Don't forget about temperature tolerance - it's not nearly good enough to protect a biomorph against the more extreme temperatures they could face in space, but it's a lot better than nothing. Also, while it's not strictly essential for just surviving the exposure to vacuum, if you're ever thrown out an airlock, storing some means of propulsion in a hidden compartment could very well make the difference between life and death.

Don't forget about radiation exposure. That's more important that temp tolerance. Really you need to handle 4 things for short-term survival(days at most). Vacuum, Breathing, Maneuvering and Environment (temp + radiation) Vacuum: There really is only one biomod here: Vacuum Sealing. However, Enhanced Respiration also deserves some note as it will help with explosive decompression giving the character a better chance of remaining aware and active in what little time they have. They will still suffer from the effects of vacuum (See 'How to Handle Decompression' & 'How to Survive in Vacuum' Panopticon pg 67.) Remember that Vacuum Sealing has a prerequisite of some form of bioware armor or carapace armor to be taken. That armor alone should help with some of the pinched nerves and swelling that occurs in vacuum and a kind gm might allow the character to operate with fewer penalties. The armor shouldn't negate all penalties because Vacuum Sealing also modifies the skin and body against vacuum, but it should help. Low Pressure Tolerance from Sunward can help as a poor man's Vacuum Sealing by delaying the ill effects of vacuum by about five minutes and as a GM I would rule also slow down that damage once it sets in. Breathing: This involves keeping the blood oxygenated and there are three ways to go, all three stack as well. Enhanced Respiration (10-30 minutes), Oxygen Reserve (3 hours), and Respirocytes (4 hours). I would also like to note that as a GM I'd allow multiple implants of Oxygen Reserves ruling that you're basically just adding another air tank. If you really wanted to get far out theoretically a morph could add an input valve for the Oxygen reserves and use a face mask to collect exhaled gasses to allow for even greater to nearly indefinite breathing time in space. At that point provision should be made for the morph to eat or drink in vacuum probably by injection of nutrients into the blood stream. After that you are getting to either add on so much stuff that you might as well put on a vac suit or you might as well have a full vac adapted morph. Maneuvering The Gas Jet System is the first choice for this allowing true maneuvering in open vacuum. However, don't forget most of the time there will be something to grab onto and the better the morph is able to grab the better off they are. Thus Grip Pads, Prehensile Feet and Tails come in handy. Grip Pads especially allow a morph to anchor themselves onto the surface of a habitat without handholds and walk around. Extra limbs and anything that increases reflexes might also help in case of catastrophic blowout where the character needs to grab onto something in a hurry. Environment (temp + radiation) Temperature isn't as large an issue as it would first seem. Again see the articles I mentioned earlier from Panopticon. Vac is a good insulator and doesn't have a temperature of its own. Thus the body will stay pretty much at its own temp for a while only heating up where exposed to direct sunlight. Temp Tolerance helps, but is unnecessary for the most part if you have Vacuum Sealing. The real hazard is in radiation exposure. Here there is no bio or cybermod to protect from the damage but you can have mods to mitigate and repair it. Radiation Sense will help avoid it first of all. Medicines will help with the damage caused by radiation by allowing the morph to ignore the effect of 1 wound and speeding healing.

TekHed wrote:

I would say if you can hold your breath for four hours, and you have a three hour supply (of constant breathing)...extrapolates to a lot more than 7 hours I think. A breath cycle takes a few seconds at most for a full breath. So you take a breath of your 3 hour reserve then turn it off...you sip it once every 4 hours, and you could "hold your breath for days." All of them together have a nice synergistic effect.

When you hold your breath, you aren't actually stuttering your body's natural intake of oxygen. It is simply relying on the oxygen already in the lungs, and already contained within the bloodstream. So when you have a maximum ability to hold your breath for four hours, you cannot simply hold for four hours immediately after that; your body immediately needs to flush all the accrued carbon dioxide while replenishing the blood stream's usual oxygen content. That's why whenever you see diver's first come up from water, you'll see them breathing heavy, almost hyperventilating. When you take all that into account, it's likely they won't have a multiplicative effect. Once you've held your breath for four hours, your body needs to respirate to once again build up a four-hour supply of oxygen before you can do it again.

TekHed wrote:

That doesn't make sense to me. A real life example, a sperm whale can hold it's breath for 2 hours. It doesn't need to breath for 2 hours before it can dive and hold it's breath again.

That's because it hyperventilates. It breathes in faster after coming up than it would if it was never holding its breath at all. It's the same thing that happens after a runner sprints. His body consumes oxygen at a faster rate than he's breathing it in during the run (if he's even breathing at all while he's running), and he rapidly breathes after he finishes so his bloodstream can be replenished.

TekHed wrote:

Also...you are correct...when you hold your breath you are using the oxygen in your lungs and bloodstream. Respirocytes are what make this so much more efficient. However the oxygen in your lungs/bloodstream is enough to last a few minutes at most if you are highly skilled. Your notion that you would need a large charge up time is I believe incorrect. A single breath...considering how augmentations are made for maximum efficiency...would "recharge" the respirocytes as you say for another fours hours. That is the very definition of holding your breath...how long each breath can last you.

Not quite. Try holding your breath and seeing how long you can do it for. I'm guessing somewhere between 1 and two minutes if you don't have a pulmonary problem like asthma. Now once you are finished holding your breath, exhale and inhale a single time, and see if you can do it again. You won't be able to, not even close. Your body has yet to replenish itself, and cannot pull it off. When people talk about how long one can hold their breath, they are talking about after having a fully replenished oxygen content in their blood supply, with full lungs. The replenished blood supply is the part you are missing, as that's the reason a person hyperventilates after holding their breath. You accrue a crapload of carbon dioxide that absolutely must be expelled (and replaced with oxygen) before you can even think about holding your breath again.

TekHed wrote:

Again...you fail to see that the technology of the setting is far in advance of your perspective now. We are talking about combining bioware, cyberware, and nanotech. If there is one thing I know about technology is that it is synergistic. I thought that by coming to these forums I would find people wondering at the setting as I do. Yet, sadly, every discussion I see lately seems to be riddled with the most limiting constrained thinking. Everyone seems to say "no it can't do that" basing it on what they "know" in real life and forgetting that its an rpg game of science fiction (and not even hard fiction at that)...it's like trying to argue that warp drive wouldn't work on star trek.

No, it's a simple application of common physics. Unless you are claiming that transhumans breath super-powerfully, rather than having the usual breathing rate of a human being, then there will be certain limitations that will apply to this issue. The only way that a transhuman will be able to feasibly refresh their bloodstream and lungs [i]in a single breath[/i] is if you completely replace the lungs with something that can contained pressurized air, allowing you to take one massive inhale rather than a multitude as one does with lungs.

TekHed wrote:

I choose to see it as the super tech it is. Maybe the respirocytes and the rest of the body is designed to expel carbon dioxide through the body somehow even while they are processing oxygen...that could then be combined with the vacuum seal mods and gas jet cyberware system to fuel your propulsion in a vacuum with your own waste products. Remember the key word here is synergy.

The question is how? I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm asking how you think that would work. None of the implants listed in the prior discussion even referenced a gas jet implant, though I suppose if you had one you could expel waste CO[sup]2[/sup] without the need for respiration. But now comes the real dilemma; how do you replenish your oxygen supply in a single lungful? The lungs don't hold a particularly high amount of air, and even with regards to a transhuman, the majority of their oxygen is going to be stored in the blood supply. Even the oxygen reserve needs to keep its store at higher pressure in order to contain enough oxygen to be feasible. Lungs don't operate at a separate pressure from the outside world; that's simply not how they work. A transhuman could theoretically have a respiration system that does operate at a different pressure, but then [i]he doesn't have lungs[/i], and the question of lung capacity becomes rather moot, now doesn't it?

Just adding to points here: Vaccum Sealing: Makes you Sealed for traveling in space. I would also consider this workable in an underwater environment, but wouldn't be able to keep up with the pressure. Overall your body becomes for all intents and purposes a Vac Suit without an Oxygen Tank, Waste Recyclers, or rebreather. This leads you to the next part: Oxygen Reserve: This is a three hour tank of Oxygen in a sealed environment. The implant can be fully recharged within 15 minutes if the character is in a high-pressure mostly oxygen atmosphere. Now essentially this is just a can of air. Nothing really special about what it does per say. If your body is not sealed up, there's a difference of atmosphere and that should technically force the air out of your body. Your body is strained to keep the oxygen in, thus requires more oxygen and making you use it quicker. Something that is not clearly said is how long the tank would last under strenuous activity. It kinda glazes over that and just says if you are sealed you're good. Holding your own breath in a pool is a great example for breath recovery. Jump into the pool and hold your breath for as long as you can. When you get out you normally pant to try and recover yourself. If get out, take a deep breath, and jump back in, you won't be able to hold your breath as long as your body is still recovering. Respirocytes: These are super blood cells and increase the transfer of Carbon Dioxide and Oxygen throughout the body. It pretty clearly states the intent of these is simply to act like super blood cells in the book. (Page 309). They just do the job of blood cells and nothing else for the basic description of them. Now to expand on these you would just need to look into that this is only basically what the book says. These implants are made to give you a basic idea on how these items would work in the setting and are commonly used. Talking with your GM or something similar could lead to more inventive ideas that can expand the functionality on the matter further. It really depends on how Hard or Soft Sci Fi you want to play the game or your GM is willing to go. Edit: Page 201 also has some great examples of what happens without a vac suit.

Of course this thread overlooks perhaps the simplest way of all to vac-adapt a morph. Use a vac suit.

Gerzel wrote:

Of course this thread overlooks perhaps the simplest way of all to vac-adapt a morph. Use a vac suit.

DivineWrath wrote:

I'm looking for augmentations a biomorph can have that would allow it to survive in space without gear (I'm looking at you vacsuits). The context, a character wants to be prepared just-in-case it gets shoved out an air lock without the proper gear, and wants to survive more than a few minutes.

I know the intention of the thread is to find non-gear solutions but it takes signficantly less effort to keep an emergancy vac-suit on your person at all times. The things are extremely in expensive, are about the size of a grapefruit to my understanding, and can be put in in a few Action Phases; that's assuming you aren't simply wearing smart clothes with vaccum sealing capability. However, in the event that someone intentionally strips the character naked and throws him out of an airlock the only thing I can think of the last longer in a vaccum than what's been presented already would be to have his medicines put him into medical stasis, as if he had been critically damaged. They'd preserve his brain functions and let the rest of his body die but that's nothing a few days of vat time can't fix.

TekHed wrote:

It's an rpg...I don't need to know how exactly. It does what the book says it does, that is all. I'm not going to try and pretend to be a scientist, or to try and give real science explanation for how the tech in the setting works. I seem to have a very different view of the game that a few people here so...I think I'll just shut up now and keep my opinions to myself and whatever group I find to play with.

The fanbase of this game tends toward "hard" on the hard/soft spectrum of science fiction. That means that for the most part, most interpretations on how the setting "should work" are going to be backed by a decent amount of modern science (at least with regards to human technology; we all seem to ignore modern science when dealing with Exsurgent, TITAN or alien technology). That being the case, the technology in the setting works right around the upper limit of what we already believe to be theoretically possible, or utilizing applicable versions of technology that is currently in its infancy. And you are likely to find plenty of articles in this forum where we debate how many kilojoules of energy can be stored within a single nanomachine, and how much work can be done with that much power. And I'm not saying that a softer interpretation of science isn't completely doable within the game… it definitely is. That's just not what most of the audience here wants. As for me, I play Tech Noir when I want soft sci-fi, so I tend to stick pretty damn close to realism in this game myself. With the exception of my action campaign, of course.

DivineWrath wrote:

Did you mean "without vacuum sealing"? I ask because "within" doesn't seem to be right word to use.

Why yes, yes I did. I just corrected that, thanks for the spot.

DivineWrath wrote:

That was a link I found when I was looking for what current humans (even before flats) can do now. I was trying to figure out how much oxygen there was in a breath of air to try to figure out how long a normal human can do without augmentations, and then figure out what might be possible with augmentations. But holding your breath for 22 minutes (I did some checking and the record you mentioned was beaten a few years back, but then that record was beaten last month) is quite the feat. New records: http://news.discovery.com/human/breath-holding-human.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2154442/Free-diver-breaks-world-... The book (Panopticon, p. 68) does mention that there is a performance difference (without air in your lungs) between flats and morphs with basic biomods. Your average flat may last as short as 15 seconds, but a morph with basic biomods will usually last over a minute.

A person who has trained for holding their breath has a much higher red blood cell count than a person who has not; and this is where they store the majority of their oxygen. This is how it works in the case of these deep divers. There is an awesome TED talk where David Blaine talks about his record-breaking attempt (which is where I knew about the 17 minute record; call me crazy but I don't keep tabs with competitive breath-holding :P). In it, he talks about how a person raises their red blood cell count, how they train for it, and everything that goes into it. Be warned, it's pretty long.

Bear in mind also, it's just very easy to say "well this device works this way. Isn't that cool?" Even if it is cool, I don't have much else to say about it normally. And indeed, this game (and especially, this forum) has attracted a lot of brilliant people, well versed in science, who are doing their darnedest to teach me some of it too :) I really do appreciate that, but I have to understand that that's just their background. The nice thing is, RPG players generally also enjoy playing 'what if's, it just has to be phrased properly. Hence in the FTL thread, people who don't believe in FTL are still arguing it because it was coached in 'hey guys, imagine if ...' If you have a cool idea that violates known laws of physics, just admit it straight out and say "in my game ..." or "I know it couldn't work this way, but imagine if ..." or whatever. Give science it's nod and put warning beacons that you KNOW it wouldn't work, and people are less likely to argue it.

TekHed wrote:

Yeah, with the TITAN tech in this game it's not really a super hard sci-fi setting. Its a medium sci-fi setting pretending at being a hard one. My tastes (when it comes to having fun in an rpg) lean more towards having a hard sci-fi shell with a gooey soft sci-fi center.

It's still hard sci-fi, but only with regards to human tech. That tends to get ignored with TITAN and alien technology, based on the premise of "sufficiently advanced aliens". The working presumption is that they are thousands, if not millions, of years of research ahead of us in understanding the universe. Do note that not everyone does this, at least not in all cases. One of my campaigns is set 10 years into the future of the setting, where we have begun to rapidly integrate alien technology. That game tends to be rather soft with regards to science (though the advanced stuff tends to be unreliable… if you've ever played a mad scientist in Deadlands, you'll know what I'm talking about). Most of my other campaigns however tend towards hard. But in general, the players around here like to presume that human technology within the setting is still confined to our current theoretical understanding of the universe. The fact that aliens are beyond this simply adds to the horror of the setting… nothing is scarier than a threat so much more advanced than you that you simply don't know how their crap works.

DivineWrath wrote:

1 ) Vacuum Sealing augmentation (core rulebook, p. 306). This augmentation goes a long way to make a biomorph space adapted, but can it allow you to safely hold your breath? I ask because it doesn't say that it does (though it strongly implies it will do what I want it to do).

I think it enable to hold a breath. "Never hold a breath" is one of vaccum penalties, So Vacuum Sealing prevent it.

DivineWrath wrote:

4 ) Respirocytes (core rulebook, p. 309). It says that it can allow a character to hold its breath for 4 hours. By hold your breath, I assume you are not going to be doing that in a vacuum without the proper augmentations. My guess is, like the Oxygen Rerserve augmentation, it will not help you for very long in a vacuum.

They "increasing the ability to transfer oxygen and carbon dioxide"(p. 309). So I think them as an oxygen carrier, like Oxygen Reserve.

DivineWrath wrote:

7 ) Assuming you use all the listed augmentations (the ones listed above), am I correct in believing that you can remain active for about 7 hours and 10 minutes without needing to breath? If you opt to enter hibernation right away, am I correct to believe you can stay alive for over 6 days?

I agree your "3 hours + 4 hours + 10 minutes" math. I think Respirocytes as an efficient oxygen carrier, not as a consumer. And I agree about hibernated 6 days also.

There's a couple of documentaries that are available free online that you should check out. Zeitgeist: Addendum is the one to start with...the first half details the debacle that is our current economic model and how we can basically never be free from within it. The second half is based on the work of futurist Jacque Fresco, and essentially outlines a post scarcity resource based economy. Zeitgeist: Moving Forward is the sequel and digs deeper into how we got to where we are and deeper into how we could set up our infrastructures to support post-scarcity. Fascinating, and also depressing to watch, because there is no clear path to transitioning away from money while those controlling the money supply have all the power. Note I don't recommend the first Zeitgeist movie unless you want to go down a conspiracy rabbit hole, but the two sequels are solid informationally. Fresco's work really harkens back to the visions of Buckminster Fuller, an idol of mine if ever I'd have one...

I found it entertaining though irrelevant. I think the filmmaker did himself a disservice because it can be used as a way to discredit him. Even he has distanced himself from the film. However the two sequels are spot on and much better researched, credible, and presented. Highly highly recommended for anyone interested in post scarcity possibilities, or how and why we are in the economic and ecological mess we are in right now.

You should really just watch them. Marxism doesn't enter into it, and in fact they address the tendency to label things as one or the other (i.e. "if you're not a capitalist then by god you're a socialist!"). Addendum doesn't really deal in social theory. Moving Forward does address some of the elements of society, such as violent crime, but isn't really trying to create a social theory. Rather it shares some of the most current research on behavioral science. It also addresses the need for a shift as you say, where hyperinflation will make money useless. Fresco talks in Moving Forward about how ridiculous the Great Depression was...with lines of people out of work...and yet all of the factories and machinery was just fine. When you think about it, it's ludicrous, that we place so many artificial limits on ourselves. The film addresses such things as incentive as well. I'd love to have a cogent discussion with you and anyone else here after you've watched them (the sequels I mean...don't want to waste any time discussing the first beyond what I already have).

Re: great on paper: this is valid, though the second sequel (Moving Forward) does get into how behavior is shaped by our environkent. Most of people's objections of why it wouldn't work actually are resolved in the new system. The hard part IMO is creating a workable mass transition. Re: money as debt: you are absolutelty correct, and this is the first half of Addendum. It really opened my eyes. Would be great to dialog with others on the same page...

Not to point at the elephant in the room, but isn't this " Making a biomorph space adapted" thread? ;)

TekHed wrote:

I'd love to have a cogent discussion with you and anyone else here after you've watched them (the sequels I mean...don't want to waste any time discussing the first beyond what I already have).

Sorry for this, I would really like to discuss about the movies but the problem is I agree with you so we would only correspond the comments. The movies opened my eyes and the best part is that I knew most of the facts: I just didn't connected them to get the big picture. My take on realistic transition to better... tomorrow, is public/global awareness where 'critical mass' of people realize flaws of the system and decide not to cut the branch on which we are sitting.

TekHed wrote:

The trouble with marxism is it is still based on money and labor...i.e. from each according to their work and to each according to their worth (or however it's phrased).

The phrase is "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". This essentially translates to "everyone does what they can for the community, and has their essential needs taken care of". One key element that people who misrepresent Marx's ideology forget is that he references "according to his ability", which means that people would use the skills that they are good at. Many think that a Marxist society would have everyone tilling the fields or working the factories, when that was simply not the case. Authors would still write books, musicians would still play music. Marx believed that if everyone did what they were capable of, it would be beneficial to society and society would still thrive. Furthermore, his view of work is similar to what some scholars are seeing now. He felt that capitalism kept the working class working by keeping them in a constant state of poverty. He felt that an ideal society would get even better productivity by keeping the working class in a constant state of comfort.

TekHed wrote:

So long as there is still money and therefore a means to consolidate power, those who seek power will do so. The trick is to make power obsolete and unnecessary...if everyone has equal access to everything, and social open source contribution becomes the motivating factor, then power struggles and consolidation are futile. You already have it all, so what more would you need? That is true post scarcity.

The problem is that you'll never make power obsolete and unnecessarily. It is within human nature (arguably, its a universal biological imperative) to attain as much as one can. This need to acquire inevitably creates a social order and class structure; haves and have nots. A post-scarcity environment might shake people's urge to acquire resources, but that doesn't mean we won't find something else to acquire. The modern internet is showing us that even in the effectively post-scarce digital social structure, fame and notoriety has apparently become the new resource to grab. Social networks have inevitably become controlled by those who have the most followers, get the most page views, and have the most visitors. That's why websites like Penny Arcade can shut web servers down simply by namedropping a new product, or Lady Gaga can get a new social network off the ground simply by telling her fanbase to join it. Even if a post-scarcity society ends the social order of haves and have-nots, it will likely lead to a new social order… and so far it looks to be based upon the knowns and unknowns. It may be a long time before we ever break the apparent human need to produce a pecking order.

Anarhista wrote:

Not to point at the elephant in the room, but isn't this " Making a biomorph space adapted" thread? ;)

Yeah! What he said!!! Why are you people always getting off topic! I'm so tired of this! Cuz… you know, I would never sidetrack a conversation. Never happens…. So… about those space-adapted biomorphs….

TekHed wrote:

This is also covered in Moving Forward. Essentially it's a myth that human nature is so destructively competitive. It only seems that way because of the systems we have been born into...we have never known different. Part of the reason people are so acquisitive is because life is made otherwise so empty through poverty. How many super wealthy people are super happy? Level the playing field, by bringing everyone up with you and things will change. Within a generation even... As is, even the haves are surrounded by death, starvation, ecological disasters, and poverty...how happy can anyone truly be?

Is it really a myth, though? In the end, we are still beholden to our genetic lineage. And despite how much we want to believe ourselves logical beings, we are still slaves to our instincts. Competition is an instinctive trait for tribal primates… and that's exactly what we are. And the wealthy aren't happy by merit of wealth, but by merit of ambition. Ambition drives them to accrue wealth, and it is the acquisition that brings them happiness, not the wealth itself. That's why you'll rarely ever see an executive happy during a time of terrible losses, even if his social status still places him among the ranks of the elite (or hyperelite). His happiness comes from the fulfillment of his ambitions, not from the fulfillment of monetary needs. And therein lies the crux of the problem: how do you cure a man of ambition? For many, resource balance would be a wonderful harmony; but for the ambitious, resource balance is tantamount to stagnation. You can take an ambitious man out of a social structure where ambition dominates, but that does nothing to quell their ambition. Or as it is said in an older adage, "you can take the beast out of the wild, but not the wild out of the beast". Post-scarcity would quell the issue of ambition forcing others into a state of suffering by means of resource depletion, but it will simply shift the nature of ambition towards the next form of scarcity. And according to my conjecture, the next form of scarcity will be fame. When resources cease to be a power structure, popularity will continue to be one (especially if we expect democracy to be the prevailing government; democracy is effectively powered by popularity). By the very nature of this, social order will continue to be. We should really open a new thread to discuss this, and put it in the off-topic section. It's fun, but we've really deviated from the original subject. If you don't create the new thread, my next response will be the start of it.

Being able to ignore some wounds means you can get your butt out of danger when injured. Pretty useful, allows you to do things after being hit by something in space. That said, heavy rad dosage, according to pg 201 EP core book, reduces your SOM. You can counteract this with DRUGS : ] and remain effective despite being a walking dead man!

It's always good to have multiple redundancies and shit-happens insurance, especially when Gatecrashing.

YOu're on a brinker asteroid when a wall caves in for some reason, perhaps meteroid impact. You are there one there to mount a rescue. Scumhab not built to structural code. Its a mess of tangled pods and partially sealed courses. Of course a full suit is out of the question for a proper orgy...and just think how tight you can squeeze with vac sealing!

What happens if somebody hacks your smart vac clothing?