The Cure for HMHVV, A speculative scenario for curing the plague of the Sixth World Options

[JanessaVR]

No, not just shooting them in the head. My opinions regarding the Infected are, I trust, well-known here. Nonetheless, HMHVV always has, and continues to fascinate me. It’s the car crash I can’t help but stare at, the puzzle begging to be solved. And I believe I’ve done so.

I would argue that the existence of a cure doesn’t remove the impact of HMHVV on the Sixth World. If anything, I believe in this instance it would heighten it, as this cure would only be available for the rich. And the rich not having to worry about disease as they have access to best and latest futuristic medical care while the poor masses huddle suffering in the Barrens? What could be more cyberpunk than that?

The process of the cure involves multiple stages utilizing both magic and technology; HMHVV is not an easy disease to fully counter. I’m guesstimating the final price tag as being probably over 1 million ¥ per patient. This process uses the SR4 rules.


Speculations on the Nature of HMHVV

This required some considerable research throughout multiple rulebooks.

The primary basis of metagenetics are “astral shadows,” which are effectively astral components attached to specific genes. In short, they are what make specific genetic components magical in nature. Purely mundane genes don’t have them, and thus behave in a completely mundane manner. HMHVV is an Awakened virus, and so clearly it has them.

This highlights the main problem the canon attempts to cure HMHVV – I think their entire approach is flawed. Most of the people working on the cure are doctors treating this through the lens of a background in mundane virology and genetics, when that’s not the problem at all. If this was caused by a mundane virus, then mundane medicine and/or magical disease curing spells could eliminate it, almost certainly. No, the problem is its magical component, which makes it so tenacious. So no amount of work into trying to develop some sort of vaccine or “miracle drug” is ever going to work. But, if you disable/kill the magical component of the virus, then mundane medicine can be used on the patient. That’s the primary thrust of this approach.

Now, we know that the Cure Disease spell does nothing to cure HMHVV. Most likely, this is because after the victim’s transformation, the virus counts as "normal" for the victim’s body and not as an invading organism, so the spell ignores it. This is supported by the fact that there is no mention of the Cure Disease spell affecting any “friendly” microbes in the patient’s body; no need to rush to go eat some yogurt after being treated by the Cure Disease spell, as if it were some sort of super-antibiotic.

So, we need to target this thing specifically and kill it – with magical assassination. Lock onto the individual viruses in the patient’s body and kill just them, nothing else. But this approach highlights another problem. It’s been mentioned that attempts to alter existing metagenes frequently kill the patient (and the whole point here is to cure them, not kill them). So, there’s a very decent chance that this nasty little magical virus will not “exit gracefully,” hence the need to “brace” the patient’s cells against possible damage during the process. There’s nothing in the rulebooks that would accomplish this, so that will need to be a new spell.

Ok, we have a basic game plan, but now we need some hard numbers. In an Opposed Test to eradicate HMHVV from a patient’s body, what is being rolled against? I decided to use the rules for attacking Wards as a guide, as it seemed to the closest (sort of) equivalent I could find in the rulebooks for this situation. In the SR4A Core Rules, p. 194, in the “Passing Through Barriers” section, it’s noted that “An astral mana barrier may be attacked in astral combat; treat it as a standard barrier with an Armor and Structure equal to its Force (see Barriers, p. 166).” Consulting pages 166 – 167, in the “Destroying Barriers” section, we see that barriers roll their Armor rating to defend against spell damage, and the remaining damage much equal or exceed the Structure rating to destroy the barrier. This seems like a reasonable way to rate the “strength” of HMHVV for resisting removal from its host.

But one more thing, also as per page 194 in the SR4A Core Rules, in the “Passing Through Barriers” section, there is this: “The enchantment on a mana barrier restores it to full Force after one Combat Turn of ‘rest,’ however, regenerating any damage or breaches and making such barriers impervious to all but the most determined foes.” Given the legendary resistance of HMHVV to any and all cures attempted to date, this also seems like a reasonable rule to include. So either kill it in one shot, or it quickly repairs itself and you have to start all over.

All right, so the next big question is…just how strong is HMHVV? It’s magical in nature (but not Sapient and has no Willpower score), so I think it can reasonably just be given a Force rating, which lets us use the above mechanics. And this would be…what, exactly? Well, consulting SR4 Running Wild, page 68, and its errata posted here on Dumpshock, we get:

• HMHVV-1: Vector: Infection Power, Penetration -3, Power: 13, Nature: Retroviral
• HMHVV-2: Vector: Injection, Penetration -3, Power: 13, Nature: Retroviral
• HMHVV-3: Vector: Injection, Penetration -3, Power: 6, Nature: Retroviral

I decided that a particular strain of HMHVV has a Force rating equal to its Power (this is the best I could come up with). So, being somewhat conservative and assuming a 1/3rd success rate (rounding up) on all dice rolls, in an Opposed Test:

• HMHVV-1: Force 13 = Armor 13 and Structure 13. 13 dice to resist damage = 5 hits. Need 18 hits to kill it.
• HMHVV-2: Force 13 = Armor 13 and Structure 13. 13 dice to resist damage = 5 hits. Need 18 hits to kill it.
• HMHVV-3: Force 6 = Armor 6 and Structure 6. 6 dice to resist damage = 2 hits. Need 8 hits to kill it.

Ok, now we have our hard numbers. Bring in the patient – let’s operate.


The Operation

This can be a one-mage job, but that mage will need to have at least a Magic of 10, so that’s Magic 6 + Initiate Level 4 as well. Alternately, a mage of least Magic 9 and two other mages each with Magic 6 can achieve the same results. For this example, we’ll use a single mage.

Morgana is a Hermetic mage with Logic 6, Magic 10, Willpower 6, and a Spellcasting skill of 6. She also has a stacked Power & Centering Focus 10, and three Sustaining Foci 10. She’s also a level 4 Initiate and knows the Centering metamagic technique.

For this operation she’ll be using the following spells: Cellular Support (excluding HMHV Viruses), Detect (HMHV Viruses), Heal, Hibernate, Slaughter (HMHV Viruses) spells. Full descriptions for all of these spells are provided in a section below.

Again, I’m being somewhat conservative and assume a 1/3rd success rate (rounding up) on all dice rolls.

For Spellcasting, she’s rolling: Magic 10 + Spellcasting 6 + Power Focus 10 = 26 dice.
For Drain, she’s rolling: Willpower 6 + Logic 6 + Centering 4 + Centering Focus 10 = 26 dice.

The patient is Vlad, a vampire with an average Willpower of 3; he’s tired of his rather limited liquid diet and wants to be human again.


Phase 1 – Prep the Patient for Surgery
• She casts Hibernate at Force 10 on the patient and locks it into her Sustaining Focus #1. This spell is effectively functioning as magical anesthesia for this operation.
• Morgana’s dice rolls for the above: Spellcasting is 26 dice, giving her 9 hits; the subject’s bodily processes are slowed by a factor of 9. Drain for this spell is (Force / 2) -3, which comes out to 2, and she’ll easily absorb that with 26 dice for drain.
• She casts Cellular Support (excluding HMHV Viruses) at Force 10 on the patient and locks it into her Sustaining Focus #2.
• Morgana’s dice rolls for the above: Spellcasting is 26 dice, giving her 9 hits; this provides the patient with an Armor rating of 9 (to add to their Willpower) against any internal damage the process of killing off the HMHV Viruses in their body might cause. Drain for this spell is (Force / 2) +3, which comes out to 8; rolling 26 dice for 9 hits, she fully absorbs this drain.


Phase 2 – The Operation
• She cast Detect (HMHV Viruses) at Force 10 on the patient and locks it into her Sustaining Focus #3. This spell functions as the targeting mechanism for the next spell. It highlights the exact location of each of the individual HMHV Viruses present inside the patient’s body.
• Morgana’s dice rolls for the above: Spellcasting is 26 dice, giving her 9 hits. Drain for this spell is (Force / 2) -1, which comes out to 4, and she’ll easily absorb that with 26 dice for drain. These many hits will also ensure a sufficient level of detail (see the SR4A Core Rules, p. 206, in the “Detection Spell Results” section) that she knows the location of all of the HMHV Viruses in the patient’s body.
• She casts Slaughter (HMHV Viruses) at Force 10 on the patient. This will fry every last one the HMHV Viruses inside the patient’s body, while the Cellular Support spell protects the patient’s body against the (possible) destructive impact of the Slaughter spell’s effects (see below).
• Morgana’s dice rolls for the above: Spellcasting is 26 dice, giving her 9 hits; this plus the base damage is a total of 19P damage, which is enough to kill off any strain of HMHVV (as per above). Drain for this spell is (Force / 2) +1, which comes out to 6; rolling 26 dice for 9 hits, she fully absorbs this drain.
• Vlad’s dice rolls for the above: If frying the HMHV Viruses in his body causes some sort of harmful backlash, assume that it’s effectively attacking him with a mana damage spell at the HMHVV’s Force rating. He’ll roll Willpower 3 + 9 hits on the Cellular Support spell versus a Force 13 attack. This is 12 dice (4 hits) against 13 dice (5 hits), so he sustains 1 point of Physical damage.
• If the previous spell did any damage to the patient, she can cast Heal on him and repair the damage. Alternately, if the Slaughter (HMHV Viruses) spell was not successful, she can just sit back and wait for him to automatically repair himself, since vampires have Regeneration. If necessary, she can repeat the casting of the Slaughter (HMHV Viruses) spell and try again.


Phase 3 – Post-Op Care
• After the operation, the patient is no longer HMHVV-positive, but still looks like a monster (vampires are probably the only ones who still look mostly normal after their transformation), so that needs to be corrected as well in the final step.
• The patient is taken to a genetic surgery facility where they will essentially be dumped into a tank and rebuilt to look like their old selves (alternately, they could take this opportunity to make some improvements to their old appearance while they’re at it).
• 6 weeks later, the patient’s genetic surgery is complete. They are almost cured and back to normal, but still need to deal with Essence loss.
• HMHVV-2 and HMHVV-3 victims only lose 1 point of Essence. They'll require 10 months of Essence Revitalization therapy.
• HMHVV-1 victims who are cured are left with only 1 point of Essence. They'll require 4 years and 2 months of Essence Revitalization therapy.


The Price Tag - Primary Surgery
• Finding and hiring a Magic 10 caster and having them learn 5 spells. 100,000 ¥
• Spell formula purchase cost for the Heal and Hibernate spells: 1,000 ¥
• Spell formula research costs for 3 new spells (Combat, Detection, Manipulation): 40,000 ¥
• Purchase and binding of 1x Rating 10 Stacked Power & Centering Focus: 400,000 ¥ and 140 KP
• Purchase and binding of 3x Rating 10 Sustaining Foci: 300,000 ¥ and 120 KP
• Final Cost: 841,000 ¥ and 260 KP

I can’t find any rules for hiring NPCs, so the costs for hiring professional mages for legal work are almost completely pulled out of a hat. But, given the time needed for them to learn new spells and bind foci, and Karma the they’ll have to spend doing so – and the fact that Magic 10 mages do not grow on trees – I decided on a cool 100K as their fee. If you can hire this same mage to keep doing this job, however, then there’s room for some considerable amortization here for all the other costs.

For researching the new spells, I used the spell formula purchase prices in the SR4A Core Rules, p. 181, and added a zero.


The Price Tag - Post-Op Care
• Full-body reconstruction of the cured patient (Gene Therapy, Phenotypic Alteration): 50,000 ¥
• Essence Revitalization therapy for HMHVV-2 or HMHVV-3 cured patients: 275,000 ¥
• Essence Revitalization therapy for HMHVV-1 cured patients: 1,075,000 ¥
• Final Cost: 325,000 ¥ for HMHVV-2 / HMHVV-3 cured patients or 1,125,000 ¥ for HMHVV-1 cured patients


Spells Used

Cellular Support (excluding HMHVV Viruses)
Type: Mana
Range: Touch
Duration: Sustained
Drain Value: (Force / 2) +3
Description: This spell is somewhat like the Armor spell, save that it’s focused on preventing damage from inside the patient, by “bracing” the patient’s cells against damage from within while a magical virus eradication is being conducted throughout their body by a damaging mana spell. It specifically excludes HMHVV Viruses from its effects.
Reference: SR4A Core Rules, p. 210 for the basic Armor spell
NOTES: This is a completely new spell.

Detect (HMHVV Viruses); (Active, Area)
Type: Mana
Range: [Force * Magic] in meters
Duration: Sustained
Drain Value: (Force / 2) -1
Description: The caster detects all individual HMHVV Viruses within the spell’s range and knows their number and relative location.
Reference: SR4A Core Rules, p. 207 for the spell Detect [Life Form]
NOTES: This is a new specialization of an existing spell.

Heal
Type: Mana
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Drain Value: (Patient’s Damage Value) -2
Description: Heal repairs physical injuries. It heals a number of boxes of Physical damage equal to the spell’s hits from the Spellcasting Test.
Reference: SR4A Core Rules, p. 208
NOTES: This is a standard existing spell.

Hibernate
Type: Mana
Range: Touch
Duration: Sustained
Drain Value: (Force / 2) -3
Description: The caster must touch a voluntary or unconscious subject. This spell puts the subject into a form of suspended animation. The subject’s bodily processes are slowed by a factor equal to the hits. For example, If 4 hits were scored, the subject’s metabolism is slowed by a factor of 4. Such a subject sealed into a chamber with enough air to keep it alive for a day would be able to last four days. In this particular instance, the spell is functioning as de-facto magical anesthesia during surgery.
Reference: SR4A Core Rules, p. 208
NOTES: This is a standard existing spell.

Slaughter (HMHVV Viruses); (Direct, Area)
Type: Mana
Range: LOS (Area)
Duration: Permanent
Drain Value: (Force / 2) +1
Description: This variant of Manaball is designed to target HMHVV Viruses only.
Reference: Street Magic, p. 165
NOTES: This is a new specialization of an existing spell.


Bibliography

SR3 SOTA 2063, pp. 6 – 30
SR3 Year of the Comet, pp. 22 – 41
SR4A Core Rules, pp. 166 – 167, 181, 194, 207, 208, 210
SR4 Augmentation, pp. 75 – 77, 84 – 90
SR4 Runner’s Companion, pp. 59 – 63, 76 – 83
SR4 Running Wild, pp. 55 – 68
SR4 Street Magic, p. 165
SR Fiction – Another Rainy Night
SR Fiction – Sail Away, Sweet Sister