[Book of Enoch] China Update

[aa_stark]

Bruce, Steve, Tony and Vance are chilling in some pretty awesome yurts in China that is within reasonable driving distance of a city of reasonable size to provide whatever possible medical equipment Bruce could reasonably need to be unreasonably bought on Tony's dime to reasonably attempt to treat their kidnapped kid.

But the yurts are also far enough away from civilization that if the kid is contagious at least they are probably the only ones who die.

Probably.

• Bruce does his thing, doctors the kid.
  • What are his symptoms?
  • Do they match up to any known infections?
  • How effective is treatment?
  • Do we need to dig a tiny grave?
• Tony has a flask of goo.
  • He sends half the sample back to the US for analysis with a high degree of biosafety.
  • The other half is analyzed as best as they can in the field to determine the pathogen type.
    • Which probably starts by attempting to purify a sample of the pathogen that isn't contaminated by Scotch.
    • Sorry.
    • Not sorry, actually.
  • Start by seeing if it matches anything that might be suspected by symptoms!
  • Field PCR to get batches of DNA that we can try to match to things!
• Tony, Steve, and Vance presumably make themselves mostly useful by fetching things for Bruce or holding them or keeping an eye out to see if anyone is going to shoot them while they do this.
• Maybe Tony and maybe Vance and definitely JARVIS and his satellites and his computer banks see what's out west.
  • Are there any suspicious new structures or excitingly blanked out spots on google maps (or grownup satellites) that might indicate a recent installation.
  • Or any way to generally detect recent activity.
  • Especially coming from our villages and all going anywhere in particular. To the west.
  • Come to think of it, does Prometheus have any installations in that direction?

Okay I think I'm out of updates.

Comments

[aa_vance]

Was there anything else they might notice from later close examination of the school house video that they didn't get in-scene?

I feel like I had another question but I can't seem to remember it. Maybe later. Meanwhile: yurts!!!!

[aa_loki]

YURTS

Basically just the ability to closer examine more of the same that I described in the scene -- weird, organic-looking gore strewn about, membranous and unpleasant and probably the source of the smell.

[aa_loki]

What are his symptoms?
- Hypermetabolism symptoms (anemia, his weight, his heart rate, fits of hyperventilating, breaking out into sweats).
- As well as the fused teeth and the scar tissue on his face, there is another patch of the latter on the inner of his arm, which can be noticed when Bruce went to put an intravenous needle in.
- Hyperdynamic circulation.
- It should be noticed that despite the above, he is otherwise in good health. No injuries, weight loss was probably a recent development.
- At one stage, he vomits the same black substance that was found on the woman.
- He is conscious occasionally and exhibits wild tendencies, which are exaggerated even in a frightened child. He has fits of relatively incredible strength before fatigue or sedation puts him back under.
- After a few hours of monitoring and giving him care, the boy is hit with multiple organ failures, which is not an unexpected response to hypermetabolism.

Do they match up to any known infections?
- No known diseases or whatever - what it might look like is the body submitting to poisoning or infection going untreated, except there is no evidence of either and he is being treated.

How effective is treatment?
- Countering symptoms (dehydration with intravenous fluids, oxygen for hyperventilation, etc.) will stabilise him for a while before his symptoms continue to worsen and the organ failures kick in.

Do we need to dig a tiny grave?
- :c Major symptoms set in pretty quickly, and he succumbs to them just as fast, before anyone can think of ways to get him into better care.

Start by seeing if it matches anything that might be suspected by symptoms!
- No known matches of diseases/viruses/etc.

Field PCR to get batches of DNA that we can try to match to things!
- The goo is a mishmash of human bile, blood, and some kind of waste material that is... probably... foreign. It contains traces of silicon and mercury.
- Testing for DNA is a bit muddled with different fluids contaminating each other, but with the power of science, you're able to determine that one DNA sample is detected in the blood traces, and does not match the also human DNA sample found in samples of the 'waste' material. It gives the impression of looking at two different people.
- The same results are said of the boy's black goo as well, assuming it goes through similar processes.

Are there any suspicious new structures or excitingly blanked out spots on google maps (or grownup satellites) that might indicate a recent installation. Especially coming from our villages and all going anywhere in particular. To the west.
- 'West' is a very large space, so it's going to take time. Keeping to Chinese borders and in relation to the village , the 'west' can describe the Xinjiang province, which is a huge area, and the Tibet Autonomous Region... which is also huge. There's a lot of mountain ranges. A general glance over, though, will show some excitingly blanked out spots in the Xinjiang province, in the Tian Shan mountain range. It's not an easy place to explore, even from up above, due to much cloud cover.
- Basically all travel they can identify seems to depict routes being taken westward (and also slightly north) towards desert and snowy mountains and such remote locations.
- There are some roads that don't show up on maps and such, including a small airport-type set up that isn't recorded anywhere, but who knows how good China keeps its stuff up to date out here?

Come to think of it, does Prometheus have any installations in that direction?
- They have a factory on the border of the city Korla. Which is also a bit north, but, it counts.

ALSO:
- Also the village you just came from is now on fire. Any snapshot surveillance will detect that it was approached by a helicopter, which left again to the nearest major city, before the village was razed.

Hopefully I answered these questions to the best of my google-fu science fiction ability, let me know if I can clarify anything.

[aa_vance]

Please clarify the following from Korla's wikipedia page, which you inexplicably neglected to mention in your post:

"Korla is known for its "fragrant" pears." Are they fragrant or not? Is it a bad fragrance?

[aa_loki]

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