Neococcus ecoclasticus

Neococcus ecoclasticus, aka Little Boy, is a pathogen engineered onboard the Audacity meant as a last resort weapon to cleanse the planet of life.

Characteristics
1. Tough plastic cell wall

2. Thickened and hardened spores formed in hostile environments (high rad, high temp, etc), allowing it to survive multiple kGy and boiling. Autoclaves at 134C for 18min or 130C for 23min kill it, guaranteed. More moderate autoclaves will kill some pathogens, but are not guaranteed to get all of them.

3. Reactivation is relatively slow in a non-hostile but inert environment, but on the order of 1.5-2 days inside biologicals.

4. Redundant DNA and repair mechanisms, for radiation and UV hardening

5. Excretes poisonous chemicals

6. Tends to clump together

7. Retains a small sample of spored cells, even in friendly environments, for resiliency

8. Short asymptomatic course: <1 week

9. Will attack other polymers

10. As part of the rad hardening, the incident radiation is absorbed and used to help power the repair mechanisms

11. Redundant metabolic pathways means that no single antibiotic will harm it. A complex antibiotic scheme of no less than two substances is needed to even attempt at making a dent in a colony's growth

11. Xenobiotic efflux and other antibiotic resistance built in from the start means that LB is ready to counteract any attempts at dousing it in antibiotics and will actively cleanse its cell from such contaminants. Means that for antibotic schemes to start working, you need a way of overcoming the built-in efflux systems and other resistance factors.

12. Metavariator systems means that LB becomes highly mutable (especially the backup metabolic pathways and resistance factors) when faced with stress. Stress includes "comrades in a biofilm suddenly dying en masse".

Spore sizes:~6 µm, unadjuvanted. Larger (~30-50 µm) with biodegradable adjuvant layer (provides additional environment protection and optimizes dispersion characteristics, increases production times). Adjuvant compound can be designed so that causes the particles to behave in a certain manner (controls clumping, dispersal, etc)

Delivery system
Delivery is proposed to be done via Hailstones; spheres 15-30cm diameter made out of the most heat resistant materials, designed to survive atmospheric entry at high speeds.

Each hailstone would carry 50g of bacterium spores, which would disperse into the atmosphere.

It is important to note that a railgun or coilgun launch of the hailstones would not be stealthy; due to EM Lamprey astronomers would notice.

