The Cure

* See also Splicers
* See also ADAM
* See also ADAM_Technology
* See also ADAM_Addled
* See also ADAM_Medical_Uses
* See also DNA
* See also Tenenbaum
A proposed method of correcting Splicer Disease and the Madness to restore the People of Rapture
Ryan had likely had his Laboratories start researching what might reverse the damage done by the "ADAM Disease". It would have been a good seller as ADAM use increased. (( It obviously was not some simple thing or Tenenbaum would have 'waved her hand;' and created it. ))
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The Cure : ( Tenenbaum's Splicer Rehabilitation Process ) :
Significant genetic damage resulted from repeated ADAM use. Some subjects/patients had more resistance to the damaging effects, and others were mentally unstable (and physiologically affected) because of the side-effects.
* The 'Cure' Process in New Rapture is continually being improved. Some Citizens have been brought back for re-treatment to do improvements to their original "Cure" processing.
* In the early days of the treatment, many 'shortcuts' were required, which were found to be detrimental long term.
* One important action is the 'debriefing' of captured Splicers to gain information about other Splicers and potential threats to New Rapture. Techniques like using 'Sodium Pentathol' on 'dried out' Splicers can be used (if needed) to obtain this information. (( This might be seen as an imposition upon 'Rights', but the Survival of the People here in New Rapture requires some Strong Measures against proven threats. )) Consider that : Once 'Cure' processing is complete, many Splicers lose many of their recent memories when their brain damage is repaired, so crucial information can be lost. A special branch of the City Constabulary 'cross reference' such information to help plan security operations.
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Tenenbaums 'The Clinic' (For The Cure)- How Big Is It ?? :
It is a major feature of the City Center of New Rapture.   What would it comprise of - facilities, and treatment experts.  (How many NPCs involved ?)
* Fontaine Futuristics and Point Prometheus had facilities which could be salvaged ( more Player Missions ... ) and other locations like the University and the Ryan Institute ( and facilities Sinclair and no doubt others had ).
* Laboratory space for Research into 'Cure' improvements. 
* Library for accumulated Research materials.
* 'Medical Treatment' is part of the process. So a hospital like facility is included - enough for dozens of patients.  Repair and stabilization of Splicers to facilitate the 'Cure' process.
* Security facilities/personnel for handling/containing un-Cured Splicers.
* Technical section for building/maintaining the machines used in the 'Cure' process.
* Who pays for all this ??  Lots of 'volunteer' efforts from grateful Ex-Splicers ( or done for Civic Achievements )
* Also, it is home of the 'reconstitution' facility where Players/NPCs pay to be repaired of injuries gotten in their "Adventuring".  ( The process in the MMORPG would be made interesting in itself to experience ).
* An adjacent 'temporary ' section for general medical/surgical care for the City's growing population.  It is being moved to a new expanded facility ( meaning more equipment/medicines to obtain ).  Access to the largely wrecked 'Medical Pavilion' ( barely a real hospital, even after I extended its map representation ) was impractical to use.
* An "out-reach" project to present the advantages of medicine to Splicers in the 'Ruins' -- As an inducement to be 'Cured' or as Trade for cooperation with various other communities.
* Tours, so that Citizens can see the good work being done in bringing Rapture back to life.
* New City transportation is always being improved to make access to the facilities more convenient.
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The 'Cure' Process :
* Capture :
** The good citizens of New Rapture have a mandate to save as many of the unfortunates still trapped by their ADAM addiction wandering thru the ruined parts of Rapture.
** A quite high ($$$) City Bounty is offered to Citizens for 'rescued' Splicers from 'the Wild' (so that they can be restored to normalcy and join the freed citizens of New Rapture).
* Restraint and Delivery to 'The Clinic' :
** Safely restrained physically (handcuffs, straight jackets, nets, etc...)
** Splicers are usually under sedation using the sedative kits the City provides to Splicer Hunters.
** Transport thru half-ruined terrain often calls for manhandling bodies. ( Medical Stretchers have been adopted to supplant the use of wheelbarrows as a manner of 'capture' conveyance ).
** The captured Splicers are delivered to the Clinic Facility in the City Center
* Containment and Metabolic Stabilization:
** Safe Containment is achieved in the Clinic facility - armored, fireproof, insulated walls ( and with special measures for Houdini Splicers ). Lots of nice usable assets in Persephone....
** There are limited resources for the Cure Processing, and Splicers often have to wait for Treatment (the facilities ARE being expanded and additional/improved equipment is being salvaged/repaired)
** Splicers are usually malnourished and/or suffering from injuries, so are fed and wounds treated ( usually they self-heal at a greatly accelerated rate ).
** The Splicers are give time to heal the injuries usually incurred during their capture (where most have to be forcibly captured) before proceeding to the next phase of treatment.
** Patients are subject to evaluation required to guide their treatment. Some subjects who were not actually Splicers or were subjected to Lamb's forced ADAM 'control' treatments are expedited thru the process. Some patients are put on a 'slo-track' process because their extensive damage will take additional time to repair.
* Drying Out - EVE elimination :
** Sufficient time is required for patients to run-out of EVE in their systems - to render them 'Safe'.
** Testing shows when their EVE levels are low enough to proceed (many of the old test methodologies are being recovered from the ruins of the old Research facilities.)
** Some splicers with high EVE levels can be 'induced' to use up their accumulation (with great caution).
** The patients are kept under constant sedation to prevent injuries to clinic staff.
* Diagnostic :
** Diagnostic Tests and observations are run to determine treatments required
*** Scanning using genetic technology rebuilt from recovered Research Cameras
** Different patterns of ADAM use require different rehabilitation strategies
*** Light users - damage to some internal organs, only light structural damage and the usual disfigurement
*** Heavy users - major physical deformations,
*** Combination Plasmids/Tonics - major brain damage as well as physical/structural deformation
* ADAM Neutralization and Stabilization for ADAM Withdrawal :
** Anti-ADAM was found in the original Sea Slugs as part of their biochemical balance system. It had originally been one of the components removed in the purification of ADAM (Tenenbaum remembered the substance after 'The Thinkers' simulations turned up the chemical pattern that would likely neutralize ADAM).
*** Anti-ADAM is administered to remove ADAM from the subject's system, this is done gradually to prevent 'System Shock'.
*** Recovered ADAM is recycled for research needed to improve the Rehabilitation Process.
*** Promising research indicated greater Anti-ADAM production in Sea Slugs which have extra ADAM introduced to their bodies.
**  New 'Frankentree' production requires ADAM to mutate the trees.
** Processing duration varies with ADAM quantities in the subject's system
** Repeated therapy cycles used until testing shows sufficiently low level of ADAM remaining in the subject.
* Reconstruction (eliminating damage done by ADAM genetic rearrangement) :
** The rearrangement of cellular genetic changes done by ADAM must be undone to return the subject to their normal 'pre-ADAM' state.
** X-Cell sampling/culturing and X-Cell therapy (X-cells are taken from the subject and cultured to be reintroduced into the patient to effect repairs).
** Repeated cycles of destroying incorrect genetic material ( via Chemo-Therapy ) and X-Cell repairs
** The more damage originally done, the longer the repairs take.
** Some extensive damage requires surgery to accomplish the needed repairs.
** Progressive Regeneration and Normalizing of Genetic patterns ( from subject's original Genetic codes )
** Some research is proceeding using the mechanisms in the Vita-Chambers to speed up this regeneration. The Vita Chambers act as resuscitators as well as their rejuvenation function. ( Contrary to rumors Vita Chambers do not normally 'Bring you Back from the Dead' the way Delta and 'Johnny' (Delta 2.0) were reconstituted. That was a much more complicated process instituted by Eleanor Lamb which actually failed numerous times before being finally successful ).
** Additional Anti-ADAM is sometimes administered to eliminate ADAM that has managed to regenerate
** Recuperation is needed between Regeneration cycles to allow the body to rebuild metabolic reserves used in the healing process
** Genetic key technology based on the Genetic Lock encoders is used as a base test method to determine elimination of ADAM corrupted tissues.
** Typical completion to the end of the Physical Regeneration phase is usually between two weeks and a month.
* Psychological Adjustment :
** Patients transferred to the Mental Rehabilitation Wing
** Primary damage due to Splicing requires realignment of brain function to varying degrees.
** Secondary Psychological damage also occurred due to the environment Splicers lived in - trauma.
** Removal of the disfigurement - physiological effect of looking normal again
** The insanity's ending - reassertion of the mind free of the voices, the disorder, return of normalcy
** Psychotherapy (including drugs) to eliminate the various mental problems.
** Catharsis therapy often needed for patients to 'escape their demons'... - letting out the 'demons'
** Patterns of addiction to ADAM and even EVE have to be broken ( substitution of caffeine and nicotene is a common method )
* Reorientation and Mental Rehabilitation:
** Acclimatization to the Ex-Splicers new reality
** Reacquainting patients with Civilization and normal human behaviors.
** Explanations given for their previous condition and restoration and the transpired history.
** Warnings against future ADAM use which can prove fatal.
** Reeducation - information given to recovering Ex-Splicers to acquaint them with their current situation and their new place in Raptures society as 'Citizens'.
** Aptitude testing done to evaluate skill retention of individuals
* Release :
** Periodic re-testing to check for any ADAM regeneration ( a reason Citizens cannot return to The Surface )
** Periodic Administration of boosters of Anti-ADAM
** Screening for further psychological disorders and needed treatments.
** Cases of relapse and retrogression have happened and further 'Cure' treatment was found necessary.
** Patient turned over to City Dole system for further orientation and training
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Some New Processes :
* EVE can partially accelerate Splicer Regeneration which may be needed after the violence of their capture. The process would be used only after the patient was securely restrained ( and would likely NOT be used on Houdini Splicers for obvious reasons of powering up their teleportation abilities ) .
* ADAM based surgical procedures (similar to what Steinman used for his surgery) to repair massive structural splicing damage on certain patients. This of course has to be weighed against the additional genetic disruptions of the therapy as well as the later added difficulties eliminating more ADAM from the patient in the 'cure' process.
* Some of the new 'laser' technology ( from the work done in Minervas Den ) has some medical treatment uses ( Toenail fungus is a epidemic amongst Splicers) .
* Various pharmaceuticals recently reacquired have been found useful in the many treatments.
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 "Saving Private Splicer" :
Saving Splicers - But what if they don't want to be Saved ? That is a serious question posed to those carrying out this activity. Most People who were 'ADAM-Afflicted' did not chose that. A deranged state caused by ADAM Poisoning may not leave the victims in a mentally reasonable state.
Being violently insane is one thing, but clever intelligent resistance can be more formidable ( and figure - the Clumsy and Stupid ones are probably NOT the ones that survived so long ... ). (( My problem for this is : How to simulate/program such intelligence into NPCs ... ))
Why should Splicers "Go with you, and everything 'will be better', or 'all right'" ... ? ( They've heard that one before - from Atlas, from Sofia Lamb, from that loon Sander Cohen, from Big Sister Prime ... )
Those 'Rumors' about the Normals eating Hotdogs made from ground up Splicers ... ( That really didn't help )
If they are "Cured", then that means that they will again have to "Get a Job" ?
You will have Children whose formative years were mostly BEING Splicers (or surviving them) - They know no other life. Since ADAM became scarcer, many of the younger ones may only marginally be 'Splicers', and it may be more behavior (environment) than anything else.
Such ideas will be addressed in the MMORPG game.
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The Cure of ADAM is ADAM ?? :
The problems weren't from ADAM itself, rather was how it was used.
Does Tenenbaum's "The Cure" use appreciable amounts of ADAM to allow a Splicer patient to have all their genetic changes neutralized/eliminated (and damage repaired) ?    If so, where does that come from ?  DO they still have a bunch of Little Sisters being 'farmed' to produce ADAM ( preferably without sucking blood out of corpses ) or just numbers of Sea Slugs as the supply ?
Perhaps a good part of 'The Cure' is additional therapy methods from Ryan's Vita-Chamber technology.  They supposedly 'revitalized' people ( before any advanced 'Bring You Back From The Dead' feature was added ) which could be energizing all your body's cells so they had energy to rebuild/restore themselves, and probably undo much genetic damage ( including 'genetic turbulence' caused by ADAM Plasmid use ).  
This is a simpler mechanism than Plasmids/Tonics, which overrode/modified natural genetics. It instead would make use of the existing mechanisms/abilities of your tissues.   The process may have included various 'Anti-oxident' Chemicals, which assist in removing Free Radicals and other such damage which impairs cells functioning fully.
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Curing Big Daddies :
Bodies fused into their suits, massive tonic upgrades/enhancements, significant mental conditioning, major psychological baggage, parts of the brain may have been 'burned out' ...
Many Splicers suffered similar damage to varying degrees, and reconstruction was found possible for them ( or most of them ) as part of 'The Cure' process ( per the MMORPG plotline ).
The Big Daddy conversion process was somewhat different, as it employed more stable tonic-like ability/physical enhancement ( temperature/pressure resistance, massive strength increase ) instead of adding very significant Plasmid-type tissue modification.
The required reconstitution work may simply be a quantity problem for the physical repairs, but the mental restoration would be the more difficult part. It may require long-term Mental Reconstruction ( When unlike for the experimental Delta/Johnny, extensive (neural)N-grams of the subject were not recorded/stored ). It is thought that replacing destroyed mental patterns with those from another individual might be possible, but techniques to eliminate psycho-conflicts still need to be developed.
Ex-Splicers are being trained as divers by the City to allow for increased maintenance and needed reconstruction. The limited availability of diving hardsuits is the main limitation.
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Idea For 'The Cure' Which All Players Go Thru On Joining the MMORPG With Their One Character :
Getting the 'treatments' and having hallucinations of you past miserable life as a Splicer (acted out) with various nightmarish apparitions of things you faced ( thru a [[Splicers}Splicer's]] warped mind ), or others just the product of your madness ( I was impressed by the Little Sisters delusional world in BS2 ). Numerous different/varying sequences ( with more being created by Players - imagine it thru the eyes of a Splicer instead of a mostly normal Jack) would be stitched together ( creations including the choreographed stage directions, all with proper terrain settings and props ).
Transition of the Player's twisted/mutated/tumor-esque form back to a normal human shape ... - Use "Werewolf" movie-type stop motion special effects (like in those 1930s monster movies) ???
Simulated 'Brain Scans' - Showing progress and commentaries by the Doctors through the process - lots of weird effects (sound and visual) you can do with Client Shader Scripting on the GPUs ( Example "FarCry 3" had many of these ).
Players see this all from 'the inside'.
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Lase-ick Surgery :
Plan to use 'surgical' Lasers ( research found in McClendon Robotics ) as part of 'The Cure' to excise some non-critical tumors to speed 'Cure' body reconstitution ( making less defective material to genetically reconstruct/unscramble ).
Surgical expertise is needed ( maybe a fun 'Mini-Game' could be made of part of this - A bit like the 'gunship game' in 'Call of Duty MW' where you get directives to 'excise' target tissues while flying over the brain territory ).
"The smell of burning tissue in the morning ... Smells like Victory (for New Rapture)"
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 "ADAM Denies Us the Excuse for Not Being Beautiful"  ( With 'The Cure' That is in Mind and Body ):
When the Players become ex-Splicers and their ADAM caused deformities are eliminated, they will be back to being what/how they were before they started using ADAM ( though they may be missing things like scars, ravages of various diseases, etc ... having been rebuilt significantly from their genetic patterns which would no longer reflect environmentally caused changes. )  The genetic rework/rebuilding done may put them in a better condition than they started out as years earlier. 
An interesting part of The Cure 'Therapy' would be muscle stimulation, because muscles change with use.  A basic fitness would be the product of activations of the muscles after any genetic damage was removed ( muscles/reflexes grown according to environmental factors ).  Non-Quantum-Bullshit Vita-Chamber 'revitalization' technology may fill-in this part of 'The Cure' process.
Similarly, Mental Abilities may have to be 'reinforced' to fill in gaps left by the ravages of ADAM addiction.   Fortunately, the effects of ADAM largely do not rewrite brain patterns, and so the needed Therapy is more a matter of 'kick starting' those that are still existing.  Fortunately, we have TV Audio-Visual technology to apply an effective stimulation therapy.
Ex-Splicers do not forget their experiences as Splicers, thought those memories can be fogged to different extents, some unintelligible, others starkly plain.   Part of the "Cure" therapies are psychological adjustments required to 'normalize'/'stabilize' the persons dealing with the memories they retain.   Some Splicers need to later be adjusted if their memories continue to destabilize them ( nice Mini-game of "Hunt the Demon in the Mind" - All very abstract, and alot like 'Angry Birds' actually ).   Citizens are warned to keep an eye out for behaviors which might indicate instability and the need for some 'remedial' therapy.
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The Lazarus Vector May Have tied in to Ryan's Plans for a 'Cure' :
Unfortunately, Plants are different from Animals, and significant work would be needed to find an equivalent  ( if any such existed ) for humans.
Ryan had to be planning such things to save his City and its People from ADAM.  Langford's death was likely 'faked', just like Ryan's was ( We certainly ran into enough Splicers 'playing dead' -- so who says that gas was fatally 'toxic' - Especially WHEN WE walk into that room, moments later, with no harm done ).
If all else failed, there no doubt would be lots of agricultural infrastructure that would need reviving after all the lack of tending, caused by that %27civil war%27.
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Some Splicers Are/Were Too Far Gone For The Cure :
Too much of their brains are gone, wiping out memories/logic ( and no, the Quantum Entanglement stuff/Hokem does not bring people's minds back after the tissue is destroyed/scrambled ).  The MMORPG is a Sci-Fi based game.   The brain tissue CAN be regenerated ( they are experimenting with stem-cell therapies even today ),  but it will be empty - a tabula rosa.
How many such severe cases of ADAM-Diseases Splicers will have survived ? Debilitation is not a formula for Survival.
But those who remain : Should they be warehoused for future medical developments or healed, and be Retaught/Retrained for something useful now ?  New Rapture faces that dilemma.  And that result was accelerating with more and more Ex-Splicers entering the population.
Any intact thinking processes remaining can spread back into restored tissue ( varies case-by-case by the extent and type of damage ).  But they (their minds) are often incomplete and require alot of work/exercising/retraining to reinforce/retrain the patterns.
One type of therapy might be to use a derivative of "Brain Boost" Tonic to help speed the relearning process, and then finish the complete Cure removing all the ADAM influences - leaving the mental rebuilding done within the patient.   Audio-visual sessions would be used as part of the training stimulus.
"But Delta was brought back from nothing, except some DNA" ?? 
Not Really. Delta was a 'Special Case':
The First successful Alpha model cyborg : 'Delta' had been heavily neural recorded (N-grams), so that his conditioning could be mapped and monitored ( after the costly/messy failures of Alpha-Beta-Gamma ).  That data was found and used by Eleanor Lamb to regenerate Delta -- with a convenient 'body' or possibly the actual "Delta" who had been frozen and left in some warehouse.  He might be 'Physically' still existing, not just recreated from the DNA, and partially restored with N-grams for the mind.  Very few subjects were recorded that way, and certainly not the majority of people in Rapture.   Even so, it is debatable how much of the original personality was present/intact after all that.
The likely story is : Delta's body was not just left there ( after Sofia Lamb's executing him ) to rot, but was picked up by the Big Daddy program's personnel to investigate what went wrong ( That program was still, at that time, in testing phase ).  And Delta's remains would have been put into storage, for Eleanor to find later. 
One wonders if (possibly) that 'execution scene' (at the start of BS2) wasn't fabricated to instill motivation into Eleanor's Delta, WHO she was counting on to save her from her insane mother.
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