In space you can't cry | Eclipse Phase

Mon, 2013-01-14 20:28

#2

towo

Spin generator. Spins you

Spin generator. Spins you quickly to get a suitable rotational force to accelerate the bloody tears away from you. "I need to cry!" "Turn on the puke-a-tron!"

Thu, 2013-01-17 15:57

#3

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

Seems like you should be able

Seems like you should be able to flick or shake your head hard enough to whip away the tears. I have to do that with sweat when I'm all geared up and can't touch my face. I just close my eye tightly and that causes the water to wick up my eyelashes then I flick it away.

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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Sat, 2013-01-19 21:16

#4

Maskin

"When the tears get big

"When the tears get big enough they simply break free of the eye and float around." - we have a lot to learn about life in space and zero-g. Quite the challenge in a RPG when the whole setting is in space. I wonder, as of now we don't know what gravity or magnetism is. Perhaps by the time of EP they have figured it out and therefore can manipulate these things beyond what we can now. I'm not suggesting star trek artificial gravity here (not because it is unthinkable, but just because it's been done and just makes the setting more mundane), but maybe we will be able to distort it somehow. If we can magnetise matter which is usually not affected that could have all sorts of interest uses (and misuses)... My point is that with a premise as interesting as EP I really want to strive to look past the typical movie sci-fi future and try to consider the implications of science and tech beyond our understand, but that is damn hard/impossible and this little story about crying in space (although predictable) gives us a hint of all the little side-effects that we just don't think of, but which could add a lot to the story/setting.

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Transhuman Mind

Sun, 2013-01-20 10:03

#5

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Maskin wrote:I wonder, as of

Maskin wrote:
I wonder, as of now we don't know what gravity or magnetism is.

I think you have listened to the Insane Clown Posse too much :-) We have a pretty good understanding of what they are, it is just they are darn hard to explain in laymans' terms.

Quote:
Perhaps by the time of EP they have figured it out and therefore can manipulate these things beyond what we can now. I'm not suggesting star trek artificial gravity here (not because it is unthinkable, but just because it's been done and just makes the setting more mundane), but maybe we will be able to distort it somehow. If we can magnetise matter which is usually not affected that could have all sorts of interest uses (and misuses)...

Microgravity has been commonplace for decades in EP, so people will no doubt have invented lots of tricks to handle it. Most of which are entirely unconscious and unnoticed by now to EPverse inhabitants - the typical walking style of somebody used to the Coriolis effect of rotating habitats, the quick flicks people use to shed sweat and tears (which are also rude - you don't do them in company!), the clever use of airducts for fine manipulation (for example when clipping fingernails http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57564312-1/how-to-clip-your-fingerna... ) or smart sticky surfaces (good for repairing watches https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkwTVxdE23A ). There are no doubt technical solutions around too: directional ultrasonic beams and nanoswarms for pushing things, ferrofluid systems (some neat ideas in "Permanence" by Karl Schroeder), not to mention smart materials that change properties to keep things where they ought to be - just consider the smart tie that refuses to float away, yet behaves as if it was just hanging softly, or smart materials that allow you to scratch yourself in your spacesuit. The use of these things in the game is to briefly mention them to remind the players about the alienness of their world, yet how people do *inhabit* it. "She was rudely sitting crosslegged on what was the consensus ceiling of the module."

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Sun, 2013-01-20 17:01

#6

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

Quote:I think you have

Quote:
I think you have listened to the Insane Clown Posse too much :-)

LOL! Don't hate on a Juggalo bro! :D The interesting thing is that it was one of these solutions to a microgravity problem that caused the issue in the first place; "some anti-fogging solution from the inside of Feustel's helmet had begun to flake." Every solution can create it's own problem or lead to a different issue. It's a theme I wish was easier to portray in EP. I agree that ubiquitous computing and 'smart' everything will be the solution but really that's just going to engineering problems into software problems. Such is the plight of tool using monkeys.

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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.

Sun, 2013-01-20 18:27

#7

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

OneTrikPony wrote:Every

OneTrikPony wrote:
Every solution can create it's own problem or lead to a different issue. It's a theme I wish was easier to portray in EP. I agree that ubiquitous computing and 'smart' everything will be the solution but really that's just going to engineering problems into software problems. Such is the plight of tool using monkeys.

I like mentioning to the PCs their everyday hassles - software updates making their furniture fuzzy, the annoying sound of a slightly mis-programmed blobject, "bad media weather" and the thousands of tiny details that are off with a simspace.

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Fri, 2013-05-10 22:55

#8

Shredicine Shredicine's picture

Never

I have never thought about this, actually. That's so strange.

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Who are we, but slaves to our own personal interests?

Sat, 2013-05-11 01:39

#9

The Green Slime The Green Slime's picture

OneTrikPony wrote:Every

OneTrikPony wrote:
Every solution can create it's own problem or lead to a different issue.

Studying physiotherapy, what irks me is how in order to keep the game playable we have to overlook micrograv effects on humanoid biomorphs. I know they're genefixed or even tailor-made for zero-g, but I'm always biting my fist trying not to nitpick exactly how/why a body maintains 1g strength standards when it's never had to stand up under its own power. I mean, why would you even bother giving a zero-g morph the ability to do that, when it would require vastly more energy to maintain the tissues, which in turn means more resource consumption on any habs they occupy? It's like permanently keeping a Saturn-V rocket bolted to your car's roof rack for the off-chance you ever need to visit the Moon at some point. Okay, nobody wants to play in a morph that wouldn't be any stronger than a sleepy kitten, or suffers debilitating spinal disc herniations when it goes into gravity for the first time, but [i]dammit that's what would happen![/i] It's also interesting to see the awkward lengths we have to go to to exercise in space. The recent tour vids of the ISS showed some kind of weird gym machine that has to remain loosely tethered to the wall - if it were fixed firm, the force the astronauts apply when exercising in it would transfer to the station infrastructure and mess up their orbit. (Would that be an issue even in EP's very large habs? Compromising station inertia through irresponsible mass control should be a finable offence. The ultimate act of protest/terrorism is "jump mobbing" - crowds of malcontents all launch themselves consensus-down at the same time and so cost the hab tonnes of fuel having to restabilise. Maybe I'm just regurgitating what's already in the books somewhere.)

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[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/iso_userbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/aliens_userbar.jpg[/img] [i]Time will perfect matter.[/i]

Sat, 2013-05-11 16:37

#10

OneTrikPony OneTrikPony's picture

We're making progress on bone

We're making progress on bone loss. If we can give a bouncer morph thumbs on thier feet we'll be able to deal with bone and muscle loss no problem. You've probably heard about the PTN experiment on the ISS http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428595.400-marathon-mouse-space-... Maintaining a 1G musculature with minimal exercise through Regulation of the MSTN gene as well as HGH factors and endogenous Anabolic hormones probably isn't an issue nor is maintaining red blood cell count through EPO regulation. http://news.discovery.com/animals/endangered-species/super-muscle-mutati... http://www.genome.gov/10004767 Concerning resource use I think the Saturn V example is a bit of hyperbole. Muscle mass alone doesn't increase BMR or RMR that much so you're not wasting energy just by having a large volume of muscle and maintaining dense bone and connective tissue. Skeletal muscle alone only accounts for about 20% of the base metabolism. At just under 200 lbs lean mass I've got an estimated RMR of about 2000kcal. So on an average Sunday my muscle mass is burning 200kcal. Reducing that mass by 50% would only save 100kcal which is about 1 slice of bread or 8oz of milk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate#Biochemistry However; Activity is what uses the resources. On a week day I try pretty hard to eat at least 3500kcal. (I shoot for 4000 but I just can't make it without tons of carbs and garbage.) I rarely gain weight so that means I'm buring about 1300kcal in 10 hours. Reducing my muscle mass wouldn't help, I'd still have do do the same wattage of work, it would probably just take a lot longer. People who live in micrograv probably don't increase their metabolic rates by such a high percentage over the resting rate so the amount of muscle they carry isn't a huge concern. However, it is cannon that many people in EP who live on Low G habitats choose relatively slim morphs ie; the Lunar Flyer and the Titanian analogue. I don't think that exercise on the ISS is so much an issue with obit altitude as rotational attitude. bouncing around can impart a very slight rotation to the station which can be annoying for a number of reasons. Very large habitats. Anything over 200 permanent residents still needs to keep track of the balance of their mass centers but that's a fairly easy engineering trick because you can the plumbing for liquid consumables and wastes as a system of ballasts and counterweights. Flash mobs can be controlled with pressure hatches and airlocks. Terrorist mob jumpers can "go play outside" ;)

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Mea Culpa: My mode of speech can make others feel uninvited to argue or participate. This is the EXACT opposite of what I intend when I post.