Tyro Trouble

"If you ever do set foot on this too hot and too wet planet, don't place that foot in the water. Trust me. You won't enjoy the consequences."

— Extract from Travels Through My System: An Exploration of P'Ache Solar System
by Peacekeeper V'Kly

Cause

Tyro Trouble is caused by a parasitic worm, specifically Trematoda Sanguinis. The worm lives on the shells of the brackish water crabs and snails and looks for warm bodies to lay its eggs. It is liable to bite its way into any soft flesh which it can float to under the water.

The Green Curse

Tyro Trouble is also commonly known as the Green Curse because it tends to impact people who are new to swamp life and therefore "green".

The worm uses small teeth to bite into the flesh and it then regurgitates its eggs as deep in as it can. These eggs travel into the bloodstream and can find their way into different parts of the body, where they then gestate and eventually hatch. If the host is adequate, the cycle can then repeat multiple times without the worms leaving the host body.

Symptoms

If they don't feel the bite when it happens, which 99% of people don't, the first sign a person is infected by Tyro Trouble is multiple skin blisters which crop up around the point of entry (usually on the sides of the foot or between the toes where the flesh is softer).
Six weeks after the initial infection, they are likely to start finding rashes in the warmer parts of their body (inside elbows, knees, armpits, groin etc.). They may also experience:

• Dizziness
• Fever
• Chest cough
• Diarrhea

Depending on where in the body the eggs reach, over the following weeks, these symptoms may develop into:

In the Stomach

Abdominal pain

Enlarged liver

Enlarged spleen

Jaundice

Lack of appetite

In the Brain

(or in the spinal cord)

• Seizures
• Paralysis (Temporary or Permanent)
• Headaches
• Visual Impairments
• Speech Impairments

In the heart

• Heart palpitations
• Cardiac arrest

This is the one which is most likely to be fatal.

Tyro Trouble is fatal 1.37% of the time, if not caught before this second round of symptoms occurs.

Treatment

Prevention

Young children on P'Ache Micro have their feet soaked in boiled and then cooled water for hours a day to help them build up the thicker skin required to prevent the worms from being able to use them as hosts.

On P'Ache Micro, the traditional treatment for Tyro Trouble is ground up Hanid which is mixed with heated water and then drained and applied to the point of infection. This can only be done if it's caught early enough, within the first four weeks after infection.
The Primians developed a cure in 473 PT which is a form of radiation therapy. It had a 60% success rate in that it only killed the patient 40% of the time. Since then, Primians stopped visiting P'Ache Micro so often, so this was considered no longer an issue.

Societal Impact

For thousands of years, before the arrival of the Primians, cases of Tyro Trouble were scarce, only one or two a year.
However, when the Primians first landed, around -59 PT, there were several large outbreaks. Only Primians were affected and, unable to recognise what was happening to them, they started blaming the Macrans for their issues. They couldn't understand why the Macrans weren't affected and jumped to the conclusion that it was something they were doing to them. They also ignored their offers of help and quickly left the planet. This meant that, despite initial plans to create the first Treaty with the P'Ache Micro, the Primians turned their attentions elsewhere, focusing first on P'Ache Minor.
They did eventually turn their attention to P'Ache Micro, but this was several hundred years later, and by that point the perspective of the planet as dirty and the people as deceptive.

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Related Articles

Locations	Ecosystem of Nuskan Swamps, 271 PT, Nuskan, P'Ache Micro, P'Ache Solar System, Peacekeeper Territories
People	Macran, Primian

Type

Parasitic

Origin

Natural

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Extremely Rare

Affected Species

• Pachian

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