Hi,

My 2nd ed character has a dependant: his sister.

We play in 2050 and she was hit by V.I.T.A.S. about a decade ago. Luckily it didn't kill her.

Based on the name - Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrom - we deduced that VITAS causes the immune system to have extreme reactions to toxins in our enviroment. These reactions are lethal. The disease in itself doesn't kill, - the infected dies from the exposure to materials that VITAS have made him hyper-allergic to.

My sister lives in an apartment where everything is sterilized, all air is controlled, all allergens are removed and everything that enters the apartment are controlled for potential allergens. She lives most of her life in cyberspace and has become a very adept hacker. However, I support her lifestyle financially (and gets a hacker contact in return).

We've made a fair deal of money on a run, - unfortunally my character doesn't know how long he is going to survive. So he would like to help his sister for good.

Which brings me to the questions here: can you cure VITAS? Is it possible to remove the hyperallergi with Immunization?

A.

Have her become Infected as a vampire...

From Augmentation pg. 88.
Augmented Healing combined with Cellular Repair would heal Vitas (IMOO)
Lenght of healing period would be GM's call..

Basically any disease is curable by sticking people in a genetech vat for a few months - if you can afford it. The only exceptions are very rare plot-device diseases; I think there was some Universal Omnitech boss who lived in a vat because of a rare disease.. (ripped straight from Gibson)

problem is that said character is listed as living in 2050 which is well before the timeline of Augmentation, and if I remember my stuff well enough also well before the genetech and vat tech with said inclusion. It has been a VERY long time since I had to worry about 2ed tech level so I wouldn't be the one to provide the answer but I wanted to at least point out that the OP wanted this on a different timeline.

VITAS-III in SR3 deals 6D, with symptoms (fever, chills, and vomiting) occurring in survivors until they heal down to Light. Assuming that the patient is stabilized after taking Deadly and has Body 3 and Willpower 3, they'd probably take several months to recover (TN 10 to come down to Serious, -2 if in intensive care, base time of 30 days; coming down from Serious is another TN 8/6 with intensive with a base of 20 days, and then 6/4 with intensive to hit no-symptoms Light), though enough cash (long-term magical healing and continuous intensive care) can speed things up a lot.

The numbers may be different in SR4, if that has VITAS in it. It doesn't seem to be inherently chronic, though SR3 has the possibility of permanent attribute or organ damage.

EDIT: oh hey, you're keeping the faith. I don't know SR2's rules for VITAS either, but they probably look more similar.

~J

Keeping the faith? You mean, by playing 2nd ed?

We just got lazy. Instead of learning all the crooks'n'nanny of a (partly) new system, we just decided to use the one that we know.

And we have all the books from 2nd ed.

I'm reading 4ed to start a campaign in it, maybe with the same characters, - only older.

What in-game years did the systems change?

BTW: my sister have signed up for an experimental VITAS-treatment at a subsidiary of John Hopkins in the Renraku Arcology, so I won't have to front the money for it. However, John Hopkins was the company that funded Doctor Halberstam's research, - he's the one who turned me into a cyberzombie without my permission. So I'm not too comfortable about it.

....but I'm on the NY-Seattle maglev train wearing a conductor-uniform, holding 8 people hostage and wanted for the bombing of the Tir Na Nog-embassy in NY. Life is... hectic.

A.

You mean Thomas Roxborough?
That guy works for Aztechnology.

Yeah, that one.

Q: How do you cure VITAS in SR2?

A: High dose concentrated IV fiat.

Seriously you're missing a great story opportunity if you just look up some rule on how to dice it out. You're player thinks his character will die as a result of the actions that gave him the resources to save his sister? Well great, he spends all this money and contact good will to come up with some crazy scheme that involves a massive set of cyber implantations and crazy stuff from shadowtech, manages to cure (we think but heck there's plot hooks waiting to happen here), then set up a suitably grizzly end for the first character and start playing the sister fresh on the streets with a grudge against those that did such bad things to her brother. Plot goes on, player gets a new character with a great backstory that everyone in the group was involved in creating, and the new character is full of great future plot hooks.

Talk to your GM, work it out.

Good Plot > Rigid adherance to rules...

VITAS is an autoimmune disease - it turns the host's immune system against it's body. which means that if you can scrap the immune system you won't have problems with the VITAS anymore. Of course you're going to have equally bad if not worse problems, so you'll ne to rebuilt it in a way that's not affected by the disease you're good to go. Nanites would be the logical way to go.

Baically look an 'wares that give bonuses to resist deiseases and toxins and consider that thir bonusbecomes the striaght dices instead. the quivalent of a 3 dices bonuses will be enough to bring her to the low end of human resistance and shoudl'nt be too hard to get.

That can always be fun. I played in one campaign that was low level with a decker character.

I migrated the same character to a second, higher powered campaign. Based on some of the stuff in the prior campaign he was really paranoid. The second campaign elevated the paranoia to "Enemy of the State" level. ("I blew up the building." "Why?" "Because you made a phone call.")

I later ran a campaign in the next edition, and at one point brought out the same character as an NPC. The reactions of the players who were familiar with the prior campaign was priceless.


There's plenty of fun stuff you can do to give a glimpse into a character's future, playing off of key elements of their history, while leaving other bits unclear. Maybe your former PC is now a dark and brooding, based on something that happened to his sister the PCs don't know about. Or maybe the PCs are initially unaware that they're working for the sister, who's trying to figure out what happened to her brother, who is mysteriously absent. Or maybe there's finally some sort of cure out there but she needs the help of the PCs to get access to it, which they don't know until it's dramatically revealed.

Wait, what? That guy that posts "keep the faith" at the end of every post (but never includes it in his sig for some reason), he's not posting that because he's a hard-core religious guy, he's talking about playing an old edition of the game?

Ok, this is a really cool storyline. I love it when my players give me ammunition like this.

I don't care if there are rules in 2e or a later edition for a cure. Cures are boring plot items. The fun is getting hold of the damn thing.

1.) A contact of mine says DocWagon was working on a prototype cure a couple of years ago, but the genius who was heading the research had a mishap with a live sample. The project got shelved soon after, and rumor has it it's collecting dust there still. Up for a little smash and grab on one of the most coveted biotech labs in the world?

2.) Of course then there is the matter of the non-synthesizeable extract from an amazingly rare amazonian orchid. The locals in that reqion are pretty hard on poachers. Ready for a paramilitary romp in the jungle?

3.) Oh... and then we've got to find some brilliant doctor to actually put this thing together and (safely) administer it. There aren't many names on that list, but rumor has it that guy in Hong Kong isn't happy with his current employers. Ready to negotiate and execute an extraction with the competition?

K... maybe your GM will be less cheesey (I kind of like Dem's scenario above), but you get the idea. My player gives me a great story element and then comes to me and tells me his character is going to focus on changing that element in some way... I'm getting anywhere from 1 to 5 adventures out of that storyline. I generally get good feedback when I pull characters' stories to the forefront of the campaign for a moment.

Clearly

I figure after being the guy who complains about people not reading titles or posts thoroughly and assuming that discussions are about SR4, I owed some public admission of the fact that I had just not read a post thoroughly and assumed that a discussion was about SR4.

~J