Welcome to the forums NicAdi. Please see this thread about making suggestions.
Thank you.
I already read that; however, at this point in time, I am neither interested, nor compelled to make any suggestions -- the main reason being that, based on the discussions I've witnessed thus far, it strikes me as a futile activity. Much like the XVI entity, I'm not commiting resources (mainly time), unless I can get something of value out of it.
I am simply asking questions about what I perceive as the current storyline's "weak points" -- and I haven't even got to the "big ones" yet. Whether you (as in "you", the developers/story-tellers) would bother to take them into account or not, is entirely your decision; I have no strong expectations either way...
We established on the top of this page that he seemed to write a bit too agressively in his post, so he accidently portrayed himself as a "STFU or GTFO" guy, which was not intentional.
"We"?! I'm sorry, but there's no "we" on this matter; YOU chose to buy into his (rather feeble) attempt of an explanation, I did not... I could go through the reasoning process which lead me to give the response I did, but I'd rather spend my time here talking about the game.
Besides, I consider the matter closed and have no further wish of discussing it.
Therefore, shall we go back to the game?
One thing I tried to say was that maybe part of the re-engineering process is giving the XVI ways to evade, bypass and fight the immune system.
Oh, yes, I understood that, and I do agree -- it is a good starting point. Certainly knowing how the immune system of a target species works (an understanding that can be conceivably obtained by mapping that species' genome, and/or by conducting tissue sample experiments in the lab) could highlight its weaknesses and prompt ways of efficiently evading/disabling/fighting it by simply exploiting those weaknesses. Now, completely disabling or putting up a fight with the immune system would be a poor idea; the former will literally "open the door" to other, more local, attackers (resulting in the host becoming ill, with possible fatal outcome -- see
AIDS); the latter will undoubtedly leave/generate signs that will both prompt the host that "something's not right" (i.e. illness symptoms), and offer tangible, medical proof of infection. Neither of those are desired effects for the agent; thus, the first option of evading the host's immune system is the only viable one.
However, there are some downsides to this approach. A major one would be that the infectious agent, in its re-engineered state to fit the human physiology, will
become much less of an indescifrable mystery. The reason is simple: in order to live/interact within a human host (not to mention "fool" the immune system into seeing it as a "legit" cell), it will need to replicate certain cellular structures and behaviours. In essence, it *MUST* become something of a less "alien" and more "local" nature. Such structures and behaviours will be much easier identified and understood (perhaps even countered) by a well-trained immunologist/molecular biologist... In short, making it work within a human body will also make it less cryptic. Of course, this fact alone does not mean the infection will also be easily cured; just better understood.
What I was trying to say is that when the XVI infects a brain, it's reduced to a mere computer working for the hivemind (analogue: a computer infected with a virus, so it is under control of a criminal). But if and when you cure the person and as such his brain, his memories and capability for conciousness are not hampered; at most he will be very disoriented and has very random bits of the hivemind's memories in his brain (you remove the virus and nothing has really happened to your computer; at most some clues are left about the criminal). The more negative way this might happen that upon removal the brain is left into a state when there isn't actually anything there. The person won't remember literally anything from normal memories to abilities like language (the removed virus managed to format or corrupt all your files). But to the brain nothing has happened, the "hardware" is not damaged and the person will not turn into a vegetable, unless of course the cure causes brain damage (your HDD and processor are still working even after the virus, unless the removal included breaking them).
And as in my original post, most of this is speculation mixed in with my logic.
Hmm... There is nothing in the UFOPaedia articles I've read thus far, that says anything about the nervous system of the host becoming infected with the agent. In fact, aside from a vague hint in the
Storyline » A New Twist, about some "infected tissues", there is no clear statement about what type of tissues, aside from the blood, this agent may permeate. Hence the reason why I raised it as a question...
Whilst I understand what you mean, I must urge you to
be very careful with that brain-computer analogy; the human brain is
*NOTHING* like what we understand now through the term "computer". It is, in fact, completely different from both the morphological and functional standpoints. The
human brain does not have separately-identifiable components that perform only data processing, memorization, or input-output functions; also,
the human mind does not function by "running programs"... I also wish to point out that, unlike computers, for the human brain (or any other brain, for that matter), there's
a very strong connection between its structure and its function.
Alter one, and there will be observable/measurable changes to the other... Furthermore, what you're describing as a "computer virus" is most likely another type of malware, such as a
hijacker (diverting the compromised system's resources to serve other purposes than "officially" intended), or
backdoor (allowing unauthorized access to the compromised system, either locally or remotely).
I appreciate your responses, and do not wish to come across as being rude: but I was looking for the *OFFICIAL* angle to my questions. As I continue with reading through the various UFOPaedia articles, I do find clues which may be used to fashion the answers I seek; unfortunately, sometimes these clues seem to contradict each-other, or are too vague to be of any use...
There are also other things that caught my eye -- some of which quite bothersome; so here are a few further questions:
- All the alien species currently in the game are humanoid in appearance, and also seem to share some fundamental biological structures, both between themselves and with us (humans) -- such as the DNA and chromosomial structures. Does this imply the overall story is built upon the theoretical premise of Panspermia? If so, shouldn't more commonalities, at the cellular level, be shared both between the aliens, and us? If not so, then how are the structures cited as common explained?
- The UFOPaedia article cited above (i.e. Storyline » A New Twist) makes reference to the infectious agent as both "a kind of single-cellular organism", and "a complex multi-celled organism". For obvious reasons, both statements cannot be true at the same time. So, which is which?!
- The same article states that the infectious agent "acts and replicates exactly like one [a virus]". To my knowledge, a common virus replicates (correct term; NOT "reproduce") by injecting its genetic code into a "host cell", which subsequently becomes infected and starts manufacturing new virions, usually instead of performing its normal function (since its resources are limited and cannot be "hijacked" by the virus without creating a deficiency in normal operation). Since both its function and structure have been altered, the "infected cell" will behave quite differently than a "healthy cell" of the same kind. However, the article also states that the "infected tissues do not appear to suffer any negative effects -- or positive ones, for that matter". Isn't this a contradiction? How can these two statements be brought into agreement?
- It is also stated that, although there are "several versions of [the agent], one for each species of alien, [...] they all share remarkable DNA similarities.". Whilst it is not made clear what exactly might be the extent of these "remarkable similarities", one can assume "remarkable" to be synonimous to "extensive", in context (i.e. one would not call a DNA similarity between two samples of different origins as being "remarkable", if it only stands for a small percentage; there won't be anything "remarkable" in that...). This in turn implies that the genetic material which accounts for the variations between species is rather reduced -- perhaps even to a quite small percentage of the whole (much like an errata attached to a volume publication). On the other hand, the descriptions for the encountered alien species portrays them as being hugely different from one another. Shouldn't the same degree of complexity which manifests between various alien hosts be reflected by the infectious agent's targeted strains as well? How can a "large variance" be FULLY mapped to a small one?!
Until next time, cheers !
