Phage

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Phage is a hostile **faction**, which basically delevoped from a viral disease. The viral disease destroyed the majority of life on Earth (see **historical background** for more detailed information). On Earth, it mutated so fast, that physicians and scientists couldn't keep up. Antigenic drift - the immune system would fight and lose. However, this strain of the virus was different. It is as if it sought to meld with the physiology, symbiosis. Yet, it was unsuccessful, and the result was the destruction of the host. The virus attached itself to the neurological system, destroying the host's brain, yet leaving the brain stem intact. The streets of Earth were filled with mindless creatures, twitching and gyrating. It attacked all mammalian life, mutating human and beast. However, some were immune to Phage. A very few.

On board of the Dauntless (see **historical background** for more detailed information), Dr. Rhamus tried to cure Phage and beyond that to use Phage for regenerative therapies to end disease as we know it. However, he failed and instead created a modified version of Phage, which is worse than the original Phage, as it doesn't trigger any immune response of the host. But Dr. Rhamus also found out, that humanity didn't leave Phage behind. All of the immune people do carry Phage, hibernating deep in their nerve tissue. His experiments on the Dauntless ultimately infected all Sleepers aboard the Dauntless. Over the next hundred years, this modified Phage mutated into an alternate, intelligent life form, i.e. aggressive, intelligent zombies, that can fly space ships, assimilating and eating human beings. However, they can't reproduce. They have to assimilate human beings to increase their number. This is done by attaching polyps to sedated human beings. These secrete a green liquid, extend tendrils into the flesh of the person being assimilated and eventually recode their DNA. This process takes days, sometimes weeks.

Phage congregate in "Covens", generally deep underground or in abandoned facilities throughout the outer fringes of settled space.

## Symptoms of the Viral Disease

### Original Phage

The infected become non-reponsive after a high fever. The virus begins to change the physiology of the person it infects, rapidly necrotizing the skin, especially areas exposed to the air. Internally, it slows the heart, changes the way the blood distributes oxygen and glucose, and destroys the high-level functions of the brain. The virus attacks the cells and reorganizes the way they utilize food energy. The infected develop an appetite for protein, e.g. human flesh, which then seems to be their primary physiological drive. The entire process can take over eight months to play out. When infected develop the advanced symptoms, they will attack anyone not infected or in the early stages of Phage infection on sight. They are fast, strong, and relentless.

### Modified Phage

Like Original Phage, but symptoms are almost instantaneous.

## Transmission

Phage is primarily transmitted by bites and scratches. The virus is not airborne. This applies to original and modified Phage.