Transplague Ship

PROCEDURES IN THE EVENT OF IRREVERSIBLE CONTAMINATION

In the event of irreversible contamination by biological or nanotechnological plagues, and standard quarantine responses are deemed insufficient, either (a) as declared by consensus of the Flight Commander, Environmental Systems Engineer, and Flight Surgeon, or (b) as imposed by order of a duly authorized representative of the Emergency Management Authority, the following actions are to be undertaken:

  1. The Flight Commander is authorized to maintain order aboard by any means necessary, including the use of lethal force in such circumstances where it would not otherwise be permissible.
  2. All airlocks and spacetight doors providing sophont access to the exterior of the vessel are to be placed in the closed and sealed state; their local control systems rendered inert by null-flashing; and secured in the sealed state by welding or other permanent closure.
  3. All other apertures, of whatever purpose, providing access to the exterior of the vessel are to be placed in the closed and sealed state; their local control systems rendered inert by null-flashing; and secured in the sealed state by welding or other permanent closure. This is to include all apertures used for the jettisoning of waste, and all radiator systems in which coolant is exposed directly to space, without exception.
  4. The Flight Commander shall designate the most appropriate compartment within the vessel for the temporary storage of such waste material as can no longer be jettisoned and for known-contaminated material that cannot be properly disposed of, including corpses.
  5. Once a stable orbit which does not take the vessel into the local forbidden zone of planets, moons, habitats, or other bodies (see Quarantine) has been established, the flight control systems of the vessel, including local drive controllers, are to be shut down and rendered inert by null-flashing.
  6. All running lights of the vessel are to be configured to display the “death ship” pattern, as prescribed by the Imperial Navigation Act: a 2p period of yellow-quarantine alternating with a 1p period of crimson-caution.
  7. An EM beacon is to be configured on the local-distress channel, broadcasting the following repeating message: ALERT CASE ICHOR I SAY AGAIN ALERT CASE ICHOR. VESSEL [registered name] IS UNDER SEQUESTRATION. DO NOT APPROACH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. IGNORE ALL CONTRADICTORY TRANSMISSIONS. MESSAGE REPEATS.
  8. If the vessel possesses a point-defense system, this system is to be configured to fire upon any other vessel attempting to dock with or otherwise close to within the forbidden quarantine zone (see Quarantine) of the irreversibly contaminated vessel, other than a vessel whose transponder is signed with the Emergency Management Authority private key.
  9. At the Flight Commander’s discretion, euthanatoics may be issued to passengers and crew.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES IS A VESSEL MARKED BY THE PREVIOUSLY SPECIFIED SIGNALS TO BE APPROACHED BY ANY OTHER VESSEL OTHER THAN IN RESPECT OF SPECIFIC ORDERS ISSUED BY THE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY.

Any vessel which

  • docks with; or
  • takes aboard passengers, cargo, flotsam, jetsam, or debris from; or
  • enters any emissions plume, from any source whatsoever, of;

an irreversibly contaminated vessel shall itself be deemed irreversible contaminated, and all the foregoing procedures and warnings shall apply to it in like wise.

IN THE ABSENCE OF SPECIFIC ORDERS ISSUED BY THE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY, ANY IRREVERSIBLY CONTAMINATED VESSEL SHALL BECOME SUBJECT TO ARBITRARY DESTRUCTION BY LOCAL AUTHORITIES NO FEWER THAN 72 HOURS POST-DETECTION, PROVIDED THAT SAID LOCAL AUTHORITIES COMMAND MEANS TO DO SO IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CAUTERY PROTOCOL, LATEST ISSUED REVISION, ENSURING THE SAFE DISPOSAL AND NON-DISPERSAL OF CONTAMINANTS.

 

9 thoughts on “Transplague Ship

  1. If the folks on the DEATH SHIP know they’re on a DEATH SHIP why don’t they just self-destruct? I mean, ain’t they gonna get blow’d up good by the Extermination Unit of whatever space they’re in anyway? Seems to me all that procedure-followin’ is akin to just nailin’ the coffin shut from the inside so you can sit and die slow. Just bite the bullet and go fast (with a sterilizin’ bang).

    • IIRC from a previos post re bio/nano containment, that would mean every ship would have to be fitted with some sort of (probably antimatter) implosion self-destruct device, just in case.

      Merely letting off a nuke would probably make at least some things worse

    • You haven’t given up on them yet at this point.

      This is the middle level. Beyond routine send-for-a-doctor quarantine, but not yet up to nuke-the-site-from-orbit. You’ll note EMA ships are still allowed to approach, which they may use to send in one of their volunteer docs (volunteering, in this case, to have a copy of themselves sent on a quite possibly one-way mission).

  2. Perhaps I’m being overly paranoid, but a biological or other nanotechnological threat capable of overwhelming the sorts of immunities that the space elves are capable of deploying seems like a sufficiently advanced and dangerous sort of thing that I’d want to lock down transmissions from the ship, too.

    “To whom it may concern, as I am trapped and probably dead on the now-deathship Implausible Bonanza, I entrust to you the location of (1) trillion exvals worth of xenotechnological artefacts that may be found by hatless explorers at the following coordinates on the brainslug homeworld. Please do not attempt to retrieve these yourself, but let my backups know instead. Yrs, Prince Eldraiel Madéüpnymic.”

    • That’s a different response case. If people can catch whatever it is over a communications link, then you’re out of CASE ICHOR and into CASE FÍÖRÉ.

      (Named after one of local history’s greatest professional grifters, who was practically a memetic hazard on her own.)

      • How would one go about announcing that particular warning, as shouting “don’t listen to anything I say” and stencilling “don’t read any of these warnings if you value the integrity of your mind” on your hull seems like it might be problematic?

        On the other hand, it is hard to be held responsible for things that happened after your mindstate was rooted and it isn’t the sort of thing that people are necessarily very good at noticing happen to themselves, so maybe it isn’t very useful to have a set of instructions to be carried out in the event of memetic compromise.

      • CASE FÍÖRÉ.

        (Named after one of local history’s greatest professional grifters, who was practically a memetic hazard on her own.)

        I presume there’s a story to this?

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