A Star Trek-Star Wars Crossover Story

(Note: This is a work of fan fiction for non-commercial purposes.)

I am a pretty big fan of the two largest sci-fi franchises in history: Star Trek and Star Wars. Though there is a bit of a war between the two among some factions, and there's the general idea that you can't be a fan of both, I say "Nonsense!" 

When I was around 12, I had an idea for a crossover story that would bring the two together under a single universe and story arc. So, my interest in coming up with such a story goes back a long way. When Star Trek was rebooted, I started thinking about the subject again and in 2012 I came up with what I think is a plausible overall outline. And since Star Wars: The Force Awakens has been a smashing success, pulling in nearly $800 million in just 10 days, and with Star Trek Beyond coming out in July 2016 (for the 50th anniversary of the franchise), I thought now would be a good time to share my little idea with everyone.

This isn't an alternate universe or some weird time travel tale of Kirk defeating Vader. Both "universes" actually happen in OUR, real universe. In short, Star Trek is the distant past to Star Wars. I've tried to do my research and take into consideration the main canonical events of both worlds as well as official expanded stories. To help my story make sense, I've added two "official" timelines, one for the associated events in Star Trek and another for Star Wars. But while I've paid attention to the "history" of the two, my tale takes place far after any Enterprise and long before the Millennium Falcon. 

"Journey to Skyriver" 

A Star Trek – Star Wars

Crossover Story

Jacob Bogle - Nov. 28, 2012
Revised Dec. 29, 2015

tl;tr basic idea:

The Federation leaves the Milky Way galaxy after a new war between the Borg and Species 8472 destroys much of the galaxy. After using stolen Borg technology to open up a hyperspace (transwarp) corridor, the remnants of humanity, along with other species, find their way to a new galaxy…far, far away. Over many years, the humans and Vulcans intermingle and accelerate their “spiritual” evolution, incorporating ancient ideas used by the inhabitants of the new galaxy. In time, the remnants of the Milky Way convoy splits into two factions as they spread throughout the new galaxy (what will become the Sith and Jedi). One faction turns into a trade federation (fulfilling the previous economic role of the United Federation of Planets) and the other helps to spawn the Republic. At some distant point in the future, while humans remain physically similar, their enhanced evolution allows them to tap into the Force and use it very well. This then begins the history of the Republic, the Jedi/Sith conflict and in time the canonical story found in the Star Wars films and Expanded Universe.

Both franchises have several common technologies and themes:

Warp drive/ hyperspace (light speed)

Cybernetics/ Cyborgs

Tractor beams

United Federation of Planets/ Galactic Republic

Space stations are spheres / federation ships spherical

Humans and multiple alien races

Species with advanced mental powers
Changlings/Celestials

Cannon Star Trek Timeline: (using "real" dates, not "stardates")

2063 AD – First Contact with Borg (Picard)

2151-2161 – Star Trek Enterprise Series

2161 – Founding of the UFP

2233-58 – Star Trek (2009 film, Kirk)

2266-69 – Star Trek (The Original Series)

2273-87 – Original series films

2293/2371 – Film, “Generations”

2364-70 – Next Gen Series

2369-75 – Deep Space Nine

2371-78 – Voyager

2379 – Nemesis film

Cannon ST General Events Timeline:

c. 4 billion years ago – a humanoid civilization seeds the oceans of many worlds. (Possibly the “Founders” re: Changlings of Deep Space Nine)

c. 1 million years ago – Sargon’s people explore the galaxy and colonize various planets, possibly including Vulcan.

c. 8,000 BC – The Dominion founded in the Gamma Quadrant by the Changlings in a different form.

c. 4^th century AD – The Vulcan “Time of Awakening” begins, led by Surak.

c. 4^th century AD – The Dominion are founded in their current form.

c. 9^th century AD – Kahless unites the Klingon people.

1871 – The Cardassian Union is established.

2032 – Zefram Cochrane is born.

2063 – First warp test (First Contact film).

2103 – Earth colonizes Mars.

2111 – Jonathan Archer is born.

2151-55 – Enterprise series.

2161 – United Federation of Planets forms (Earth, Tellar, Andoria and Vulcan).

2230 – Spock is born.

2233 – Kirk is born.

2268 – The Andromedan “Kelvan Empire” reaches the Milky Way

2266-69 – Star Trek: The Original Series

2305 – Jean-Luc Picard is born.

2364-70 – Next Generation series.

2369-75 – Deep Space Nine

2371-78 – Voyager

2472 – According to "Q," humans would be in the Delta Quadrant by this time.

26^th century – The Federation now includes the Klingons, Ithenites and Xindi.

27^th century – The Tox Uthat is created. It’s a device that can halt all nuclear fusion in a star.

29^th century – Time travel. (VOY: Futures End, Relativity)

31^st century – Time travel is commonplace.

123^rd century – Radiation levels in the Andromeda galaxy become intolerably high.

Cannon Star Wars Timeline: (dates used are fictional "in-universe" dates)

13 billion BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) – The Galaxy is formed.

c. unknown – The Celestials or “Architects” were an ancient civilization who were present long before the Infinite Empire and may have had a role in guiding the balance of the Light/Dark sides of the Force.

5 billion BBY – Life first emerges on Goroth Prime.

2, 006,200 BBY – The Columi first evolve.

2 billion BBY – The Columi achieve interstellar travel for the first time. The Wookiees and Sullustans evolve.

1 billion BBY – The Corellian system is formed by the Celestials.

100,000 BBY – Coruscant is now entirely covered by its principle city, later known as Galactic City.

 - The Celestials had contact with or co-existed with the Gree, Kwa, Sharu, Columi, Killiks, Humans, and Taung.

- The Sith race begins to develop their culture on Korriban.

57,000 BBY – Utapau is colonized.

36,435 BBY – Philosophers & scientists from several systems gather on Tython to mystical knowledge. The Force is discovered. The Je’daii Order is founded.

35,000 BBY – The Infinite Empire of the Rakata is formed. They use the Dark Side.

30,000 BBY – The Infinite Empire reaches its peak and constructs the Star Forge.

27,500 BBY – Human colonists land on Alderaan.

25,793 BBY – Tythan scholars begin to use their knowledge of the Force to pursue power, a conflict arises which devastates Tython.

25,783 BBY – The Jedi Order forms from the ashes of Tython’s Force Wars.

25,200 – Due to a major plague the Infinite Empire collapses.

25,053 – The Rakatan Hyperdrive is adapted and widely distributed by the Corellians.

            – The Galactic Republic is founded and Coruscant becomes its capital.

25,000 – Jedi Knights found a school on Ossus, modern hyperdrive is developed.

24,953 – The Jedi Order swears loyalty to the Republic.

24,500 – The first war between the Jedi occurs when some are drawn to the Dark Side.

20,000 – The Inner Rim is settled.

7,003 – The Second Great Darkness (Hundred-Year Darkness) begins when Dark Jedi’s create monstrous armies to battle the Jedi Order.

6,900 – The Dark Jedi’s lose the war, are exiled and found the Sith Empire which remains unknown to the rest of the galaxy for almost 2,000 years.

5,000 – The Great Hyperspace War begins when Gav & Jori Daragon accidentally lead the Sith to the Republic. The War ends with a Republic victory.

- Tatooine is discovered by the Republic.

4,995 – The Klatooinian Trade Guild is founded on Klatooine.

4,050 – Lorell Raiders are defeated by the Jedi resulting in their hatred within the Hapes Consortium.

4,019 – Four Jedi Masters establish the Jedi Temple over the Force Nexus on Coruscant.

4,015 – Old Sith Wars begin.

4,000 – Great Sith War begins.

3,959 – Jedi Civil War begins. Ends in 3,956.

3,956 – Sith Civil War begins.

3,955 – First Jedi Purge.

3,681 – Great Galactic War begins.

3,653 – Great Galactic War ends with the sacking of Coruscant, Cold War beings.

3,641 – Cold War ends and the Second Great Galactic War begins.

2,000 – New Sith Empire formed, New Sith Wars begin.

896 – Yoda is born on an unknown planet.

867 – Naboo joins the Republic.

850 – A 10,000 year old lightsaber is discovered on Ossus.

350 – The Trade Federation is created

232 – The Jedi notice that the Force is in “flux” and fear the Dark Side is growing again.

124 – The Galactic Senate declares the Outer Rim to be a free trade zone.

121 – The armed conflict between the Human settlers and the Gungan natives of Naboo comes to an end.

112 – C-3PO is created on Affa.

92 – Qui-Gon Jin is born.

82 – Darth Sidious is born on Naboo.

65 – The Hutts take control of Tatooine.

60 – The Millennium Falcon is contructed over Corellia.

57 – Obi-Wan Kenobi is born.

46 – Padme Amidala is born.

41 – Anakin Skywalker is born on an unknown world.

32 BBY-0ABY – The Star Wars film series.

Issues to overcome: (some of my ideas and thought processes)
--- Origins of humans: the Star Wars "Celestials" are the same group of aliens we learn about in Star Trek Next Gen: The Chase episode, who “seeded the primordial oceans of many worlds”. Humans are thought to have originated on Coruscant, but this is only because they've been there for so long (at the time of the Star Wars films) and were there long before the emergence of the Jedi. Plus, they were indeed created by the Celestials. 

--- Access to Star Wars Galaxy: The Star Wars “Galaxy” (called "Skyriver") has a hyperspace disturbance which prevents travel into or out of the Galaxy. However, in 132 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin) the Yuuzang Vong found “Vector Prime” in the Outer Rim which acted as a path through this disturbance. The "Federation Remnant" stumbles across this region (c. post 31^st century real time – pre-100,000 BBY).

--- Time line: the Battle of Yavin can be the same as "Year Zero" for story purposes, with humans coming to Skyriver in 150,000 BBY, or approx. 150,000 years after they left the Milk Way which will be set in the year 3,324 AD. Thus 150,000 BBY is 153,324 AD. It will take humans approx. 20,000-25,000 years to reach Skyriver.

Map of NGC 1232, annotated with fictional Star Wars titles. Click for larger view.

--- Location: The Milky Way is 100,000 light years across; it is in the Local Group within the Virgo Supercluster. I propose that Skyriver is actually a known galaxy, NGC 1232, located 60 million light years away in the Eridanus cluster. It has a satellite galaxy, NGC 1232A, which could be "Companion Besh" aka "Firefist" in Star Wars.

At Warp 9.6 it would take 20,345 years to reach to reach NGC 1232.

Working Draft Synopsis:

Before the Great Journey
The Milky Way and the Star Wars “Galaxy” are really two galaxies in the same physical universe. The “Galaxy” will be referred to as “Skyriver” which is the name of the galaxy given by the Nagai people of the satellite galaxy Firefist. 

Skyriver is actually one of countless galaxies given life by the Celestials (the same race as the “Founders/Changlings” in Star Trek) and has a technical name of “Galaxy 274”, denoting that it is the 274^th galaxy to be given life. Further similarities between the Star Trek Changlings and Star Wars Celestials is that both used other races as slaves and clients: Changlings had the Jem'Hadar & Vorta, the Celestials had the Rakata. Additionally, Wookipedia relates that Thuruht, the oldest of the Killik hives, claimed to remember seeing "The Ones", a group of Force wielders apparently related to the Celestials, coalescing out of a geyser - Changlings evolved from "solids" into a liquid
changeable state, and from whose home world (during DS9) they would coalesce out of a great ocean of Changlings into single individuals. 

In the distant past, some 5.5 billion years BC, a race of ancient beings, known as Celestials/Changlings, originated from an unknown galaxy and embarked on an immense journey across the known universe. They were the first multi-celled, intelligent, beings to evolve as a manifestation of midi-chlorians and the will of the Force which pervades the universe. They discovered the ability to travel faster than light long before any others, and set about seeding countless galaxies with a unique mixture of matter and energy, called the Primordial Primer, which could adapt to the wide-ranging environments of planets and in time, evolve into divergent life-forms. One group, carried by their “Living starships”, came to Skyriver in 5,300,000 BBY. Another made their way to the Milky Way c. 4,000,000 BBY.

I propose that Midi-chlorians are actually dark matter life forms that helped to build the framework of the universe and bind it together. They helped turn Skyriver into a place that serves as the ultimate will of the Force and as such they can only be visually detected in Skyriver, thus unknown to the rest of the universe's civilizations.

The Celestials returned to a series of primary galaxies, Skyriver being one of them, leaving the Milky Way and most others to undergo more natural “hands-off” development.

The Milky Way

(Interim time period: match real world Earth history to cannon ST and cannon SW history)

By the year 3,025 (647 years after the events of Star Trek Voyager), the Federation includes nearly all eligible planets in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants with extended outposts in the Gamma Quadrant, and multiple probes and small trading/scientific posts in the Delta Quadrant. 

Following the devastation wrought by Capt. Janeway in the Voyager episode "Endgame", and continued problems caused by an internal conflict resulting from "VOY: Unimatrix Zero", the Borg are just a remnant of their former power and reach. Largely relegated to the Delta Quadrant, the Borg were generally left alone, with contact between the Borg and the Federation being sparse until the Second Temporal War. (background - Enterprise Series: Temporal Cold War)

A Second Temporal War between the Federation against the Borg Remnant and their anti-Federation allies, along with various other cybernetic life forms, has left the galaxy full of temporal fractures. These fractures make time-travel very dangerous and offer too many variables for accurate predictions of the outcome of actions taken. Thus, an unprecedented treaty was signed between the Federation and the new "Borg Alliance", putting an end to the war and to time travel.

During the War, the Borg Alliance rebuilt a large portion of their Delta Quadrant  transwarp conduit network that was destroyed by Voyager nearly 700 years prior. The Borg had shifted their primary objective from constant and total assimilation, to a mix of assimilation and cooperation with like-minded species (perhaps the Na'kuhl from "ENT:Storm Front"). During this change and build-up, the Borg Alliance once more tried to open a gateway into fluidic space, the domain of Species 8472. Their purpose was not to engage 8472, but to harvest the rich organic materials found in fluidic space. This material was difficult to assimilate and so it was thought that if it could be brought into the new Borg Collective, that the Collective in turn would become more difficult to be destroyed by the Federation, and, in time, should they engage 8472 again, would be better able to defeat them.

Their plans were interrupted by the results of the Second Temporal War, which lasted 147 linear years. Although the war ended in a treaty, the Borg were once again left in a highly vulnerable state. So in a desperate bid to protect themselves, they opened up a quantum singularity into a region of fluidic space they thought would be uninhabited and began to harvest the organic compounds.

The Borg remained undetected for four years and was somewhat successful at adapting the compounds to their own desires. However, they were discovered. The ensuing war between the Borg Alliance and Species 8472 brought total chaos to the galaxy, eventually engulfing the Earth itself, and putting an end to most life after 125 years of war.

The remnants of the Federation included Humans, Vulcans, Betazoids and others. In 3,328 AD, they combined their resources and set off to find a new home. This would lead them to Skyriver after drifting through space for more than 20,000 years; a wondering extra-galactic civilization had finally found peace.

Leaving the Milk Way

A vast armada of ships from dozens of worlds departed the Milky Way galaxy for parts unknown. Each species’ remaining population is fewer than 10 million. Through the over 20,000 year journey, some decide to leave the armada and find homes in one of the many dwarf galaxies surrounding the Milky Way, while other refuse, owing to their proximity to the ravaged Milky Way. Others still end up staying behind as the armada passes Andromeda. The core ships (Humans, Vulcans and others) remember the story of the Kelvans from Andromeda who stated the galaxy would become uninhabitable within 10,000 years, so, they carried on, encountering other nomads, fighting off extra-galactic scavengers, searching for materials, fuel, etc., and generally maintaining an average speed of Warp 7 (although going faster at times and stopping for periods of rest etc). After 25,000 years they enter the far outer reaches of Skyriver in the year 28,328 AD (or 178,328 BBY).

The Hyperspace Barrier

Once they make it to Skyriver, their resources are drastically low and they decide to enter the galaxy. Having met nomadic peoples, they have heard that entrance into Skyriver via warp/hyperdrive is impossible and they know that approaching the galaxy at sub-light speeds would take thousands of additional years. They send out multiple probes to survey as much of the galaxy as they can, trying to find a weakness in the barrier. After a period of searching they find what will be known as “Vector Prime” (Yuuzang Vong) and name it “the Sky River,” after its properties. This “river” is an opening in the barrier that acts like a vortex, pulling in energy, matter and other substances from the wider universe and enriching the galaxy. The river’s gateway also moves, tracing the diameter of the galaxy once every million years. This is why it is so difficult to find and why so few, if any, inside the galaxy knew about it. It was originally devised by the Celestials as a way to help refresh the galaxy and keep it connected to the outer universe via the Force, while protecting the "Prime Force Nexus". Knowledge of this gateway would soon be forgotten, but its name would remain as the informal name of the galaxy.

The armada is then swept in and passes through the companion dwarf galaxy Firefist, where the name "Sky River" would be exchanged and the people of Firefist would one day be given credit for the name’s invention.

Once inside the galaxy, the “river” slows and incorporates itself into a network of force nexūs. The people, unaware of the Force, would simply follow what they saw as an energy river to their final destination deep in the Core, to Coruscant.

Inside the Galaxy

Slowly following the river they would encounter many species. They would eventually intermarry and introduce force-sensitive genetics into this new Human race that developed over thousands of years of travel (90% human, 5% other Federation races, and 5% Skyriver native). The other Federation species likewise underwent a similar change as humanity. They have now forged a new beginning and will make possible the story of Star Wars. 

By 100,000 BBY, they have colonized Coruscant and begin to spread throughout the galaxy. 

Begin driven by different factors and old "Milky Way" instincts that have become a sort of genetic memory among all the survivors, some groups of people split off and are drawn toward either the Light or Dark side of the Force over the millennia. These instincts also help in the development of the Republic and Trade Federation.




Copyright info: This is a work of fan fiction for non-commercial purposes. 
The original idea for Star Trek came from Gene Roddenberry, and Star Wars from George Lucas.The names of organizations (like the United Federation of Planets or the Galactic Empire), names of species (like Vulcans and Wookiees), names of planets (like Andoria and Utapau), and the events that happened within the movies, TV series, and published printed materials all belong to their respective copyright owners: Paramount, Disney, etc. 
The only thing that I've created was the story that connects the two "universes" and whatever personal interpretation of events/possible connections that I've made to make the crossover work. However, it is still heavily derivative of the original source works and, to my knowledge, aren't eligible for copyright. In short, I don't own Star Trek or Star Wars and this is just a random story created by a random fan! 

Maps of the Ancient History of Israel

Ever since the partition of Palestine after WWII  and the creation of the modern Israeli state (1948), there has been controversy. In this particular post I don't want to debate the problems, but I do want to show that the land of Israel has been the historic home of the Jews and that it was the forcible removal and ethnic suppression of Jews that led to "Palestine" being predominantly Arab Muslim in modern times; that is, until 1948.

First I'd like to briefly discuss language. Hebrew and Arabic both belong to the Semitic language family. The Semitic languages originated around 3750 BC. This shared linguistic heritage proves that the peoples of Israel, Palestine, indeed all of Arabia, all have a common ancestry. While the many groups of people may have had differing political and cultural developments, the human beings themselves are all part of the same family. Not to mention that genetically speaking, the Semitic peoples predominantly belong to Haplogroup J-P209 which originated 13,000-31,000 years ago.

Of course despite these similarities, conflicts arise over religious, cultural, and political differences.

The land of Israel had been mainly Jewish until the 3rd century AD and had a substantial Jewish population until the 7th century. The political divisions of the core Israeli area, even during times of foreign occupation, also remained fairly consistent throughout history.

Map of Canaan. Borders are the red and blue lines.

Known Canaanite culture dates back to at least 3500 BC (though the area has been inhabited by modern humans for basically all of human history). As time went on, the area became dominated by small city-states with nomadic tribes interspersed. By 2240 BC, the Semitic Akkadian Empire had reached the area of Canaan. Interestingly, the first king of Babylon was the Amorite (which included part of Canaan) king, Sumu-abum. He founded an independent city-state and reigned from 1898-1877 BC.

Starting around 1700 BC, the historical lands of Canaan were politically controlled by Egypt, however much of Canaan's population were native tribes and peoples who had already shared a common a history for centuries. Many of the people who lived there could claim decent from Phoenicia. The Phoenicians had extensive trade routes going so far as Morocco in the west to Greece and lower Italy in the north.

Map of Phoenicia

The first battle in history to have a reliable written record was the Battle of Megiddo (located in modern day Israel) around 1457 BC. It pitted Canaanites against Egypt and Pharaoh Thutmose III.

14th century Middle East, shows Canaan under Egyptian rule.

From the 1300s BC through the 11th century BC, the lands came under the control of the Middle Assyrian Empire. It was during this time that Judaism began to develop as a distinct faith and culture. The first written record of the word "Israel" comes from the Merneptah Stele, which was created in 1208 BC.

The physical archaeological evidence of a united Kingdom of Israel (1050-930 BC) is limited, however few doubt the existence of the leaders of Saul, David, and Solomon. Saul was a Hebrew leader who lived ca, 1082-1010 BC. After the breakdown of the kingdom in 930 BC, two successor states were created, the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah.

Despite conflicts with neighboring states, they prospered until the northern kingdom was conquered by Assyria in 740 BC. The Kingdom of Judah survived until it too was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BC. This gives a period of at least 464 years of dominate Jewish control of the southern half of modern-day Israel (including Jerusalem), and at least 622 years of distinct Jewish identity (from the Merneptah Stele to the Babylonian Exile).

It is important to note that the Babylonian Exile was only a partial exile. The Jewish elite were driven out of Israel, but many others remained. At the fall of Babylon to Persia in 539 BC, the Jews that had been exiled began to return, though this process did take many years. The exile period is a very important one in Jewish history because it was during the exile that the canonical books of the Torah were laid out in precise writing.   

The Second Temple Period (which replaced the First Temple Period after its destruction during the Babylonian Exile) began in 516 BC and continued until 70 AD. The land of Israel (or Judea) was incorporated in several other empires, however the Jews always retained a level of local control (usually as a vassal kingdom) and territorial changes were minimal. The name "Judea" was also retained throughout Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman periods.

The Judah "Yehud" autonomous province (in pink) under Persia. 539-332 BC.

When Persia was defeated by Alexander the Great, Judea was incorporated into his empire and it remained part of the successor Ptolemaic Egyptian kingdom (ruled by Alexander's general Ptolemy I and his family) until Judea was captured by the Seleucid Empire in 198 BC. Remember, during these periods the Temple still stood and Jewish culture continued to survive. 

Then in 140 BC, the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty ruled the kingdom. 

Hasmonean kingdom, 140-37 BC.

Between 73-63 BC, Judea became a client state of Rome. The Hasmonean dynasty lost control to Herod the Great (with the help of Mark Antony's army) at the Siege of Jerusalem in 37 BC. It remained a client kingdom until 6 AD.

Herodian kingdom. 

This ended a further 146 years of direct Jewish control, and 522 years of nominal Jewish control. 

Afterward, Judea became a Roman province. 

Roman Province of Judea.

Even under direct Roman rule, the territorial region remained fairly consistent with historical kingdoms and it was still inhabited by a majority of Jews. From 1208 BC until 135 AD the area retained its Jewish identity. That's 1,343 years. In 132 AD the area was embroiled in conflict as the Jewish people struggled to regain independence. The Bar Kokhba Revolt  lasted four years and was mercilessly crushed by Rome: 580,000 Jews were killed during the revolt. This began the forced destruction of the Jewish way of life that would last 1,800 years. 

Judea was renamed "Syria Palaestina". Jews still made up the majority of the population, but from 200 AD and beyond they increasingly became the minority. With the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, and the massive loss of life through a series of revolts (culminating in Bar Kokhba), the Jews were largely dispersed. The province became Christian over time and existed until 390 AD when it was changed to Palaestina Prima under the Byzantine Empire.  

Byzantine Palestine 5th century.

Jewish identity survived in some pockets, especially in Samaria. A series of revolts during the 5th and 6th centuries led to the near total destruction of the Jewish population with over 200,000 killed. Then, in 614 AD the Sasanian Empire took control. After the Sasanians were overtaken by Muslim conquests, the area was renamed Jund Filastin.  

As I hope is now clear, Israel (the children of Jacob) lasted for over 1,300 years until a series of dreadful conflicts saw their numbers reduced to a mere fraction. The population of Judea/Palestine/Israel had never been very large, only a few million at most. After the destruction of their last strongholds, Israel became diaspora.

---Jacob Bogle, 2/5/15

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The Truth About Ebola

Any time a relatively obscure topic becomes front page news overnight, people become overwhelmed with information pouring in from all sides: TV, newspapers, the Internet etc. And as usual, right along with all the credible information, folks start being inundated with conspiracy theories and people spreading misinformation or information they have misunderstood. As we have seen, this has created a kind of communal national anxiety attack. 

In the light of all that has happened, I want to take you through the basics and hopefully ease any anxiety and clear up some confusion.  

Introduction

Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever caused by an Ebola virus. There are 5 species of Ebola virus, with the most common being the Zaire ebolavirus. Ebola was first discovered in 1976 and is named after the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formally known as Zaire). Since 1976 there have been 27 individual outbreaks; however, 4 of them were laboratory accidents and the disease did not spread beyond the first patients.

A computer model of the virus.

The various natural outbreaks have had mortality rates ranging from 25% to 90%. The current outbreak, which began in December 2013, has a case fatality rate of 71%. There have been over 9,600 reported cases and 4,800 deaths. (The discrepancy between the reported cases/deaths and the fatality rate is that the fatality rate is based off of proven Ebola cases/deaths vs. those suspected of being Ebola.) It is very likely that in the primary affected countries, the number of cases and deaths have been under reported. This outbreak is by far the largest in history, with more cases than all the others combined. In August 2014, the World Health Organization estimated that 20,000 people are expected to contract the disease. That estimate is likely to be greatly surpassed. 

The current West Africa epidemic began in Guinea and then spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain, and the United States. The outbreaks in Nigeria and Senegal were stopped. Liberia, with a population of 4.3 million, has the greatest number of cases, followed by Sierra Leone, and then Guinea. There's also a separate (unrelated) outbreak in the Dem. Rep. of Congo which began in August 2014 and has claimed 68 lives. 

Ebola symptoms can begin 2-3 days after exposure, all the way up to 3 weeks after, with a small number of cases not experiencing symptoms until a month after. The first symptoms are often fever followed by a sore throat, muscle pain and headaches. Further symptoms include a rash, diarrhea, nausea & vomiting, shortness of breath, swelling, confusion, bleeding from the eyes, nose, and other openings, and internal hemorrhaging. Death typically occurs 6 to 16 days after the start of symptoms. Ebola is NOT airborne. It is only spread through contact with bodily fluids like vomit, diarrhea, blood, sweat, breast milk etc. or by objects contaminated with body fluids.

Transmission

(Click for larger view.)

There has been no change in the way Ebola is transmitted, but since people have been confused about its transmission through sweat or through the air from things like coughing, I’m going to explain a bit more on this. Different body fluids can contain different levels of a virus or bacteria; this has always been the case. Viral infections occur when a person is exposed to the necessary viral load (a certain number of viral particles) and the virus survives in the body, and then begins reproducing. For some diseases that can happen with a single viral particle (known as a viron), for others it requires thousands. And so, the risk of getting Ebola from sweat is less than the risk of getting it from blood. In a 2007 study of Ebola transmission from various fluid types (including sweat), saliva, stool, blood, and breast milk were most likely to contain virons; the single sweat sample did not have any viral particles. It needs to be stressed that doctors can't say "yes this happens" or "no this is impossible" unless there's real evidence to support the claim. As more and more studies are done, it's obvious that we will learn more and things may change. Until then, we can only go by what has actually been proven.   

Different viruses can also live on surfaces for different lengths of times. In the case of Ebola, once the body fluid has dried on a surface, the virus dies within hours. Ebola is a very weak organism outside of a body and cannot survive long outside of a host, and it is easily killed by chemicals like household bleach.

On the issue of airborne transmission. Airborne transmission is basically when a virus (or bacteria) can survive in the air for extended periods of time and is then picked up by other people which can then make them sick. When someone has an infection, their body contains billions (or trillions) of germs, and so when they sneeze or cough, they expel large numbers of germs into the air which can then be breathed in by another person. Respiratory droplets from sneezing & coughing are a form of bodily fluid & that has always been the case. HOWEVER, Ebola cannot survive outside of the body for long, and once those droplets dry the virus dies. Because of this, because Ebola can’t live in the air, Ebola is not an airborne disease.  Also, coughing & sneezing are not common symptoms of Ebola.

The jump to become an airborne disease takes more than a single "switch" flip, it takes multiple mutations in the right way. While Ebola could theoretically become airborne, there's no evidence that is has become airborne or is nearly there. Any disease could theoretically become airborne, but until it actually does, the only thing that exists is speculation. If people really are afraid of this, then all the more reason for us to do all we can to stop this outbreak in Africa. 

To stress the point: unless you have had physical contact with the skin, blood, vomit, stool, saliva, or other fluids of an Ebola patient, or of their corpse; or if you have had physical contact with sheets or other objects which have liquid matter on them from an Ebola patient; or if an Ebola patient has projected their fluids onto you.... then you do not have Ebola. 

Infectious vs. Contagious

I also want to try and clear up some questions about infection and contagion. Ebola is very infectious. That means that it only takes a small amount of virons to infect a person. Infection means that the virus is able to survive in the body and successfully replicate. Contagious on the other hand describes how easily a disease can spread from person to person. Ebola is highly infectious, but it is not highly contagious under normal circumstances.

The contagiousness of a disease boils down to something called the reproduction number (shown as "R0" or "R nought"). R0 is a mathematical term that tells you how contagious an infectious disease is. Specifically, it's the average number of people who catch the disease from a single sick person during an outbreak. If a disease's R0 is less than 1 an outbreak will die out, if it's greater than 1 then the outbreak is likely to grow. 

A good example to use is measles, which is one of the most contagious diseases known. Its R0 is around 18. In other words, one person with measles will infect 18 others (on average) when no one is vaccinated. On the lower end of the R0 spectrum are viruses like HIV and hepatitis C. Their R0's tend to fall somewhere between 2 and 4. They still manage to infect large numbers of people, but compared to the measles their contagiousness is relatively low (leading them to spread more slowly).

For Ebola, the virus's R0 is around 1 to 2, which less than the common flu. 

For some context: up to 50,000 Americans die from the flu each year (or 0.015% of the population), as of today 0.000001% of the American population have been diagnosed with Ebola (including those who worked in West Africa). Likewise in West Africa, Ebola hasn't reached the level of malaria or even deaths due to hunger. This isn't to suggest that Ebola is harmless, on the contrary it has the potential to kill hundreds of thousands in West Africa. But, I wanted to show that while the media may be consumed with Ebola reporting, currently the spread of the disease hasn't reached the levels of more common illnesses that kill just as many (and more) each year. 

Treatment and Prevention

Currently there is no cure for Ebola, and the only treatment is to try and keep people hydrated and comfortable until they either die or until their immune systems are able to fight it off and recover. Normally, medications take 10 years to go from an idea to an approved drug and can cost billions in R&D and government fees. In the case of severe diseases this can be sped up, but it still takes time to create enough of the drug and to make sure that it will help and not harm patients. The ZMAPP experimental vaccine given to the two American healthcare workers is still being studied, as are two other potential vaccines. It’s going to take time though before anything is approved for wide-spread use, if they’re proven effective.

The best way to protect yourself from an infected person is to be covered from head to toe in protective equipment, with no skin showing at all. There are several kinds of personal protective equipment and there are various protocols for putting them on and taking them off, and it takes practice to get it right. The most recent CDC guidelines stress that repeated practice in "donning and doffing" is required to help ensure that people don't make mistakes. 

Preventing the spread of Ebola hinges on containment. Once an infected person is found, the next step is to identify all those who may have had contact with the patient and then to narrow that list down to those who actually did have contact either directly with the patient or with their bodily fluids. Those people will then need to be monitored and isolated from others. A criticism of this protocol has been that it relies, in part, on potential patients being honest about their travel history and symptoms. As noted earlier, in the overwhelming majority of cases the first symptom is fever. While a low grade fever can be masked by things like Tylenol, higher fevers aren't so easily hidden, and once a person begins having a fever other symptoms quickly follow, and those cannot be hidden. Since people are not contagious until symptomatic, once you identify the potential patient(s) and isolate them, and follow the proven Ebola protocol which has been in place for 40 years, then transmission stops and the outbreak comes to an end. 

Since Ebola spread to the capital of Liberia, it was able to infect far more people than previous outbreaks which had happened in isolated communities. When you combine a dense population center with the poor level of medical infrastructure, the level of mistrust of modern medicine by the average person in these regions, and the level of pervasive superstition, it is easy to see how it spread so rapidly. To help understand the dreadful state of medicine in the affected countries, in Liberia for example, there is 1 doctor for every 90,000 people. In the United States, there’s 1 doctor for every 400 Americans.

(Click for larger view.)

When trying to grasp all the things that have happened recently in the US, a dose of reality is always helpful. Healthcare workers are human beings and they can make mistakes, especially when stressed. It is completely unreasonable to expect that there will not be mistakes, or that somehow they’re supposed to know everything. For 38 years Ebola was an “African” disease, and a disease that was fairly easily contained. Most American healthcare workers have never given it a thought. And now that it has reached the US, we are having to educate literally millions of doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals – from the major hospitals all the way down to small walk-in clinics, on the dangers of the disease, its symptoms, and on the protocols on how to deal with potential Ebola patients. This will take time and mistakes are bound to happen. In the end, the real problems and breakdowns have been shown to come from human error. The science and protocols have all been tested in the real world and proven effective time and time again. Unfortunately, people make mistakes and do things they shouldn't (like failing to properly protect themselves, lie, or use mass transit when they've been exposed).

Travel Restrictions

The CDC and National Institutes of Health have generally been opposed to travel restrictions. Commentators, particularly those on the right, have pushed this issue and seem to be ignoring the actual reasoning the government has been giving regarding why they're opposed to travel bans. On Oct. 16, 2014, CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci testified before Congress and were grilled multiple times on the issue of preventing people from the affected countries from coming to the US as a means of stopping the spread of Ebola in America.

Having watched the testimony this is my understanding of why they don't support such a ban. NOTE: I am not saying I personally support or oppose a travel ban, I'm simply trying to explain the reasoning behind why the CDC opposes one. 

Currently, people are free to travel to the United States from the affected countries. Of the roughly 150 West Africans a day who come here, 94% enter through five specific airports. At these five airports, passengers from those countries will undergo enhanced screening procedures: having their temperature taken, asked about people they've been in contact with, checked for other symptoms, asked about where they've been and where they're going, etc. And if they have symptoms they will immediately be quarantined. Other airports and border security locations had also been given a set of guidelines as well. Should persons from the affected countries come through their facilities, those travelers would also undergo a screening process. 

However, as of Oct. 21, the government is requiring that all passengers from the affected countries now arrive at one of those five primary airports. 

The benefits of this are multiple: they know who exactly they area, where they have come from, where they are going, their contact information, the contact information of friends & family, etc. And that information can then be passed on to local hospitals and the authorities in the event that they become sick. This gives them the added benefit that if someone gets sick, they can then initiate the tracking, screening, and monitoring procedures for anyone inside the US who may have been in contact with the patient so that they can then contain a potential outbreak.

The primary criticism of this is that if we don't let them come to the US in the first place, we won't have to worry about an outbreak to begin with. 

Something to remember is that there are no direct flights from western Africa to the United States, all of these passengers have to go through other countries first. The worry about a travel ban is that while we may stop 145 visitors from coming here openly, for the other 5 people (or just 1), a ban may potentially force a frightened person to come to the US through other or illegal means. If they did indeed have Ebola, this would lead to a situation where we don't know who they are, where they came in from, who they came in contact with, or where all they may have traveled. That could mean an outbreak could occur anywhere in the country and lead to dozens, or even hundreds of other potential patients by the time the west African patient was finally located. In that case, the amount of work required to do contact tracing, monitoring people, etc. would be far more and more difficult than the work required to watch those who came here openly. 

Another problem with any travel ban is the fact that people move around. They don't necessarily have to be a Liberian citizen for example, they could be English, or French, or from Nigeria (the most populous country in Africa), or from someplace else. To effectively enforce such a ban we would necessarily have to block people from coming to America from many other countries. 

Anything we do (ban, no ban, something else) necessitates a level of risk. In the eyes of many experts, the risks of a travel ban is greater than the risk of tracking people who are moving around openly as opposed to moving around in the shadows. Of course as time goes on, things may change.

Last Thoughts

In the case of the CDC, or any governmental scientific organization, they are going to try very hard to only talk about the things that are currently known; those things shown in peer-reviewed scientific reports. Talking about theories and speculations in front of millions of people who may not fully understand the science isn't going to help anything and will only lead to more confusion. So, they’re going side step certain questions and answer others only in the context of what has actually been proven. This doesn't mean they’re hiding things. The only boogieman is the disease itself. 

It’s also very important to understand that medicine, and indeed the bulk of all sciences, are a matter of probabilities, and our understandings are subject to change when new information is learned. This is the largest outbreak ever, we are going to learn things we didn't know before because now more people have the disease. It’s also important to remember that medical terms like “airborne” have very specific definitions and those definitions may be different from what most people understand them to be. Getting caught up in fear; or listening to people who have misunderstood the facts; or mistaking an opinion for fact; all of these things serve to hamper efforts to putting an end to this outbreak. 

I also find it rather disingenuous to blame the government for the actions of free people. The nurses who contracted Ebola from Thomas Duncan were not federal employees, they were just average nurses from a hospital in Texas. While we don't exactly know how they were exposed to Ebola, it could be as simple as improperly suiting up (while the nurses may have been confident they covered themselves correctly, they could have been wrong), and there's very little anyone can do in those types of cases; of cases of honest human error. It's easy to blame the government, and there's plenty to blame them for. That said, they're not to blame every time someone somewhere does something bad. 

As of today only two people out of 315 million have contracted Ebola while in the United States. The sky is not falling. 


--Jacob Bogle, 10/21/14
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Psychic Radio?

I have been thinking about this for a few days (although I've been aware of it for years), and this is a theory which makes some amount of sense and tries to explain how & why it happens. 

Many people have had the experience of listening to the radio and before the next song begins, somehow "knowing" what that next song would be…and be right.

A curious feature of the human brain is that we actually process sound faster than our brains process sight, despite sound being over 880,000 times slower than light. The reason is simple, sound hits our ear drums and that information is directly relayed to the portion of the brain that processes sound which happens to be right next to our ear; thus allowing us to "hear." Light on the other hand, not only has to go through our eyes, but must travel to the very back of the brain before being processed by a larger number of regions. We also rely on memories to know what it is that we are seeing which adds to the complexity of sight over hearing.

It’s my theory that this increased processing time combines with the fact that by the time we become conscious of something, the thing we are then conscious of has already happened, leading to the sensation of "prediction."

Let me explain. Once sound leaves the speakers it takes a fraction of a second to reach our ears, and then another fraction of a second for our brains to process it and for us to become aware of what it is we’re hearing. By the time this happens, new sounds are already leaving the speakers. The same can be said for sight. In essence, our conscious world is continually in the past; a state of being aware of things that, by the time we’re conscious of them, have already happened and so are in the past. 

The fact that our subconscious minds work far faster than we are aware (in some cases our brain has made decisions several seconds before we consciously "make" them), may also play into the sensation of prediction thanks to a kind of déjà vu; our brain has heard the first part of a song before we are aware of it and so when we become aware of the song we feel as though we predicted it, when in reality our brains simply processed the sound before we were consciously aware of said sound.

While the times involved are very short, I think this may be why people think they somehow "knew" the next song to come on the radio before the song begins, particularly for songs we've heard many times. As with sight, our brains are excellent at memorizing sounds and we can often recall the name or tune of a song with only a few notes which lends itself to this quick recognition process.