I must with regret, launch a barrage of criticism at this story, with the 
understanding that I am not a specialist in any of the things I'm talking 
about, so I could be wrong...

I find it implausible that a virus could be created that would only slay 
livestock.  Most viruses are confined to single species.  Of course, they 
could also create multiple viruses for different species, which would be 
more plausible.

Also, AIDS isn't a very good analogy.  This virus kills very quickly, 
spreads at a rather humongously rapid rate, and is remarkably fatal as 
viruses go...Although a few weeks is too short a time to easily find a 
cure to a virus anyway...Also, if it spreads so quickly and is so 
unstoppable, I'm rather surprised it didn't escape their labs while they 
were still trying to develop it.  (A la the Stand...)  (I'd recommend 
reading Plagues and Peoples by William McNeill for a historical 
perspective on this :))

Basically, this virus stretched the bounds of believability too far for 
me.  If nutcases could create that...why couldn't/haven't nutcases 
unleashed some super human slaying virus in this future?  Genetics 
research at this level is expensive and delicate, and I'd expect it to 
continue to be so, at least at the level of creating super-viruses...

Second level of comments:
The world eats vast amounts of meat, but we're not as economically 
dependent on it or as nutritionally dependent as this story depicts it.  
For one thing, much of the world's population doesn't eat much meat, 
because meat is expensive.  


The real problem would be the sudden loss of the economic value of the 
crops grown primarily to feed animals...and the loss of domestic animals 
involved in food production, rather than as food.  

And Pigs would not be able to replace THOSE needs.  Pigs are good for one 
thing:  Eating.  Pigs don't pull plows, provide large quantities of milk, 
etc, etc.  They are the most efficient source of meat, but many of the 
animals slaughtered by this virus met other needs as well (Especially cattle)

Imagine a world without wool, leather, or draft animals?  Starvation 
wouldn't be a problem in the Us and rich countries...And the harvest 
already planted would be gatherable in in the poorer ones...it would be 
the next year when the ability of third world farmers to plant crops 
would be crippled by a lack of draft animals that all hell would truly 
break loose...

Of course, farming might be more universally mechanized by that point, 
but then the loss of these animals has less of an impact, as the animals 
dwindle in importance.

Also, if scientists could clone pigs in vast enough quantities to save 
the world from starvation, why couldn't they do the same with fish?  
Either they shouldn't be able to supply the pigs fast enough to make a 
difference (What about transportation for all these pigs, etc...), or 
there seems to be no reason they couldn't have  just started bulk cloning 
fish.


(As a piece of writing, this is good as always, but as an academic, it's 
my job to complain about these sorts of things :))


John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D 
Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu      bailesu@komodo.hacks.arizona.edu  
http://www.hacks.arizona.edu/~bailesu/falcon.html 
http://www.dhp.com/~wraven/john/index.html
"It's good to kill the King."  "I still think the Saxons should have 
put a higher price on our heads.  I'm more valuable than 25 librum."
--Frequent quotes from our PENDRAGON sessions.