Training Mode
Allow the crew to train on their stations for 5-10 minutes.
Call from Headquarters
Call as the Admiral. End Training Mode. Answer questions about the mission.
Install measurement probes
Add eight Measurement Probes to the ship’s Cargo Bay. As the Admiral, explain that the Measurement Probes will take vital measurements and transmit their data back to the ship for analysis. Explain that the crew will need to travel through the body and deploy the probes in all the major organs. The ship’s computer will help the crew deploy the probes.
Explain the constraints
As the Admiral, explain that if the crew encounters the virus they should observe it and try to learn how it operates. Specifically, they should try to discover why Amuzetnom’s (the Aztlan delegate’s) immune system has been unable to stop the virus on its own. If needed, the crew may use its weapons to defend itself against the virus and to control the spreading, but they must be careful not to harm any healthy tissue.
Remind the crew that their modified stealth system has been modified into a Decoy System to will protect them from the delegate’s immune system.
Shrink the ship
Shrink the ship by loading progressively miniature scenes. At each size, ask the crew whether they think they are small enough to enter the sick Aztlan delegate’s body.
The ship is now:
1 m — the size of a bus wheel
1 cm — the size of a dime, or a hummingbird egg
1 mm — the thickness of a finger nail, or a grain of sand
100 µm (0.1 mm) — the thickness of a human hair (smallest size visible to the naked eye)
10 µm (micrometers) — diameter of a red blood cell
Slingshot the ship to the delegate’s Large Intestines
When the ship is sufficiently small, send it into the sick delegate’s Large Intestines.
Allow the crew to explore the Large Intestines for a few minutes.
Allow the crew to become accustomed to their new surroundings. If they are proactive, they will deploy a Measurement Probe and begin searching for the virus. The computer will help them deploy the Probe.
Call the crew as Doctor Jenner
Introduce yourself as Doctor Jenner, the Aztlan doctor. Point out that you are completely baffled by the strange disease and that you’re grateful for the crew’s help. Indicate that you suspect the Iberians of foul play, but you don’t have any concrete proof.
Explain that you need the crew to deploy their Measurement Probes in the major organs to collect data so a cure can be devised. Ask the crew how their ship is not detected as a threat to the body. Allow them to explain their Decoy System.
Explain movement through the body
As Doctor Jenner, explain to the crew that they will be using the patient’s circulatory system to travel through the body. They will remain in the veins and arteries, but their Measurement Probes will collect data on the various organs.
Move to the Small Intestines
Guide the crew to the Small Intestines. As before, the crew should deploy a Measurement Probe and watch for the virus.
Call the crew as Corvis, the head Iberian Delegate
Introduce yourself as the head Iberian Delegate. Express your dismay at the situation and your gratitude for the crew’s help. Refute the rumor that the Iberians had anything to do with the disease.
First encounter with the virus
While the crew explores the Small Intestines, introduce a virus. Move it around and allow the crew to destroy it. If the crew observes the virus rather than destroying it, make it insert itself into a T-cell.
Note: The virus destroys T-cells before they can adequately respond to it, effectively disabling the body’s immune response. The crew will gradually learn this throughout the mission—not all in this first encounter.
Explore the Kidney, Liver, and Stomach
Allow the crew to move through the Kidney, Liver, and Stomach in the order of their choosing, deploying Measurement Probes along the way. Allow them to encounter individual viruses from time to time.
During this time, send the crew messages and vital sign reports from the probes as described below:
Measurement Probe Reports
While the crew travels through the Kidney, Liver, and Stomach, occasionally send them vital sign reports from the deployed probes. Encourage the crew to analyze the reports to learn what is healthy and what is connected to the infection. These reports are quite detailed and contain many challenging math problems (unit conversions, ratios, fractions, etc.). Full comprehension of these reports is not required.
Damaged Measurement Probe
As soon as the ship enters the Liver, it will receive a message stating that the Large Intestines’ measurement probe has been damaged. The Hacker can repair it to retrieve the report.
Status report to Doctor Jenner
Call the crew as Doctor Jenner asking for a status report. Explain that T-cells are supposed to identify infected cells and create Killer T-cells to destroy them. Ask if this has been happening. (It hasn’t).
Inform the crew that other Aztlan delegates have become infected as well. Increase the urgency.
Infection outbreak in the Small Intestines
After the crew visits the Kidney, Liver, and Stomach, a disease outbreak will occur in the Small Intestines. The crew must decide whether to return back to the Small Intestines to fight the virus or proceed forward deploying more probes. Use Doctor Jenner as necessary to help the crew decide to fight the virus.
Treatment battle in the Small Intestines featuring viral reproduction
When the crew returns to the Small Intestines they will find it swarming with the virus. Allow them to destroy many of them. Have them witness viral reproduction firsthand: an infected T-cell will burst before their eyes, releasing about a dozen more viruses. Use Doctor Jenner to describe the process as it happens.
Vital Sign Reports
Continue sending vital sign reports to the crew from the deployed Measurement Probes.
Status report to Doctor Jenner
After fending off the outbreak in the Small Intestines, allow the crew to report their status to Doctor Jenner. Ask where Measurement Probes have been deployed. Tell them that more Aztlan delegates (but no Iberians) have become sick. Urge them to finish deploying Measurement Probes in all the major organs (Heart, Lungs, and Esophagus remain) so a cure can be found.
Travel to the Heart
The crew should make their way speedily toward the heart, passing through the organs along the way. Allow them to move quickly without much hinderance from the virus.
Dialogue with the head Iberian Delegate
On the way to the heart, call the crew as Corvis, the head Iberian delegate. Ask for their assessment of the disease’s origin. Comment that the symptoms look similar to a disease that commonly affects Iberian children, but that isn’t so severe. Refute any accusations of foul play, but don’t sound overly trustworthy.
Damage the Decoy System, along with many other systems
The heart produces tremendous pressure. The ship will be automatically slammed around inside the chambers of the heart. Damage the Decoy System (stealth system). Point out that the ship can now be detected as a foreign threat by the body’s immune system. Damage several other systems as well, including the Engines. This will force the crew to stop for repairs. Manually bring the ship to the Lungs.
Damaged Measurement Probe
As soon as the ship enters the Lungs, it will receive a message stating that the Stomach’s measurement probe has been damaged. The Hacker can repair it while the ship undergoes its own repairs.
A cure has been found
While the crew repairs their ship in suspenseful fear of detection by T-cells, call the crew as Doctor Jenner to announce that their work has been successful: the data from the Measurement Probes has revealed that the Iberians accidentally brought the disease with them to the negotiations. They get the disease during childhood and have built up a resistance to it over the years, but the Aztlans have no such resistance.
Explain that the virus can be destroyed by a specific toxin, which normally would be created by the Killer T-cells but hasn’t been because the virus destroys the T-cells before they can create them. The cure is being administered to the other sick patients, but Amuzetnom is too infected for it to work. He must be cured from the inside. Only the crew can save his life—and they must, or the negotiations will collapse.
Send the crew toward the nearest Lymph Node
Explain that a program to artificially create the necessary toxin has been downloaded into the ship’s computer. The ship can create the toxins, but the crew must find a way to deliver them throughout the patient’s body as quickly as possible. Allow the crew to suggest some ways to do this.
Direct the crew to the Lymph Node, explaining that lymph nodes filter the body’s fluids. It’s an ideal place to deploy the toxin as infected cells flow through the lymph node. However, the lymph node is filled with T-cells and will be extremely dangerous to the ship now that the Decoy System has been damaged. The crew must choose to risk their own lives to save the dying Aztlan delegate.
Present immune system resistance along the way
As the crew moves through the lungs and esophagus toward the lymph node, present increasing opposition from the body’s T-cells. If the crew defends itself against them, call as Doctor Jenner and exclaim that they are destroying the patient’s own immune system! The crew must defend itself as sparingly as possible, while still avoiding destruction.
Climactic countdown at the Lymph Node
In the lymph node, the ship automatically begins emitting the toxins that destroy the virus and its infected cells. As Doctor Jenner, indicate that the crew must remain there until no traces of the virus remain. Begin a countdown of the virus’s density, beginning at 100%.
Attack the ship with T-cells. Allow the ship to destroy them, but keep sending more T-cells and damaging more systems so the ship is on the brink of death when the virus density countdown approaches 10%. Continue the gradual countdown until the last virus is destroyed at the last second. Activate the ship’s emergency portal to bring it back to headquarters moments before destruction.
Simulation Notes
Viral Combat
Viruses “attack” healthy cells by attaching to them and inserting their genetic material to reproduce.
Standard T-cells do not attack viruses. Instead, they divide to produce Killer T-cells.
Killer T-cells release cytotoxins to destroy viruses and the cells they’ve infected.
In the simulation software, Viruses have no “weapons,” so they simply attach to T-cells. The Flight Director can then create new viruses and destroy the host T-cell manually as desired.