Author Topic: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?  (Read 2384 times)

JAMES_PRYDE

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Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« on: 28 September 2022, 03:56:12 »
Not withstanding Society designed Viruses and EI phycological illness, can Trueborns suffer from all the everyday and longer term stuff ?

I would imagine to make the best warriors possible (and lower caste relegation), all that would be DNA edited out, or written to be immune.

Off the top of my head, I cannot remember reading anything about it

AlphaMirage

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #1 on: 28 September 2022, 04:01:38 »
They are still human. That said they are in really good shape and have access to Star League+ medical care so it's unlikely they'd be out for long. You probably push through any mild illness due to attitude though

Mendrugo

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #2 on: 28 September 2022, 04:09:53 »
The BattleCorps story “Superior” showed Smoke Jaguars getting ravaged by disease on an Inner Sphere world they had conquered.  So, yes, local bugs can make Trueborns sick.
"We have made of New Avalon a towering funeral pyre and wiped the Davion scourge from the universe.  Tikonov, Chesterton and Andurien are ours once more, and the cheers of the Capellan people nearly drown out the gnashing of our foes' teeth as they throw down their weapons in despair.  Now I am made First Lord of the Star League, and all shall bow down to me and pay homa...oooooo! Shiny thing!" - Maximillian Liao, "My Triumph", audio dictation, 3030.  Unpublished.

JAMES_PRYDE

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #3 on: 28 September 2022, 05:06:28 »
The BattleCorps story “Superior” showed Smoke Jaguars getting ravaged by disease on an Inner Sphere world they had conquered.  So, yes, local bugs can make Trueborns sick.

wow, ok then (But we all know the Jags are just "special") >:D

Alan Grant

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #4 on: 28 September 2022, 06:30:44 »
I can't recall specifics right now, but in the old Clan Wolf and/or Clan Jade Falcon sourcebooks, during Operation Revival there were one to three occasions where the Clans attacked and conquered their Inner Sphere world target quite easily, crushing some planetary militia with few losses, then saw their warriors brought low by some local disease or illness that was common on that planet but that the Clans were unprepared for. Which in turn put that Clan unit out of commission for a while. As you can imagine this was seen as ironic.

So yes, Trueborns get sick.

Even if you discount them being trueborns though, think about what they generally are. Humans in prime physical condition, excluding those who were prone to illness as a child (I imagine it's difficult to test out of the sibko and become a warrior if you are particularly prone to being sick all the time, that trueborn cadet with a weak immune system, or who develops a lot of childhood medical complications probably gets relegated to a lower caste), in that 20-40 age range.

In that age 20-40 stage of human existence, you have an above average chance of getting through with fewer diseases and health problems and where, when you do get sick, you tend to bounce back faster. Heck you even bounce back from things like sleep disruption or hangovers faster. Your body can also handle a lot more poor nutrition choices like fast food quite easily. Somewhere in your 30s or 40s (it varies by person) age starts to slow you down and the risk factors of certain health conditions begin to increase. Your body's immune system can weaken, hormone levels tend to start changing, and so on. In your 20s you could go to that all-night party, throw yourself on a couch, and then go for a run the next day and probably feel mostly fine, you bounce back fast. In your 40s you do the same thing and it feels like you need DAYS to recover.

There are numerous exceptions to this, but that holds true for a lot of potential health issues and complications.

So again, we're talking about very healthy human specimens in peak physical condition. Akin to real world professional athletes who made the cut out of hundreds or even thousands of possible candidates. That has way more to do with it than them being trueborn.

It should be noted that we also know Clan medical science is pretty advanced. So that works in their favor too. The average Clan Trueborn warrior, age 20-35 is going to want for nothing. Medical treatments, therapeutics, preventatives, regrown limbs if viable, advanced cybernetics otherwise. The Clan will spare no expense on them. That's one of the advantages of being the leadership caste in a caste-based society. It's only once they reach solahma status without a bloodname that they start to be seen as lesser-than-deserving of the best available medical support.
« Last Edit: 28 September 2022, 06:34:43 by Alan Grant »

nova_dew

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #5 on: 28 September 2022, 07:25:49 »
There's also the CGB trueborn warrior who died from I want to say brain aneurysm(s) in the fluff to the Annihilator guass-zilla right up
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Natasha Kerensky

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #6 on: 28 September 2022, 08:31:44 »

It’s stated somewhere(s) that trueborn genetic code is not artificially edited by the scientist caste except to remove genetic diseases.  So this implies that trueborns do not suffer from cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, and the like.  They may even have a greatly reduced chance of suffering from conditions with a strong genetic component like heart disease.

But trueborns should be as susceptible to infectious disease — viruses, bacteria, fungi — as their freeborn kin.
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Istal_Devalis

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #7 on: 28 September 2022, 08:58:22 »
There is no way to 'genetically edit' out the ability to get sick. Viruses and Bacteria dont really care about your genetic coding all that much (beyond a virus using your own cellular mechanisms to take over), and themselves are constantly evolving as the strains that survive are the ones that get passed along. You can potentially breed for a more robust immune system, but the entire shebang is a very complicated affair.

CJC070

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #8 on: 28 September 2022, 09:37:36 »
I forget where I read it but one Trueborn warrior died of a heart attack at the age of 40.  So not only are they susceptible to disease but they can suffer from basic ailments of they do not take care of themselves.

Decoy

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #9 on: 28 September 2022, 10:28:17 »
It was a Coyote galaxy commander. It was later blamed on Society hijinx.

BrianDavion

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #10 on: 28 September 2022, 12:50:58 »
Not withstanding Society designed Viruses and EI phycological illness, can Trueborns suffer from all the everyday and longer term stuff ?

I would imagine to make the best warriors possible (and lower caste relegation), all that would be DNA edited out, or written to be immune.

Off the top of my head, I cannot remember reading anything about it

as others said viruses don't care about your DNA. they can still get sick. at the very least they can simply make you less suspectable to certain genetic conditions but even then there's no garentee, clanners can get cancer and all types of other things. they can also certainly catch a cold. now clanners would certainly all have their vaccinations, the clans wouldn't tolerate anti-vax sentiment. But, as you should know Vaccinations aren't even 100% foolproof as diseases often mutate fast etc.

So yes trueborns can get sick. Look a clan trueborn isn't like a warhammer 40k space marine who has been altered to the point of no longer being human. They're more like a dog thats been bred over their years. and as much as we'd like to, no one has figured out how to breed wolves to a point where fido is immune to disease
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Tyler Jorgensson

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #11 on: 28 September 2022, 14:21:07 »
The Society and Dark Caste say you can DEFINITELY get sick. And so do the Wobblies.

GuyIncognito

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #12 on: 28 September 2022, 16:19:27 »
Look a clan trueborn isn't like a warhammer 40k space marine who has been altered to the point of no longer being human. They're more like a dog thats been bred over their years.
I daresay Pugs are an apt comparison in fact.

Jellico

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #13 on: 28 September 2022, 18:12:20 »
I can't recall specifics right now, but in the old Clan Wolf and/or Clan Jade Falcon sourcebooks, during Operation Revival there were one to three occasions where the Clans attacked and conquered their Inner Sphere world target quite easily, crushing some planetary militia with few losses, then saw their warriors brought low by some local disease or illness that was common on that planet but that the Clans were unprepared for. Which in turn put that Clan unit out of commission for a while. As you can imagine this was seen as ironic.


It should be pointed out as the inheritors of the Star League the Clans mostly have records on the diseases, natural or otherwise in the Inner Sphere and are able to react pretty quickly when required. Failures like the above were generally administrative, forgetting world X has unique disease y, rather than technological.

JAMES_PRYDE

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #14 on: 28 September 2022, 19:19:32 »
I forget where I read it but one Trueborn warrior died of a heart attack at the age of 40.  So not only are they susceptible to disease but they can suffer from basic ailments of they do not take care of themselves.

If memory serves, that would be Rana or Ranita Pryde too, in "Falcon Rising" she was the head of Pryde Bloodhouse, when she suffered a heart attack too, and then Ravil got stuck with the job, which he hated

Generic Clanner 24601

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #15 on: 28 September 2022, 22:33:42 »
I daresay Pugs are an apt comparison in fact.

That would be the aerospace fighter phenotype.

CJC070

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #16 on: 29 September 2022, 00:21:17 »
It should be pointed out as the inheritors of the Star League the Clans mostly have records on the diseases, natural or otherwise in the Inner Sphere and are able to react pretty quickly when required. Failures like the above were generally administrative, forgetting world X has unique disease y, rather than technological.

They may have mutated, remember the virus that took out a point of Elementals was barely a common cold to the rest of the civilians.  Despite being in harsh environments the Clans were very isolated from other potentially dangerous elements.

Jellico

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #17 on: 29 September 2022, 17:21:37 »
Usually the reverse is described as being in play. The viruses are localized and isolated, and the local inhabitants have "mutated" to tolerate the virus.

BrianDavion

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #18 on: 29 September 2022, 19:30:19 »
little of collum a and collum b. the population would have over time developed a tolerance for it due to exposure etc. but at the same time the virus would have mutated so that any star league era vaccines, like what the clans would have in their records, would likely be of minimal effectiveness.
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glitterboy2098

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #19 on: 29 September 2022, 22:07:56 »
odds are that in addition to their peak physical traits, they receive a rather comprehensive set of vaccinations and similar protective measures, making them less vulnerable to most of the illnesses that existed at the time the SLDF left on the exodus, plus whatever stuff cropped up in the homeworlds. Which means they would be vulnerable to strains of illnesses that cropped up since the exodus, but you can bet their scientist caste made getting updated IS made vaccines a priority study after the invasion, as well as devoting a fair number of researchers to developing new ones for anything that either didn't have a vaccine or which had proven tough for the IS's reduced medical science to tackle.

given the homeworld's isolation, by all rights the clans should have been more vulnerable to illnesses during the invasion than we saw, suggesting either that they had knowledge of the more common ilnesses and their vaccines and treatments[1], or that they had some pretty good quarantine procedures for the frontline troops to keep them safe, and which kept the temporary garrison units they were employing from being completely effected.

[1] honestly i could see the Dragoons having sent in a lot of data on this during their first resupply run, given the dragoons themselves would have had to deal with the dangers and source their own supplies of vaccines and such on arrival.. especially given their cover as periphery types who had found a SLDF cache.

Alan Grant

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #20 on: 30 September 2022, 04:45:12 »
Found the reference I was trying to recall earlier. In the Clan Wolf Sourcebook.

During the 4th wave of the Clan Invasion, in October 3050. Skokie was expected to be an easy conquest and the two planetary militia regiments fled instead of fight the Clan Wolf assault and were eventually subdued with few losses on either side.

But a local variant of meningitis, named the Skokie Shivers for the shaking the victims suffer, struck two thirds of the Clan Force. Forcing their quarantine until they recovered and effectively removing them from the front lines of the invasion.

Metallgewitter

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #21 on: 30 September 2022, 11:47:26 »
There is a note in the Wars of Reaving about the constitution of Trueborn warriors: when the Hellions struck the Falcon OZ they were moving on orders to move them constantly up and down in the Clan worlds. When they arrived several of those were fatigued and as the source states "the usual superior resistance to common illnesses" was weakened due to the permanent stress. So I assume that Truebborns have a usuall higher resistance to common illnesses but unique ones flatline them just as easy as freeborns. Plus constant stress wreck their immune system too

Mendrugo

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #22 on: 30 September 2022, 12:10:32 »
On the other hand, their toughness has been demonstrated to let them survive parasitic infestations that would kill normal humans.  (An Elemental is reported to have survived an encounter with Alyina's "Brutto Vapore" - clouds of stinging insects that paralyze victims, lay eggs in them, and then have the larvae burrow their way out.
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Tyler Jorgensson

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #23 on: 30 September 2022, 15:14:34 »
On the other hand, their toughness has been demonstrated to let them survive parasitic infestations that would kill normal humans.  (An Elemental is reported to have survived an encounter with Alyina's "Brutto Vapore" - clouds of stinging insects that paralyze victims, lay eggs in them, and then have the larvae burrow their way out.

That’s horror movie level of horror right there.

Starfury

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Re: Can Trueborns Get Sick ?
« Reply #24 on: 30 September 2022, 21:36:46 »
Yup they can. Trueborns are tougher, but they'll die or suffer from ailments like any other human. Clan medical science probably helps with regenerating damaged organs from disease, though, along with improved medical research to innoculate the population against known disease. They're often subject to the disease of one dimensional writing, though.

 

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