The synthesization virus is an experimental weapon developed by the Chutorck, currently still in its prototype testing stage. Rather than an actual virus, it’s a type of nanomachine designed to be injected into an organic host. Once inside, they start rebuilding the subject from the inside out on a cellular level. The end result, if allowed to expand across the entire body unhindered, is the subject becoming synthetic on a cellular level, a thorough blend of organic and mechanical. When a sufficiently large part of the brain is synthesized, the subject loses their free will and essentially becomes a robot, answering only to the Chutorck. The virus has the secondary effect of working as a tracker: The Chutorck are always aware of the exact location of an infected individual, even if the infection is incomplete.
Each of the many nanomachines injected has their own tiny supply of inorganic building materials, which they use to start off the process. From there on, additional materials are extracted and refined from the subject’s own body, most notably the extraction of carbon from organic compounds for the creation of nanotubes. Due to the predominant use of carbon as a resource, the transformation can be completed in less than a week.
Because the nanomachines are far too small to remove individually and have shown to be immune to EMPs and other anti-electronic tools, there is currently no known way to remove the virus other than cutting off the body part in question entirely. This is a plausible solution when an arm or leg is infected, but once the infection reaches the subject’s inner body, it becomes practically impossible to remove them without killing the host. This is because the machines can detect a removal attempt and relocate themselves, thus replacing the affected organ is pointless. Certain specialized devices do exist that, when implanted into the subject’s body, can slow down the transformation process by about 99.5% and block out the Chutorck’s ability to detect the infected individual.
The virus has various physical effects. Transformed body parts lose their layer of skin, thus exposing the muscle below. The muscle takes on a greyish colour, though the exact shade may vary depending on its original colour. Any and all hair is also broken down, leaving the subject bald. A fully-converted host ends up looking a lot like this (except for the face). The synthetic muscles are both a lot stronger and a lot more durable than the original organic ones. The subject remains partially organic and can still eat and breathe to produce energy, but they also gain the ability to absorb electric energy to power themselves, thus requiring no more oxygen until their stored energy runs out.