What about a plague in a SF/F world?

[ASparrow]

Plagues are my profession. I'm an infectious disease researcher. But oddly I have yet to write a story incorporating one. (Too close to my day job perhaps). But I've been thinking of doing a story of a plague instigated by self-replicating nanorobots that use mosquitoes and other insects as vectors of transmission, applying what I know about real diseases to an artificial pathogen. Has anyone seen anything like this in a novel? I don't want to tread on territory that has already been heavily trampled.

 

[Pyan]

Has anyone seen anything like this in a novel? I don't want to tread on territory that has already been heavily trampled.

Sounds rather close to a Michael Crichton novel...Prey

 

[ASparrow]

Never liked Crichton much. That's why I never encountered Prey, I suppose.

Hmm. Maybe if I play up the nanobots alliance/symbiosis with natural forces (insects). Prey has nanobots attacking independently.

We'll see if that works.

 

[FionaW]

one of the things we discussed at work once was what would have happened if HIV could be spread by sneezing. We're pretty fortunate that many of the most serious/difficult to treat infectious diseases are (relatively) hard to spread. If you want a fictional plague, I'd take an infection that already exists and change the mode of transmission.

If viruses are comet borne, as one theory suggests, then an alien race arriving here could do to us what happened to the native populations of the US/South America.

 

[Mr Edd]

What about a plague that enhances the body so the victims become perfect examples of how all life should exist. Then follow the few who are not contaminated for genetic reasons and are trying to fight against it... Hmmm?, I think that has been done before.

Oh well back to the drawing board.

Edd

 

[J-WO]

What about if we genetically altered our bodies to the point where we're immune to all disease, millenia pass happily, then a virus comes along that's potent enough to infect us? By that point, we'd be a technological utopia but with less ability to fight (or even understand) a plague than medieval villagers.

Long forgotten evils might arise- persecution of minorities, superstition, mob rule- yet no prior experience of how to handle such things. The very premise of the plague would be more deadly than the plague itself.