The Virulian Condition

[Serpentis]

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Outcast Health and Anatomy

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To fully understand the Enclaves grasp on nanite technology and the manner in which they utilize this technology to cure Cardamine dependency, one must understand the condition which they treat.

The primary cause of the Outcast physical dependency upon Cardamine was the drugs affect on the human pituitary gland. As the body ages, secretions of human growth hormone (henceforth referred to as HGH) decrease drastically, resulting in the eventual transition from strength to frailty over time. The drug Cardamine mutates the HGH secreting somatotroph cells to promote cell reproduction and an increase in secretion rates. The former of the mentioned pituitary mutations results in a greater longevity for the affected, as their bodies will be constantly revitalized as new somatotroph cells are duplicated and begin hormone secretion. The latter mutation is what accounts for the Outcasts characteristic strength. As the HGH stimulates cell reproduction throughout the body, muscle tissue is built at an increased rate, resulting in a greater athleticism than the average human.

Ironically, the psychological affects of Cardamine have an adverse physical reaction. Although one introduced to the Maltese atmosphere will never feel the effects, the generational breeding on the planet has resulted in the deterioration of reproductive faculties. The original settlers on Malta were overwhelmed with euphoria as they were surrounded by the drug upon arrival. Despite neural synapses capable of dopamine release are present all throughout the body, a great concentration are related to the human reproductive track. The original inhabitants of Malta were thrown into crippling fits of euphoric seizures for hours at a time, resulting in severe damage to the reproductive system. It was more harmful for the male population, as their reproductive tissues were damaged by extreme overuse.

Over time, the Outcast males would be thrown into these fits as puberty began, not being able to experience sexual euphoria until such time, for a varying number of months. These violent occurrences were caused by a typical chemical reaction within the amygdala which transpires naturally at the bodys introduction to Cardamine. Outcast children are happier on average than most children in Sirius due to the drugs affects throughout childhood; however the seizures happen at the time that they do because, aside from the energy that the drug induces, the full cannot happen in a child without the properly matured anatomy which the amygdalic expression affects.

Approximately six hundred years into their colonization, these fits ceased. Inevitably, their bodies evolved. Thirty generations of damaged tissue resulted in the eventual genetic reworking of their bodies; their DNA began to reflect that it was normal. The final consequence was a relative infertility in the male population as damaged tissues rendered meiosis nearly impossible.

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The Science of Nanites

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Youve read about the documented effects of Cardamine on human development and fertility, now you are no doubt curious as to how the Enclave professes to repair the latter and arguably the most important of the impediments.

As you read, Cardamine stimulates HGH secretion by duplicating the number of secreting cells as well as increasing secretion rates from those cells. Without the drug in the system, the Outcast body is afflicted with shock, followed by a coma, and quickly thereafter by death. Human growth hormone, as the chemical messenger of your body to say, Grow! is essential to life. Deep Generation (all generations following the euphoric fits of puberty leading up to 600 AS) Maltese bodies are dependant upon the constant and appropriate influx of HGH due to it being a genetic norm for them. As Cardamine is depleted through the Outcast system, HGH secretions slow almost to a halt at a rate that would be considered slow for even an average human. A constantly dying stream of cells within the body cannot receive the message to be replaced and slowly overwhelm the system at a rate that exceeds that of the rate of excretion.

The shock is followed by a coma which the body induces on itself in an attempt to slow processes and thus slow the rate cell decay. By giving them no reason to work and therefore no reason to exhaust themselves and die, the body buys some time for itself. It is, however, not enough. An Outcast body will die within two weeks of the coma from any number of causes; ranging from asphyxiation from mucus reaction by dead cells seeping into the lungs to heart failure as blood cells die and are both irreplaceable and unable to be rid from the body quickly enough.

The human kidneys, while attempting to filter out and excrete dead and harmful material, get damaged from overload (similar to if you had a kidney stone which was not removed) and thus hormone secretions of erythropoietin, which stimulate red blood cell growth, fall dramatically. For this reason, heart failure is most often the case as the short red blood cell life of ~100 days quickly renders the cells of ninety-seven days before withdrawal dead. Then those from ninety-six and ninety-five days before and so on pile up, until the un-refreshed cells become a thick solution which both clogs arteries and fails to carry oxygen to the body.

The Enclave bypasses these extraordinary side effects in a rather simple manner. Upon the Enclaves flight into the Meani Desert, the First Voice gave them life in the form of nanites. It was when the migrant cultists were on the verge of death that the hand of the Creator called forth a great black cloud from itself which took refuge within its dying followers. In reality, the cloud was a fog of millions of nano-machines and the cure to the Cardamine addiction was quite uncomplicated.

Without a real psychological dependency for natives of Malta, the only issue was the catastrophic physical side effects of withdrawal. The Enclave solves this problem by replacing Cardamine with nanites. A stream of nanites are flowed into the body and sent to the pituitary gland. Here one or more nanites attach to the somatotroph cells and seal themselves, or make permanent their position.

Just as our layers of muscle cells can be manipulated using electrical impulses, other cells can be as well. Since the somatotroph cells have the capability to produce the required amount of HGH but merely cant in the absence of Cardamine, the nanites simply regulate hormone release using electrical pulses. By stimulating the cells, one can control the release of HGH, just like tapping a reflex on your knee. To solve the problem of somatotroph replication, Cardamine may be used periodically for several hours to promote cell replication, but nanite control removes all physical dependency on the drug.

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