Hello all, this is another Bestiary episode, looking at a creature from Star Trek lore
from the episode of Voyager that had Janeway channel her inner Ripley against this threat,
the Macrovirus. The contagion was first discovered on the mining colony run by the Garan who
at first suspected it was a simple illness and requested aid from the USS Voyager.
On beaming down to the planet, the situation had deteriorated within the 3 hours it took
the ship to reach the miners, and almost the entire colony was infected. The Macrovisrus
exhibited rampant growth and spreading in a matter of hours once it made its way onto
the starship and the entire crew was incapacitated within 11 hours. The organism passes through
several stages at it develops from the micro scale and into the macro through its spread.
Although the transporter systems did locate and isolate samples of it, it was able to
work its way out of the transporter and into other systems within seconds.
The Macrovirus had a unique property that is responsible for its insane growth; it adopts
the growth hormone of its host into its own amino acid structure, then produces its own
to cause it to enlarge. How it does this, I have no idea, but maybe some loose theories,
none of which make sense. Both the macro and micro versions of it look
the same, and probably a single celled organism although that’s up for debate based on how
it grows. The structure consists of a central body which acts as an envelope for its RNA
and three long Flagella-like limbs that allow it to move around. In between these is the
injection pin that is responsible for spraying and injecting its genetic code into the host’s
cells. Although they look similar, there must be a substantial difference between the two
scales. For a start, on the micro level, the single-celled organism can simply drift about
on air currents and flail its arms a little to move, yet as it increases in scale, this
form of locomotion cannot account for its speed and ability to fly.
How it does this is not mentioned in the show, but I wonder if it is rather lighter than
it appears and channels air through its body, like a form of jet propulsion. This might
account for the loud buzzing sound that they generate as they have no wings or such like
an insect to produce that hum. Alternatively, it could be some form of electric charge as
they do create a bio-electric field. This ambient field generates an interference pattern
for sensor systems which in turn makes it difficult to trace the location of any macro
organisms, as well as their targets, this creates an additional layer of confusion when
attempting to deal with an outbreak. They generate a mucus compound that contains
their RNA which they store, until they find a host, a humanoid cell on a microscopic level,
an entire humanoid on a larger level. They then pierce the target with their pin and
spray the mucus into it, infecting it rapidly. This mucus too could transmit the RNA into
a host by touch alone, it did not need to be ingested or internalised in any way, making
it dangerously infectious. Perhaps the mucus also contains entire replicas
of the macrovirus, which in turn infect the victim, but at some point, the microscopic
version, once within the victim’s cells absorbs the growth hormone to begin to grow.
Initial stages of infection are fever, disorientation and fluid in the lungs as it migrates to the
host’s glandular system. From there it utilises it to form nodes on the victim’s neck where
they will incubate until they have reached a macroscopic scale, around the size of gnat.
Then they will leave the host and continue to grow in the open environment, at a rate
of around 30 microns a second. If my maths is right, that means that after the 11 hours
on Voyager, they were around 118.0 centimetres long, which more or less ties with what we
see on screen. Just how big they can grow, thankfully was never discovered.
They were incredibly hardy or at least, their injector was as it was seen to dent and pierce
a turbolift door. Granted, the internal doors on starships are hardly made from duranium,
but they were also seen to pierce the transporter pad entirely and delve through the ship’s
internals. However, their envelope, (body, skin?) was not so robust that a simple knife
thrust couldn’t kill it. The Macrovirus is entirely parasitic in nature,
requiring a host to replicate to the point of its own inevitable destruction as it runs
out of hosts. Although the larger versions did portray some level of instinctual behaviour
beyond simply infection. They are drawn towards infrared radiation, reading it as body heat
before impaling the target, which they did as instinct, but on a larger scale, they were
seen to not only infect creatures, but then drag the host away to a central point. This
sort of activity shows a level of instinctual awareness well beyond a simple single-celled
organism that should have no nervous system. However, they showed no self-preservation
drive, nor tactical approach to infection, so I don’t mean to imply they had any real
level of sentience or awareness, it’s just any behaviour outside of their homing in and
infecting of creatures seems strange. So let me just clarify, this was a favourite
episode of mine, however it really doesn’t make sense. The growth hormone it absorbs
into its own genetic code somehow allows it to grow despite the fact that multi-celled
organisms do this by replicating more cells. So for the macrovirus to make use of this
gene transfer in any way… it must develop into a multi-celled organism? Which is an
idea I’m not entirely against, it would go on to explain the developing levels of
complexity in its design, such as the ability to fly and instinctual behaviour. It’s just
that if it does, then where did it get the energy to grow at such extreme rates? It would
need sustenance to do so, and we can see that when it leaves the host, it is only the size
of a fly (if that), yet it continues to grow, without feeding off anything? We never saw
them eating the crew, only infecting them then sort of guarding them until something
unaffected came through. Overall, the macrovirus can only make sense
if it goes through some major changes when it transitions from the microscopic to macro
scale, it can’t simply “scale up” and still function in the same way. It’s a cool
idea and a freaky episode that stands out, but in trying to dissect this creature for
a video, I found myself repeatedly confounded. Maybe someone out there with a degree in virology
can make sense of it, because muggins over here can’t. Sufficed to say, it’s a simple
concept that made for a good one off enemy. Thanks for watching this video and I’ll
see you again next time for another science fiction lore, theory or gameplay video. I’ve
been Ric, so long and goodbye!