Blight
From OPU Wiki
Events Gametypes Manual Novella Outpost 2
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Summary
The nickname given to a deadly, fast-moving genetically engineered microbe created by a team of scientists under the supervision of Chairman Nguyen.
The Blight appears in the game as a purple fog and is accompanied with a "festering" biological chatter. The Blight is ultimately the reason humanity must struggle to evacuate New Terra and find a new home among the stars.
Background & Details
According to mission briefings and the accompanying Novella, the microbe referred to as the ‘Blight’ began as a terraforming project developed by Eden. The microbe was designed to break down organic materials found in the crust of New Terra and, through metabolic processes, convert them into various atmospheric gasses with the goal of creating a breathable Earth-like atmosphere.
The Blight microbe was originally engineered under the supervision of Chairman Nguyen in an Eden Hot Lab which was located on top of several deep wells drilled to test the microbe. During testing the microbe was found to be unstable and eventually escaped the test wells by metabolizing the polymer seals in the lab. In a last minute warning to Axen Moon, Lil Komos, a scientist in the Eden Hot Lab who was sympathetic to Axen's political views, said "It grows too fast, but Nguyen wasn't willing to wait. 'An atmosphere in our lifetime,' he said… attacks organics, protein units in boptronic computers, even the plastics in our environmental seals."
It quickly began to spread throughout the crust of New Terra and proved to be highly destructive to the biological components of both vehicles and the computers operating structures, the atmospheric seals on structures as well as killing any living organism.
In the later missions of the single player campaign, a radioactive material is engineered into walls which can be built to contain and divert the Blight. Although initially effective, these walls do not permanently hold back the Blight. Once the microbes have grown passed a barrier, they continue to rapidly grow and spread.
The Blights’ destructive nature toward other organisms may be due to a ‘feature’ intentionally designed to allow the Blight to overpower any would-be competitors found on the surface of the mostly unexplored surface of New Terra. This turned out to be a mistake as the Blight spread across New Terra like wild fire. The microbe that escaped the Eden lab is apparently capable of consuming polymers, plastics and organic tissue but is not capable of eroding metallic or silicon-based components in the same manner. Computer systems (particularly those used to control various automated vehicles and the Savant Series of computers) are left partially intact as most technology in Outpost 2 is Boptronic. While the biological portion is completely destroyed by the blight, non-organics contained in these systems should remain functional, albeit crippled. This would explain the erratic behavior seen in surveillance footage taken through our Observation Satellite.
The Blight microbe has been observed responding to sunlight by doubling its growth rate. Global atmospheric and geological changes apparently due to the Blights’ rapid growth seem to be what caused the extreme nature of storms and volcanic activity experienced in Outpost 2. Further details about the Blight aside from its destructive nature are unknown as the lab which held all relevant data and those who engineered the microbe were destroyed when it escaped.
Eden Mission 2 Briefing
"Commander:
Our secret terraforming experiments have produced a deadly side effect. A mutated microbe is spreading through the planet's crust. Our scientists call it the "Blight."
Your computer display has been modified to show its projected growth. We do not yet know how to stop it.
We must establish a temporary colony here. The emergency evacuation has left many of our people exhausted and weak, and our food supplies are diminishing to critical levels.
To survive we need to grow more food and mine ores to produce more metals.
Most of our surviving colonists do not yet know what happened but rumors are circulating. Morale is holding at a steady level…for now.
As the Blight continues to spread we will eventually need to evacuate again. We must build structure kits to be ready when that time comes.
In addition, the scientific databases we evacuated from Eden are badly scrambled and must be reconstructed.
We have done a new survivability projection of resources for our next evacuation. Check the Specific Objectives for that list.
Move quickly Commander. The Blight is approaching."
Additional Information
The original design for Outpost 2 called for there to be a third "race" in the game. Called "The Microbe", it would be composed of the vehicles and buildings abandoned by the colonists as they evacuate areas about to be consumed by the Blight. Elements of this can be seen in the Outpost 2 novella.
"Elder, we're consulting you on this matter because of your broad knowledge of boptronic systems. This video was taken from the observer satellite about a week ago. What do you make of it?"
As he watched, a vehicle, one of Nguyen's combat units, lurched its way across the screen, pausing to fire at a Cargo Truck that had similarly lurched within range. Parts of the truck's cab glowed and melted under the combat unit's energy weapon, and the truck lurched once more before halting, perhaps forever.''
According to information taken from commentary with writers and developers, time constraints required that this portion of the game and plot simply be edited out. It was originally intended that the player would not only face destruction from their rival colony, but also the ever expanding Blight and Microbe controlled attack units. It was thought that Savant computers infected with the blight would attempt to continue as if psychologically demented and attack anything not "blight controlled."
At one time a game modification to restore this feature was in the works but since the game data isnt there to simply re-enable, what little support for the project that existed eventually disappeared.
