Boosters quickly became very popular, especially among the social elite, which could easily afford the high costs involved. The pioneers of the booster industry became household names, with none more famous than A.R. Louria, the founder of Booster-Tech Inc., the largest of the booster producing companies. The benefits of the boosters were marked, even at this early stage in their development when they were not nearly as potent as those available today. In few years time boosters had become the norm for a lot of people. The booster producing companies steadily improved their manufacturing techniques, resulting in cheaper and more powerful boosters, as well as more convenient injection techniques. Instead of cumbersome and often painful shots, techniques for introducing the virus through the neural link have been developed, making the boosters all the more attractive to space pilots.

All the major booster companies made extensive tests on boosters before making them available to the general public. These tests did not reveal any serious side effects, even for regular consumers. These results were confirmed in tests conducted by independent research firms and governmental institutes. But as with most things that seem too good to be true, they turn out to be, in practice, too good to be true. Unfortunately, the side effects of boosters did not materialize until decades after they first appeared.

The most serious side-effect of boosters known from the outset was epilepsy. It was discovered that certain genetic elements made some individuals more prone to this side effect than others. Once the genetic cause had been identified it became possible to determine the risk beforehand and thus limit the damage from this side effect. But about four decades after the first boosters arrived another, much more serious, side effect was discovered. It was established that a deadly brain disease caused by prions was directly related to the usage of boosters. It seemed that the boosters caused a somatic mutation in the cells affected, greatly increasing the possibility of incorrect protein formation and consequent deposition of protein plaques in nerve cells. This caused gradual nerve damage and loss of function of brain tissues. The incurable disease slowly eroded the brain, causing the person to lose memory, motor skills, sanity and ending with functional failure of the vital organs

At first people ignored these events and treated them as singular incidents, but as the cases increased day by day it became clear that an epidemic of sort had started. Even if only 1 in 10 was affected this was a great number of people because of the popularity of boosters. Furthermore, as the disease was fatal in over 90% cases, the mass hysteria threatened to escalate into social upheaval unless the governments responded swiftly. This they did by putting a temporary ban on the usage of boosters. Still, this didn’t prevent millions of people dying a horrible death.

It didn’t take long for the booster companies to go under one by one, being bled dry by massive lawsuits. The Gallente Federation initiated further studies into boosters, the results clearly showed without any reasonable doubt that the boosters were at fault, prompting all the governments to put a permanent ban on the manufacturing, distribution and ownership of boosters.