Warning: Contains SPOILERS for carry-on luggage!

Novichok is the deadly nerve gas weapon that plays an important role in this Hand luggage‘S History, and here’s what it is and its real-life context explained. Netflix’s new Christmas thriller Hand luggage has finally been released, and Taron Egerton and Jason Bateman’s crime thriller is full of twists and turns throughout. For viewers who like films Die Hard, Hand luggage is a perfect new Christmas classic that features many of the genre’s classics. However, Hand luggage However, there is a big difference: the Netflix film uses the nerve agent Novichok.

In Hand luggageTaron Egerton’s Ethan Kopek is a TSA agent who is contacted by Jason Bateman’s mysterious criminal known only as “the Traveler.” The traveler tells Ethan that he needs to let a specific bag go through TSA securityAnd if he doesn’t, his family will die. Although Ethan initially doesn’t know what’s in the bag, he eventually learns that it’s a deadly nerve agent called Novichok. The traveler plans to release Novichok on the plane, with Ethan realizing that if he does nothing, hundreds of people will die as a result of the terrorist attack.

What Novichok is

It’s a real Russian nerve agent

Novichok will not be compensated Hand luggagewhere the neurotoxin is actually a real thing. Novichok is a family of neurotoxins that, while having a number of branches, tend to work in similar ways. Research into the neurotoxin began in the Soviet Union around 1971 and continued in Russia until around 1993. The use of Novichok in assassinations and other civilian deaths can be traced back to 1995, with the deadly nerve agent only released in 2020.

When developing Novichok, scientists pursued several goals. The first of these was To make Novichok undetectable for NATO devicesThis allowed it to be used without being captured by countries hostile to the Soviet Union. It was also designed to damage NATO equipment and give the Soviet Union a further edge. Additionally, despite its deadly nature, Novichok should be safer to use. Interestingly, Novichok can be developed as a liquid or solid, which may play a role Hand luggage‘s story.

How deadly Novichok really is

It has been used in several assassinations and assassination attempts

Novichok is incredibly deadly and one of the most dangerous nerve agents in existence. The Russian scientists who worked on the nerve agent explain this with this Some forms of Novichok are five to eight times more potent than VXanother deadly compound, but also says it is ten times more potent than Soman. Novichok causes all skeletal muscles to contract involuntarily, eventually leading to cardiac and respiratory arrest and death from heart failure or fluid buildup in the lungs.

Novichok has been used in several high-profile assassinations and assassination attempts, although this occurred as recently as 2020. Russian banker Ivan Kivelidi died three days after being poisoned in 1995, and his assistant Zara Ismailova died a month later. An attack in the United Kingdom in May 2018 that attempted to kill Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal resulted in three people being hospitalized and five hundred citizens being advised to decontamination. In June 2018, Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess were found unconscious after being exposed. Sturgess died in July.

The investigation that followed the UK poisonings uncovered another Novichok attack, with Bulgarian arms dealer Emilian Gebrev believing he had been poisoned in 2015. In August 2020, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny fell ill during a flight, with it being discovered that Navalny had drunk a poisoned cup of tea before the flight. Although Navalny woke up from his coma in SeptemberThis and the other attacks show the dangers and topicality of Novichok consumption.

Is it realistic to use Novichok in hand luggage?

It largely corresponds to the real nerve agent

Hand luggageThe explanation of Novichok’s history and how it works is realistic, with Jason Bateman’s Traveler explaining how it destroys the body and causes cardiac and respiratory arrest. A victim of Novichok in Hand luggage dies of a heart attack almost immediately after exposure, with this death classified as incidental heart failure. This is due to how difficult Novichok is to detect, which also applies to the real nerve agent.

Nowitschok would probably not kill people as quickly as in Germany Hand luggageexcept in extremely high doses like the one the Traveler is exposed to at the end of the film. The connection between Novichok and Russia is also accurate, as the true story behind the nerve agent informs the villains’ plans Hand luggage more realistic.