So, I saw a new scientist article yesterday about discoveries in Siberia, of seven apparently, ancient viruses being found in the ice.
And now I’m thinking of the book I wrote…😬
The Unknown – A discovery in the Siberian tundra turns the entire world upside down, rewriting history and setting seemingly unstoppable forces in motion. In a race against time in a quickly changing world, they must learn to adapt to survive. Will people accept their fate or fight to save an existence that was always meant to end? Can humanity survive?
A discovery in the Siberian tundra turns the entire world upside down, rewriting history and setting seemingly unstoppable forces in motion. In a race against time in a quickly changing world, they must learn to adapt to survive. Will people accept their fate or fight to save an existence that was always meant to end? Can humanity survive?
No, not the film. I have very little to say about that other than it is a few hours I won’t ever get back. This post is about a film though, and one of my wild speculations, where no doubt I fall into the conspiracy trap of seeing what they want me to see, or linking together what they want me to.
So be it.
I was not familiar with the Greek Alphabet, but upon seeing it the other day with someone referencing how we skipped a certain letter in it when naming our new scarient, I saw the end letter and jumped to a conclusion. Obviously. The final letter is Omega.
Now, I have watched a great number of virus-related movies and given them countless hours of thought, both from the point of the pathogen and storyline. I write fiction and before this happened wrote and published a book about a new virus being discovered and changing the world. It was from my fears of those films happening I tried to learn all I could about them and ideas behind them. So I have been watching closely throughout all of this.
The point of this post it to highlight one of those films. Omega Man. You may know it by it’s remake name of I Am Legend. About a virus raging out of control, and the cure causes unforeseen mutations and causes more devastation than the original illness. Hmmm, sounds a bit familiar perhaps. Well, its predecessor (of which there are actually two), seemed to focus more on a split in society, lots of losses, and then are left with a bitter group called ‘The Family’ who blame the uninfected. Again, sounds familiar. They called this film Omega Man, renaming from the first one ‘Last Man on Earth’, makes sense why they have used the last letter of an alphabet if that is the overall image they want to convey. The end of something.
It’s hard to know where they are really going with it, all we can do I guess is try and cover all bases and follow each thought to see if it might be needed or relevant. We have a very convoluted shifting reality upon us, and it is being steered towards what seems like an ever-growing madness. We need to bring back reason and logic, before they too are just whispers of what once was…
If you are looking for a dark read, chapter one for you of my book – The Unknown, link to buy below…
Chapter 1
As the expedition set out into the tundra, the view was as brilliantly white as they had ever seen. Blinding and bleak but beautiful nonetheless. It had all been a bit of a rush to get out here, not unusual with scientific discoveries, they happened when they happened. Very limited information had been given to Greg about the find, only its priority and as they got closer to their destination, the transport guide asked if they were here to search for the other scientists. Silence befell the group.
“What other scientists?”
Greg ventured, aware that this was supposed to be geological specimen recovery, not a rescue. The guide then went on to tell them through the broken English of a translator of the previous two teams, they had also ventured out this far to find the meteor site but that they hadn’t returned. He said he felt bad because he had joked with them about how they shouldn’t go wandering off in the snow, a whole village had wandered off once and had never been found. Greg had to ask.
“Two teams and a whole village? How long has this been going on?”
His grim expression backed up his words. It didn’t sound good at all; suddenly this simple scientific task had become shrouded in mystery and intrigue but not the kind he liked. This was out of the realms of his logical brain to understand, how so many people can just get lost. He knew the landscape was vast but really, a whole village. He decided he had to dismiss this as nonsense and folklore, a tale to scare the tourists and science guys, have a joke at the nerds’ expense. That made him feel a bit better, settling back into wondering about the find and what type of strain they might find if any. Often they were wasted journeys and it would be a known specimen. But you never knew when it would be a new one and suddenly you have years of research and papers ahead of you.
Focus on the expedition he thought and what they were here to do, no distractions. Although the story of the other science teams was playing on his mind, he couldn’t deny it. As if reading his thoughts the guide put forward that there had been extreme weather for the rescue team and they had been thought lost during a storm. That was good enough for him; it wasn’t a mystery at all just bad timing and treacherous terrain, nothing more to think about. Just a tale to scare the tourists after all.
The rest of the journey was a quiet one, each occupant of the vehicle mulling over their own thoughts but no-one talking about them. Greg could tell there was unease amongst them and decided a briefing when they arrived would be the best course of action. Get all the questions out in the open and start getting some work done; this was being paid by the job not by the day, so he was keen to get in and out as quickly as possible. It was just so cold here; he made a mental note to remember not to take another job in Russia, although he doubted another so well paid would come up again anyway. Snapping them back to reality, the vehicle stopped suddenly and everyone was thrown from their seats slightly.
“You’ve got to walk the last bit, track is too icy to get down and back again.”
Said the guide, a little bit too cheerily for Greg and the team. There were multiple grumbles as they started to unload themselves and the equipment, luckily not the usual heavy load they would take away with them.
After a slippery but careful short walk to the research centre, the small team stood before it with trepidation. No-one wanted to be the first to go in and they all glanced at each other. The lights were on and there was equipment outside, evidence of recent activity but the silence was incredibly eerie. As night started to draw in, the ice gave off a strange blue light, they could almost believe they were on another planet.
“Come on then.”
Greg said loudly, making them all jump followed by unsteady laughter. It was what they all needed to gather up their courage and make the move inside. The minor jollities and laughter were short lived once they entered the research hut. It could have been the Mary Celeste, everything held in mid motion except the people. Experiments that had been underway, a tap running, a few plates of food half eaten. No-one around though who may have cooked it or been sat eating when something happened to make them all leave. It was funny but Greg started glancing around looking for a note, as if there would be a neatly hand written explanation of why they all needed to abandon this facility. But there was no such revelation for them. Instead they had to tidy up and clear away the previous team’s lives before they could begin with their mission.
It felt strange though, knowing these people haven’t been found and you are clearing away what was left of them, unavoidable but still strange. They were a bit more careful when tidying the experiments, there were notes but they didn’t make any sense. They didn’t seem to have a specimen so he they knew they would have to go on the long arduous journey to the meteor location, retrieving another sample or it would all be for nothing.
Greg knew as the team leader he would have to plan to split the up for some to head off tomorrow for samples, he figured he may as well start preparing them now.
“Guys, with no original sample a team will have to head off in the morning to the meteor site.”
There were a few moans but generally they took the news well.
“Any volunteers or is it down to me to pick?”
He was hoping he got to pick, he would be going as well and knew who he trusted the most. But newer member of the team deserved a shot if they wanted it he thought, can’t play favourites.
No hands went up, but they all looked at each other. Willing someone to the first to show a brave willing hand, none did. They were feeling so spooked that no-one looked like they wanted to be there at all let alone undertake an even more potentially dangerous aspect of it, but it was what they came for.
“I’ll let you know in the morning who’ll be going, so if you change your mind after a good night’s sleep then let me know.”
Greg didn’t actually believe any of them would get a good night’s sleep but it’s what you’re supposed to say. They found their way to the bunks, again having to clear away the previous inhabitant’s personal items to take back with them. Wondering if they might return while they were there, confused why other people were in their beds. They all quietly retired for the night, hoping the next day would bring a more explanatory result.
To be honest, reality has never been completely normal for me. Once I was aware of the world, time, mortality, people, ideas and so on, I didn’t know how to be ‘normal’ – although I kept trying for quite some time. Everything is constantly changing, there is no stopping, standing still and taking stock of it all. To me it’s like trying to review what it was like being on a rollercoaster while you are still on it.
Reality has been really thrown out of shape this last year and a half for many. When we started to hear whispers of this ‘pandemic’ in January last year, my brain adjusted and adapted without me even trying. You see, for the past two decades, maybe longer, I have been fixated and focused on the idea of a virus. A virus outbreak to be more specific. My interest was actually first piqued in the early 90’s at school when we learnt about HIV/AIDS in PSE (Personal and Social Education – i think), I became quite interested in the science of it all and concerned by the risk fed to me by the media. Then came foot and mouth, and bird flu, and swine flu and the rest of the more recent ‘outbreaks’ which did the rounds, leading to the culling of many animals and overall made very little impact to peoples general day to day lives. But each time, I would be on alert. Watching and monitoring for any evidence or paper that would show it has crossed over, it had mutated, the risk has increased. But it never happened. No evidence ever did materialize and I did not see what I had decided were the next stages of a real outbreak with a viable threat to humans.
Along the way, I also happened to get into Zombie films. They used to freak me out, and played on what I decided was a natural fear of unseen disease, but in zombie films they made it seen, and it looked like you and me, it was the grotesque exaggeration of it all really impacted me (I think having Hyperphantasia did not help here at all!). But eventually it made me question the reality of their scenarios and setting for it. Picking it apart so I could understand it and know when to have appropriate fear. It can easily be misplaced and does not usually go well when it is present but not necessary. Fear really can control you.
Around 2018 I got quite into a game on my phone, I believe it was called Pandemic, so no guesses needed what it was about. The player is to start the virus in their preferred country and then gather ‘points’ as you infect more and more people, adapting the virus and working out how to make it supreme and deadly. It seemed just like a biological weapon skill game, how to fuck up as many people as you could and kill the world. While you are doing this, the world fights back by trying to find a cure, and if you aren’t good enough with your mutations and variants, then they cure it and the world recovers. Now in this, other things occur – even though it is just one screen of the world with flashing blobs to pop, and seeing small blue planes fly around to sort out the cure. After a number of attempts, I won. I created the one that took out the world. And it didn’t feel like a win, in any way. In fact, something else happened. I ran through all the data in my mind, all the scenarios and variants being played out in a ‘simulated’ setting, but I realised all that data goes somewhere. Yes, it could be paranoia, I considered that and thought you know what, whether it is or isn’t, I’m not playing anymore. It felt uncomfortable and I am only usually faced with that kind of discomfort when my spidey senses activate. I stopped playing it a year before the wheels were set in motion with Event201 in Oct 2019. Once that started, it was inevitable what was going to follow.
So, last January 2020, whispers from abroad started to happen. A co-ordinated effort to get the patchy information out and start reacting – they did a good job at first. It was substantial enough to take notice, more than just an article here and there, top medical people were discussing it. But there was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on that didn’t add up. All the stories and pictures seemed very set up, not natural at all. They were so specific with giving us a ‘heads up’ on everything and doing things so illogically, it gave it away to me. And the fact that all the governments (mostly) gave a co-ordinated response – that does not happen and I don’t believe we are that organised to do it if we were indeed ‘taken by surprise’ by a virus out of the blue. But where it was heading didn’t look good to me, real virus or not. I decided to start ordering a few more packets of things for the cupboard and organised to use some of our savings to send my husband on his dream trip, to Egypt to see the pyramids. I had a feeling the way they were telling it, travel would not be something we should be planning too far ahead for. I worried he wouldn’t be able to go, so we booked it and he went, in the first week of March and was back before lockdown. By this time however, my view of it all had changed. Not on him going away, I still think that was the right thing to do and the right time. The overview of my personal thought had changed.
In all my wondering and thinking of viruses and pandemics, something occurred I did not foresee. All the makings of an outbreak but without there being a virus. With this new scenario playing out, so came a new state of thought, I call it Schrödinger’s virus. I now simultaneously live in a world where the virus both exists and doesn’t exist. Part of me is ready to accept that there could be a virus that has the ability to cause untold mortality as they say, but with no evidence to back that up, that idea is put into my theory category. And in day to day life and from what I see it doesn’t exist. Death rates and figures, funeral directors and all parties who should be able to make it obvious but they are saying the opposite, so believe both, or neither, or one? We are also being pummelled by high level propaganda every day from every media outlet and social media side, it’s difficult to not be consumed by it. I wrote a fictional book a few years ago about a virus outbreak, not a zombie one surprisingly, just one that changes humanity. I worried though that there may be too many plot holes or that it didn’t quite hold up – having seen what was rolled out and used to convince the masses to be under the spell of pushers peddling their wares, I really shouldn’t have worried. I feel like I am now living a badly scripted, badly acted plot hole. It has taken a twist though with recent increases in infection, but not unexpected. I have been theorizing on all this since last March/April time and following the articles as best I can, which only a few months ago predicted that the roll out of the miracle cure, is in fact causing unintended (as far as we know) consequences. Only time and data can tell on that one – I want to be wrong. I really do hope I am.
I have always been interested in viruses and before all this happened I had speculated on what might occur if we were to discover a strange new organism… Just didn’t realise within a couple of years we would find ourselves involved in something similar!
“A discovery in the Siberian tundra turns the entire world upside down, rewriting history and setting seemingly unstoppable forces in motion. In a race against time in a quickly changing world, they must learn to adapt to survive. Will people accept their fate or fight to save an existence that was always meant to end? Can humanity survive?”
A discovery in the Siberian tundra turns the entire world upside down, rewriting history and setting seemingly unstoppable forces in motion. In a race against time in a quickly changing world, they must learn to adapt to survive. Will people accept their fate or fight to save an existence that was always meant to end? Can humanity survive?
MKW Publishing 