The Hilted Sow Virus, Gene Transfers, and the Cold
At some point in the distant past of Taupoi and Earth, the two solar systems had a close encounter. Comets from the Oort clouds bombarded the inner planets. Microorganisms splashed from the surface of one planet and fell on the other. Now we have two planets with life based on the same biochemistry and genetic code. Where life started, on Earth or on Taupoi, we don’t know.
The hilted sow virus infected only the western blue dramadon. However, these dramadons were very virus resistant. Anything that infected them had to be pretty innovative. Part of this virus' bag of tricks included an aggressive enzyme which cut and spliced DNA. Occasionally, during the infection of a dramadon, this enzyme cut the gene encoding the blue pigment from the dramadon and spliced it into its own viral DNA.
Regardless of whether or not it contained this "blue" gene, the hilted sow virus sometimes benignly infected an ancestral Taupoian hunter-gatherer and spliced itself into the DNA of multiple tissues adjacent to the system that produced her sexual behaviors. The germ line was one of those tissues, so her descendants had these viral genes and they slowly spread among Taupoians of all colors. Only in the case where the virus contained the blue gene, did the hunter and her descendants become blue.
During a Taupoian sociological expedition to Tahiti, British Captain Cook arrived with scientists in 1769 CE to observe a transit of Venus. The Europeans infected the natives in their area with the common cold. When Eustan Chi'Kilts, a blue Taupoian, noticed that the Tahitians in her study village were coming down with the cold, she attempted to immunize them with a Taupoian vaccine. This was only partially successful--The cold virus mutated to an attenuated form, producing only mild symptoms in the Tahitians, but the new form was able to circumvent Taupoian immunizations and infect Eustan.
When Eustan was infected with this mutated RNA rhinovirus, the aggressive cut and splice enzyme circulating in her system helped the hilted sow genes, as well as her blue gene and the genes responsible for Taupoian sexual behavior, to 'escape' from her respiratory tissues to the cold virus. Transfer of DNA to an RNA virus would normally be considered very unlikely if not impossible. But the cold virus was topologically similar to the hilted sow virus, and, as mentioned before, the cut and splice enzyme was very aggressive.
When this chimeric cold virus infected the Tahitians, its DNA was inserted into the human genome. From the human point of view, Taupoians are more 'female' than 'male.' So these genes impacted their females more than the males. Except for becoming blue like the females, males were essentially unchanged. Considering human sexual dimorphism, the females became distinctly bisexual.
Years later, the Taupoian Liz Embwallah came to Earth with a small fleet to help plan for the evacuation of the doomed planet. She and her crews had to be immunized against the current versions of all terrestrial diseases. In the case of the cold, this did not happen because of a miscalculation in the dose of the vaccine. Partial immunity and no-fraternization rules allowed them to avoid catching the cold. But Liz's imprudent encounter with the human, Sky Gonzales, allowed her to receive a massive dose of his cold and become infected. Once again, the cut and splice protein circulating in her system transferred some of her genes to the cold virus.
Close quarters among the Taupoians allowed Liz's chimeric cold virus to be spread to her crew. The unexpected discomfort caused by the cold resulted in a lowering of their guard and the transmission of the cold to the humans the Taupoians worked with. The Taupoians quickly withdrew from Earth to prevent more extensive transmission, but it was already too late. The cold gradually spread to all humans.
As had happened to the Tahitians, DNA from the chimeric virus was spliced into the human genome. In this instance, the only genes transferred along with the hilted sow genes were the sexual behavior genes. Liz had none of the dramadon's color genes. The only change in the human population as the cold spread was for human females to become bisexual, as had happened with the Taupoians infected years earlier.
Page updated: 14 June 2019
Page created: 25 August 2017
