Enceladus Syndrome

The first stages of the plague the astronauts brought back from Enceladus were terrifying enough - it started as a sticky, brown-grey paste that slowly accumulated between your fingers and toes, but then it would suddenly explode, spreading to cover the whole body in a thick mucus.  

As horrifying as that was, the second stage was even worse, as the mucus slowly hardened into a crisp, papery coating as though the victim had been encased in a cocoon.

The first efforts to reverse the process surgically revealed the victims within at various stages of dissolution, their bodies apparently crumbling into a slurry.  It was widely conceded that the Enceladus Syndrome was fatal.

Until the first cocoons started to open of their own volition...

That was when we realised: it wasn't a plague.  

It was an invasion.

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Sources:
https://plus.google.com/113223446359562794050/posts?hl=en
http://community.babycenter.com/post/a28729853/update_tell_me_what_kind_of_rash_this_is_pics?cpg=3
http://www.slu.edu/~swierkoszje/review/bactlist.htm
http://www.monarchlab.org/Lab/Research/topics/Enemies/Default.aspx

Mind Plague

 

When They arrived, it seemed obvious that we needed to study not only their technology, but their biology as well.  They were cooperative, and a half-dozen deep black government-sponsored projects were instantly erected around the goal of learning as much as possible from the volunteers from among Them who had opted to stay.  Progress was made on all fronts, but it wasn't until the startling discovery last year that we realised the chilling truth.

Their technology and their biology aren't separate things: The little machines They use constantly in daily life aren't accessories - they're part of Them.  And much of what we had mistaken for natural was actually highly engineered.

Including Their minds.  Including Their thoughts...

It started slowly at first.

A few of the scientists working most closely with Them started behaving oddly. It was assumed that the strain of making the mental adjustment to comprehend what they were learning was having its impact.

And then it was noticed that some of the people working in these facilities were also acting strangely...even though they weren't even highly enough cleared to know They were here, let alone living on the compound.

But really, it wasn't until after Thanksgiving that we realised the horror that had been unwittingly unleashed:

Families started to change as their members' minds started to crumble under the onslaught of self-replicating, engineered thoughts.

Children were most vulnerable of course, and the most dangerous:

School.

Now we know the risk, but is it too late?

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Source:

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/04/how_dangerous_viruses_could_escape_from_laboratories.html

The War Overhead

They dismissed it when I warned them the first shots would be fired.

But then the Galactics fired the first shots - bombarding the rebels' lunar installation from their kinetic weapon platforms in Jovian orbit.  Even then, they tried to explain it away - tried to make the naive public think it was just business as usual.

Then came the firefight high in the Van Allen belt, with dozens of ships ripped into nothing more than ionized particles as the Galactics extracted vengeance for the rebels' sins.

Even now, the public are in the dark, completely unaware of what is happening high overhead, lied to and tricked into believing the fallout is simply a natural phenomenon.  But the world's governments are trembling.

Why?

Because the rebels' sin was sharing their knowledge with us - how else do you think we advanced so quickly over the last few decades?

But now the Galactics are here, and who knows what they will do to us once the rebels have been dealt with...

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Sources:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/science/video-shows-moment-huge-meteorite-3180949
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/alberta/Reader+Photos+Northern+lights+shine+over+Calgary+southern/9529820/story.html