Taint

Taint
A taint block
Properties
Type	Extraterrestrial substance
Made With/By	Rare occurance, or synthesis
Difficulty of Production	Hard
Exists in Reality	No
Atomic Number	N/A
Warnings
Fire Diamond NFPA 704 4 0 2 BIO Taint

Taint is an invasive virus block that spreads non-stop throughout the world. It is grey in color with hints of purple and brown. It is unknown whether taint is a parasitic lifeform.

Origins

Taint does not naturally occur in the world by typical means. Rather, taint can only naturally occur by rare meteors which contain it, making taint extraterrestrial in origin. Taint-tipped weapons can be artificially produced via pulverized enchantment, poisonous mud, and sometimes spark blend, suggesting they are components of taint or vice versa. The poisonous mud composition explain the hints of brown in it.

Dangers

Taint is heavily infectious. Once present in the environment, taint will start to spread near immediately. Blocks like bedrock can be turned into taint, making it practically impossible to halt or contain taint once it has spread far enough. When taint is stepped on, it gives the player the tainted status effect, which will slowly damage them over time. Typical means of hazard protection (e.g. hazmat suits) fail to protect from physical exposure to taint.

In addition, when a creeper steps on taint, they will turn into a tainted creeper, which upon explosion will spread more taint.

Preventative Means

• An unlucky early-game player is unlikely to have any instruments to affect taint. When stumbling upon taint, although a rare occurance, exiting the premises and maintaining a far distance will cause taint to not be in loaded chunks, preventing spread until destructive methods can be used.
• When exploring methods to destroy, avoiding taint weaponry will prevent any spread in the world.
• Mining a deep hole under taint and setting up a water barrier is somewhat effective at isolating infected blocks.

Destructive Means

• Unlike previous versions, taint is less blast resistant. TNT is an effective measure, although it requires redstone setup or manual lighting. If the taint has spread only over a small area, controlled missile strikes or a well-aimed carpet bombing using the airstrike designator will work.
• If taint has spread far too much, nuclear missiles or even schrabidic weapons are effective at eliminating taint spread, though these should be used with caution.

Trivia

• As mentioned before, it can be made using pulverized enchantment, which implies it has some connection with "magic" and/or enchantments. In Fallout: Equestria, taint is magical, which explains this.
• If taint is some sort of extraterrestrial life form, it mustn't be a carbon-based life form due to it seemingly not respirate or have any characteristics fo a typical organism. It is unlikely that taint is a lifeform at all because of its corrosive composition, though it being found in meteorites says otherwise.
• Its item says to not touch, breathe, or stare at it.
  • This implies that not only is it "transmittable" by physical contact and inhalation, but also observation. Possibly meaning that it can affect the mind as a cognitohazard (lore not gameplay). This could also simply mean "don't stand there and stare at it, run".
  • This is a reference to the book Fallout: Equestria, where in chapter 17 was a barrel on which the same warning is written.
• The tainted heart effect, obtained by taking damage from red cloud while being tainted (or via the Watery Taint Injection) will grant you total radiation immunity for an hour. This effect is called mutation in the code.
  • This is another reference to Fallout: Equestria, in which exposure to the right concentration of taint would mutate ponies into alicorns. This is in turn a reference to Fallout's Forced Evolutionary Virus, which transforms humans into radiation-immune Super Mutants.
• The block does not appear in the creative menu, and can only be obtained via Not Enough Items (or similar mods) or /give.
• Taint may be a reference to Thaumcraft, which has the same thing.