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purplefood wrote:

TheAngrySquig wrote:For the whole special disease annihilating the orks discussion, its already been tried. And it worked WELL

Clearly not well enough.
Properly made a disease of this type would have the potential to wipe Orks out totally...

As with any disease of that type, it's all about transmission between hosts. If the disease killed off an Ork population completely before, then possibly the path of destruction stopped at the extinction of an Ork empire in some faraway binary system simply waiting to be (re)discovered. If this sounds familiar, it is, because that's whats rumored to have put the oldcrons to sleep in the first place.

The disease wouldn't work unless it only killed the host slowly.

Otherwise it wipes out the Orks in a particular system or empire but then dies out because it has no more hosts to transmit.

Grey Templar wrote:The disease wouldn't work unless it only killed the host slowly.

Otherwise it wipes out the Orks in a particular system or empire but then dies out because it has no more hosts to transmit.

That's exactly what I just said as a plausible reason why the Orks have been largely spared by a plague!

purplefood wrote:

TheAngrySquig wrote:For the whole special disease annihilating the orks discussion, its already been tried. And it worked WELL

Clearly not well enough.
Properly made a disease of this type would have the potential to wipe Orks out totally...

It wiped out every ork on the planet and she chose not to use it again

DemetriDominov wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:

DemetriDominov wrote:

KingDeath wrote:Why waste time with biological weapons when normal ordnance is much more efficient?

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but biological warfare, whether caused naturally or by war has hands down caused the most death and destruction in all of history.

The problem with that comparison is that Ordnance has not been around for all of history!

It's like saying that swords are more efficient than guns because swords killed more people - it might have something to do with the fact that the sword has some 10,000 years on the gun.

The problem is that biological weapons that exist in reality are far more devastating to a population than even nuclear weapons, the height of all man made ordinance. A single nuke can level a city. A single strand of militarily modified smallpox, just one cell, can easily cause the extinction of all mankind.

[citation needed]

Unit1126PLL wrote:

DemetriDominov wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:

DemetriDominov wrote:

KingDeath wrote:Why waste time with biological weapons when normal ordnance is much more efficient?

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but biological warfare, whether caused naturally or by war has hands down caused the most death and destruction in all of history.

The problem with that comparison is that Ordnance has not been around for all of history!

It's like saying that swords are more efficient than guns because swords killed more people - it might have something to do with the fact that the sword has some 10,000 years on the gun.

The problem is that biological weapons that exist in reality are far more devastating to a population than even nuclear weapons, the height of all man made ordinance. A single nuke can level a city. A single strand of militarily modified smallpox, just one cell, can easily cause the extinction of all mankind.

[citation needed]

Just look up the black plague, Vx gas, sarin, cyiande, small pox: there are dozens of the every were.

As a medic for the army, I have seen simple gastro, a stomach flu, shut down platoons because they were all sick.
Theres a reasons why Biological/chemical weapons are banned world wide, they can easily cause a 100% kill ratio on large scale with minimun damage to the enviroment and equipment.
Unfortunatly its also highly unpredictable, specialy weaponaize bacteria.

The middle three things are chemical, not biological weapons.

Everything else hardly caused the extinction of all mankind with a single cell.

I have an issue with the entire ork species being genetically identical. Yes, spores would suggest an asexual form of reproduction, but given the state of scientific understanding of the race that apparently created them, it seems like a choice between 2 assumptions:

1. They are in fact, genetically identical because that's what spores mean in this case. However this would be an oversight of monumental proportions for a weapon that needed to survive against such a variety of threats. An inability to adapt in any way genetically would be crippling.

2. Orks are not genetically identical, and spores are a means of reproduction but include some measure of genetic variation to allow for evolution, but does so in a way that is not known to today's science.

Personally, I think its probably the latter. The first would, over the course of many millenia of warfare and exposure to foreign pathogens, be pretty critical. I think its more improbable that a race that could create such a resilient species as the orks did so without a mechanism to allow for this. Of course, there is a 3rd mechanism, which draws on a different addition to our science, namely that an ork's genetic reproduction is identical in an asexual fashion to what we know, but it's immune system functions without a reliance on genetic diversity to overcome a range of threats.

Unit1126PLL wrote:The middle three things are chemical, not biological weapons.

Everything else hardly caused the extinction of all mankind with a single cell.

Because of my training, I tend to put all Nuclear, biological and chemical in the same boat.

Still, black plague was estimate to kill anywere from 30-60 percent of the population at the time.
As for small pox it was killing 2 million people per year until the U.N. did a massive erradication campaigne.
These were only natural disease, I would dread to think if it was weaponized

Reanimator wrote:I have an issue with the entire ork species being genetically identical. Yes, spores would suggest an asexual form of reproduction, but given the state of scientific understanding of the race that apparently created them, it seems like a choice between 2 assumptions:

1. They are in fact, genetically identical because that's what spores mean in this case. However this would be an oversight of monumental proportions for a weapon that needed to survive against such a variety of threats. An inability to adapt in any way genetically would be crippling.

2. Orks are not genetically identical, and spores are a means of reproduction but include some measure of genetic variation to allow for evolution, but does so in a way that is not known to today's science.

Personally, I think its probably the latter. The first would, over the course of many millenia of warfare and exposure to foreign pathogens, be pretty critical. I think its more improbable that a race that could create such a resilient species as the orks did so without a mechanism to allow for this. Of course, there is a 3rd mechanism, which draws on a different addition to our science, namely that an ork's genetic reproduction is identical in an asexual fashion to what we know, but it's immune system functions without a reliance on genetic diversity to overcome a range of threats.

It is likely that as an Ork grows and fights(getting bigger and stronger) his genetic makeup also changes to his environment.

This would allow for genetic variation and adaptation while also serving a practical purpose. The spores shed after he gets stronger will be adapted to his environment.

Where are people getting the idea that organisms that reproduce asexually don't undergo mutation and adaptation, and are thus more susceptible to to plague? Plenty of bacteria have proven this statement to be a lie.

While there are certainly benefits to sexual reproduction, it isn't the only viable strategy. Any reproducing organism is going to have a certain amount of mutation between generation. Many organisms build mutation in to their reproductive process.

And when it comes to Orks it is important to remember they are an engineered organism. While organic evolution can certainly produce varied and efficient organisms, it doesn't always necessarily produce better designs than intelligent design. This is in fact a strength of the Tyranids. They don't 'evolve,' they 'engineer' new designs, choosing the features they feel will be of the most benefit. They don't 'evolve' at all, at least in the true sense.

When discussing the Orks it is important to remember they are an engineered species, from the cellular level up. The Old Ones certainly took biological warfare into account. Even orkish bacteria are an engineered species, designed to fight off that anything 'un-orky', making them (for the most part) fairly resilient to biological warfare.

The Orks are the pinacle of Old Ones genetic engineering. They were bred to survive. They'd eventually adapt to a specifically crafted-virus, even if it isn't as fast as the Tyranids and an unconscious endeavor (again, unlike the Hive Mind).

I would think that Ork's wouldn't get sick because they don't believe they are sick. Kind of like how their technology is able to function, it works because the ork believes it will.

For the last time that is not how it works!

Actually, that is how it works

If orks believe they are in perfect health for krumpin, then they are in perfect health.

Unit1126PLL wrote:

[citation needed]

Mary Dobson's book Diseases a simple, but important reading for my undergraduate of public health of naturally occurring diseases,

Bacterial
Bubonic Plague caused by bacteria Yersinia Pestis, prevalent since 540 A.D., still exists in Africa today, it is the famous Black Death of the mid 14th century that claimed over one third of Europe's entire population. Such was the destruction wrought upon civilization in this time, images and stories of The Dance of Death, the Grim Reaper, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse came into being and have been burnt into our minds since. Similar stories even later than the Black Death show that its reach had not been completely extinguished, claiming hundreds of thousands of more lives throughout Europe in the 1600's, most notably in 1665-6 when london was laid low by plague that claimed a fifth of it's population (70,000-100,000) in a single year.

Typhus (the same name as Nurgle's Champion) had multiple episodes of outbreak, most notably the Crimean War where nearly twice as many soldiers died from this disease alone, than by wounds. French emperor Napoleon could only watch in horror as his "Grande Armee" was decimated by this ravaging disease, the Russian army, and its brutal winter, returning to France with only 30,000 troops left alive, and only a thousand still capable of fighting. The Irish potato famine which claimed two and a half million people, many died directly of starvation, but the overwhelming majority were struck down by Typhus and other famine related diseases.

There are others, Tuberculosis, Puerperal Fever, Typhoid, Cholera and many many more bacterial diseases that claimed hundreds of thousands, if not millions more, but I don't want to bore you so we'll move on to the heavy weights of disease of the other classes.

Parasites

Malaria- one of the oldest diseases of all history - and has had a habit of killing nearly 1 - 3 million people a year, mostly now in Africa due to the injustice of poverty.

There about a dozen other parasitic diseases that affect Africa and kill hundreds of thousands more every year as well, but i'll let you look those up.

Well instead move onto quite possibly the most terrifying type of disease: Viral... and no, its not not over the internet.

Viral

Smallpox - claimed 10-15% of all European Deaths by the 16th century, it would kill anywhere between a 25-40% of its victims, those who survived were often left physically scarred or even blinded for life. It is almost entirely responsible for the disillusion of the Aztec and Inca empires, and the Maya named it Nokakil or "The great fire" that literally leveled their civilizations and allowed the Spanish to scatter or enslave the population that remained. In the 1960's, almost 15 million people had contracted the disease across the world, leading to the decision of the World Health Assembly to act together to eradicate the disease by 1979. However the virus lives on in the military stockpiles of the two most heavily defended laboratories of the world, one in the USA, and the other in the Russian Federation who have declared their stockpiles of the military grade virus a necessity of countering a terrorist attack using the virus. Considering that there are now very few people still alive who have been vaccinated, especially more recently born children who are 80% more likely to contract the natural strain, the results of a major smallpox outbreak on the world could be catastrophic.

I'll only say the Arabic Proverb on the account of Measles- Count your children after the measles has passed. (it has a kill rate of 25-30%)

Influenza - In its known 500 year history, the flu has been quite possibly the deadliest disease ever known. It killed 1 million people in Russia in a single year, and during the course of the first world war, it killed more people than the actual war did, resulting in the deaths of nearly 50million people.

Finally the King of all Disease

AIDS and HIV - 100% kill rate once contracted and no cure in sight.. and it's completely natural - the military had nothing to do with it's origins, nor have any of the other diseases I've mentioned have a genesis in the military, but you can bet they've been tampered with to see how destructive they can be made.

Imagine then what the Imperium could have done to any one of these diseases or the ones on faraway planets.

This is why there needs to be a change in the fluff for Nurgle. He isn't represented very well in many of the things I've read, and throughout history we take for granted the billions of people who unwittingly laid down their lives so that we may live.

Oh, and so we're clear, you were technically right, one cell may only have the potential to destroy all of mankind, but the AIDS virus is currently at work doing it...

The Problem with using Biological Weapons is that with Tyranids are consistantly evolveing ( im a Guard player BTW so it breaks my heart) so no Tyranids will have the Same Genetic code . If i use a Biological Agent on a Jungle planet it will have not effect on Tyranids on a planet right next door because they evolved in Different Enviroments . If and thats a huge IF the imperium could Design a Bio Agent that evolved it'self then it would be effective Against One Tendral of the Tyranid fleet ( Kraken for example ) because the Other Tendrils would be so differnt in genetic code. If you were to look for a more basic genetic level to base the agent on you have a great possiblity of catching other species in the Agents grasp . Also Tyranids would Evolve to have a Immunity to the Bio agent ...... Personally i would rather watch the damn Bug dissapear from a Blast from a HSLG then have to hope an invisible killer works

If Orks can survive Dok "speriments" including the dreaded Squig brain transfer, I dont thing i pidely little plague is going to bother them.

Graham Mcneill's Warriors of Ultramar goes pretty in depth on the benefits and drawbacks of using engineered biological weapons against tryanids.

1. The orks mutate depending on their environment, in Gunheads they are fighting orks on golgotha. These orks are not green, they are a ruddy brown-ish colour and bigger and tougher than normal orks because of the harsh environment in which they live.
2. If you were to unleash a biological weapon into a warzone to kill off orks there is no way of stopping the bacteria of that weapon from mutating to affect humans also.
3. This is the big problem to using a bio weapon against any race, and it has already been stated in this thread but just to enforce it, there would be no way of the disease spreading to the other planets held by the aliens. Even if some(eg. Orks) did come off planet in a spaceship and head towards the nearest planet it would take time for them to travel across, by which time the ships occupants would have died and the disease probably would die in the ship without a host.
$. You also have to bring psykers into this, there is no fluff to say that powerful psykers could not defend against a genetic strain of disease...they can do alot. Besides the psyker gene itself is a genetic mutation, it could be that another effect of that mutation is a resistance to certain diseases...

Read the Iron warriors books for some info on imperial bio tech

DemetriDominov wrote:You'd think genetically at least the Orks would be more vulnerable to biological warfare than Tyranids since they cannot evolve at the same pace.

Fungicides are heresy, apparently.

purplefood wrote:

TheAngrySquig wrote:For the whole special disease annihilating the orks discussion, its already been tried. And it worked WELL

Clearly not well enough.
Properly made a disease of this type would have the potential to wipe Orks out totally...

If the Imperium really was technologically advanced, they could do this. But they're not technologically advanced, they're backwards. If nobody made diseases to kill orks, as far as the Imperium is concerned there are no diseases made to kill orks.

the 4th company of ultra smirth do it

biccat wrote:

DemetriDominov wrote:You'd think genetically at least the Orks would be more vulnerable to biological warfare than Tyranids since they cannot evolve at the same pace.

Fungicides are heresy, apparently.

purplefood wrote:

TheAngrySquig wrote:For the whole special disease annihilating the orks discussion, its already been tried. And it worked WELL

Clearly not well enough.
Properly made a disease of this type would have the potential to wipe Orks out totally...

If the Imperium really was technologically advanced, they could do this. But they're not technologically advanced, they're backwards. If nobody made diseases to kill orks, as far as the Imperium is concerned there are no diseases made to kill orks.

That's a giant oversimplification of the fluff. While the Imperium definitely can't replicate or understand the under-workings of much of their technology, and they are most definitely regressing at a fast pace, they're still light years ahead of modern real world biology. The Magos Biologis actually do some pretty awesome stuff in some of the fluff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DemetriDominov wrote:

AIDS and HIV - 100% kill rate once contracted and no cure in sight.. and it's completely natural - the military had nothing to do with it's origins, nor have any of the other diseases I've mentioned have a genesis in the military, but you can bet they've been tampered with to see how destructive they can be made.

Imagine then what the Imperium could have done to any one of these diseases or the ones on faraway planets.

This is why there needs to be a change in the fluff for Nurgle. He isn't represented very well in many of the things I've read, and throughout history we take for granted the billions of people who unwittingly laid down their lives so that we may live.

Oh, and so we're clear, you were technically right, one cell may only have the potential to destroy all of mankind, but the AIDS virus is currently at work doing it...

Magic Johnson has had HIV for over 21 years. While there may be no cure in sight the disease has become manageable to an incredible extent for those living in industrialized nations.


Quote from Avert.org, an HIV/AIDS charity organization.

"The number of people living with HIV rose from around 8 million in 1990 to 34 million by the end of 2010. The overall growth of the epidemic has stabilised in recent years. The annual number of new HIV infections has steadily declined and due to the significant increase in people receiving antiretroviral therapy, the number of AIDS-related deaths has also declined."

Massively off topic, but that 100% kill rate talk was just completely untrue gibberish.