| 05 April 2004 at 19.51.07 ZuluTime
|
Posted by Gremlin [24.8.18.225 - c-24-8-18-225.client.comcast.net] on 05 April 2004 at 19.51.07 ZuluTime:
In Reply to: Incubation time? (Re: Pandemic) posted by Damien on 05 April 2004 at 19.39.05 ZuluTime:
Based on the design of the virus/whatever [I've got it worked out; I haven't quite decided whether to fully explain how it works in the novel], the disease works in stages--a fever as the immune system attempts to kill it, and so on; the itching is actually pretty normal for any sort of bite, infected or not; although the more infected something is, the more and sooner it'll itch.
Something else I'm still kinda debating is actually whether the symptoms will vary as the disease mutates. A given virus or bacterium evolves in no time, surviving by replicating immune subspecies more often than not, and passing the new, immunised version on to the next victim. For that, the symptoms would probably change slightly as the plague spread.
Otherwise, there's always the everpresent factor of Character Stupidity, which allows panicking people to misrember history; so the stewardess might just be rewriting her memory a bit, thinking she was showing signs of infexion back when, according to the more omniscient version of the story, she actually wasn't. Never know >:)
Of course, I'm still wanting to write the rest of the unwritten book. But there are still a few frauds in my way, at the moment....
--Gremlin