So I've been trying to figure this out lately, for a game.

What's the current status of VITAS plagues? I know VITAS-2 burned itself out sometime pre-2050s, and VITAS-3 is I think the only sample disease in the SR3 main book, but I don't think I've ever seen anything in the recent history about pockets of VITAS erupting.

See, I've got this idea of my team hitting a covert biotech shipment and the target ending up being a weaponized VITAS-3 sample that gets the team into a world of trouble. I try to remain pretty faithful to the metaplot, though, and don't want to run too far off the rails.

I'm sure there at least a few samples of VITAS-3 around. The CDC still has smallpox samples, after all.
A corp could easily make more from small cultures, but the shipment would be scary secure. VITAS outbreaks are bad for business unless you have a cure/treatment.

The scenario loses punch if VITAS-3 pops up regionally from time to time. Then theoretically anyone could get their hands on it. If VITAS is still "that thing that happened like 50 years ago," the bogeyman plague, it'd really have that "oh shit" factor that teams feel when they realize they're getting nailed to the wall by Mr. Johnson.

Think of it as any other WMD, but a lot more cloak and dagger. The big boys have their own and it goes to black R&D mostly, John Q. Public won't see or hear of it. This could even be the first time someone's tried to ship the stuff. IT could even be that the shipment is INTENDED to be stolen.

In SR3, one out of 12 Devil Rats carried VITAS and if it bit you (did physical damage to you) you got to roll wether or not you had been infected . .

One thing to keep in mind : unless he's expressely willing to have the bioweapon relased, the Johnson will inform the runners about what they're supposed to steal, at least in generic terms. If he want to keep it more under wrap in case they have moral issues, he can present the situation as 'fragile samples that should be handled with utmost care to make sure they don't get spoiled'. But he'll warm the runner the item they're stealing should be handled with care.

Doing otherwise would as stupid as hiring a bunch of shadowrunner to steal an exceedingly fragile vase without telling them more than 'the item will be in crate number xxxx in tomorow's UPS transport number YYYY' and expect the vase to arrive in one piece.

Most of my characters in Shadowrun asks for that sort of things to the Johnson - being very vlear they don't want to know what exactly the item is, but what nature it is and any vulnerabilities/dangers it might present.

Of course if the PCs are hitting a ntrasport on their own based on faulty intelligence, that's another kettle of fish, though it might give the PCs a feeling the GM is deliberately screwing them up for screwup's sake.

Weaponizing this seems like... a bad idea..

Didn't the first outbreak kill off 30% of the world's population.

The second swing took out another 25% or something? That's billions of people. Who would weaponize something like that? Other than a doomsday cult?

Every high ranking Military . . it's the new deterrent.
Don't fuck with us, you can't win, because even if we go down, you AND THE WHOLE WORLD are coming with us . .

There's a whole bunch of critters who carry VITAS-3. Localized outbreaks should be pretty common.

Augmentation has a few bioweapons, including lovely retro stuff like Ebola+.

It's a very inefficient form of MAD in the nuclear world isn't it?

I'm just not seeing it.

Psychotics maybe but after 25 to 50% of the world's population fell to this, it'd be pretty much the most horrific thing around. Even the crazy would have to look at it and go "Eh... there's gotta be a better way tha doesn't literaly have a chance of killing -everyone-. Outside of video games and such, people that want everything in the world dead aren't that common and of those, not many have the skill and ability to mess around with this stuff.

The transport method and containment pretty much ensures that the virus itself has virtually no chance of getting out into the population. The team would have to deliberately open it up, which would be a pretty big chore. Anything powerful enough to accidentally breach containment would destroy the sample.

Basically the corp that has it wants it so they can do research on it. Of course it would be stupid to actually use as a weapon, but given time they could develop all sorts of other nasty engineered weapons. A strain that only attacks a particular metavariant or that only hits the magically active could be held over the head of a country or corp.

So Corp A steals this thing from the UCAS (and it originally came from parts unknown) and wants to transport it to a research lab. Corp B (the hiring corp) wants the team to steal it and give it to them, to keep Corp A from having it, and semi-altruistically to do vaccine research. The twist is that Corp B has manipulated some independent agents involved in the transport to destroy the sample at a preset time during transit, just in case the runners fail to retrieve it. The runners don't know that, and the agents don't know there are runners. From Corp B's perspective, either the runners will succeed or everything will get blown up out over international waters.

That's why you gengineer VITAS 4 to weaponize. You make it so it's highly infectious but dies out quickly on it's own and it's easily cured with your corps proprietary medication.

Corp B's plan is just plain stupid : having two tams acting at the same time and location while being ignorant of each ther is a recipe for trouble. Normally plan B is distinctly separate from plan A and gets a chance to interfere only after plan B has failed. Things like having the extra team working at the delivery site of the bioagent by it's maker.

Otherwise there's a very good chance that as soon as the convoy is attacked, corp B's insiders will decide that they'd rather destroy the sample early rather than letting it fall into unknown, though probably ill-intentioned, hands. Afteral, who but a biotech corp (independant or part of mega) or terrorists would steal a biowarfare agent ?

And depending on how the insders are supposed to destroy the sample, it can really increase the odds for an accidental release.

Depending on thz timeframe since the stuff was stolen from the UCAs - quite long if corp B could implment their two-stage plans - one can wonder how comes corp A hasn't already moved the stuff sompelace secure.

Didn't say there were two teams acting at the same time and location. I said that there was a third party engaged to destroy the sample. That ball will already be rolling by the time the runners are involved, and the agents won't be anywhere near it -- it's just a contingency. The method precludes any accidental release, but it could complicate things for the runners and adds a pretty sharp deadline to exfiltrating.

What'd be an an easier concept is a new paracritter needing transport (or recovery).
That the critter just so happened to be a reservoir for some evil form of VITAS XX (harder to identify due to valuable pharmacutical protein structures in the creature's blood?) while being cure and cuddly (Compusion, emotional manipulation powers, etc) would make it a real hurter of a mission.

It gets around the whole "trying to get the weaponized death vials" thing, and allows the GM to really tailor the mission to suit.

-Tir

Note to self : next mage character needs Shape Metal spell in case the GM comes up with measures to prevent the team from destroying the world.

Corp B (the hiring corp) wants the team to steal it and give it to them, to keep Corp A from having it, and semi-altruistically to do vaccine research. The twist is that Corp B has manipulated some independent agents involved in the transport to destroy the sample at a preset time during transit, just in case the runners fail to retrieve it.

In what you've posted the third party engaged by the PC's employer, corp B, and will act in the same time frame as them. And it sounds like the time frame was set by that very same corp B

so you unless there was some misunderstanding on my part, it means you effectively have two parties acting on the same objective (the samples), in the same location (the transport), at the same time (during the transit) for the same employer (corp B) without being informed of each other. And this situation is the direct result of Corp B's planning on how to handle the situation.

Corp B is willing to take either result, but they're not willing to let Corp A get the sample. They can't manipulate the third party agent to do anything other than destroy the sample, due to the moral/ethical stance of the third party. So they've developed this plan. Worst case, the sample gets incinerated. Best case, Corp B gets the sample. Medium case, the runners partially fail (mostly if they fail to take care of the UCAS tracers on the case and bring it unshielded into an active matrix region) and the UCAS sends an armed response team to take down a serious bioweapons threat.

Honestly, I'm not looking for an assessment of the plan. It's complicated and I'm not spelling it out in great detail. All I really care about is the perceived threat of a VITAS sample by the general public.