Virus Strain Mutations in the early Years

[bryanG]

First post, so be gentle.
Does anyone know of any material that details the intitial mutation of virus, beyond the stuff in the TNE books? I suppose I'm looking for detail on rates of mutation, particular strains, etc.
I need this for a PE that involves a fairly benevolent Virus strain being pre-eminent in the early history of its formation. (Cant say much more as BadBru will probably be involved in this game....one day.)

Cheers
Drifter

 

[Malenfant]

AFAIK the info on virus mutation is mostly in Survival Margin (and possibly Vampire Fleets)...

The earliest strains were mostly suiciders and other "kill ourselves and take everything else down with us" or "just plain kill everything else" types... I'd have thought it'd be kinda unlikely to get a smart, benevolent (to humans) variety that early (though they show up later as the Mother types).

 

[bryanG]

yes i agree....
I suppose i was thinking more in terms of environment and size/TL of invaded systems as being the prime causes of mutation. That and generation.
My thought behind this is, when a strain spreads throughout a large system (world-wide, say), is it as one monolithic entity, or as a series of copies, with each copy creating further copies.
If so, generational mutation shifts are going to be occuring fairly rapidly.

drifter

 

[shield]

Drifter

A series of copies, that start to mutate, either developing their own identity or mutating into a different strain. I imagine these changes happen as the virus spreads from system to system, (especially for systems that are only briefly in contact with the main world computer nets i.e ships, space stations, outposts etc.)

Cheers
Richard