Disease in Science Fiction

[DiscoRave]

Disease in Science Fiction

I have been reading BBS for a while now and usually find the hypothetical sci fi debates really interesting. The most interesting I find are usually related to things that are not the usually ‘mega lasers’ etc debates but more the impact of more every day things.

This led me to think about how the concept of disease is rarely touched on in Sci Fi. (At least as far as I’m aware, I’m happy to be corrected.)

So broken down into better topics:

• The lack of mention of the apparent need for vaccination when travelling to a new world. When we travel to another country we have to be injected with all sorts of vaccinations. Presumably travelling to a different planet with potentially completely different eco systems would mean a lot of vaccinations and possibly quarantines.

• On the above, can you imagine arriving at a new world and having to sit in quarantine? Or might ship crews be confined to space stations? Etc. Taking livestock from world to world? There would be lots for governments to consider. An example would be a world in the middle of a famine which is shipped a load of cows that infect the world accidently.

• Along with this is the possibility of interstellar outbreaks carried by people movements. I can imagine in a universe with a high population movement like Star Wars/Star Trek there would be a high potential of 'Coruscant Cold' running wild.

• Hoping this wont turn the topic onto weird sci fi sex... interstellar STD’s from activities such as prostitution/easy lifestyle. Your buccaneering Space Pirate dodges bullets all his life then dies of an infection from a certain lady of the night on a backwater mining moon.

I suppose I am interesting in people’s opinions on the matter, the preventative measures that are likely to be put in place, the potential for galaxy/space wide outbreaks and other things. Also if there is Sci Fi universes when this has been considered/mentioned.

If this has been discussed before then I would like to be linked to it as I couldn’t find anything on the Search.

[TOSDOC]

The lack of mention of the apparent need for vaccination when travelling to a new world. When we travel to another country we have to be injected with all sorts of vaccinations. Presumably travelling to a different planet with potentially completely different eco systems would mean a lot of vaccinations and possibly quarantines.

The lack of mention may only be because it is so commonplace--everyone in Starfleet, the Imperial Fleet, etc could have had all the shots they're going to get already. New diseases spring up all the time--watch "Miri" and "The Omega Glory" from Star Trek TOS for examples. Farscape has the best ever food poisoning episode called "Coup by Clam". TNG's "Shades of Gray" was much less impressive--my favorite part of that episode was just knowing that Starfleet forays to an alien planet and getting scratched by the local rose thorns could still kill you if you weren't careful.

Hoping this wont turn the topic onto weird sci fi sex... interstellar STD’s from activities such as prostitution/easy lifestyle. Your buccaneering Space Pirate dodges bullets all his life then dies of an infection from a certain lady of the night on a backwater mining moon.

I always think about this when the TNG episode "The Outragous Okona" comes on. She was a babe, though. I'd have died happy.

[Eternal_Freedom]

In SW at least, the magi-medicine Bacta is described as the cure from everything from the common cold to the most grievous injuries in one of the X-Wing novels.

I also agree with the idea that vaccination is so commonplace as to be not worth noting. But I can think of at least two examples in the X-Wing series alone of bio-war being used:

1. The obvious Krytos plague spread by Ysanne Isard on Coruscant in Wedge's Gamble/The Krytos Trap. A incredibly horrible disease by the descriptions given. But cured by Bacta (by design though).

2. In "Wraith Squadron" the titular group infect the crew of a Zsinj-controlled Imperial supply ships with "Bunkard Sewer Disorder." Which is apparently infectious but not lethal, just very unpleasant.

[Lord of the Abyss]

David Brin (IIRC) wrote a story involved a disease that spread itself via blood transfer; it had evolved the reproductive strategy of making donating blood feel good, and spread through blood banks.

• The lack of mention of the apparent need for vaccination when travelling to a new world. When we travel to another country we have to be injected with all sorts of vaccinations. Presumably travelling to a different planet with potentially completely different eco systems would mean a lot of vaccinations and possibly quarantines.

Or it may not be an issue at all. One recurring plot point in the old Sector General medical-SF series is that disease can't cross the line between alien species. Along with the occasional panic when they think they've found the exception to the the rule.

• On the above, can you imagine arriving at a new world and having to sit in quarantine? Or might ship crews be confined to space stations? Etc. Taking livestock from world to world? There would be lots for governments to consider. An example would be a world in the middle of a famine which is shipped a load of cows that infect the world accidently.

I recall a short story where an alien trapped on Earth in its damaged ship was at one point contemplating detonating the engines in a nuclear level fireball despite being in a human city, because its native microbial life was so inimical to Earth life that it would destroy and replace the Earth biosphere. Unless something like a nuclear blast vaporized it all.

[Freefall]

I think most space opera has at least one "disease" episode. Enterprise had several where they had to sit in the decon chamber rubbing gel on each other (so it was basically a thinly veiled excuse for gratuitous sexuality). There was also an episode where the captain's dog became deathly ill on a planet and needed a new pituitary gland from a chameleon.

In later Trek, they generally use the excuse that between the transporter buffers and the hyposprays, just about all known pathogens can be screened or cured in some manner. There are a few exceptions; the episode where Data meets his father comes to mind, which has a boy infected with some disease that can only be treated at a starbase, and is sealed up in a quarantine chamber while on the Enterprise.

There was an episode of DS9 where Bashir was attempting to treat a disease created by the Dominion; I thought it was interesting because in the end he actually failed to find a cure, but he did manage to make a vaccine, which is a little atypical for these kinds of episodes.

I'm pretty sure Stargate also had a few disease episodes (obviously with the Ori), but their system didn't seem as well developed, especially with the gate room itself not being a huge quarantine zone. So I'm actually not sure what they did for preventative measures; maybe the MALPS were supposed to partially address this, though I don't see how they could identify contagions within 5 minutes.

Then you've got totally goofy things like "The Naked Now" and "Genesis" from TNG, or "Macro Virus" from Voyager.

Also, keep in mind that in Trek, they can apparently "inoculate" people against radiation if they have to, which kind of plays to the "it's too trivial to mention" idea.

[TOSDOC]

Also, keep in mind that in Trek, they can apparently "inoculate" people against radiation if they have to, which kind of plays to the "it's too trivial to mention" idea.

Damn, that pissed me off in First Contact. What, do hyposprays come preloaded with a hundred doses of every drug in the pharmacy now? She didn't even try--at least rummage through a medical kit and make it look like you loaded it into the syringe.

[someone_else]

This led me to think about how the concept of disease is rarely touched on in Sci Fi. (At least as far as I’m aware, I’m happy to be corrected.)

Imho would be much more close to reality saying "noone seems to give a fuck about disease until people start to get sick". Which is, overconfidence in their doctors. I remember lots of disases in fiction, but nearly noone had preemptive mesures in place (of which preemptive quarantine is the simplest). Everything was a reaction to an unexpected (although they had emergency plans) event.
The same goes for screwing around with alien chicks.
Not a single time they used some kind of precaution (like space-suiting their Willy before insertion), but most had to go to the doc afterwards.

That happens usually because their medical science is so well into the magitech that most SF doctors usually cast spells from Cleric's spell list of D&D.

In most other situations, it's just that writers barely know what a disease is and don't want to spend 10 mins reading wikipedia to know a little more about it.

Also, keep in mind that in Trek, they can apparently "inoculate" people against radiation if they have to, which kind of plays to the "it's too trivial to mention" idea.

Well, now it seems possible to some extent

[adam_grif]

In Mass Effect 1, when you return to your ship they hide a load screen with "Stand by shore party... decontamination in progress... decontamination in progress...". It's apparently some kind of white glowy thing that goes back and forth over you to magically decontaminate you.

*shrug*

[phred]

Babylon 5 was actually pretty good about disease. They had one episode where some disease basically wipes out an entire species, and the doctor tries to find a cure. It also jumps species, and they spend a lot of time figuring out why it happened.

They also had an entire story arc with the doctor gathering data on the various aliens to see if that kind of thing might be a problem in the future

[Gil Hamilton]

nBSG managed to have a stupid disease episode, where the sniffles from a probe that's been bathing in cosmic radiation for several thousand years can automatically massacre all Cylons no matter what, including Centurions and Raiders AND it works through the downloading process, somehow.

Even though you'd think the issue of disease was only brought up before in the context of Cylon immune systems being super awesome. Even though the Cylon's moved into Caprica city, which would have had millions of dead bodied exposed with the plagues that come with millions of unburied dead bodies with no issues whatsoever. Even though it didn't work on Sharon (because being pregnant gave her antibodies, even though it though it doesn't work that way) or the Final Five (because Ron Moore hadn't thought them up yet).

All that entirely for some throw away drama with Helo that they never address again. It's not like even though the Cylons are dead, they couldn't get live samples of the virus from their corpses for later use or anything or Helo would get any sort of punishment (Adama basically goes, "I'm not going to look into this and let's never speak of it again").

[Swindle1984]

Babylon 5 was actually pretty good about disease. They had one episode where some disease basically wipes out an entire species, and the doctor tries to find a cure. It also jumps species, and they spend a lot of time figuring out why it happened.

They also had an entire story arc with the doctor gathering data on the various aliens to see if that kind of thing might be a problem in the future

That was a good episode.

The disease spread through them because they had associated the disease with immorality, i.e. only bad people get it, since an island full of wild deviants caught it first and got wiped out. Then when it started infecting everyone, they refused to acknowledge it, as it meant they were immoral if they contracted it. They made matters worse by clustering together instead of remaining isolated.

The reaction of everyone else aboard the station to the sudden plague was realistically done as well.

Really, the entire episode was well done, and the series as a whole was fantastic, particularly up to mid-season 4.

[Lusankya]

Damn, that pissed me off in First Contact. What, do hyposprays come preloaded with a hundred doses of every drug in the pharmacy now? She didn't even try--at least rummage through a medical kit and make it look like you loaded it into the syringe.

Maybe they contain miniature replicators that produce small amounts of a variety of pre-programmed medications.

[MKSheppard]

nBSG managed to have a stupid disease episode, where the sniffles from a probe that's been bathing in cosmic radiation for several thousand years can automatically massacre all Cylons no matter what, including Centurions and Raiders AND it works through the downloading process, somehow.

Actually...I think that was an Alien Episode.

It's been a while since I watched that particular episode; but I recently found the nBSG bible; and it talked about how if we ever encountered alien life on the show, it had to be truly truly alien to us.

Additionally, IIRC it was never fully explained what the Cylons found. It clearly wasn't Cylon and it wasn't Colonial either.

The question on everyone's mind was "So if it isn't us or the Cylons...then WHO made it?"

Leading up into the uneasiness everyone was feeling was that unlike your typical science fiction, there was the very real possibility of the disease jumping barriers; because the Cylons could be considered a split off the human genetic tree.

Finally, as a weapon, it was pretty pointless, because the Cylons at that point had demonstrated a willingness to cut off the infected portions of their race and let them die. You basically get reduced to infecting base ships one by one, and that isn't a winning bio-war strategy.

Plus as before, there's always the worry that the disease could jump and hit humans -- so it wasn't that hard to imagine a sort of mutual consent by both sides to not go those places.

But yeah, it could have been tightened up better.

[FSTargetDrone]

but I recently found the nBSG bible; and it talked about how if we ever encountered alien life on the show, it had to be truly truly alien to us.

This is it, I think (2nd from the bottom, below the scripts).

[sirocco]

The question on everyone's mind was "So if it isn't us or the Cylons...then WHO made it?"

Maybe the Kobolians...you know, before the humans wiped them out or left the planet and let them die.

Whatever the case, I think too that in general science-fiction, people just don't know a thing about diseases.

Currently I've started reading Encounter with Rama by Clarke, and the first thing that bothered me is the 'experienced' astronauts entering an alien ship (containing an environment similar to Earth) without even checking if it is safe to breathe the air inside.

But they got better later, when they analyzed the water (after noticing that it didn't look that clean)

[TOSDOC]

Maybe they contain miniature replicators that produce small amounts of a variety of pre-programmed medications.

That would be just fine with me, but she still didn't look like she selected for it, which means the hypo would have had to read her mind too. At least push a button or something on the syringe. I just forced myself to watch it again on SyFy last night to make sure.

Nitpicking, I know, but the acting does make a difference. DeForest Kelley used to look at his syringes before injecting.

[Talhe]

In Scalzi's Old Mans War series, it's mentioned that disease and general incompatibility with planets are one of the key reasons that war over colonization is so fierce. There's mention of having to rely entirely on stored food, and the fact that they're unable to to utilize any of the plants or animals for food/compost for their own produce and livestock.

A egregious example comes up in Orson Scott Cards Homecoming series, where after several million years and a series of devastating wars that rendered it uninhabitable, the returning humans find Earth a lush paradise perfectly suited for living, and inhabited by two intelligent species. It's hand-waved away by the Keeper Of Earth, aka God, making it better. I might be getting the details wrong, but I'm not willing to read anymore of Cards books again.

[dworkin]

Let's not forget Well's Martians who succumbed to some nasty earth germ (H-136 if you believe a certain A. Moore).

In Gerrod's Chtorr series the initial act of the invaders is to infect humanity with several nasty plagues so that resistance will be limited while the ecology establishes itself.

In Weber's Dahak series galactic humanity was wiped out by some sort of bio-weapon plague thing except for some isolated colonies in the back of beyond.

The background for Drake and Flint's Bellisarius series mentions a DNA plague bio-weapon thang that seems to of left only the wierdest transhumans in the far future.

Fasa's Terran Overlord Goverment fought it's way out of oprression (and into more) after humanity was enslaved after being devastated by the Snow Plague.

Wing Commander IV had the bad guy monkeying arround with some nasty flesh eating disease.

The Imperium of Man has virus bombs ranging in size from grenades capable of taking out a bunch of infantry to ship launched bombs to rid entire continents of nids, orks or other people they dont like much. And the less said about Papa Nurgle and his fan club the better.

And there's the unforgettable tragedy of the Golgafrinchins (Hitchhikers) who, after sending away the 'useless' third of the population succumbed to a disease caused by a lack of telephone sanitisers.

[Rossum]

Maybe they contain miniature replicators that produce small amounts of a variety of pre-programmed medications.

That would be just fine with me, but she still didn't look like she selected for it, which means the hypo would have had to read her mind too. At least push a button or something on the syringe. I just forced myself to watch it again on SyFy last night to make sure.

Nitpicking, I know, but the acting does make a difference. DeForest Kelley used to look at his syringes before injecting.

Maybe the hypospray incorporates technology from those floating tool robots from the Next Generation episode. You know the ones who were designed to fix stuff and were smart enough to tell when the crew was running simulations to test them and Data was sure they were sapient?

It could be that the hypospray just automatically identifies what the problem in the patient is and administers the right dosage of the right stuff. No need for the person using it to press buttons or anything (This way senior Starfleet officers can be healed up by wandering alien children or comic relief monkeys if they crash-land their ship in the middle of nowhere and the only crew member with medical training died in a console related accident) and the only reason the thing isn't flying around on anti-grav modules is because the last time sapient medical equipment was given the ability to move it shut down the holodeck, locked the crew in their rooms, and replaced all their uniforms with straight-jackets.

[Zaune]

Another good reason why this might considered a non-issue is that surprisingly few diseases are capable of making the jump between species here on Earth, and if they do they're often relatively harmless. Sci-fi writers often seem to forget about this when it comes to venomous animals, however.

[TOSDOC]

It could be that the hypospray just automatically identifies what the problem in the patient is and administers the right dosage of the right stuff. No need for the person using it to press buttons or anything (This way senior Starfleet officers can be healed up by wandering alien children or comic relief monkeys if they crash-land their ship in the middle of nowhere and the only crew member with medical training died in a console related accident) and the only reason the thing isn't flying around on anti-grav modules is because the last time sapient medical equipment was given the ability to move it shut down the holodeck, locked the crew in their rooms, and replaced all their uniforms with straight-jackets.

I actually started to go cross-eyed at the word "monkeys".

A first-aid comp that's scanning a field patient and giving drugs IV accordingly is a fine thing, especially in a battlefield situation before you can get the soldier to a hospital. I especially liked the one in Gerrold's novel A Day For Damnation. But it will never completely replace the need for having a doctor, and if doctor's are still around, then the hypo (or the drugs themselves) don't need to be magically sapient enough to know what's wrong with someone and fix them once they're injected.

Don't tell me you won't need shipboard doctors once you have magic hypos either--that redshirt over there just had his leg severed by his own console, and he sure could use a surgeon to clamp his femoral artery and reattach his leg while his hypo is treating his acute depression.

[Zaune]

Damn, that pissed me off in First Contact. What, do hyposprays come preloaded with a hundred doses of every drug in the pharmacy now? She didn't even try--at least rummage through a medical kit and make it look like you loaded it into the syringe.

Actually, given the number of times I've seen the various doctors insert a cartridge into the base of a hypospray before administering the necessary drug, I'm pretty sure that was just an oversight by the director. Don't read too much into it canon-wise.

[Sela]

While it's contradicted by the diseases we see within the show, I'd like to directly address the OP and say that one of the oft-touted ST:TNG lines is that "Disease has been eradicated" in the 24th century . .. it's a thing of the past. Particularly, the more brainwashed the individual (crusher, beverly) the more likely they are to insist on it when there's evidence to the contrary. My point is, it doesn't come up much in Star Trek because presumably core-federation worlds are disease-free.

[Coyote]

The Babylon 5 episode was pretty good; many species were immune (I think the Minbari and humans were able to interact freely with even the worst cases). Disease in science fiction isn't touched on much, beyond the "tic the box" episode-- rarely a recurring theme.

Some diseases are actually biological weapons, so they are designed to foil known cures, providing the plot of the week.

I put disease in my own original fiction, but it rarely can jump species --a disease that is deadly in one species might get cold and flu-like symptoms and that's it. Or vice-versa.

If you consider drug or alcohol addiction to be a "disease", there's a lot of that in the more recent sci-fi.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I'd like to directly address the OP and say that one of the oft-touted ST:TNG lines is that "Disease has been eradicated" in the 24th century . .. it's a thing of the past.

ST:FC goes even further, with Troi saying, in 2063, that "poverty, disease, war, they'll all be gone within the next fifty years." (Emphasis added by me).

She was probably laying on the rhetoric and hyperbole thickly for Cochrane's benefit, but it's still worth mentioning methinks.