What's the vaccine, you say?
Magma.
nimby wrote :-
What's the vaccine, you say?
Magma.
markus_cz wrote :-
OK, now that Pozzo has figured it out:
The Story of Nolio: How it Happened
(or more like How I Think It Happened, because with syndromes, there's never a 100% certainty)
Spoiler alert! Don't read this if you play Dwarf Fortress and want to deal with pandemics by trial and error.
Nolio is the syndrome caused by Nol the Warthog's poisonous vapours. The vapours poison anyone who comes in direct skin contact with them, meaning first and foremost anyone who fought Nol and got caught in one of his clouds. But! Once they touch skin, armour or clothing, the vapours don't cease to exist, rather they stick to the item as a "contaminant" - becoming Nol's extract and behaving like any other contaminant (blood, vomit, etc.), which means being carried around by unsuspecting dwarves.
Let's watch what happened in detail:
1) It all starts here when Octavian, LCQC and Hats for Rabbits fought Nol in the main gate.
2) The soldiers kill Nol but in the process they all get caught in the vapours. They are now Infected, but they also carry Nol's extract on their bodies, clothes and armour.
3) Eventually one or more of the soldiers decide they don't like the coating of blood and gooey stuff and go clean themselves. They go to a well...
4) When a dwarf cleans themselves, all the contaminants on their body and items are not destroyed as one could expect, but instead in Toady's great wisdom they get dropped to the floor and continue to exist there. Which, in our case, means they get dropped to a square directly adjacent to a well.
5) What's more, whenever a dwarf steps on the now dirty tile, he gets copies of all the contaminants on his shoes. That's right, copies. The original stuff still exists on the floor but every time someone touches it, it multiplies... ad infinitum.
6) The newly dirtied dwarves will eventually try to wash themselves too, thus dropping their contaminants on the floor next to the well and effectively increasing the probability that someone will step on a diseased tile.
7) And more! Animals get dirty and clean themselves in exactly the same way, meaning the contaminants multiply even faster. This way, even the smallest shit that once used to exist in single copy on a random kitten's eyelid can eventually multiply to thousands of copies, covering the bodies of everyone in the fortress.
8) Back to Gemclod. All the washing takes place here, by our main well...
...which occupies the sole entrance to the hospital. Do you see all that gray waves next to the well? These are Nolio!
9) So as Octavian, LCQC and Hats for Rabbits clean themselves, they contaminate the hospital entrance by Nol's extract. Anyone who tries to enter or leave the hospital will get the shit on their shoes.
10) Of course, due to other bugs, the majority of our fortress is not wearing any shoes or socks. They will touch Nol's extract by their bare feet and get Infected.
11) Normally, the military would be safe because they are all obligated to wear metal armoured boots. But somewhere around this time, Pozzo disbands half of the military. Everybody drops their shoes and walks barefeet.
12) A couple of more dwarves (presumably the doctors) enter/leave the hospital and get infected.
13) As the hospital is filling, more and more dwarves have to fetch water and food for the Infected. While doing this, they have to cross the patch of Nol's extract by the well and get infected themselves.
14) A couple of weeks later, anyone who ever participated in healthcare of any sort is now infected. Some people, howewer, are getting better and are seamingly healthy again.
15) Of course, in order to leave the hospital, they need to pass by the well...