Let's talk aliens.

[jammi]

I didn't say anything about thickness actually, not ever mentioned that in the context, also I've not said that they cannot have infection, what I have implied is that it would not propagate through the rest of the collective and would be isolated to individual being. Considering their technology goes as far as creating veils and controlling them such disease if happens is likely to be cured as well, perhaps may take some time, and if not by being itself then through the help of others. I suppose Nomads' biological shell is quite responsive to attacks of that kind.

In context with "There isn't much of a layer of skin protecting them is there?" I'd take that to mean "yes, they do have thick skin".

As for disease, yeah, the idea of one disease being transmitted across the Collective is ridiculous. However, it would make a perfect assassination tool on individuals. Think about it. It takes a long time for the body to formulate a primary response and better technology doesn't necessarily equate to better immunity either - the process for the immune response is the same whatever tools you're using to prompt it.

The correct antibodies still need to find the correct antigens (when considering we'd be infecting the Nomads with forgien proteins, said antibodies may not exist at all) and once that'd been done, there would still be the process of clonal selection to kick start the division of immune cells.

Further more, immunisation would have to be done on an individual level. If the Collective intervened, they open themselves up to cross-contamination, which would result in a pandemic. Releasing a virulent disease on your own population, which has zero immunity would be pretty dumb. And Nomads aren't dumb.

So I guess individuals would be systematically 'killed' by the viral concoctions until one of their immune systems reacted. Then antibodies could be extracted, isolated and grown. Then your population is safe until i) the strain mutates (on average, once every 6 months for flu type viruses), or ii) a new pathogen is introduced (as soon as the humans judge immunity has been obtained).

Biological warfare probably wouldn't have any pronounced effect on the Nomads as a whole, but it would make human fighters alot more potent in skirmishes or assasination probe style missions.

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