There is an evil, isolationist group that wants to wipe out all the “Impure humans” living on planet earth and restart society with “genetically perfect humans”. This organization has developed a deadly virus that will kill all the humans on earth that aren’t inoculated against it, and allow this new superior master race to prosper. My question is, how could they spread this virus to the entire planet with minimal effort and time!
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3$\begingroup$ A good way to make sure the virus gets to everyone is to make sure it doesn't develop symptoms before a large part of the population is infected. (Everyone who played Plague Inc has struggled with this). If it kills to quickly, it is more difficult to spread. It doesn't help with the minimal effort and time though. $\endgroup$– CenturyCommented Mar 28, 2018 at 7:48
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2$\begingroup$ How is this about building a fictional world? This looks to be a question about a scenario set in a world and as such is off topic for this site. $\endgroup$– sphenningsCommented Mar 28, 2018 at 15:11
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1$\begingroup$ Try playing Plague Inc . 😉 $\endgroup$– Adi219Commented Mar 28, 2018 at 15:19
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3$\begingroup$ Kinglwdion jr. - It doesn't really matter if your question's setting is the real world or a fictional one. What matters is whether the question itself is on-topic for world building or not. For example, the question "How can a witch's curse destroy a kingdom (in my fictional, high fantasy world)?" obviously deals with a fictional world, but is more suitable to Writing.SE than to WorldBuilding.SE - since it deals with a scenario, and not the world. On the other hand, asking "In a world with witches, what defenses a medieval kingdom would reasonably use?" is on-topic for WorldBuilding. $\endgroup$– G0BLiNCommented Mar 28, 2018 at 17:04
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2$\begingroup$ This question is wildly out of scope for the site, and I'm surprised to see that it has garnered so many answers before senior members have stepped up to vote it closed. The problem here is that we can, and will critique an idea, but don't want to come up with the set-up on your behalf - at that point we're writing your story for you. Voting to close. $\endgroup$– AndreiROMCommented Mar 28, 2018 at 17:32
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6 Answers
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That cannot be achieved with your constrain of minimal effort and time.
If you really want to wipe out "all humanity but those inoculated", you will have to reach all the remote tribes hiding in the jungle and so far managed to stay away from western world diseases.
They don't have a social media account, so finding them will prove tricky and require large effort and resources.
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$\begingroup$ No I mean which method will require the LEAST effort and time. That doesn’t mean it has to be easy and quick just the easiest and quickest of a bunch of options. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 28, 2018 at 20:24
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Long incubation and than a fast killing last phase. Maybe triggered by some external stimulus so chaos breaks at once. It has time to spread before anyone notices it and than kills before anyone can develop countermeasures.
Animals, especially Birds also carry it but it is non-lethal to them.
Death of the host does not kill the virus, so the corpses keep spreading the virus.
Can stay inactive for a long time until a new host arrives
You´d still have to get to those remote island that are too far away for birds to reach - as well as any arctic expeditions etc. Maybe adding some spraying devices to planes, weather balloons or rockets will help get it in the upper atmosphere and slowly raining down.
Also think about who will organize safe shutdown of all those atomic reactors, chemical plants, oil rigs etc. or this evil group will probably have to live on a pretty damaged earth.
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Ever played Plague Inc? ;)
On a serious note, here are a few points:
- You need your virus to be lethal to humans, but not anything else
- Your virus needs to be airborne, as this is the fastest method of travel
- Your virus needs to reproduce rapidly
- You need your virus to be in the lysogenic phase (Google it, but from what I can understand in my Biology GCSE lessons, this phase means that the virus will only be lethal after a certain stimulus is activated)
- Your virus could radioactively decay, so that its host dies of radiation, but I don't know if and how this is possible
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$\begingroup$ (5): It wouldn't be. The first particles could be radioactive, but then the virus reproduces by recruiting cells in the host, and those will build new particles using local, non-radioactive materials. $\endgroup$– LSerniCommented Mar 28, 2018 at 20:17
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Entire planet and minimal effort and time are in contrast, at least if you don't define how much is "minimal".
A way to spread the virus to the entire planet is to have a virus that is air-borne and so much of it that you can saturate the atmosphere, but this require a big effort and probably a lot of time. If the virus can reproduce at exponential rate, maybe you need less virus and less time.
This assuming that your virus has a long enough incubation period so you can spread over without any evident symptom and/or death or, on the other hand, that developing a vaccine/cure is a long enough process to replicate, otherwise it will be futile.
You also should start from the advanced country, (USA, Europe, China etc) since they are where the chances to develop a cure is higher, so you need to wipe them out first (the remote tribe in the Amazon forest is less a concern for this).
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1$\begingroup$ "so much of it that you can saturate the atmosphere" <- are you at all aware of just what volume you're talking about? That's non-sense. No virus can, or ever will "saturate the atmosphere". $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 28, 2018 at 17:33
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$\begingroup$ Yes, I know. "saturate" here means "you can find the virus everywhere in the world". Which in any case means "a lot, a lot a lot of virus". But the objective itself is ambitious. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 28, 2018 at 17:45
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Rather than discuss the virus itself, thinking about the delivery method might be the easier strategy.
If one takes a page from 12 Monkeys, one of the most efficient methods is to release the virus in an airport, or several airports, and let the throngs of bustling people spread the contagion for you. Presuming air travel is as prevalent in this fictional world as it is here, you could get worldwide vectors in under a week.
If an inoculated person can still carry the virus, there's not even a need for test-tubes or anything. They just walk around breathing. Amble around to all the terminals, national and international, and away you go.
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I think the best option would be water contamination, humans only drink fresh water, wish is 2.5–2.75% of the total water in the globe. plus animals only drink fresh water, meaning they can also get contaminated and since humans eat animals, that's another source of contamination for free basically. You want to make your virus with minimum effects and that it only kills after sometime, since then it would go unnoticed and when it started to kill, most of the people by then would already be infected so even if they tried to prevent it it would be too late.
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1$\begingroup$ And how do you propose to infect all the sources of fresh water in the world? And once people catch on, what's to stop them from simply boiling salt water, or otherwise disinfecting the poisoned water? Last but not least, do you comprehend what volume of poison you'd need to contaminate all the fresh water sources in the world? The amount of foot-work involved? I'm guessing not. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 28, 2018 at 17:37
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$\begingroup$ how OP is going to infect isn't the question, second, people won't know its coming from water since it doesn't give side effects, and third you don't need to do it like that, if the poison is strong enough, you just need a leaking barrel dropped near the source of water to contaminate the rest. seems to me you don't really know what your talking about :/ @AndreiROM $\endgroup$– jeyejowCommented Mar 28, 2018 at 17:40
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how OP is going to infect isn't the questionOP:My question is, how could they spread this virus to the entire planet. $\endgroup$ Commented Mar 28, 2018 at 19:29 -
$\begingroup$ @Renan do you read what you type? $\endgroup$– jeyejowCommented Mar 29, 2018 at 22:24