459 réponses à ce sujet

[LoonySpectre]

Dr. Chakwas' report actually explains why Thane died after being stabbed by Kai Leng: "any injury will dramatically impact Mr. Krios' body and cause rapid degeneration". But it's probably the only consistent thing between Thane's health condition in ME2 and ME3.

[Fuzzfro]

I think Thanes death was an appropriate way to cause the player to not only hate Kai leng but disrespect him (he was owned by a terminally ill Drell).
I wouldn't mind the ability to get him a cure though.

[Moira-chan]

LoonySpectre wrote...

Dr. Chakwas' report actually explains why Thane died after being stabbed by Kai Leng: "any injury will dramatically impact Mr. Krios' body and cause rapid degeneration". But it's probably the only consistent thing between Thane's health condition in ME2 and ME3.

no it won't loony, you read my essay, it would not kill him. knock him out for a time, for sure, but it won't kill him. and we just wanted to show with the report, that they've changed his disease

[LoonySpectre]

That is, if Kepral's Syndrome was the same disease as in ME2. But it was not.
Though in ME2, if Thane gets knocked out, he just stands up after the fight is over, just like everyone else. Gameplay and story segregation, anyone?

[RShara]

Yeah, in ME3, Thane doesn't have Kepral's Syndrome any more, he has Incurablitis.

[LoonySpectre]

The fatal and horrible Incurable Cough of Death.

[RShara]

Mordin can cure a bioengineered plague that he's never seen before in weeks, but he's got NOTHING on Incurablitis!

[Emeraldfern]

You know...
I just noticed something funny when I was playing through Mordin's RM mission in ME2 again.

Some of the anti-biotics (cipoxidin, malanarin) Chakwas mentions in Thane's medical report are also two of the treatments Mordin applies to the plague victims in the RM. 

And iirc, Mordin doesn't even describe them as being anti-biotics...
(Will check this out again tomorrow, too tired to fire up ME2 atm)

*sigh* BW your Kepral's Syndrome facts are...well...*sigh*

And I found this post made by Skirlasvoud a year ago while digging around BSN:

http://social.biowar...4820736#4820736

Skirlasvoud wrote...


I managed to hoist this information from the LOTSB expansion:

• Thane's Medical Report From Dr. Chakwas
  
  
  
  
• Lung Capacity: 42% (left-side lung shows large lesions, right lung has nodular lesions only)
  
  
  
  
• Antibiotic treatment: Now resistant to cipoxidin, malanarin, alburcin
  
  
  
  
• Metastatic progress: stomach, liver(minor), heart (negligible at this time)
  
  
  
  
• Treatment Options: Viable transplant candidate but refused to be added to list Synthetic lung generation currently impossible for drell
  
  
  
  
• Therapy and Care: At this time, Mr. Krios should continue getting regular cardiovascular exercise in order to stimulate lung movement and prevent or delay the stiffness that causes lack of oxygen transport. While physical stimulation may also be beneficial in keeping tissue flexible, any injury at this point will dramatically impact Mr. Krios' body and cause rapid degeneration. It is unclear how much longer Thane will be able to serve in direct action. Thane should continue to wear loose clothing that leaves his chest uncovered to prevent moisture buildup that could worsen the problem

Combined with information from Wowwiki (reliable enough):




[*]

• Because the drell ancestors emerged from arid, rocky deserts, the humid, ocean-covered hanar homeworld of Kahje proved tolerable only when the drell stayed inside a climate-controlled dome city. The leading cause of death for drell on Kahje is Kepral's Syndrome, caused by cumulative long-term exposure to a humid climate. This syndrome erodes the ability of drell lungs to take in oxygen, and eventually spreads out to other organs. It is noncommunicable, and there is currently no known cure, though leading hanar scientific authorities are working on creating a genetic adaptation.

As a biomedical student, I'm confused about what the Drell are actually suffering from, because Dr. Hacksaw is proscribing Thane antibiotics.

Antibiotics don't work on anything other than bacterial life. Virus and Animal cells like those of humans and lizards, whatever Thane is, are completely unaffected by the effects of antibiotics. You only proscribe them to a patient, when he suffers a pathogenic bacteria within the body, whom are vurnerable to them. They might incidentally gain resistance to them, but the patient certainly doesn't.

So is it a condition where the body is ill adapted to the outside enviroments (with evident deterioriation into malignent tumors)?
Or is it an infection caused by bacterial pathogens that spread and inflict harm on cells?


It's possible that his infection is a side-effect of already weakened lung tissue through a non-pathogenic condition, but if the infection is so bad that they are already building up a resistance within his lunges, than the bacteria themselves will surely kill Thane before the condition does. Bacteria work fast when the situation favors them and Thane should be deadly ill from the infection alone, not capable of active duty as his body develop fevers to stave off infections to such an important organ as the lungs. At any rate, antibiotics are a treatment to a side effect and shouldn't be mentioned in efforts to contain Kepler's syndrome itself.

To say that Thane himself is resistant against antibiotics, clearly shows a lack of insight, unless a drell works completely unlike earth life. I'd be dissapointed in Bioware's writing staff if they make the silly mistake to think that antibiotics affect animal life.

With that, I must conclude that Thane's condiction is pathogenic to take still take Bioware seriously. Maybe this is caused by an oppurtunistic bacteria who thrives only when a drell inhabits moist conditions.


However, this makes curing it very easy. The bacteria could be eredicated and Thane be given immunotherapy instead of wait for gene therapy. If these assasins really are that valued, he could be given an antibody regimen to save his life. Give him passive immunity, before the drell can work out a way to arm his active immune system against it, so he can create his own antibodies through gene therapy. The only reason why we can't manage that in 2010, is because gene therapy is beyond our knowledge and innocculation through an antibody regimen is prohibitively difficult and expensive. But it perplexes me that in 2183, the Hanar and the entire scientific council community at that day and age, can't come up with an answer to a simple microbe and synthesize something apropriate when most major diseases have been lain to rest.
And if the bacteria is noncommunible, than how do the Drell contract it at all?

Bioware should either rethink their visions on antibiotics, or rewrite Dr. Hacksaw's report.


I'm also pretty perplexed about the connection between his lung tissue's inability to cope with moist conditions and cancerous metastasis onto other tissue. Kepler's system must develop tumors in Drell. It's very well possible to develop local cancer when tissue is stressed, but Bioware will have to be consistent. We're dealing with Drell Cancer.

Moira, Beanie what's your take on this?

Modifié par Emeraldfern, 13 juillet 2012 - 11:59 .

[NedPepper]

I wouldn't mind more content for Thane. I'm not going to hold my breath, but Thanes death was the same whether you romanced him or not. I felt bad for Fem Shep. She got one great scene with him, and then he dies, and doesn't even really respond. They definitely dropped the ball. I don't have a problem with him dying a hero's death, but for a character that was on the cover of ME2, he really didn't much content. But that could be said for all of the ME2 characters. It's the major thing that bothers me about ME3.

[RShara]

LoonySpectre wrote...

Dr. Chakwas' report actually explains why Thane died after being stabbed by Kai Leng: "any injury will dramatically impact Mr. Krios' body and cause rapid degeneration". But it's probably the only consistent thing between Thane's health condition in ME2 and ME3.

Although it doesn't explain why he got himself stabbed in the first place lol

[BeanieBat]

@Emerald... you asked, so here you go (sorry!)

Ok, well I will admit that I was confused about Kepral’s Syndrome myself with all the information we were given in ME2. Thane describes it as being a result of prolonged exposure to humid environments, as Drell lungs cannot deal with the moisture. Fair enough. Then it is noted as being a bacterial infection. Doesn’t really make a lot of sense at this point, but I came to the same conclusion – exposure to prolonged humid environments leads to a build up of moisture in the lungs (probably thickening the mucus layer of the trachea) resulting in reduced clearance of bacteria and therefore an increased susceptibility to bacterial infection. Or something along those lines, so basically moisture damages trachea/lungs – leads to bacterial infection.

However, a bacterial infection wouldn’t necessarily ‘work fast’, and Thane/other Drell could live for a long time with a bacterial infection. As pointed out before (by Patrick Weekes, no less) Kepral’s Syndrome has been likened to Cystic Fibrosis. This is a genetic disorder where there is a mutation in the CFTR gene which results in unbalanced chloride transport across the membrane, resulting in a build up of a thickened mucus layer in the trachea and alveolae, leading to reduced bacterial clearance and consequently CF patients are more prone to infection by certain bacterial species (among other things). CF patients are colonised by bacteria from a very early age and, although the bacterial species change with age, they never really manage to clear the infections. For example, it is expected that CF patients will become infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa and once established, antibiotics can only clear the infection for short periods of time (if any) before the infection reappears – it is never fully eradicated and CF patients are chronically infected. So while infections will worsen the condition, it is not immediately a death sentence.

Now onto antibiotic resistance... I am assuming that Chakwas was referring to the bacteria – as stated in the post, Thane could not become resistant himself. Antibiotic resistance does not determine how bad an infection is though. Many of the bacterial species that infect CF patients have some form of antibiotic resistance. In fact, many species of bacteria that infect, or even colonise healthy people/animals have antibiotic resistance. Staphylococcus aureus is a good example, as a huge percentage of the population is colonised, permanently or transiently by S. aureus and an increasing number are in fact MRSA (methicillin resistant), without causing infection (though they obviously do have the ability to cause infection). And at the moment, most bacterial infections can still be treated with alternative antibiotics (and I assume there are others that could be used to treat Thane) – MRSA can be treated with vancomycin instead of methicillin... though then we see the emergence of VRSA, which can be treated with other antibiotics like daptomycin. Anyway, my point is, while antibiotic resistance is definitely not a good thing, it does not itself determine the progression/pathogenesis of infection, so Thane/other Drell could again live for a while with antibiotic resistant bacteria, it just limits the treatment options.

For a cure... well, this is where it gets quite complicated for me as I have to work with a lot of assumptions... It is stated that the Hanar are researching genetic engineering. This is not a normal approach for curing a bacterial infection, so I would assume this is more to do with adapting the Drell lungs to humid environments, which would therefore prevent the bacterial infection from occurring (and again, this is assuming that this is what happens!). Though, to be honest, I’m not sure what that would involve. Gene therapy is currently being researched to cure CF by replacing the mutated CFTR gene with a ‘normal’ copy, so it might be something similar that is required for the Drell, but without knowing what kind of genes are involved with Kepral’s Syndrome, I can’t really comment if something like this would work. I’m simply guessing that was BioWare’s plan. Going on this assumption, antibiotics would not be a cure, just a treatment.
And yes, I do agree that in the future, medical research should (I hope) have advanced to a stage where diseases like CF could be cured, as we are getting close ourselves! And maybe there would be some new antibiotics or compounds that would take care of the bacterial part too, but bacteria do evolve relatively quickly and I don’t see that changing, so you never know – it might be an endless battle as far as the bacteria are concerned. Though that’s not important if the underlying lung issue is cured, which I think is probable personally, especially if you get Salarian minds on the case!

As for Drell contracting the bacteria, it could be picked up from the environment. But, I really don’t believe it would be non-communicable. A bacterial lung infection is very likely to be passed to other susceptible individuals. CF patients are often segregated to prevent bacteria being transferred between patients.

As for the metastatic spread, I don’t think this has anything to do with cancer. I don’t recall any mention of tumours, but the report does mention lesions on the lungs, which can be caused by bacteria. And, although rare, bacteria can spread from the lungs into other organs. So I don’t think cancer is involved, the use of the word ‘metastatic’ is just misleading.

Well I think I covered most of the points, and it turned out to be quite an essay – sorry!!! Main point is though, I don’t think a scientist came up with Kepral’s Syndrome! The facts we are given don’t all make sense, but can be loosely pieced together to form a plausible story. And in my personal ‘plausible explanation’ it is likely that Kepral’s can be cured, or at the very least life prolonged.

Edit: for formatting.  Also, may be a lot of mistakes  - it's late here and I'm tired so that's my excuse!  =P
Oh, and that's me not even including the "Kepral's Syndrome" information we are given in ME3! Ha!

Modifié par BeanieBat, 14 juillet 2012 - 12:36 .

[RShara]

Anything to support Thane Squee!

[LoonySpectre]

The "drell hemoglobine" part is the most confusing, of course. Thane himself is, of course, no medic, so we can consider him an unreliable narrator. He indeed can suffer from various types of hypoxia at that point, but that's the matter of how much oxygen his blood gets from lungs, not of some mysterious blood problems.

[Moira-chan]

well i fwe count together all that has been said about thanes disease in me2 and me3 and try to combine it (which is actually -out of our medical knowledge right know- quiet impossible) he should have something like...how can i express this? a kind of bacteria in his lung who reject the binding of oxygen in the tissue of the lunge...and if this not bad enough the bacteria is spreading into other tissue, especially the red chordal where the Erythrocytes build the red blood cell that included the hemoglobin (to put in the me3 information).. but to causes that the hemoglobin is not built right means, that the bacteria must to despoit toxic that causes dna mutation...but that would damage them as well... because bacteria has DNA like we have...and so they destroy their own genetic constitution...

so it was really confusing...well you could bring shadow broker essay and what he said in me2 together with the bacteria even if spreading like cancer is really, really rare, but possible...but this is not easy to bring together with the fluid weather on kahje. normally rain is not helpfull for bacteria... and also thane said that his ilness is not infectiouse...but somehow he must get the bacteria somewehere. bacteria are not buit suddenly within the body, they must be infectiouse thane somehow...
so it should come within the rain... but that is quite impossible...

well that the fluid weather of kahje could lower the ability of his lunge tissue to bind oxygen in the blood cells is really logical, because his lung is used to something help and water can- through a special reaction- build co2, the natural concurent about the binding places in the hemoglobin... co2 is sometimes also carried within the blood cells (normally it's transported in the fluid) but even then in us is a reaction mechanism, that when there is a lot of oxygen in our blood/lunge then it crowd co2 out of the hemoglobin.

[RShara]

I was thinking that the humid enviro was so bad for their lungs that it weakened them to the point of being susceptible to the bacteria.

Warm and wet enviros are actually very good for bacteria growth, aren't they?

[Moira-chan]

they're, that for sure, not for all,sure, but yes, but the bacteria must come from somewhere rshara, so thane must be infectiouse somehow...
but thane said that it's not possible to infectiouse other drell so he could not get it from other ill drells...
normally bacetrias are transfered by cough, more exactly with the smal fluid drops in the spit, but the rain would lower the reach of the cough, so that they cannot be transfered, that is the problem.
and bacteria just grow the the immun system is weaked and that is not becaue of worse lung capacity

[RShara]

He said he wasn't contagious when Shepard asked. So I would assume, not contagious to humans or other species, since the chance of running into another drell was fairly low.

And even if he'd met other drell, unless their lungs were also weakened to the point where the bacteria could take hold, they wouldn't be susceptible.

Modifié par RShara, 14 juillet 2012 - 08:00 .

[Moira-chan]

hmm...in my game he said it was not infectiouse in any way...not even for other drells...but well... that something curiouse, i'm not a medicin, just could analyze it out of the physiological aspect and there is the bacteria combineable with his disease...so maybe i'll oversee it, should talk about it wit beanie again, but to come back to the original ask:
yeah, the explanation of her fits well

[RShara]

"You're dying. Are you contagious? How long to you have?"
"If you're interested, we can talk about it on your ship. The problem isn't contagious and won't affect my work."

[Moira-chan]

well alright, thanks, i thought about the first dialogue within the normandy where he said something like: "it's not infectiouse even not for other drell..."kind of, i should think about it again...hmm...har dto focus on my ecology stuff for exam now

[holyDEATHTRAP]

The outcome of Thane's character doesn't surprise me. I always figured they would kill him off in ME3. The I'm dying and trying to atone for my past was what I found really appealing about the character. This guy who knows he's reaching the end of his journey and wants to do right/set things right maybe even be remembered more than just as a dealer of death. I'm ok with his final fight, I thought he had a better ending than Shepherd got. Having said that though I was disappointed with the lack of interaction you got with him before his end, and was seriously tweaked about the lack of mention/discussion of his death afterwards. BW had alot of dropped balls in ME3. One of my favorites from ME2 the Quarian marine Reegar is only mentioned in an email as having died.

[RShara]

Hmmm I don't have a video of that one so I'm not sure. But it could be like bird flu, where the infection is too deep in the lungs to be spread by casual contact. And I'm not a biologist but the requirement of weakened lungs first seems to fit?