In the microscopic world
There is a great debate in the science of biology as to whether or not a virus is alive. As difficult as it is to believe, biologists involved with the study of life struggle to come up with a firm definition of what is life. A simple definition defies logic and reason. A living organism obtains energy in the form of nutrients from its surroundings, is capable of reproducing to generate offspring, and gives off waste products. In this manner, a self-replicating machine is alive while a mule, the sterile result of the crossing of a horse and a donkey is not. Even in the twenty-first century the current state of knowledge force scientists to define life in the same way as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart defined pornography in the 1964 landmark case of Jacobellis v Ohio challenging the ban of the French Film Les Amants (The Lovers), “I know it when I see it.”
In a primal sense, the drive to reproduce and perpetuate the continuity of species through the ages conveys upon viruses the anointment of life. Viruses are among the most effective of all organisms in their ability to generate offspring. However, their success is at great expense as their parasitic existence is dependent upon the hijacking and ultimate death of their host. The winning strategy of the non-sentient virus is to infect weakly a host so that they can continue to pump out offspring over an extended time. An unsuccessful virus will so severely impair their host that death occurs quickly, before the virus is capable of propagating and spreading.
If considered alive, a virus is an alien life form very different from the other examples of life found on the planet. Its body is simply a coarse husk in the shape of a ball. Protein spikes scattered across the surface make the virus stick the cells in much the same way as sandburs embed themselves into the fur or clothing of unsuspecting travelers. Inside of the body where any self-respecting organism has internal structures, the virus simply has strands of nucleic acids carrying the information on its deadly plan for survival. To emphasize further the unusualness of a virus, many do not even use the standard deoxyribonucleic acids, the DNA found in all life forms from bacteria to plants and animals. Instead, some viruses depend upon the primitive and unreliable ribonucleic acids. Normal life forms use RNA primarily as a temporary copy of the information encoded in the DNA. In essence, the cell uses and discards the fragile RNA copy of the plan without risking information of the master plan.
However alien the virus appears, its ability to survive is uncanny. On its own, it lacks the capacity to grow and reproduce. Instead of wasting its limited resources building and maintaining the structures needed to carry out the basic functions of life, it simply enslaves a cell for its diabolical purposes. Just as the invading hordes in the distant past of society raped, pillaged, and burned, the virus takes over the cell as a surrogate to produce its offspring. Rather than move on, once the virus takes control it continues to direct the actions of the cell and eventually strangles all life from it. As the cell bursts open in death, it releases a new wave of viral particles, each of which will seek out their own target. As they satisfy their primal urge to reproduce, they continue to spread death to everything they touch.
Previous: Chapter 1
Next: Chapter 3
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