Premise:
It's the 1950s and you play a specially trained physician, armed with technologically advanced weapons and diagnostic tools, who is tasked with investigating and combating strange entities introduced into the world after a 1939 expedition to Bolivia. Many questions persist about the nature and origin of these creatures, which vary widely in appearance and behavior. Preliminary research, however, suggests that each creature may have, at one point, been human. It also appears that each entity may represent a different disease state run horribly out of control. Kill these creatures outright or attempt to cure them, the choice is yours. But to effectively do either, you first need to figure out what type of creature you're dealing with, i.e. make a diagnosis. As you investigate situations involving the entities, expect to meet many individuals who feel much differently about the entities than you do and have no problem showing it.
One additional note: THIS IS NOT A ZOMBIE GAME! I only bring that up because some people who read my original backstory thought it might be.
Backstory:
PRIMUM NOCERE: FIRST, DO HARM
“As to diseases, make a habit of two things -- to help, or at least to do no harm.”
-Hippocrates in Epidemics.
“When you’re out in the field, staring those bastards in the eyes and knowing you’re about to become their next meal, are you gonna sit down and ask them what’s wrong? Hell no! You’re gonna blast them with whatever ya got and hope to hell they drop: Primum Nocere.”
-General Thomas E. McFarland, commander medicomilitary division, US Army.
It’s 1956 and the world is plagued by a scourge of horrific and dangerous creatures. While many spots on the globe continue to see little or none of these entities, they have spread in such abundance in other areas that most people in the world are now aware of their presence and very frightened. Exactly what, if anything, these entities are trying to accomplish is unclear and may vary from creature to creature, but it quickly became apparent that most are not mindless zombies.
The entities first came to light in 1945 when the US Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA, began receiving reports of strange disappearances in a small village in Bolivia. Later, villagers came forward describing grotesque “spirits” roaming the land at night. Not believing the villagers, yet not wanting to dismiss them completely, the OSS sent cameras to the villagers with instructions in their use. Weeks later, the agency received a handful of provocative, albeit blurry, images. Intrigued, they sent a team of specialists to investigate the site. Of the 9 members who made the trip, only one returned and he was in a terrible state: wild-eyed, trembling, and barely speaking. From what his interviewers could piece together, his team had been totally decimated by a group of “bloody, pulsating monsters". Since then, more and more reports of such creatures and others surfaced, until, by 1959, such sightings had become commonplace and a worldwide state of emergency was declared.
Around the time of the first creature sightings, the Nuremberg war criminal trials were taking place. In preparing for the trial, investigators sifted through thousands of newly uncovered Nazi documents. In doing so, they discovered that the Ahnenerbe, a pet project of Heinrich Himmler seeking to prove the historic superiority of the Aryan race, had sent a team of scientists to Bolivia in 1939 to excavate the site of an ancient city-state called Tiwanaku, located near the banks of Lake Titicaca. What they uncovered is not known: no recordings of the team’s findings have surfaced and the names of the scientists had been redacted from all documents.
The proximity of the 1939 expedition site to the 1945 disappearances and creature sightings led to speculation that the two might be connected. Initially regarded as preposterous, a theory began to take hold that Himmler’s team had uncovered some strange force that introduced the entities into the world. Exactly why there was a 6-year lag period is unclear.
The nature of this alleged force is fiercely debated. Many believe it has a religious basis, while others believe that some natural phenomenon, lying dormant for millions of years, was unearthed. Many who subscribe to the former believe that the entities are messengers from God and are bringing about a foretold and necessary change in the world order. Such individuals do not believe in combating the entities and may actually take measures they feel will help the entities in their mission. On the other hand, people who believe that some natural phenomenon is at work, typically feel that the entities should be controlled, contained, studied if possible, or simply killed outright. Whatever the nature of the force, it still appears to be active because the creature population continues to grow.
Several different entities have been captured and analyzed by an international team of scientists. Rather than being some alien creatures, it appeared that the entities were at least partially human. This led to speculation that the people reported missing had not been abducted by the entities per se, but were, in fact, the entities themselves. No one, however, has actually witnessed a transformation to confirm this. Autopsy and laboratory analysis suggested that all of the entities had some sort of affliction and that these afflictions, in very small ways, resembled known diseases. It was, therefore, hypothesized that the phenomenon allegedly uncovered in Bolivia may have amplified a preexisting disease state in the host, totally or nearly taking over the host and rendering them unrecognizable as human. With the obvious structural changes came a host of functional changes as well: enhanced speed, strength, cunning, the ability to become invisible, to name a few. Most troublesome was the finding that many of the creatures were resistant to standard weapons, even those employed by military forces.
At some point, it was suggested that because the creatures may represent various disease states run horribly out of control, perhaps the most appropriate individuals to deal with them would be medical and surgical physicians. Special institutions began to spring up around the globe to train a new breed of doctors to fight the atrocities. Existing medical schools also began offering combat career tracks. Many in the military resent the intrusion of physicians into an area that they've historically handled, however, a significant proportion welcome their help.
Within the medical community, there is widespread disagreement about whether these entities are all entirely hostile and whether they can be restored to their normal host state, i.e. cured. Some docs, therefore, favor “treating” the entities, while others shoot first and ask questions later. This latter group, armed with specially designed medicomilitary weapons, has abandoned their Hippocratic oath and have adopted a new mentality: “Primum Nocere: First Do Harm.”
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