by Jason P. Burnham
Your main character has just arrived on a brand new world—how exciting! (Or perhaps relieving.) Little do they know what gastrointestinal horrors await them. What should your protagonist be watching out for? What remedies are there for the colon catastrophes on their new world?
If you’re reading this article, presumably you’re not too squeamish, and we can just come flat out and say it: diarrhea. But what is diarrhea? A good rule of thumb, for Earth-based humans on a typical 24-hour day/night cycle, diarrhea is three or more loose/liquid stools a cycle. Diarrhea can also be simply more liquid/loose stools than is typical for a given individual’s bowel habits. I won’t paint or link any pictures, but there are visual charts and diagrams to consult for diarrhea definitions, if you’re so inclined.
How Does It Happen?
What causes diarrhea? More like what doesn’t cause diarrhea (going into every single possibility is outside the scope of a single article). Our gastrointestinal system, starting at the mouth and ending at the anus, processes a remarkable amount of fluid every day (many, many liters), including production and reabsorption. After the stomach, come our small, then large, intestine. The small intestine does the bulk of fluid reabsorption, but problems in the stool can also happen in the large intestine. Anything that interferes with fluid reabsorption in the intestine can lead to diarrhea. If the fluid isn’t reabsorbed by your intestine, the only place it has to go is…out.
Diarrheal Pathogens
Enough with the physiology. How is this relevant to your main character? Well, lots of things can cause diarrhea on a new world. Let’s take Space Cadet Protagonist, First Class Exoplanetary Explorer, or SCP. They have just taken one small step for fiction-kind, and their foot landed in a puddle of life that the human immune system has never before encountered. (Sure, the planetary lander has sterilization and decontamination processes, but there was no way humanity could have prepared for pathogens that are not killed by Earth-based cleansing protocols.) SCP better hope their planetary lander has adequate toilet facilities.
Pathogens can damage the lining of the intestine, making it hard for the cells to reabsorb the fluids they’re supposed to. Pathogens can also produce toxins that directly act on the cells of the intestine, causing them to release extra fluid (i.e., the opposite of what the cells are supposed to be doing). The sum total is, you guessed it, the first gastroenteritis on a new world!
But maybe SCP has landed on a world without life, or life so different to humanity’s building blocks that any local pathogens can’t even interface with human intestines. What colon troubles could SCP run into then?
Diarrhea and Digesting Foods: Inadequate Nutrition and Narrative Workarounds
Have you ever heard that you’re not supposed to drink only distilled water because it can be bad for you? The theory behind this is that all the water’s minerals evaporate during the distillation process, and you could theoretically develop electrolyte imbalances. Under an analogous principle, the same could happen with food on a new world. Imagine taking a bite of a delicious looking plate of new-world flora and/or fauna. You quickly realize there’s no flavor to the food. The amino acids (SCP is lucky they even have amino acids here) are just mirror images of those on Earth, so they can’t bind with SCP’s taste or smell receptors (there are other components to taste/smell than amino acids, but we’re keeping it simple for the sake of brevity). And if SCP can’t taste or smell it, then their digestive enzymes definitely aren’t going to be able to break it down. The new world meal is going to end up like lactose in a lactose intolerant person on Earth—an extra solute in the intestine that will draw out fluid and cause diarrhea. Bummer! The locals made the food look so good!
SCP isn’t the only main character in need of help. In a nearby portal fantasy, Traveling Wizard Protagonist, or TWP, has just passed through to a new realm. But, as is often the case in fantasy, this magic is not without a cost. Our friend TWP can travel between realms, but in order to remain there, they must expend great magical energy and effort to convert the food into something digestible. While the new realm may look and feel like home, it turns out TWP’s digestive enzymes and the local fare are incompatible. TWP must carry out magic at the microscopic level to be able to eat, lest they risk a colon blow that would expose them as being from another realm. Imagine that! Witch (or wizard) hunts initiated for anyone with diarrhea! On a related note, diarrhea on another world doesn’t necessarily have to be this complex. Our protagonists could simply have irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea predominance as a result of a change in what foods they’re eating. Poor protagonists! I bet they are homesick for a world where their tummy isn’t always rumbling.
Diarrhea Remedies
SCP and TWP have inexplicably been caught up in a science fantasy crossover. On the wizarding side, TWP is tasked with performing magic that allows crops from their native world to grow on the new world. This magic must allow crossover foods to be as nutritious as they were back home and not be so magic-dependent that it’s all window dressing (without nutritive properties). Meanwhile, SCP is utilizing a plant biology and genetics approach to modify native crops to adjust to the new world’s soil, maximizing essential macro and micronutrients. Without these, SCP would slowly dwindle away if they were lucky, and if unlucky, die quickly from dietary deficiencies. Perhaps SCP and TWP can merge science and magic in a joint venture to overcome the challenges of their new world.
Say none of the above strategies work. What’s a protagonist to do? Perhaps some Earth-based remedies are still effective: medications that slow gut motility, reducing diarrhea/fluid losses until a cure for the underlying etiology can be derived. Maybe our protagonist goes local—some Earth-based anti-diarrhea medications were originally derived from clay. Perhaps the new realm/planet has a clay analogue suited to local conditions and to help our narrative by slowing the diarrheal tempests. Alternatively, local micro or macroscopic life might be observed to determine what plants/fauna they consume when they’re suffering gastrointestinal distress. Perhaps New Realm bears eat moss analogues to stop up their colons for winter hibernation, just like Earth bears. The remedies are out there, and fortunately for writers, there can be plenty of unique angles for overcoming these gut challenges.
Diarrhea as a Race Against Time
Perhaps your protagonist knew and prepared for everything we have already discussed. They brought food, but the carrying capacity of the spaceship and/or magical portal is not infinite. Now you’re using the classic race-against-the-clock mechanism and if time (and food) runs out, your protagonist risks starvation or New World Diarrhea. The poop prospects are endless.
Final Thoughts
Otherworldly diarrhea can be great! For writers. It can foil your protagonist’s plans. It can give them something to overcome. It can give them a goal to work toward, a mechanism by which they can develop skills and expertise. And what reader wouldn’t love to imagine a world in which it is possible to proclaim that one has permanently conquered diarrhea? Look out (new) world, loose stool literature is on its way!
Jason P. Burnham (he/him) loves to spend time with his wife and children. He dearly misses his dog. He co-edits If There’s Anyone Left, a magazine of inclusive speculative fiction, with his friend C.M. Fields.
