Question, came up in IRC, would appreciate opinions/dev input:
How commonplace were mutations in the years pre-Cataclysm? Would mutants be acceptable in daily life, and if so, in what capacities?
Would there be a market for mutagens, and if so, to what ends? Military-only? High-end bodyguards/companions? How public would this be?
Thanks for your time and consideration.
I’m not a developer so it’s very possible that I’m wrong. But here is my understanding of mutation in the lore.
Pre-cataclysm, mutations are probably very rare, and people have strong distaste for it - I imagined that individual with visible mutations would be shunned in society, either be feared or hated.
Mutations like what we have in Cataclysm exists mostly in secret lab or in unclassified military experiments, hidden from the public eyes. A market is unlikely, seeing that the military would try to keep it secret, but it’s possible that a few corrupted personnel would smuggler it outside to whoever need it in exchange for a hefty sum of money.
[quote=“infectedmochi, post:2, topic:3878”]I’m not a developer so it’s very possible that I’m wrong. But here is my understanding of mutation in the lore.
Pre-cataclysm, mutations are probably very rare, and people have strong distaste for it - I imagined that individual with visible mutations would be shunned in society, either be feared or hated.
Mutations like what we have in Cataclysm exists mostly in secret lab or in unclassified military experiments, hidden from the public eyes. A market is unlikely, seeing that the military would try to keep it secret, but it’s possible that a few corrupted personnel would smuggler it outside to whoever need it in exchange for a hefty sum of money. [/quote]
That has my support, very similar to the lines I’ve been writing my “That RP Thread” actions around
As I understand it, the ability for mutagen to affect you so quickly is a result of its interaction with the blob, so the only mutants you’d expect to find pre-cataclysm would be in research labs, and maybe military areas.
Mutations are a side effect of netherum infection, so by definition they would be quite limited pre-cataclysm and completely unknown before the first experiments were carried out. Even then, they didn’t start arising after a good way into the project: They require an infected subject, exposed to specific environmental stimuli. Mutagen that could be used on OTHER subjects came even later, since it required some pretty specific requirements. There was certainly research into building some sort of super soldier with them, or at least hope, but the important thing to remember is that said research never made it out of the lab, not even into the military (unlike the teleportation tech, which was probably introduced all of a week or two before the cataclysm for production and based on a more reliable side effect of the same research).
Basically, the dividends on the subprime research were:
Loads of Free Power (first benefits of research, powering the labs built around them) allowing interesting energy weapons
Teleportation (first discovered a couple months previous, refined over time to the somewhat… unreliable techs available in game)
Mutation Control (interrupted by Cataclysm fairly early on, as enough labs were dedicated to the research to finally push us over the tipping point)
This whole thing is a secret project, and known of these were known to the public, even the first one. However, there were a LOT of labs and a LOT of people involved, so it’s very possible that some of this stuff was leaking out onto the black market in small amounts. And while the general population could not mutate, a handful of escaped test subjects from a lab that suffered some early disaster is certainly possible. But that would probably be the extent of public exposure.
[quote=“GlyphGryph, post:5, topic:3878”]Mutations are a side effect of netherum infection, so by definition they would be quite limited pre-cataclysm and completely unknown before the first experiments were carried out. Even then, they didn’t start arising after a good way into the project: They require an infected subject, exposed to specific environmental stimuli. Mutagen that could be used on OTHER subjects came even later, since it required some pretty specific requirements. There was certainly research into building some sort of super soldier with them, or at least hope, but the important thing to remember is that said research never made it out of the lab, not even into the military (unlike the teleportation tech, which was probably introduced all of a week or two before the cataclysm for production and based on a more reliable side effect of the same research).
Basically, the dividends on the subprime research were:
Loads of Free Power (first benefits of research, powering the labs built around them) allowing interesting energy weapons
Teleportation (first discovered a couple months previous, refined over time to the somewhat… unreliable techs available in game)
Mutation Control (interrupted by Cataclysm fairly early on, as enough labs were dedicated to the research to finally push us over the tipping point)
This whole thing is a secret project, and known of these were known to the public, even the first one. However, there were a LOT of labs and a LOT of people involved, so it’s very possible that some of this stuff was leaking out onto the black market in small amounts. And while the general population could not mutate, a handful of escaped test subjects from a lab that suffered some early disaster is certainly possible. But that would probably be the extent of public exposure.[/quote]
OK. So mutants would be tabloid-fodder, maybe a sensationalized news report at best. Researchers might think up commercial applications and use those to justify their projects, but there’d be little to no prospect of success thanks to the lack of public knowledge & acceptance.
That’s good to know. Presuming the new Medical and Alpha mutagens are about as far as they were able to go for “practical applications”, especially given that they probably didn’t know that mutagens only work on potential zeds.
(Now, drinking mutagen whilst NOT infected would certainly remedy that lack, I imagine. 
)
I was confident that the Labs were secret, what with the whole XEDRA thing, but wasn’t familiar with the exact details. I take it that researchers probably didn’t have much time to play Fun With Genetics: no superspecific mutagens.
(I have had requests for Bear, Cat, and Dog to supplement the existing Beast.)
This needs to go into a lore section or something.
Accurate, long range, lab-to-lab teleportation also existed prior to the Cataclysm as well IIRC, though the Cataclysm itself combined with the failure of the lab networks brought that system down.
So is the research into mutations the reason of the cataclysm? You need (tainted) zombie meat to make it…
Speaking of lore, however, right now I have a HUGE list of my own fan-lore things that needs serious discussion. Maybe I should make a thread about it?
Speaking of lore, however, right now I have a HUGE list of my own fan-lore things that needs serious discussion. Maybe I should make a thread about it?
Do it, please! I enjoy the lore immensely, I’ve started working on wiki-fying what we have already…
I made a nice category page, and linked it to the main page. http://www.wiki.cataclysmdda.com/index.php?title=Category:Lore