Sanitizing a Starship Can Be Lazy, Lazy Work (but thorough)

As you can read here and here , all you really need to kill most viruses off is bright UV light exposure over a few minutes. Run a robot through all the rooms, pop it in the ducts, and the ship should be mostly clean over a few days. Of course, this particular virus might not be so easily killed, which would explain how it became a problem, but that's another matter. Of course, you still have to clean up any matter that might keep the light from hitting the surface first... so you would need a robot to scrub the walls and floors first. XD

Off the top of my head, as an educated gamer, even I cannot play to this detailed of "So, how do you intend to do this task?" when I've not played MegaTraveller (much less any Traveller) since 1996.

Stop thinking like a gamer and start thinking like a real "spacer"; which, in today's terms, means an astronaut. If the problem can be solved today, solve it that way. I'm quite sure that it would be SOP for a derelict hunting ship to carry the necessary supplies to recover a ship downed by biological agents, particularly when it's one of the few reasons you would end up with a ship that's fully functional (with the possible exception of the life support system).

Well and good for solving Real Life challenges, but you won't see me running to the Internet to solve gaming challenges. Many of these modules were written before the advent of the Internet as we know it today. If the GM wants to run the game to that level of detail, then it would be fair to us gamers that we are thrown a few bones. That said, where did I leave my lightsaber and Force focus?

Well yes, but when it comes to what would be common knowledge for a spacer, I say it should be fair game. The GM can always decree that this is a superbug that UV doesn't work on, and needs a different frequency we might have to make a custom light, sound, or EM array for.

Just to kibitz here (as I have not yet had the opportunity to create a character and play in a game yet) I can see problems with the UVGI. As pointed out the light has to be able to reach the germs to be effective. This doesn't just mean scrubbing away any dirt that might provide cover but also opening every console, pulling up deck plates to get at what is underneath, etc. To be perfectly honest I'm not completely sure it is even possible to use UVGI to effectively decontaminate the ship. That said, I am sure that there are decontamination protocols and that they are listed in every 'starship manual' (i.e. ship's library) out there. Even if the characters were to lack the necessary knowledge (a not inconceivable event. Perhaps all spacers are required to demonstrate basic knowledge to get their licenses but then most promptly forget information that is almost never used and which can easily be looked up the same way I've forgotten all my high school Spanish) it should be accessible. What's more, ships are probably designed to facilitate the protocol. If the underside of deckplates are hard to get to then they are probably sealed. If the protocol involves the use of UVGI then there's quite possibly UV-C emitters inside of equipment that can't be sealed. I would imagine that life support probably has the capability of releasing germicidal agents into sealed areas as a standard part of their design. No one wants to be trapped for a week in J-Space in an enclosed canister were no one can reach them with a virulent infection. With all of that there are still several critical things. First, it is highly doubtful even with all this design that decontamination is a matter of punching a few buttons. Ships will be designed to facilitate decontamination but people are still going to need to carry out various activities, whether they are opening things, moving things, scrubbing things, etc.. Secondly, the Annic Nova is not an Imperium ship. It will probably have different protocols for decontamination.. These procedures might be similar to the procedures for Imperium ships but they won't be identical. This will translate to the ship design not fully accommodating the Imperium protocols. On the other hand it will accommodate protocols detailed in the Annic Nova's computers. Unfortunately those are written in an alien language. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, even though we can probably assume that the Annic Nova was designed with decontamination protocols in mind characters might want to consider the fact that these protocols apparently failed . Whether it is because the spores were just too tough, because the infection was able to spread before contamination became apparent, or for some other reason the original crew of the Annic Nova was unable to prevent the spread of the germs, and that should probably give the character's pause. That doesn't mean that it is impossible to decontaminate the ship. It just means that the characters will probably realize that it is an extremely up hill battle. Probably to be 'certified' as decontaminated you are looking at a multi-million credit operation where a crew of trained technicians systematically sterilize anything that can be sterilized, gut and replace anything that can't be reasonably sterilized, and then do swabs and culture growths of everything to verify the eradication of the microorganism.

Well said. The ship's life support and compartment containment systems do need a full evaluation to determine whether or not the ship can be decontaminated enough to be salvaged; however, it should be easy enough to determine whether a given compartment is currently contaminated, in much the same way that an airlock typically scans for biological contaminants; that should get us some usable space, at least for the time being. With regards to UGVI, yes, there are limits to what it can do. It's really only meant to work on empty rooms, meaning that the contaminated furniture would have to be moved out first, and anything casting shadows that is tough to completely immerse with even a mobile light source would be a problem. But I think it works out for the most part.

ESAMPSON! Nuf said! Nice! Love your work! :o)