Tyrak Swarm - Bio Logs 1.2

Biologist's Log 1.2

I managed to get some lull and peace to work on this log.  It's been about a month since I wrote 1.1.  I've been ass deep in this research, it's been...discomforting to say the least.  More than once I managed to dissect a specimen and opened its stomach to find human remains amid the entrails.  After the fifth or sixth time I finally managed to control the urge to vomit.  It's not easy having to do this.  I went into my field of research to observe xeno-animals in their natural environment, not cut them up to figure out what makes them tick.

Anyway, my research.  I managed to make another breakthrough.  Apparently since the Maelstrom Virus could infect individual Tyraks so easily it was all due to the fact that Tyrak DNA is all completely similar, which...makes sense, actually.  We were always under the impression that an Earth-borne pathogen could infect the local populace and wipe out entire species within a blink of an eye, and the Maelstrom Virus proved that theory with overkill.  

While the infection has spread so quickly, the Maelstrom Virus has done little to try and differentiate the DNA apart from the initial transformation of the cell structure, which means that all Tyraks are still closely related...with a few new differences.  Needless to say this breakthrough proves to be exactly the kind of thing we've been looking for.  Unfortunately for us, the Maelstrom is constantly evolving, which means that while each Tyrak is still related, certain groups are more related than others and the differences means that creating a kill-all infection would be nearly impossible.  Different populations develop different DNA sequences to combat a secondary viral infection.  To top it off, the Maelstrom Virus cells are still present in the cellular structure of the host, and are highly aggressive towards all forms of infection besides itself.

I had a hypothesis on how aggressive it really was, so I took the liberty to make a test by infecting uninfected tissue of a Tyrak that I still had samples of with the cells of the Tyrak specimens we have already collected.  The Tyrak I had acquired these cells from had a tumorous growth, which had been surgically removed for study.  The infection treated the cancer cells like cells of an outside source and eradicated them, leaving behind only clean, 'usable' flesh.

...I really need to make sure I conserve on these samples.  Reports have all but confirmed that the Tyra system is a dead zone, and with the Tyraks having been infected there's a good chance that if there are any survivors in existence they currently reside in our research labs scattered throughout the core worlds.  I have taken the liberty of classifying uninfected Tyraks as a highly endangered species.  If there's any chance at all at acquiring a reversal for this infection, maybe even a cure, it resides in these uninfected tissue samples.

Oh, before I forget, one other hypothesis I have confirmed is that the Maelstrom's success in infecting organisms only resides in the infection of the Tyrak organisms.  It is all but impossible for Maelstrom to virally infect any other organism besides those with Tyrak DNA.  Unfortunately at the rate that it constantly mutates and evolves, there's a good chance that the Maelstrom Virus will inevitably jump to another source.  Given its increased contact with humans, a mutation that can infect Homo sapiens sapiens is all but inevitable.  I have taken the liberty to escalate my research.


End of Log