Elisabeth Webber

## Quotes

> "Dr. Webber was probably the kindest person I have ever met. Her love for humanity was seemingly inexhaustible and it was not only an unspeakable crime, but a terrible tragedy that she was left behind. She was a truly amazing woman."
>
>

General Omar Shepard at Huygens-Webber University on Mars

## Introduction

**Dr. Elisabeth Webber** was a humanitarian activist during the New Plague epidemic of 2030 and held a strong opposition against the worldwide epicenter bombings. She was left behind during the Great Emigration and continued looking for a cure to the disease. She died of the Plague in 2055.

## Life

Webber was born in Baltimore in 2002. She graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2026 and fulfilled her training as an infectious disease expert in 2028. She was drafted by the international crisis committee in 2030, to work on a cure for the New Plague. As part of the committee, she traveled into all of the crisis centers across the world. She soon became the figurehead of the humanitarian efforts of the time. She used her influence to speak out against the inhumane treatment of Plague victims all over the world and she immediately rejected her place on one of the Emigration vessels, as soon as that plan had been announced. Webber's efforts were often seen as naive and fruitless by world leading powers but despite that, her following became big. She is said to have been one of the major influences in the Kodiak military riot where 40 pilots refused to fly nuclear strikes to Plague epicenters. During the 2040s, after the Great Emigration, Webber led a camp of survivors while still searching for a cure. She eventually found the recipe for a retroviral cure for the Plague in 2055. Her camp was overrun only hours after her discovery and her research was lost. She died in the attack.

## Work

### Early Work

After graduation, Webber started her residency in infectious disease at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. During her time there, she published multiple novel theses on ways to prevent and fight the spread of highly contagious diseases. She studied the effects of modified samples of the flu virus, the HIV, the Ebola virus and Cholera on controlled and contained bee hives, ant colonies and rats.

After her residency, she worked at the hospital for several years during which she published multiple case studies of patients with terminal infectious diseases. Her early work received wide recognition in medicine and she was frequently asked to give talks and even lectures at John Hopkins Medical School.

### Crisis work

Webber's studies made her one of the top choices for the crisis management leadership during the CB-Syndrome epidemic dubbed the New Plague. She was drafted in 2030 and after a short evaluation period she was elected head of the newly created international crisis committee.

Her first assignment for the committee had her travel to ground zero of the first outbreak. Mercy Hospital in Chicago, IL was the first to be devastated by the disease. Webber used her time to allocate as much auxiliary personnel and funds to the hospital as possible. She took samples and started building a database of knowledge about the disease. During her research, she isolated the Webber Pestis Nova virus strain 113, which she found to be the cause of CB-Syndrome. The virus was named after her after her work had been published. After her first assignment, she realized that the situation required more attention. On all of her following assignments, she closely involved the press to shed light onto the situation around the world. She traveled to all 23 of the US crisis centers and provided expertise and assistance to combat the plague.

After the first epicenter bombing of Norman, OK in 2032, where approximately 15,000 infected patients were killed in a bomb strike, Webber took to the global political stage. She criticized the decision harshly, famously accusing the US government of "cold-blooded murder". When the Plague hit Safi, Morocco in 2033, Webber traveled there. She and her force of medical personnel established a perimeter around the town and quarantined all infected patients. Unfortunately, one patient, later dubbed the Harbinger of Disaster, had managed to get onto a plane and left the city. Webber traveled back to New York to request increased funds and more personnel to fight the Plague which was now spreading in Europe. The committee was granted a new budget but according to Webber it was "no more than a dime in a piggy bank" compared to what she required.

She spent five years in Europe studying spread patterns and administering potential cures to large groups of patients before plans of the Great Emigration first reached the public. With little hesitation, she appeared back on the global stage condemning the plan as "cowardice" and "a waste of resources" which she felt would have been better spent researching a cure. Famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson supported her saying "I can't imagine a future where leaving earth and living on the moon is easier than just fixing earth."

For unknown reasons, Webber decided to visit the Kodiak Base of Operations in Kodiak, AK in 2039 which served as a headquarters for the US' anti-plague operations. During her stay, a squadron of bomber pilots of the US Air Force disobeyed their orders to fly bombs to another twenty epicenters around the world. They sabotaged the base's hangars and landing strips in order to make flights from and to the base impossible. The riot ended with forty pilots being court-martialed and sentenced to time in prison. It is known, however, that some rioters escaped the base. Even although proof never surfaced, it has been rumored that Webber had a hand in this riot. She was never tried or sentenced for the damage done and left the base in the same year.

### During the Emigration

Webber suspended her studies during the five years of Emigration. She founded an independent non-profit organization to prepare the world for the Emigration. The organization by the name of Human Survival was entirely financed by donations and sponsors and it was responsible for creating safe zones for people to survive the exponentially growing hordes of infected.

### After the Emigration

Little is known of her work since communication networks broke down in 2045. From scarce and scattered video logs discovered far later, it is known that Webber came to lead one of the communities she created. She discovered a cure to the Plague, which was lost during an attack on her base by infected during which she, too, perished.

## Legacy

Dr. Elisabeth Webber's legacy as one of the most influential humanitarians of all time lives on to this day. The university of Huygens was named in her honor and a statue in her image was erected on campus.

When her work on the cure was discovered, her name gained even more fame. The extremely volatile antiviral medication she had developed was named *113-Webber CB-S Inhibitor* and was marketed under the name *Webber Plague Inhibitor* from 2457.