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[The National Council]

Cardamine — An Explanation

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Table of Contents:

1. General Information
   
2. Impact upon the human body — How it changes you and why you become infertile
   
3. Dependency — Stages and Stabiline
   
4. Liquid Cardamine — Form, function and effect
   

It should be noted that this is merely a 'tutorial' on how Cardamine is to be understood within roleplay. With this, we offer a simple explanation for the fantastic drug of the Outcasts, which is the cause for why we are simply cursed with awesome.

I. General Information

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1. Cardamine is an orange grass that grows on the entire surface of Malta in Omicron Alpha and in the equatorial region of Planet Soledad in Omicron Tau. Its natural form is that of long, thin, dry and brittle blades that do not bear any blooms or other appendages and pollinate via seedlings that reside inside the roots of the plant. On Malta, trace amounts of this grass can be found in any biological substance, be it water, food, flesh of the inhabitants, plants or bacteria. This is due to the invasive nature of this plant, which forcefully alters the DNA of every biological matter it comes into prolonged contact with and appropriates it to be closer to its own.
   
   
2. After the derelict sleeper ship Hispania and those who did not depart it to found the Corsair Empire on Planet Crete in Omicron Gamma, these effects were completely unknown to those who made planetfall and settled down on the orange Planet that they dubbed Malta. While drastically more suited for human development than Crete was, being able to sustain agriculture and the breeding of cattle, Malta held its own set of surprises for the settlers, and many of them found themselves victim to the alcaline water of Malta's oceans that, even if purified of salt, led to organ damages of the inhabitants and their prompt departure from this life. Only a select number of water sources on Malta's mainland produce non-alcaline water, and any other water would need to be prufified of their alcaline properties first to be drinkable.
   
   
3. Years passed and the culture of Malta developed. The prolonged isolation and their harsh environment, with summers that were scaldingly hot, shaped the Outcasts, as they took to calling themselves, into the conservative and reclusive culture that they are today. Despite the steady intake of slaves, and with them their own ideas of culture, into their society, the Maltese maintain their way of life threw a harsh re-education of slave arrivals, utilizing means that are as despicable as they were robust.
   
   It is no secret that the Maltese had 'contact' with the alien lifeforms known as the Nomads before. Over the first few years, there were sometimes accounts of people who claimed to have seen blue object jet around the skies overhead, and though at first they were disregarded as lunatics whom the sun had shone a bit too excessively on their heads, soon, there were enough people who had seen, or at least claimed to have seen, the same. A combination of mysticism and fascination soon found these people taking their appearance as signs of good fortune and similar superstitions, although this number of people always remained a minority.
   
   
4. The first attempt to leave the surface of their new home and make for the stars ended in desaster for the Outcasts. After a few hours of having left the surface, the pilots of the rudimentary space crafts experienced headaches, muscle problems that would worsen and turn into seizures, excessive and vigorous vomiting and eventually to total organ failure resulting in death of the pilot.
   
   The following autopsy of the body resulted in confusion at first. There were no toxins, no other sources that these damages could have come from. It simply seemed like every single organ, every single cell inside the dead man's body had rejected the one adjacent, as if they were transplants. Only when the responsible medical staff checked the pilot's genetics did they find that certain nucleotid segments were odd and were in fact not natural within human DNA. It also came to light that these changes were more or less advanced the more cells they examined. This sparked a literal witch hunt to find whatever had altered the pilot. Paranoia spread among the medical staff, and it soon came to light that all of them as well, had the same mutations as the pilot. It would take another few weeks of vigorous search while trying to keep the news from the public until they knew for certain what was going on, but they soon found what these changed nucleotides were — they were sequences from the orange plant that grew on the entirety of the surface.
   
   One thing led to the next and it was discovered that the same alterations had been done to all organic structures on the planet, and that they were advancing, altering everything that came there as well. Now they truly were stranded on a world on the edge of the Sirius Sector, abandoned by the rest of humanity. What manifested as resentment at first soon turned into malicious intent. Instead of thinking about the orange grass as a curse, they started thinking of it as a weapon that they would use to slowly rot the rest of humanity from the inside, all the while making a profit from it. From that point on, Malta's view on space shifted. There was nothing outside that was worth preserving. Space meant death, and absence from Malta meant excruciating pain and a death worse than one could have died in any war that was ever fought. It needed to be appropriated, reshaped, remade into their image.
   
   
5. Whereas Cardamine had been little more than weeds to be pulled out of fields before, now, the Outcasts meticulously maintain a large percentage of land exclusively for the production of Cardamine, each family vying with the neighboring to outrun them in production and profit, in slaves and property.
   

II. Impact upon the human body

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1. A body altered by Cardamine does not differ from a non-afflicted body by a simple look of the eye. The changes are subtle and mostly within the body rather than outside, thus the only discerning factor that gives away an addiction remains the breathers that many Outcasts use to ingest a steady dose of Cardamine into the air they breathe when outside of Malta. Upon the Planet's surface, they are, of course, superfluous.
   
   
2. A constant intake of Cardamine, regardless of dose, even though lesser dosage equals a longer time for the addiction to take hold, results inevitably in physical dependency on the substance. This is due to the fact that it alters certain nucleotide sequences within the person's DNA strands. Certain components of Cardamine DNA supersede already exisiting structures within the person. The result of this is that, if the person stops taking Cardamine, the body will no longer accept the altered cells as its own and will reject them, similar to how a donor organ is rejected or how the body fights cancer cells.
   
   
3. This means that a person who has only taken Cardamine once will have no problem proceeding with his life as though nothing had happened, because after a certain time, his body will have killed the altered cells. Only after a certain threshold is reached, and the body cannot reject the altered cells anymore without suffering a catastrophic failure, it would be right to talk of a 'dependency' because not taking Cardamine at this point would result in organ failure and ultimately, death. The body would metaphorically eat itself.
   
   
4. Cardamine is also necessary for the body to correctly process food. Upon withdrawal, dependent people often experience violent vomiting fits, sometimes even rejecting their own stomach acid.
   
   
5. The biggest problem that Cardamine use bears with it, however, is the fact that it lowers fertility drastically. While it is still possible for dependent people to bear or sire children, the prospects of this happening decline with every passing generation, each generation bearing the Cardamine alterations of their progenitors with them, which then expand even more due to their life time. The source of the infertility lies within the alteration of the DNA of the egg-cells, or the sperm. The more these are altered by Cardamine, and the more the progress of alteration differs from egg and seed, the less likely it is for the seed to fertilize the egg.
   
   
6. This is not to say that dependency on Cardamine does not have its benefits, however. Since the Outcasts have made planetfall on Malta, there has not been a single reported instance of cancer of any kind within Outcast society, suggesting that Cardamine processes properties that prevent deviations from the mutations caused by Cardamine itself, or that it simply strengthens the body's own immune system and lymphatic system.
   
   
7. Outcasts are reported to be the most fearsome enemies to fight in spaceborne combat, seemingly always being faster, better, stronger than their opponents. Justly so, the Outcasts are regarded as some of the most skilled pilots in Sirius, and this is to no small part owed to the alterations of Cardamine. This is also the reason why the Lane Hackers use Cardamine, calling it a natural intellectual enhancer due to its ability to fortify a person's mental and physical prowess beyond what is normally possible of the user.
   
   
8. The most notable alteration of Cardamine, however, lies within the extended lifespan of the users. Pure blooded Maltese who have been bred for multiple generations are able to reach an age exceeding two hundred years. This extreme degree of longevity, however, seems not feasible to the casual users or those who are addicts of the first generation (without addicted parents and grandparents), although the degree of Cardamine intake corresponds with the degree to which one's lifespan extends.
   
   
9. It should be noted that Outcasts themselves do not experience the euphoria that Cardamine causes within non-addicted people. To Outcasts, Cardamine is simply a necessity like water, food and oxygen, and it is therefore not regarded as anything out of the ordinary.

III. Dependency — Stages

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1. Like with any dependency, there are stages thereof. The more advanced a dependency is, the more difficult it will be to lay it off. With Cardamine, the additional problem of the addict depending on it for life is added, as not taking it means death. However, before that threshold is reached, there is time, which can be a decisive factor when it comes to combating it.
   
   
2. As described above, the body possesses the ability to fight alterations made by Cardamine. This is, in fact, the very reason why an addict dies after a certain point, because this fight of the body against the dependency results in the body rejecting vital parts of itself. From this, it becomes clear that a single dose taken at one point with two months time before the next dose of Cardamine is taken, will not result in dependence, because the body will have fought and rejected the altered cells during the pause.
   
   
3. However, the allure of drugs is the effect that they cause. Cardamine induces a strong feeling of euphoria that also does not have diminishing returns like other drugs upon taking more doses. This results in an easy slippery slope for people to glide into dependency without noticing it while they still can do something to prevent it. Cardamine has a rather strong tendency to cause psychological addictions to its euphoric feeling as well.
   
   
4. A stay on Malta for about seven days will render a person physiologically dependent on Cardamine, as it will have absorbed enough of the substance for it to have altered enough parts of the body. In the case that a person has taken the dosage of Malta's residue Cardamine for about five days, it might be possible for them to still return to the non-afflicted state, although the body's fight with the altered cells will be decidedly more violent and might result in certain organs needing to be replaced, or the occurance of cancer within the person. Cryer therefore also offers synthetic organs alongside its Stabiline.
   
   
5. It is possible to also completely halt the advance of bodily alteration by Cardamine and the body's inevitable decay that follows the withdrawal of Cardamine by using the drug produced by Cryer called Stabiline. Other than Cardamine, it does not bear any positive effects like extended lifespan, increased mental and physical prowess and cancer-resistance, bur rather, it simply inhibits the body's ability to reject the altered cells, and therefore halts the decay. It simply 'stabilizes' as the name suggests. This is only a temporary solution, however, as Stabiline inevitably causes the patient to develop cancer and also does not do anything against the psychological withdrawal symptoms that occur with stopping to take Cardamine. Up until this day, Stabiline is an experiment at best, but the Outcasts see it as a threat large enough to target and destroy any and all entities carrying the substance without exception.
   

IV. Liquid Cardamine

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1. There seems to be a categorical problem when it comes to placing Liquid Cardamine for many people. To those who read the infocard of the commodity, it is clear that it is an Outcast commodity. To others, the fact that it is sold primarily, though not exclusively, on Nomad bases seems to suggest that it is, in fact, a Nomad commodity. Herein lies an inherent conflict, and everything in this section is simply my opinion (ergo the opinion of @Foxglove). While I tried to create a neutral and fact based text above, here, I will rather be putting forth a logical argumentation for why Liquid Cardamine is two things:
   
   
   1. Not a Nomad commodity.
   2. Merely a more compressed form of Cardamine that is easier to transport and certainly will not horribly mutate you/kill you.
   
   
2. Within the initial Nomad lore written by Yuri (of which a lot of can be read here), Cardamine was established to have been created by the Daam K'Vosh for the Nomads. It has the same effects on Nomads as it does on humans, with the exception that it does not make them dependent on it. To the Nomads, Cardamine is an envigorating substance, but nothing more. I sometimes hear the argument/opinion that Liquid Cardamine is a sort of Nomad fuel, but this goes directly contrary to the idea that Nomads are supposed to absorb radiation to sustain their forms. Furthermore, this lore establishes that Cardamine grows exclusively on Malta and Soledad. I would very much like to understand how people get the idea that Nomad consume Liquid Cardamine as fuel (or even produce it, as some people suggest wat), if the Nomads do not even have control over where Cardamine grows. Are they supposed to make it out of thin air?
   
   

   Cardamine, while normally ingested as part of the atmosphere or as a fine powder, can be rendered into a liquid substance. As a liquid it is shot directly into the bloodstream via injections and provides much more of a 'high' then the same dosage in regular form creates. This liquid is more easily transportable and more discrete then the masks which Outcasts normally have to use while away from Malta. This also provides an easy way for Outcast smugglers to supply the drug to House inhababitants without the telltale masks. Liquid Cardamine still alters the user's genetic structure and still creates unavoidable dependency.

   
   From this we infer that Liquid Cardamine's origin can only be Malta, and the infocard of the commodity supports this, stating that Outcasts smuggle it.
   
   
3. There is also the idea that Liquid Cardamine would horribly mutate and kill people who inject it, and I would like to totally reject that idea for the following reasons: The info card does not support it, and neither does the initial Nomad lore.
   
   

   Cardamine
   Cardamine is a grass grown specifically for the nomads by the Daam K'vosh. There are only two planets in all of Sirius that are successful in growing Cardamine, Planet Malta, and Planet Soledad. The blades of the grass are tall, thin, orange in color and are not edible to humans in its native form but are to nomads. Outcasts have spent years studying, researching and finally they came up with some processes that turn the inedible grass into an orange inhaleable gas or ingestible liquid. The effects of this processed Cardamine are increased lifespan, greater strength and additional sensory enhancements than normal humans, at the cost of permanent DNA changes that result in lifelong addiction to Cardamine and significantly reduced reproduction. Whether Outcasts can produce offspring at all remains to be seen. It has been suggested that the Cardamine helps the nomads to sense the Outcasts as different to other humans. There seems to be a curiosity on the nomads part about these "human-like creatures" that 'smell' like the grass the nomads ingest.
   The effects of Cardamine on Nomads are similar to Humans with one difference; Cardamine is not addictive and purely beneficial to nomads. The grass form increases the energy storage, flow capacity, photosynthetic processes and functions of the Nomads body systems, while the processed form does the same only slightly less effectively on Nomads.
   It has been suggested by some of our scientists/theorists that the Nomads once grazed the fields of Malta.

   
   As demonstrated, even the initial lore states that Outcasts produce both the gaseous and liquid form of Cardamine. Not a single syllable of this speaks of how the liquid form would mean instant death to humans, and it therefore stands to reason that this idea has been perpetuated by people who have no idea what they were talking about and directly go against what is available in terms of information ingame (which should be the guide line as long as it is available ingame!) and even in the initial Nomad lore.
   
   
4. All in all, you are of course free to disregard everything I wrote in this section. All I would really want of you is to explain to me when asked: Why and how? If you can do that, then I guess you are at least not just fabricating things or regurgitating something that someone, who has no idea what they were talking about, said.