arV843 "Heaven Curse" Condition in Tales of the void | World Anvil

arV843 "Heaven Curse"

arV843 is a bio-weapon which have been used against earth on a series of attack between Sol 9243 and Sol 9276 resulting on an outbreak so violent that most nations on earth enacted various "Survival Act" leading to massive cleansing and brutal military suppression tactics.

The final death toll of the attacks (between arV843 and military cleansing) is 5 854 643 218 dead or MIA, almost a third of earth population at the time

The person or entity behind the attack is only known as Ozimandias and his/her/theyr whereabout is currently unknown...

Transmission & Vectors

Any contact with bio material emanating from an infected person lead to infection. It's extrem potency is to be aknowledged and every personnel touched or in contact in any way with an infected must then be considered infected as well.

Causes

arV843 is a bio-weapon engineered by a terrorist known as Ozimandias
The actual identity, specie or even the mere reality of Ozimandias is currently unknown

Symptoms

Extrem physical and spiritual pleasure, euphory and will to spread the dissease during the seven day of incubation, followed by a quick death by neuro toxin poisoning in a few hour after the end of incubation

Treatment

No sucessful treatment for the arV843 is currently known.

Prognosis

LD50 : less than 0.1µg/m² of contact surface.
Death Rate : 100%

Only one human survived the curse : Svetlanna Serovna, for unknown reason her body seemed to be tolerant to the extremly toxic neuro toxin produced at the end of the grace period. However the prospect of never feeling this kind of joy again and the remorse and guilt about the enormous amount of people she personnaly cursed proved to be unbearable and she took her ownlife after 16 days.

Affected Groups

Human of any ages and sex.
Even if a sizeable number of pets do died from arV843 but it was mostly by contact with the neuro-toxin in deceased or soon to be deceased owner. No animal seem able to carry or transmit arV843.
Which is probably why there is still humans alive today

Prevention

All medical or military personnal in possible contact with the virus should wear full hazmat suite, C-grade gazmask and reinforced kevlar/nitril gloves.
Aggressive quarantine is advised and any break of quarantine or unreported outbreak must be purged with the utmost diligence.
Use of lethal force is STRONGLY advised.

Every object tainted with the virus should be burnt with acetylen torches or washed with DiChloroMethane - Cyclohexane solution

Epidemiology

Extremly infectious bio-weapon.
Every known or suspected outbreak must be purged and torched.
Every known infected should be quarantine till the time of death or mercifully executed in a safe incenerable environnement

History

The first appearance of the pathogène arV843 better known as the "heaven curse" occured during the easter mass of Sol 9243. Early warning system were triggered around the world detecting an object rushing from a point later calculated to be in the Hort Cloud to Earth at a sensible fraction of the speed of light. Less than an hour after being first seen near Titan, the object came in contact with earth atmosphere, punching through upper atmosphere in a giant ball of plasma. Strangely the object seemed to be nearly unaffected by the plasma and retain most of his mass during it's decent. After a few minutes of decent the object came to view of the people amassed in vatican city, causing a panic in the crowd. The impact was brutal yet strangely relatively few people died on impact and most of the people present were unharmded.
Upon landing the object appear on the screen of most people in the planet due to live camera presence for the mass.A tall (nearly three meter) angel of stone stood in the center of the place, kneeling in front of the cathedral and seemingly praying.
People in the attendance where quick to call it a miracle and a young girl, later refered as Maria, rushed to touch the angel. When she touched the angel she became frozen and stayed in contact with the statue for a few minutes, the rest of the crowd waiting anxiously to see her reaction.
She then turned and kissed the nearest boy she found, and then the next and so on. The boy she just kissed stood frozen and where glowing with joy. after A few more minute they started to do the same and more and more people started t act accordingly.
Svetlana Serovna a russian news anchor was the first reporter touched, after she stood in silence for a few minute during witch she seem to be swept by a wave of pleasure and joy she started to describe the incredible pleasure both physic and spiritual she experienced. She said that god had sent an angel bringing back heaven on Earth an that every human should rejoice and come receive the gift of joy from the already touched.
During the days followtng the first occurence, many other statues appear in major city, each depicting the main cultural or religious symbo of the place, each with the same effect.

After nearly a week, in the early morning of Sok 9250 it was discovered that the Rome angel have suddently become black. Many of the "touched" as they call themself interpreted it as a bad omen and started to brace for the unevitable tragedy to come.
Sadly no amount of preparation could have protected them for what was to come. After exaclty a week, nearly down to the minutes, Maria collapsed in the middle of an interview on an italian morning show.
No ammount of reanimation seam to help her and she died in less than a minute from what was later discovered to be poisoning by a very potent toxin akind of the botulic toxin.
Every would be rescuer also started to show sign of "touched" grace and started to try to touch more people. Then one of the early convert who was also present that day collapsed in much the same way. and another.
One by One every "touched" started to die one nearly exactly one week after being exposed.
The italian network was quick to pull the plug and cut the broadcast but the damage was done. by the time of Maria death, nearly a quarter of Humanity as been "awaken" by the statue and now where faced with the abyssal prospect of knowing when they will die with no way of protecting themself.
The chaos spread like fire and made things worst. Most of the cursed soul who have been "touched" had choose to off themselfs to alievate the risk for other and medical personnel in particular, some have choose to live theyr last day in private seclusion with friend and familly (many of them also cursed).
But a third portion was more problematic in that they have choose to believe in the end of time, apocalypse and other "end of the world scenario from theyr religion and as such have decided to forcibly convert everybody they see.
That's when the european community choose to take drastic directive. After a brief meeting called in urgence by the french gouvernement, Eu member sign the reviled "Survival Act".
The "Survival Act" was a decree which stipulate that every military personnal should be provided with an hazmat suit a C grade gazmask and an assault weapons and that after a warning period of four hours, martial law was instated and every one caught in public space without adequat hazmat protection should be detained for a quarantine of a week.
More so anybody found to be spreading the disease, touching someone directly or diplaying any agression toward military personnel should be shot on sight.

And then the dramatic cleansing started. Riot erupted in town center, rebel where fighting to save theyr familly and friend from the cleansing and military of all nations (most of them had follow suite and signed theyr own "Survival Act") resorted to heavy weapons even artillery on some cases.
Civilian deaths (infected or not) pile up quickly and humanity seemed to be on the verge of annihilation.
None the less humanity survived, after a few day the number of infected people a gone down significantly and was now manageable with more peacefull techniques, and after a few weeks only small pocket of infection subsisted in hard to reach place.

But the death toll was unbearable, nearly one in three human on the planet had died either due to the curse or under the boot of military repression, the pets population was cut in in half and some city (most notably Rome) where simply wiped clean.
the few statue who weren't blown to peace or stolen during the chaotique war phase were entumbed in giant cement sarcophage and assigned guard to monitor them.

The impact on people minds was even greater. Early research on the pathogen discovered that it was an extremly fast acting arn virus, reprogramming user cell to produce more copy of himself and implanting an adn clock-bomb which switched after seven day the cell to a new strand, forcing them to produce huge amount of a unknown at the time neurotoxine.
The extrem dangerosity of the toxin and fast acting virus suggest that it was a very efficient weapon, and since it would wipe clean most planets in a few month it was probably crafted since a natural strain so powerfull was bound to kill herself.
this suggested that some one with the power to send vessel through space with great speed and accuracy was also capable of crafting terrifyingly effective bio-weapons, and seamed not exactly affraid to use it.

The innevitable corollary was that humanity as a common and cruel ennemy and this revelation had a great impact on the world.
Most disagreement and quarrel seemed pale in retrospect and humanity was in dire need of unity if it where to defend itlself against such a foe.
This prompted the start of an political union process wich resulted in the foundation of Earth United Nations.

A few month after the attack a strange radio signal was intercepted, coming from a region of Hort Cloud consistant with being the origin point of the attack.
it was a short text message :
Earthlings I, salut you. ~~Ozimandias
Type
Viral
Origin
Engineered
Cycle
Short-term
Rarity
Unique


Cover image: by NASA

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