S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Infested City Mod

Infested City

The Brain Scorcher's potential for mind control was discovered shortly after its activation in the Red Forest. The Ukrainian government in partnership with the Russian military launched a project shortly after. It was discovered that the effects of the wavelengths emitted by the Brain Scorcher on the human brain could be replicated by an enzyme that resulted from a mutated form of bacteria borne within the Zone called Galantine. The effects of the enzyme brought the human brain to the required state, allowing it to be re-programmed. Naturally, the military application of such a project was immediately realized. It had the potential to create the perfect soldier — obedient, unable to feel pain, remorse, desire, and fear. Research began on-site in the Northern urban areas of the Zone covertly, the areas closest to the Brain scorcher's area of influence.

The operation was conducted by small research teams so as to avoid detection from satellite imaging and potentially hostile groups residing within the Zone. Due to the origin of the enzyme, the Brain Scorcher's effects, and other factors being exclusive to the Zone, the research had to be conducted on-site. The group was able to perfectly replicate the effects of personality erasure by the Brain Scorcher wavelengths with the developement of the enzyme Arsen Ca-04. All preceding experiments resulted in deaths of the hosts. This 4th generation was able to keep the hosts' survival instinct and general self-preservation impulses. The re-programming of the brain was the most difficult part of the experiment. The enzyme's potential for the modification of the body's immune and muscular system was also discovered and applied to Arsen Ca-05.

This next generation was able to keep the hosts alive in the harshest of conditions and raised their endurance, which allowed them to survive poetentially fatal injuries for uninfected humans and hastened muscular development, resulting in above-average strength. Unfortunately, it was far from perfect. The hosts' metabolisms rose exponentially, making them hunger far more often, coupled with increased aggression and outbusts of violence. This was due to the fact that the brain was not programmed, yet still retained only the most basic of instincts and motor skills. The hosts exhibited aggression toward their handlers and the lack of any other impulses programmed by the enzyme made them into mindless, aggressive creatures who were only concerned with seeking their next meals. While the enzyme erased the minds of the hosts, they still retained some memories and abilities from their former lives, such as using firearms to a certain degree.

Trials to discover ways of programming the enzyme with commands that would allow commanders to relay orders through a device that emitted the needed signals at the right frequency continued until the group was compromised by the Monolith faction. The enzyme got out of control in the ensuing firefight, infecting military personnel, who in turn, spread it. The rest of the group were exposed and slaughtered each other. Former members turned on each other. The Monolith retreated Pripyat leaving it isolated between the Monolith-controlled Red Forest and NPP.

In the later testing stages leading up to the outbreak, it was discovered that individuals with a rare blood-type were immune to the enzyme's damaging and personality-erasure effects on the brain., but were still able to spread the infection. The precense of the dormant enzyme in the human body allowed it to mutate into an airborne form, expelled by the lungs. Individuals immune to the enzyme, which was eventually neutralized by their blood, exhibited memory loss, a result of the enzyme's failed effects on the brain, which it always attacked first.

The indigenous wildlife was also exposed to the infection with only humanoid organisms being susceptible to it. Before the outbreak, the team accidentally infected a bloodsucker through careless supervision during a host field-test. The result was an unimaginable monster rurmoured to be prowling the outskirts of Pripyat to this day. Pripyat became a dead zone with infected individuals and hosts roaming the streets, the enzyme keeping them alive and hungry. It was suspected that due to memory and attempted aggression-programming of the enzyme, the infected targeted and fed solely on humans, ignoring each other and the wildlife.

You are a member of the compromised Pripyat team. Your only goal is to remember the reasons behind your precense in Pripyat, uncover a means of escape in the process, and most importantly, survive. The military, unknowing of your ordeal, make airdrops of supplies regularly for you and your dead team to survive on until you secure a radio capable of broadcasting and call for extraction. As far as Base knows, the tests are running smoothly on your end.