 

[Louise]

It's chronic diarrhoea.

 

[Ayden Cater]

Master Tefka, have you taken your medication for that eye thing today?

 

[Louise]

Let's take his eyes and sell them as exotic alternative medicine.

 

[Darth Carnifex]

Maybe his eyes hold the secret of the Gulag Plague.

 

[Valiens Nantaris]

I'll get a spoon.

 

[Louise]

I've got the pestle and mortar.

 

[Delsin Shaw]

I'll get a spoon.

I've got the pestle and mortar.

I'll grab a bucket to hurl chunks in.