Interlude: Stone Dogs
“Give me the executive summary, doctor.”
“As your excellency wishes. Central to the Stone Dogs Project are three variants of
Alphainfluenzavirus Orthomyxoviridae- flu virus essentially. Created by selective breeding and an RNA splicing method-”
“I don’t care how they were made. I want the practicalities. How do the Stone Dogs function as a weapon?”
“Ah, yes of course Archon. All three of the Stone Dogs viruses are highly contagious and have the potential for a basic reproduction number as high as three- that is to say that we would expect someone infected to infect as many as three other additional people. Each eliminates infected persons through a distinct method- SD1 relies on cytokine storm, ah, it causes the immune system to attack itself, SD2 relies on pneumonia, the alveoli of the lung floods with fluid, SD3-”
“Forcing the handicappers to deal with three outbreaks at once. Can a person contract more than one of the viruses at once?”
“Yes, Archon. The goal is trigger three major epidemics simultaneously, with symptoms that will sap medical resources in three unique ways and require three unique vaccines to stop. While they vary slightly, all of the viruses have incubation periods of 3-5 months and 4-7% of those infected never show symptoms.”
“How is that good, doctor? Why would we want the handicappers to not show symptoms?”
“Ah, well persons who don’t show symptoms are more likely to spread a disease because they don’t know they’re sick and neither will the persons around them. The long incubation period also means that the Stone Dogs will be able to spread for a time without anyone realizing there’s an outbreak.”
“How many will die?”
“Averaged across all three of the Stone Dogs we see roughly 90% lethality without treatment, falling to 75% with treatment. This is counting the 5-7% who become carriers. The plan for deployment-”
“That is where I run into an issue. The plan for deployment.”
“I- um- I, well the deployment plan isn’t really my department Archon-”
“The plan itself is solid, my question is why wasn’t it implemented? From what I have here, the Eternal Polemarch authorized vaccinations against the Stone Dogs for government officials, front line troops, medical personnel, and other essential persons, but then he cancelled the planned vaccination of the general population and our allies, and never did anything further with the project. Tell me why doctor.”
“Archon… your excellency… it’s not really my place to speculate about the decisions of the Eternal Polemarch-”
“Speculate.”
“Yes, your excellency. I… from my understanding the Eternal Polemarch was concerned about some of the potential ways in which the Stone Dogs could backfire.”
“Such as?”
“Well, to start with the Stone Dogs viruses only have a 3-5 month incubation period in
healthy humans. The Alliance has significant populations with compromised immune systems who would likely start showing symptoms much faster- in as little as two weeks.”
“The Inferior genetics of the Machine State.”
“Quite so, excellency. Also the elderly, and persons undergoing certain types of medical treatments. The problem is that the Alliance’s medical experts are aware that a biowarfare attack from us is a possibility, and they are aware that the first sign of such an attack would come in the form of large numbers of immunocompromised persons falling sick. As such they monitor these populations closely and would realize within 3 to 4 weeks from deployment that they are under attack, and then implement public health measures to contain the spread. These measures aren’t really the problem- while they would likely slow the spread of the Stone Dogs, these are very virulent diseases and they would need to be extremely lucky to actually halt the outbreak. But-”
“The problem is that the sickness and death of a large number of the most Inferior persons in their society is unlikely to weaken the Alliance much, and they will still have at least two months to strike at us with everything they have before the
less Inferior persons in the Alliance start dying.”
“Precisely, excellency. Adding to that is the fact that viruses this lethal
will inevitably spread to the neutral countries, including Colombia and Centroamerica who we have no way of vaccinating without risking discovery. There is a good chance that countries like China would treat Project Stone Dogs as an act of war and join the Alliance to attack us.”
“Meaning that we find ourselves fighting against the entirety of the handicapped world for months before the real effects of the project begin to manifest.”
“Yes, Archon. There were also concerns about the Stone Dogs possibly being a double-edged sword. Viruses are living things and once deployed they will be totally outside of our control. Generally, viruses mutate into less lethal forms, but not always and we can’t guarantee that the vaccines we have prepared for the initial forms of the Stone Dogs will shield us from those new forms. There is a chance- a very, very tiny chance, but a chance- of a Stone Dogs virus mutating outside of our control while remaining deadly and sweeping through the Empire’s population.”
“And Kobold was afraid of this?”
“The Eternal Polemarch felt that given the potential damage that our enemies could do to us before they succumb, and given our inability to shield the friendly neutrals from the Stone Dogs’ effects, and given the small but extant chance of the project backfiring completely, that it was best held back unless war were to become truly unavoidable.”
“…”
“Excellency?”
“He was too kind of a man, the Eternal Polemarch.”
“I… I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“I do. He loved his troops, but to be a strong leader means sending your troops forth even if it means they will die in battle. He cared for the people, but to be a good leader means accepting that the people must make sacrifices for their own good. He worried for the fate of our allies, but a leader must always put the fate of his own people first. He wanted to wait until war was unavoidable- but war with the handicappers has been unavoidable since they first rejected Naldorssen’s truths.”
“Archon, I don’t know-”
“Tell me doctor, do you know how many members the Noble Race has? How many Superior individuals there are in our allies? How many Aspirants there are among the Honorary Whites?”
“I-”
“I’ll tell you the answer; not enough. One Superior man may be able to beat two, or three or five Inferiors- our Drakensis may be able to take on ten or more once they are grown- but what does that matter if the handicappers can outnumber us by hundreds or thousands on the battlefield? They use their godless machines to offset their inferiorities at the cost of their humanity, and eventually their societies will collapse into degenerate debauchery, but before that happens, they will have the numbers to drown us in their bodies. The Inferiors breed like rats and the longer they wait the more cogs they produce for their war machine.”
“Yes Archon.”
“Two months, five months… that is enough time to hurt the Empire, to hurt us severely even, but not long enough to truly to defeat us and occupy us- not with our allies as buffers between us and them. We only need to survive the gauntlet, and when the Stone Dogs reduce their numbers by 90% we can re-emerge to conquer what little is left. We will all lose friends, loved ones, and it may take us a century or more to recover, but the sacrifice will be worth it. This will be the Final War, the last war that humanity ever has to fight before the eternal peace of the Final Society. It is a hard decision to make, but it is also the only decision to make.”
“Ah, your excellency, you should know that while the Stone Dogs Project has the
potential to eliminate up to 90% of a population, that’s under absolutely perfect conditions. A combination of high-quality public health, rapid response, and luck could cut that number by half or more.”
“Have more faith in your creations doctor! And have faith in the degeneracy of our foes. A swift, effective response might work, but these are nations whose leaders are chosen for their popularity, not their skill. Britain may manage something, decayed as it is, and there is some vigor left in Australia and New Zealand, but the rest will fall. What is the next step for the Stone Dogs Project?”
“We have a stockpile sufficient to immunize 250 million persons, the next step is to vaccinate the Citizen populations here and elsewhere in the Pact, also the Nationals and those Bonded who are essential. We’ll do so under the cover of the annual vaccinations so the Alliance does not suspect.”
“Good. Go ahead with that, and notify me when we are ready to release the Stone Dogs. We will give them a couple of weeks to spread, and then launch a devastating conventional strike before the handicappers can realize what is happening. If you need to reach me, I am going on a pilgrimage.”
“A… pilgrimage, Archon?”
“Where better to be when the world ends than Jerusalem? Service to the state, doctor.”
“Glory to the race, your excellency.”
