Lucy's Choice: Let's make Lucifer Parallels!

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by ericthered

...
Flesh Wasps: This is probably a spin on a classic disease rather than a monster, but a species of wasp can use humans as hosts to incubate large numbers of eggs. utterly horrific, but after the initial population crash a stable predator prey cycle might emerge.
...

That reminds me of an alien species I once created. Technically the sapient form is a combination of parasite and host. The hosts are on par with smart chimps. The parasite infests one devouring the fore brain and combining with it to create a single brain and mind.

This happening to humans would make for a hell world. Factory original humans are farmed and treated like wild animals. The bonding creates a new creature but with a few lingering facets of the host to make for frightening reminders to those that knew them.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Ransom

Sounds like the Goa'uld from Stargate.

Not really. Those are simply parasite controlled intact people.
My guys are literally permanent amalgamations with higher cognitive functions performed by what was the invading organism but lower functions by the original tissue. Blurring of identity assuming the parasite could exist alone which they can't past their larval stage.

[AlexanderHowl]

There are a bunch of microscopic parasites that cause changes in behavior through infecting the brain, so it is quite possible. A possible variation of the hell parallel would be the following:

Fungus-7

Within Fungus-7, a weaponized fungus was developed during World War Two by the Nazis that transformed its victims into raving lunatics. When the Nazis used the weaponized fungus against the Allies during the Normandy Invasion, the weaponized fungus quickly went out of control and, fifty years later, the human species is extinct except for isolated tribes within the Amazon and the Congo and within the isolated islands of Oceania. Fungus-7 was discovered by the Chinese government ten years ago and the resulting accidental fungal infection required the Chinese government to sterilize the research facility (located within Inner Mongolia) with a one megaton hydrogen bomb.

The weaponized fungus is a virulent pathogen passed through coughing after the incubation period and during spore formation after the death of the victim (it requires a successful HT-6 roll to resist infection under normal circumstance and antibiotics and antivirals are ineffective). After infection, the victim does not manifest any symptoms until after one week, when the coughing starts. After one week, the coughing passes as the fungus penetrates the blood brain barrier and starts to infect the emotional control centers of the brain.

With each passing week, the victim must succeed on a HT roll or take Bad Temper (15) and Berserk (15). With each failure, the Bad Temper and Berserk get one stage worse, until the fifth failure, when the victim always fails the control roll for Bad Temper and Berserk. When the victim inevitably dies, the fungus consumes the body within one day and releases spores that remain viable for decades.

[Flyndaran]

WWII Japan was the one conducting all sorts of biowarfare, not so much Germany, as far as I know.

[adm]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

WWII Japan was the one conducting all sorts of biowarfare, not so much Germany, as far as I know.

Largely correct, see below; although the NAZIs did some rather nasty experiments on concentration camp inmates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

Japan is a more likely power to develop such a fungus, likely based on something found in the tropical parts of their attempted empire.

[AlexanderHowl]

The USA actually seemed to have had the largest bioweapon research group during WW2. I think the USA was planning on using bioweapons against the Axis if the Manhattan Project did not work out. By the way, the Germans invested heavily in bioweapons under the guidance of Kurt Blome.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That reminds me of an alien species I once created. Technically the sapient form is a combination of parasite and host. The hosts are on par with smart chimps. The parasite infests one devouring the fore brain and combining with it to create a single brain and mind.

This happening to humans would make for a hell world. Factory original humans are farmed and treated like wild animals. The bonding creates a new creature but with a few lingering facets of the host to make for frightening reminders to those that knew them.

There is a somewhat similar species in GURPS Traveller Alien Races 4, the Valkyrie. Larvae take over a human’s mind, but much of the old mind remains. Valkyrie prefer intelligent well educated victims. They deliberately tolerate rebel undergrounds on their totalitarian hell-worlds because captured rebels make the best hosts.

[Flyndaran]

I don't know much about Traveler. Few original ideas in the world though, eh?
I need to check it out to see how (dis)similar they are to my idea.

Oh wait, that's literally the only Gurps Traveler book I own other than the basic. I love the Bwap. Huh, my idea predates my buying it though
Funny how I can't find it but ran into my Stargate RPG.

I assume they're meant as a reason for The Thing/Body Snatchers type paranoia, while mine were more realistic in that they can only "infect" one species. Of course others may still get paranoid about the possibility.

[fchase8]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Afraid not. It's knowable that it will come near Earth in 100 years, but old records don't give you the accuracy to know if it will hit.

Do you have an idea how far out Cold War era humanity could predict an asteroid to hit Earth with a reasonable degree of certainty? I suppose the farther out, the less certain. But also the bigger, the easier to detect.

Originally Posted by ericthered

Vampires: Its been said that if everyone bitten by a vampire became a vampire the world would be overrun by vampires. there are a few variations on this theme. Perhaps the vampires farm out humans, guarding them jealously from other predators, and ruthlessly disposing of emptied shells. This has been done in urban fantasy, but this version is likely to be low tech and very open, with vampire lords optimizing their herds for culling.

There's Duzakh in GURPS Worlds of Horror, with an Etruscan vampire empire stretching to the Bosporus.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by fchase8

Do you have an idea how far out Cold War era humanity could predict an asteroid to hit Earth with a reasonable degree of certainty? I suppose the farther out, the less certain. But also the bigger, the easier to detect.

If you can detect it twice (on two separate dates more than a few days apart), you can predict its orbit with quite good confidence any time after Kepler, though if your observations are few or close together it may be hard to distinguish between an impact and a very near miss.

It's the observing the asteroid multiple times that is the hard part. Asteroids are hard to see even if you are looking - so before the advent of whole sky surveys by orbiting instruments and computerized image processing whether you discovered any particular one depended not on any properties of the asteroid but on whether anybody happened to look where it was at the right time, or check that particular part of the photo if they did. For a while there a relatively common way to get that second widely spaced observation needed to really firm up the orbit was to go look at old photos or data sets now that you knew about where to look and see if you found it.