But once people start dying from it, word will get out that it's NOT ordinary flu. And that communication would travel at lightspeed over radio waves on a planet. And that's when the quarantine would start. Continental/international trade would stop. As well as tourism. Word of the disease would definitely overtake the movement of the virus. If you have isolated communities on the planet that get word of the virus before the virus gets to them, they may close all access to their community. Amish communities could do this. And be self-sufficient for months.
The problem is that by the time the authorities discover that this is not just the flu, most of the planet will be infected. Ironically, the more high tech the world, the faster the transmission will be. A grav-mobile civilization will find it impossible to stop the spread IMHO.
Note the implications of the virtually 100% infection rate.
I did a spreadsheet tracking the number of people in each stage (assuming those in stage 4 would not infect any more people). If one infected person in Stage 1-3 infects an average of just 4 people per day (and that all Stage 4 victims go to the hospital), here's the death toll:
Code:
Day Infected Hospital Dead
0 5 -
1 25 -
2 130 -
3 675 -
4 3,505 -
5 18,201 1 -
6 95,212 702 -
7 498,602 4,342 -
8 2.6m 23,244 1
9 13.6m 122,096 702
10 71.5m 639,600 4,342
11 374.7m 3.3m 23,244
12 1,9b 17.5m 122,096
13 10,2b 91.8m 639,600
14 53,8b 480m 3.3m
15 281b 2.5b 17.5m
16 1.4t 13.1b 91.8m
17 7,7t 69b 480m
As you can see, by day 8, the hospitals will start filling up with Stage 4 victims. By the end of day 8, 2.6 million people will be infected (and the hospitals will be overrun with flu victims). At this point, a few victims will have died (primarily young children and elderly). The planetary government will know that there is a problem, but they won't yet know that the flu is (a) lethal to virtually all victims within 8 days of infection; and (b) nearly impossible to cure.
Even if the government acts decisively, it seems unlikely to me that they could do anything significant within 24 hours of discerning the problem. At that point (day 9), 13.6 million are infected. If it takes them 48 hours to act, 71.5 million are infected.
Of course, the real infection rate would vary. Most people would probably infect far more than 4 people (you can infect a whole room by just breathing in the room for a minute or so) in the early days. As everyone gets infected, the rate of new infection will decline (far fewer people to infect). But this is a fair approximation, I think. EDIT: I added a variable infection rate -- it started at 10 but dropped as the population of infected people grew (bottoming out at 0.1). This actually made the disease spread faster -- far more people were infected by the time the hospitals filled up with flu victims.
IMHO, there's virtually no chance that the outbreak can be contained, no matter how decisive the government. Though the government will try.
Indeed, the disease is a biological weapon tailor-made to create this condition.
And I think that *if* one infected person reaches a planet, the disease will be unable to be stopped there. Though, again, governments will try, which is desirable from a dramatic point of view.
If the infection rate is 10, then ~2.5 billion people will be infected before the first deaths occur.
FYI, in The Stand, Captain Trips wipes out the US population in about 12 days. And there, the government knew that Captain Trips had been released within six hours of release.
Among the more challenging problems in the novel was the fact that the disease got loose in the research centers, wiping out the people best qualified to find a cure.
They did a study (and I'll see if I can dredge my memory to find where I read it) after 9/11 about bioterrorism. Basically the conclusion was that airports, train/bus stations, and truck stops are the biggest spreaders of colds in the country. The next being malls/stores and government buildings. But the planes, trains/buses, and trucks crossed state lines - and all gathered and concentrated in small spots. Those will be your focal points - your starting points for transmission of the virus. And their outer space equivalents. Without those, the virus would stay fairly isolated. Which is probably why Ebola didn't go far. People, especially those outside a city or retired, don't have much bodily contact. Many hands on a public bathroom door or shopping carts. Money would be a big transferer. Once word gets out on how the virus spreads, tho, people will take precautions. Wear latex gloves, filter masks, etc... That'll slow things down, too.
I hope these ideas are helping and not throwing a monkey wrench into your campaign plans.
Not at all. My players are analytical types, so it's important that the disease's effects be plausible and logical. However, no plague in recent history has the lethality and communicability of Captain Trips, so analogizing to them has its limits.
The biggest concern is how to design the disease so that it kills reasonably quickly (necessary for drama and to prevent countermeasures from being more effective), yet make it able to be plausibly transmitted by starships from system to system.
I like the idea of the disease slowing its progression while a ship is in hyperspace. This could even be an unintended mutation. Maybe it was orginally designed with such a short cycle (8 days from infection to death) to
prevent it from being spread beyond a planet. Maybe it was designed to be killed *by* exposure to hyperspace. That would be a logical safeguard. But once it got loose, it mutated. Or some lunatic scientist secretly added the mutation before the disease was released.
That might also explain why early efforts to quarantine might fail. If the interstellar government is expecting a disease that has an 8 day cycle, then they might initially only quarantine ships and people with obvious Stage 3+ signs. They would realize their mistake, but only after dozens more worlds were infected.
