Hi there. I hope someone is still lurking here so that we can discuss a question I can't seem to find anywhere in the forum - what the bloody hell is the "infection".

The whole premise of Blame is based on the search for people with net terminal genes and we are told that during the calamity the infection affected the people with access to the net. They mutated and one of the damaged genes was the net terminal one. This way the SC turned the idea of the netsphere administration to unify the access options to one gene into a complete and utter mess with the bonus of possible extinction of humanity. Mind you, even before that, the SG were already ordered to kill the people without the gene.

Nihei is super vague about how the infection works, though. We see that it spreads in the air - the net gene kid in the end wears a hazamat suit for this reason. Seu also becomes contaminated when the SC invade Toha as Mensab says. But that doesn't explain how the process works - is it irradiation of some sort, a nanobot, a virus? Isn't the environment sterile due to the technology of the megastructure? What are your ideas?

And then there is the second point of frustration - even if the gene has been altered, the level of technology must allow to recover it to its original state (there are matter conversion towers and they can't modify a gene?? come on). My only guess is that humanity was so decimated and regressed so fast that people lost the tech capability to tackle with genetic make-up. But then Cibo did enter the Netsphere with the synthetic gene - why was it was rejected...
Please let me know what you think, I'm getting really lost.