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Hab Ecosystem Design

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Thu, 2010-04-08 09:39

bakho

Hab Ecosystem Design

Hi all! A character I've made for an EP game is a hab ecosystem designer, so that got me thinking - what's the status of ecosystem design in the world of Eclipse Phase? The terraforming process on Mars is a grandscale example of that (and is pretty well broken down and described in Kim S. Robinsons Mars Trilogy IMO) so that's not what I'm interested in - what I'm aiming at is the ecosystem design for space habs and habs in other inhospitable environments. If anybody has a suggestion for a read about that subject, I'm open to suggesting. The question is, is hab ecosystem design really a necessity in a world with nanorecycling and all the other tech wonders we have in EP? Maybe as a status symbol, but is it really necessary? I guess that even with the technology of recycling they have, it's cheaper to design a self sustaining system than to maintain it artificially - especially in case of larger habs; but I'm not sure if that's really the case What do you think?

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The only principle t

Mon, 2010-04-12 15:05

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Hab Ecosystem Design

bakho wrote:
If anybody has a suggestion for a read about that subject, I'm open to suggesting.

I wrote a bit about it in the description of one of my settings (which contains plenty of stuff that can be used in EP). See http://www.aleph.se/Dragons3/Space%20Life.pdf for a section about the problems when ecodesign crashes.

bakho wrote:
The question is, is hab ecosystem design really a necessity in a world with nanorecycling and all the other tech wonders we have in EP? Maybe as a status symbol, but is it really necessary?

I think most *modern* habitats do not need an ecosystem for life support. The earliest space stations were entirely artificial worlds with plants mainly to keep humans "company". Later stations did use auxiliary or even primary biological life support, since it works better in large spaces, they were cheaper than artificial recycling systems of the necessary size and having two systems made things safer. Now the nanotech is able to be much more efficient than biology in producing food, oxygen and removing waste, so ecosystems are no longer necessary. But people *like* them. They expect to have life around them, and they do not want the life to be too regimented and potted-plant like. So I would think today ecodesign is 75% a status/cultural thing, 25% an environment thing. Even if people do not care for the ecosystem there will be an ecosystem anyway - there will be molds growing in wet spaces, bacteria can evolve to digest anything, spores and seeds show up in the oddest places, pests reinvent themselves and pets escape with all their parasites. Keeping a habitat water recycling system from filling up with algal sludge or getting the dermestid beetles to stop eating the protein carpets requires a skilled ecotech too.

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Mon, 2010-04-12 15:51

bakho

Re: Hab Ecosystem Design

A very interesting read! Thanks for sharing! The fact that there's less of a functional need for a working ecosystem design maybe isn't such a big minus after all, especially in a post-scarcity economy. Designing a highly complex ecosystem for a large habitat is quite a task (even moreso maintaining it); and considering it's not a need but a commodity only increases the prestige it grants. And eating real grown food must have its value - since its production is much more complicated than mere fabbing. I guess it can be compared to the other things in the setting, e.g. you can use a generic T-23 corp manufactured splicer morph like thousands (if not millions) of people; but you can also have a highly modified, specific one of a kind morph designed just for you. The same way - you can live in a hab with generic recycling facility or one with a highly complex ecosystem coupled with a specifically designed recycling system.

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The only principle t