If we have such problems with one little virus, imagine going to a planet with a whole ecosystem full of new lifeforms and genetics. The closer it is to ours, the more likely we'll meet a nasty pathogen that impacts us severely or fatally.
And that's only half the story (of Casindra Lost and Al's experiments to enable colonization of New Eden)…
If there's an existing ecosystem, it's going to be very likely that the biota of the explored areas are going to be unable to deal with the microbiota we bring with us. So the danger goes both ways - we're likely to kill both the explorer and the explored.
In fact, having a carbon-based ecosystem to colonize that uses the same biochemical building blocks as we do - this makes it almost certain we are going to run into problems, and bring the plague with us.
Indeed, the plague might be something as "simple" as measles and flu. Colonization is a huge risk to indigenous populations not just on a New Eden in another galaxy, but in the history of our own planet.
We also know from our own planet, that a virus or other parasite can jump species and different species can be vectors for carrying the disease to humans (zoonosis). The effects of a pathogen on the intermediate vectors may be quite different too.
If you ever find a New Eden, think twice about going - it's not likely to stay Eden for long.
https://academic.oup.com/jid/article-pdf/189/Supplement_1/S17/28479172/189-supplement_1-s17.pdf
https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/7529/1/02Whole_Dowling.pdf
My Paradisi Lost stories
Encounters with pathogens and alien lifeforms, wormholes and asteroids, exploited, benign and catastrophically dangerous, all feature in the Paradisi Chronicles stories. My Casindra Lost subseries involves genetic engineering, an emergent AI 'Al' and a captain who is reluctantly crewed with him on a rather long journey to another galaxy - just the two of them, and some cats... There's another AI, 'Alice' that emerges more gradually in the Moraturi arc. It is not space opera, stories that could be set anywhere, or space fantasy, stories that are more magic than science, but stories where the science drives the story, and engineering provides the solutions.
The stories aim to present real science in a way that will help us to think about our own planet, and to develop science and engineering that will conserve rather than destroy.
The Paradisi colonization aims to preserve the pristine ecosystems of New Eden, restrict mining to the other planets and asteroids of the system, and genetically modify people to suit the ecosystem rather than overwhelm it with introduced species - this is the mutliauthor Paradisi Universe my Lost Mission stories are set in: https://paradisichronicles.wordpress.com/
Casindra Lost
Kindle paperback edition ISBN-13: 978-1696380911 justified Iowan OS
Kindle enlarged print edn ISBN-13: 978-1708810108 justified Times NR 16
Kindle large print edition ISBN-13: 978-1708299453 ragged Trebuchet 18
Moraturi Lost
Kindle paperback edition ISBN-13: 978-1679850080 justified Iowan OS
Kindle paperback edition ISBN-13: 979-8640426106 justified Iowan OS
Author/Series pages and Awards
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