While playing my Tohaas my Nikoul shot & damaged a tag and a viral rasail killed a "regular" solider. While my opponent was figuring his turn I was wondering how to picture a viral weapon working & wouding / damaging personnel & materiel. How do you guys imagine it ?
I Imagine it's pretty horrible, like within a few minutes of the round penetrating the body the victim just kind of doubles over in pain while blood and various other effluvia start to run from every orifice larger than a sweat gland before sort of keeling over dead. For the non-fleshy things it hits, I imagine the nanoswarm embedded in the round is a bit like a self-limiting grey goo scenario, the swarm just rapidly disassembles the target, of course this probably does nasty things to the fleshy bits as well.
It's supposed to kill people nearly immediately, so it couldn't really be "viral" as in containing live viral agents - they just don't work on that time scale. I always assumed they were scary nanotech payloads that ate whatever it was from the inside and produced toxic byproducts while doing it.
Not anti-materiel in a sense of a game rule with this name, no. But anything that can damage armored vehicles would count in RL terms.
As a writing exercise last year, I wrote a short story about a Loup-Garou team deploying to a crisis. The story began with them gearing up. Those who were issued Viral weaponry had to pass through a guardedguarded and retrieve their ammunition from a secure locker, one that was environmentally sealed and could issue an alert if it was ever breached or accessed without appropriate clearance. As far as Viral's effect as an ammuntion, the requirements there actually have to be pretty demanding. The effect of the round either has to be lethal enough to possess immediate stopping power, or possess enough kinetic force to cause harm as a ballistic projectile, or both. The viral effect needs to impose enough immediate neurological damage or paralysis that it could (for example) stop the target from pulling a trigger in response, otherwise it would never be favored over more common ammunition types. An effect that takes more than a fraction of a second is too great a liability. Additionally, it can't aerosolize or become airborne upon impact or dispersal (you don't want clouds of lethal gas erupting if you engage a target at close range, or in a contained area, or if your magazine gets struck/damaged.) This also begs the question on whether the ammunition is caseless (Tohaa vs Haqq versions may differ on this point.) Questions like slug, propellant, etc. would have their own difficult demands. The viral substance also needs to neutralize itself quickly and become inert almost as fast as it kills, so that your combat zone doesn't become a lethal hazard zone to everyone operating in it... Imagine how dangerous it would be if every target taken down by viral, or every stray round that struck a wall/bulkhead, needed to be avoided as a lethal hazard. If we want to get really crazy, it also needs to have a way to effect units that are entirely artificial, and have no biological components at all (this may need a hand-wave, I can't even begin to decipher how this would work unless we're talking about something that's corrosive, or unless a substance is created that affects both the nervous system and eletronic wiring in tandem.) These requirements are so strict, I think it actually does reinforce how brilliant both Haqq and Tohaa need to be to weapon this stuff.
I would say that each Haqqislamite viral round is a crystalline lattice which is laced with a fast acting bio/nanological substance. Once the round impacts a target, the lattice shatters and the resulting substance-coated shards are spread through the target. Upon interaction which anything with an electrical charge, such as a nervous system or artificial wiring structure, the "viral" substance causes a nigh-on instantaneous and fatal shutdown of the entire wider system's ability to transmit any charge at all. Nervous system shutdown kills the target immediately, or in the case of an artificial structure, causes it the inability to regulate and control itself, requiring repair if this is indeed possible. The substance acts within a fraction of a fraction of a second, which is useful, because it breaks down and becomes completely inert/useless within a fraction of a second. I also think its a caseless round because I believe only Ariadna and Morats use cased ammunition. Haqq rifles are rifles because they lack the sophisticated recoil compensation and targeting assists of combi-rifles, which I imagine are connected into more advanced comlogs too, but still use caseless ammo. But Barakiel is right, actual deployment of viral ammo is going to be highly restricted. What Haqq troops have it, Hassassins, Druze... is that it? Think it is. Be cool if RTF got something with it though, since they probably made the damn stuff in the Caliphate Science Academies anyway.
To me it's easier to imagine "viral" as describing the spread of the active substance, be it an actual virus, nano machines or a hacking program with no physical components. Then as the extra layer imagine the viral weapons to be select-fire like Multi weapons whether to deploy anti-bio or anti-machine rounds.
Unfortunately the fluff describes it as having several styles, one of which is literally viral particles. Which couldn't really kill or injure someone with any sort of alacrity. But then again this is hardly hard sci-fi; the violation of conservation of mass and energy that Dog-Soldiers commit is probably much more egregious.
@Solar. . . I personally think that some "Basic" Haqqislamite Guns are NOT caseless. . . Not only thay are shaped like Kalashnikov A.K.-47, but also have an arming-rack lever on the ejection port. . . Maybe is JUST a miscommunication between Artists and Design Team, but why have Case Ejection Ports on Caseless Guns. . .?? But the Viral Long Sniper and the Viral Combi of the Lasiq are indeed JUST Rifle-shaped and seem very advanced technological protypes with "Liquid / Crystallized" Ammo. . . Many of the more advanced weapons of Infinity are supposed to be even MORE advanced than Caseless; the Yujing Spitfire and H.M.G. are supposed to be "Mass-Driver Railguns" that house different kind of "Liquid Metal" in the small "Bottles" contained in the Clip. . . As for Ariadnan Sniper Rifles that shoots Viral Ammunition for the Loup Garous then I think that are ALMOST identical to contemporary R.W. Tranquilizer Rifles employed by Park Guards and Wildlife Preservation Teams; some employ hypercompressed air to shoot darts, and some have a small Syringe housed in a normal Bullett Warhead. . . Obviously the Syringe is filled not with Anesthethics but some very nasty "Not-Ebola" mix of N.B.C. nasty concoction. . .
I know, I'm head-canoning this =) The benefit of my head-canon is that it makes the Viral effect readily available for future hacking programs.
Haqq guns look like they have ejection ports, but canonically they are caseless. I am informed by a friend with military training however that this is not incompatible, as you'd actually want an ejection port as a way to manually extract failed rounds or some such, rather than needing to disassemble. Why do combi rifles not need this? Perhaps they are so reliable it's just not a consideration any more, or perhaps on Bourak conditions are so difficult as to mean they would want them either way? Who knows. Artistic license, probably. I have always been curious as to why Haqq doesn't use combis, not like they're poor or less advanced, but I imagine it's something to do with vulnerability to extended use in extremely hostile environments you only see on Bourak.
Keep in mind that the Loup Garou are equipped with viral weapons which are explicitly imported from Haqqislam. So, that's a thing.
Yes, but both in Art and in Miniatures their Rifles seems some sort of Ariadnan Marksman Guns rather than Lasiq Wargear. . .
I picture Viral rounds to be DNA-based Von Neumann machines, but with a carefully-limited replication limit. So, kinda like a biological virus, except that it doesn't need to hijack a cell's replication mechanisms. Maybe temperature-limited. Then it goes nuts once it's inside a body, turns you into gray goo.
So like a virus. Again, just doesn't work on a timeframe needed to make a lethal shot; DNA just doesn't replicate that fast.
