Red Plague

WI, right after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a diehard communist steals some sort of experimental bio weapon from a Soviet laboratory and releases it in the United States of America? The bio weapon would be something like the viruses that we always see in apocalyptic sci-fi when everyone dies of a disease. You know, like the super flu in The Stand or the KV in I am Legend. Same mortality rating.
 

Bearcat

Banned
Alibek

claimed they had genetically modified diseases, including smallpox. Mortality rate could have been *extreme*.

Hello dystopia.
 
There is an excellent chance that highly lethal diseases simply kill themselves out before taking too many victims--one possibility is that the Diehard Communist is the first and only victim of the disease and dies in the Bioweapons facility in Russia.

Crazies interested in mass death are generally not the most sane people on the planet, and someone who is oblivious to the idea that their own people are going to be among the dead very shortly afterward is probably going to wind up dead.

Assuming this is not the case, it is possible that Russia has some kind of answer for the biological weapon and goes public with it. I think they'd have to, if they want any chance of avoiding a global pandemic and a mass death of their own people. With that information in place...MAYBE a Quarantine will work. A Jack Ryanesque order of shutting down everything for two weeks might work as well.

Once this becomes a global pandemic, however, the consequences are likely to overwhelm the planet. The USA might launch the nukes at Russia if they learned about this from their own victims, wonderful variation on the pandemic.

And then there is the question of what the pandemics nature is--if it is smallpox, it is around to stay and will simply keep a high toll of victims until a vaccine can be made. This could be an extinction level event if human groups on Earth are reduced below 50 survivors, which might be the case.

Either there are enough survivors to repopulate the world over centuries, or there aren't and humanity disappears. What a way to go.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
WI, right after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a diehard communist steals some sort of experimental bio weapon from a Soviet laboratory and releases it in the United States of America? The bio weapon would be something like the viruses that we always see in apocalyptic sci-fi when everyone dies of a disease. You know, like the super flu in The Stand or the KV in I am Legend. Same mortality rating.


There are lots of scenarios that play this card up to today. Toward the end of the USSR, the ability to REALLY genitically alter bugs was available, and Soviet scientests were some of the leaders in the field.

Problem with kill 'em all diseases is, well, they do.
 
This could be an extinction level event if human groups on Earth are reduced below 50 survivors, which might be the case.
There are hundreds of groups on Earth which have no physical contact with outside world for months, but are connected as far as information distribution is concerned. Remote weather stations, nuclear subs, floating fish processing plants. Latter are an ideal place to preserve humankind, as crews included (at least on Soviet ships) both men and women.
 
Are bio-weapons that effective? I'd assume that small amounts of people would be immune to them or the virus would accidentally mutate into a less scary version of itself.
 
Are bio-weapons that effective? I'd assume that small amounts of people would be immune to them or the virus would accidentally mutate into a less scary version of itself.

I'm not sure. I'd like to think not, but it could easily get just horribly wild.

Something that is highly contagious, highly lethal once contracted, able to move through the air, through the water, and through animal hosts. Long Incubation period...

Further, many diseases are interspecific, and able to spread between all manners of animals to humans.

I can't rule out an extinction level disease emerging, one that would simply be carried by animals until all of humanity is wiped out, and one that humanity simply never can defeat.

I'd have thought bioweapons would be a little bit savvier in terms of usage--likely to kill themselves out so as not be a major problem, possibly treatable with a treatment known in advance to inoculate one's own citizens. In otherwords, a quick way to clear out a community without worrying about things spreading around too far, but a disease that pwns the world can't be ruled out...
 
Cultured bioWeapons are very nasty, but not as bad as the movies make out. the combination of a long incubation period, non-mutatability and deadliness seem incompatible.
In nature, even things like Ebola dont kill everyone. You might, with an awful lot of work and a LOT of luck, get something with a 90% mortality rate (assuming no quarantines). That still leaves around 600 million humans. Even a 99% rate (lets be generous and assume more deaths due to the collapse caused by the virus) in the UK would leave a population of 600,000. Somewhat less than in the medieval period, but not hugely less.

And remember, the critical things to give a high death rate are the non-mutating and long incubation period, Things which, if achieved, mean the weapon will come back and bite you as well.
 

Bearcat

Banned
Cultured bioWeapons are very nasty, but not as bad as the movies make out. the combination of a long incubation period, non-mutatability and deadliness seem incompatible.
In nature, even things like Ebola dont kill everyone. You might, with an awful lot of work and a LOT of luck, get something with a 90% mortality rate (assuming no quarantines).

Check this out:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/11/01/MNG202O9ED1.DTL&type=printable

http://www.fas.org/biosecurity/education/dualuse/FAS_Jackson/2_A.html

My understanding is that the mortality rate was basically within spitting distance of 100%.
 
Top