All Comments on 'Quaranteam - Book Two (Ch. 14)'

In IRl NZ was one of the most locked down places in world during Covid.

Having been to NZ many times reckon Aucklanders are more likely to riot and steal than those from Christchurch.

Ok, so an excellently written chapter with one big question mark that I’m hoping will be answered in the future.

WHY is the serum fatal for 11-17 year olds? Maybe I missed something in an earlier chapter but medically speaking this doesn’t make sense. If it’s based off of the virus reacting to puberty that I could see being logical, but generally speaking that’s between 11-14. I work in healthcare and something that only works (or doesn’t) on people above a certain age isn’t really a thing.

Yes, I know it’s fiction. It’s also fairly well written and thought out fiction, which is why I’m hoping there will be an explanation given for this confusing detail.

In the Aussie version of this story, by SilverRyden, the Duo Halo virus was accidentally released in an Aussie airport from a flight between New Zealand and Singapore. When the canister did not arrive, New Zealand was able to shut down their nation.

If this is the story the Quaranteam team of writers have decided on, then it raises a few possibilities for who is ultimately begin the techno virus that is Duo Halo, some could be true at the same time.

1. This was a paid for project to design the deadliest virus possible and a cure

2. The medical researcher or researchers who designed this virus were blackmailed into creating Duo Halo with its particular dire results

3. The man behind this virus wanted to create a world where women will be forced into harems

4. The man behind the creation of this virus does not live in New Zealand or Singapore, but used both small nations as screens to hide his identity and culpability behind from the rest of the world.

It also raises the possibility that the man behind the virus sent back to the researchers their infected loved ones who he had someone else kidnap and infect, as a means to cover up his culpability. Such a man would seek to kill off any loose ends that may lead back to him.

The Duo Halo virus reminds me of the techno virus used in the latest Bond film, "No Time To Die".

This is fairly far from the Covid reality in New Zealand where both the borders and the country as a whole was pretty well locked down. If Duohalo had hit NZ it would have taken months before a million people died.

Insert Elmo Fire GIF here.

Reading this chapter brought back memories of my senior year of high school and that fateful September morning. The terrible feeling of being lost and adrift, desperately waiting for and dreading any new information. That morning was painful and remembering it is painful, but we must remember it in order to learn from it and, hopefully, prevent similar events.

This chapter was a relatively gentle reminder of those lessons, and I thank you for it.

Wow, tough chapter but really well written. I hope this wasn't a terrorist attack on NZ. Thanks for writing.

Wow. Brutal. Having watched 9/11 as a teenager getting home from school, then worked covid as a nurse, this was powerful.

Think you need to change this chapter's category to non-erotic horror...

Thank you for another chapter in this incredible narrative that you’re weaving here. Excellent writing as is usual with you with no grammatical errors. Kudos for an engaging story.

Thanks for the upfront warning. Having lived through, and personally impacted by 9/11, a scenario of an entire population of a country being wiped out in a 3 week period is scary, disheartening. Will be interesting if any Quaranteam writer follows up on some of the NZ teams created from this triaged roll out.

the slower death of a virus would be insane to experience...like you had to sit through at least one full day of just pain and emotion. thank you for the reminder of mortality we have

I wanted to give it more stars. the unimaginable brought to life.

I honestly never felt dirty for giving a five star rating before now, but fuck that felt dirty as all hell to give this five stars.

@DominantWhisper - There's a handful of reasons for this, but the biggest and most important one (that isn't part of the story) is that it prevents underage sex from happening in the story. Relatively early on, I knew the story was catching fire and picking up a lot of steam, and I also knew other people were asking to play in the sandbox. That's why I have a small set of rules that I pass on to anyone who asks if they can write a QT spinoff. When I'd moved to Patreon in order to support my writing, I knew I had to follow their rules, and no underage sex was a big one for them, which was fine. I always tell people who ask that restrictions breed creativity, and the fact that I wiped out an entire generation with a stroke of a pen both solved one narrative problem and provided endless fuel for another. I liked the idea of there being an entire deadzone, and thought about making it everyone under the age of 18, but decided I liked the idea of keeping some of them alive, to make the despair run dark, but also to feel ridiculously arbitrary, as mass casualty events often do.

@Anonymous (re: DuoHalo's origins) - the origin story of DuoHalo's been left complicated and murky to make it feel more real, but you'll notice SilverRyden's version lines up pretty closely with the version presented in QT: Phil's Tale, meaning most of the details there can be taken as the logical history of DuoHalo. I might get into the back story of DuoHalo at some point, but there's also some sense in leaving it all up to speculation...

The government is obviously to blame. They should have been manufacturing serum and dosing their population for months. Thankfully its only a novel.

Hard hitting, but needed in the story. Up until now it felt a bit like Andy's tale was a bit insulated from the horror that was happening around the world. Thanks for the installment.

Relevance to the overall story, I don’t see, so seems Author indulgent 😬

Absolutely horrific!!!!!

Oops, forgot to add 5/5

As a Kiwi it hit a bit close to the bone but still 5 stars. I still remember exactly where I was when 9/11 happened.

Wow ! That really brings the reality of this tale back to the forefront . Very harsh and significant chapter . Well done . GR8 chapter .

Loved the chapter, 5 stars, but the math doesn't add up.

If the entire population is 5 million, and they kept relatively safe from the pandemic, the female / male ratio should be close to 1:1, so why ask for multiple partners?

Again, as the population is 5 million, and you brought 2,5 million doses, you'll probably inoculate the entire female population, why would the death toll prediction not be minimal? If you pair this half to the other male half you'd save almost everyone.

For it to be considered as epic calamity, and the prediction is only save 10 to 20% of the original population the available doses should be something around 500 thousand doses.

We would need a reason as to why ask for more than 2 partners (70% coverage), instead of trying to save as many as possible, for example the US loading male Kiwis on the planes and pairing them in the US.

I feel this will end up soft launching a QT:Aotearoa franchise.

Think of the lonely sheep...

I guess I'm in the minority but I thought this really was a pretty pointless chapter. I mean I get it from a percentage standpoint 20-30% survival rate is bad, but that is worse case. Which would mean total deaths of 4 million people at the lowest 20%. I mean NYC may have lost more than that by itself. I can not remember if CP said what the death toll was up to for the US but I mean lets round off the US pop to 400 mil, 20% of that is 11-17 that in itself would be 80 million people. But lets forget them for a minute and just go with guys, so a even split of remaining population would leave us with 160 million men. At just a 5% death rate that would be 8 million men dead twice the entire dead of NZ.

So yeah, you should have already gotten the seriousness and amount dead before this, without needing a entire chapter beating us over the head with basically percentages.

This is a good chapter because it's easy to forget this isn't just a sexy harem love story. Andy's doing well, everyone gets along, and he hasn't had any setbacks or difficulties overcoming anything. At most he has his brother's death, but that was honestly kind of hand-waved away to the point I'd almost forgotten about it.

But shit isn't good in the world in this story. Most people don't get a happily ever after. This isn't a love story any more than The Stand by Stephen King is one - it's an apocalypse survival story. It just so happens that the protagonist was perfectly placed to survive with little effort.

To thus questioning relevance give him a chance to see how Andy adopts this to his message of hope, and yet vigilance for those not yet protected

A brutal story. Good on you to warn people, still it was very hard to read through it all.