I had to think long and hard about whether to stick to the script, here. Michael will back me up that I wrote this as an ebola outbreak back in December, long before the epidemic in West Africa that’s going on right now. I considered changing it. But I need this plague to have specific characteristics, and ebola fits the bill. You’ll see later.
By the way, this does not count as one of those times when I wrote something and it came true. Those who read Indefensible Positions will remember those incidents. I don’t tally those anymore, for my own sanity. 🙂
↓ Transcript
Roger: Jacob...the news nets just lit up. There's an alert in Folkestone. They're saying it's Ebola.
Jacob: (sigh) That's a terrible way to go. But this might be good news. Ebola can't be made airborne. It won't spread far. ...and if it's already killing then he's accelerated the hell out of it. There might be a few hundred casualties. Frankly, I was expecting Fumiaki to do a lot worse. Get us to the coast. Do you have a camera on me? Will you hear me if I talk?
Roger: Yeah.
Jacob: Good. Stay underwater...
Jacob: (sigh) That's a terrible way to go. But this might be good news. Ebola can't be made airborne. It won't spread far. ...and if it's already killing then he's accelerated the hell out of it. There might be a few hundred casualties. Frankly, I was expecting Fumiaki to do a lot worse. Get us to the coast. Do you have a camera on me? Will you hear me if I talk?
Roger: Yeah.
Jacob: Good. Stay underwater...
Our brains are wired to look for patterns. Usually that’s been pretty useful for our survival, but that also make us biased towards thinking we see patterns where none exist.
If someone were to tally up all the events that didn’t come true and offset them against the ones that did, I’m sure the data would start to look a lot less prophetic.
As I tell my mother when she goes to buy a ticket, you don’t hear anyone talk about all the times they didn’t win the lottery, do you? 😉
Well, of course it doesn’t count as coming true…unless the government is suppressing “the truth” on what caused the current outbreak in west Africa. (nervoustwitchputsonaluminumfoilhat)
“Can’t be made airborne” but that’s exactly how you showed it being delivered. Of course you meen person-to-person I guess.
Hmn, maybe that’s not clear.
When talking about infectious diseases, ‘airborne’ means the disease can survive on dust particles for a long time, allowing winds to drift it for some distance. Ebola can survive in water droplets, so it can be transmitted by aerosol spray. But that isn’t ‘airborne’ and won’t go very far.
Maybe I’ll tweak this dialogue to make it more clear. Thanks, jt!
Short-lived ebola, wasn’t that what Kevin used on the hospital that treated Caera?
And if I had to choose a plague for causing terror, I’d spray aerosolized rabies over a town.
“unless the government is suppressing “the truth” on what caused the current outbreak in west Africa. ”
Not much of an outbreak compared to that self induced “terror” afflicting billions since a thousand years…no need of physical vectors there…it is spread by the sword.