Originally published at: Yellow Flag | The Eldraeverse
BROADCAST // GTR CESTIA & PROXIMAL // INFRA UNCLASSALL ECS STATIONS ANNOUNCEIMMEDIATE PREEMPTEMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY // ALERT 2049/04/20 This is an EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AUTHORITY alert for all residents of the Greater Cestian continent and proximal regions. This is a QUARANTINE ADVISORY. The Office of Disease and Toxin Control, Prevention, and Elimination has issued a LEVEL 3 (EPIDEMIC) CONTAGIOUS DISEASE WARNING covering the specified region, regarding the novel cytomegalovirus classified as VVAR-1472-B. All individuals within the region should take appropriate infection control precautions (including but not limited to self-isolation, use of autodiagnosis kiosks for self-diagnosis, use of healing vats for self-treatment,…
The rest I can understand, but how does arson apply? Someone going overboard with flame-sterilisation and saying the plaguebearer forced it?
Perils of a rationalized legal system. It started out as meaning only fire, but in the current Imperial legal code, arson is defined as The volitional creation of a fire, water, or other hazard, regardless of its nature, causing the destruction of property and/or danger or harm to sophont life.
Inasmuch as fire isn’t the only spreading hazard that someone can maliciously whip up, belike. And if you go around creating plague hazards…
…so there exist diseases nasty enough to smash through an alpha baseline eldrae’s intrinsic immune systems?
What? How?
I mean, blooms and hegemonising swarms are good examples of “diseases” that can rip through immune systems like wet tissue paper, so I’m not that surprised that there are much milder but still serious versions floating around somewhere
Check the date. 
That all being said, there are still novel and exotic (offworld) diseases which slip through the net until patches can be issued, and probably always will be. It’s very hard to defeat things which you haven’t yet understood.
(Well, I mean, in theory you could build an artificial immune system with a hilariously aggressive destroy-everything-not-verifiably-self response, I suppose, but at that point you’re spending more time and energy checking up on cells than on what the cells are actually supposed to do. More importantly, you’re basically giving yourself a hopefully low-level autoimmune disease all the time, 'cause biology’s tolerances aren’t tight enough for this sort of thing.)
A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one! More early-days Eldraeverse content yes please!
Leaves me wondering if people have ever outsourced their immune functions for greater immunity?
Well, define “outsource”?
On the simplest level, it’s pretty much universal, because most artificial immune systems take regular feeds of updates and patches (from healthcare manufacturers, the ODTCPE, specialty providers) to keep up to date with evolution’s latest tricks; immunity-versus-disease is always going to be a Red Queen’s Race.