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Low Berth Tech

PFVA63

SOC-13
Hi,

When I first started playing Traveller I kind of envisioned Low Berths as being kind of along the lines of being something you simply stepped into and either laid down in (or maybe stood in like the cryo-tubes in "Futurama") and got frozen / put to sleep.

Over time though (especially as I've had more trips to my doctor) I've begun to wonder if maybe something a bit more "invasive" might be more interesting.

Specifically once when I had to have a surgery I remember waking up with all sorts of tubes going into and out of me. And, once when I had to take a sleep study, they ended up attaching all sorts of electrodes all over to monitor my stats.

So, I was just kind of interested in seeing how others treat low berths in their games and especially whether they assume that at a high enough TL using a low berth can be fairly non invasive or whether they assume the need to monitor a person's stats and such, as well as keeping the body functioning at some sort of reduced level will still require stuff like IV drips (or something similar) plus breathing tubes, catheters and/or other stuff?

Just kind of curious. :)

PF
 
Hi,

When I first started playing Traveller I kind of envisioned Low Berths as being kind of along the lines of being something you simply stepped into and either laid down in (or maybe stood in like the cryo-tubes in "Futurama") and got frozen / put to sleep.

Over time though (especially as I've had more trips to my doctor) I've begun to wonder if maybe something a bit more "invasive" might be more interesting.

Specifically once when I had to have a surgery I remember waking up with all sorts of tubes going into and out of me. And, once when I had to take a sleep study, they ended up attaching all sorts of electrodes all over to monitor my stats.

So, I was just kind of interested in seeing how others treat low berths in their games and especially whether they assume that at a high enough TL using a low berth can be fairly non invasive or whether they assume the need to monitor a person's stats and such, as well as keeping the body functioning at some sort of reduced level will still require stuff like IV drips (or something similar) plus breathing tubes, catheters and/or other stuff?

Just kind of curious. :)

PF
Essentially, IMTU, they have always looked a bit like they do in the Vorkosiverse. Anyone been emergency frozen will have scars in the jugular and carotid. Non-emergency, on the femoral.
 
In MgT there are 3 "low-berth" style equipment mentioned. Low, Emergency Low, and Cryoberths. On specifics listed or implied in the rules there:

Cryoberths (TL 10) are an alternative to low or "frozen" berths. They almost instantly freeze the individual, suspending all biological functions. The description says they are different from standard berths in that standard berths allow for continued reduced level biological function.

The general blurb for Medical equipment implies Medic skill is required, but no specific Medic rolls mentioned in the item itself.

Later in Ship Operations, it is stated a Medic check is required to open a berth with the occupant's Endurance DM as a modifier. No Medic check of any sort is specifically mentioned as needed to freeze the occupant in the first place.
 
Far Trader had a whole write up in a post. Here is a snippet from part I copied:

"Grav Berths are available at the same cost and performance as Cold Berths with the usage of advanced gravitic manipulation (TL13) replacing the need for drugs, chemicals, and freezing fluids. The facilities look very much like the ones typical for Cold Berths but incorporate power feeds for the gravitics. As long as power is maintained the units will preserve the subject. "
 
MgT High Guard states that it takes 6 turns to thaw, brief, and get a Frozen Watch into place. Until then the ship suffers from DMs related to crew loss. So they are talking about Ship Combat turns. MgT Ship Combat turns are 6 minutes long. So 36 minutes to thaw, brief and get into place.

I bring this up to display how much time would be needed to do all this. I suggest that there may no invasiveness to distract crew members to perform combat functions once woken up.

From personal experience, I have had a cold liquid nitrogen filled needle put into my eye to fuse my retina back in place, a doctor put his finger inside my leg to clean out an infection, with only local anesthetic as outpatient procedures. And a catheter to for kidney stones. TL7-8 medical is quite painful and distracting. Even healthy, putting new holes where none existed before were more painful. At least in my subjective, wussy, experience.
 
If it is 36 minutes or so, My suppositions:
1-2 turns to get into place (6-12 minutes to get to crew station).
1-2 turns for crew briefing (6-12 minutes be ready to report )
Leaving a crewman
2-4 turns to revive (12-24 minutes?)
Saves time if the briefing room is in the Frozen Watch chamber.
Still 12-24 minutes to revive and pull out external montoring sensors (EKG wires and such) easy. Internal catheters, and plug the holes up maybe not.

So, IMTU, nope, no invasiveness except maybe in prototype models (TL-1 per CSC prototyping and flavor text).
 
Looking through the internet for inspiration I see that in Alien(s) and (I think) Prometheus it looks like the cryo-sleep stuff that they use there involved having a person strip down to a limited level of clothing with some attached electrodes and such.

cryosleep.jpg


Aliens-marines-waking-up-from-hyper-sleep.png


[sorry - can't post the image from Alien here as it appears that the Ripley Character may actually be topless while in the cryo-sleep chamber]

In addition in an article discussing Prometheus, a professor that was questioned about the possibility of cryosleep like stuff appears to note that "when one would consider putting someone in to cryolseep you would not just freeze them as is, you would go through cleansing procedures, they would not have stuff in their stomachs."

http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/blogs/mo...cience-fiction-vs-science-fact-163604715.html

Also, according to one website it indicates that in the Aliens universe the novelization of the 1st movie apparently suggests that "the hypersleep chambers are said to fill with a viscous liquid when in operation, and upon waking the crew has to wipe themselves down to remove the remains of this fluid"

http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Stasis

In some ways that reminds me a bit of something from 2300AD, where (if I am recalling correctly) the Pentapods had some form of bio-engineered casket-like alien gourd/plant that was engineered to allow for an injured character to be placed inside the gel-filled container which would encapsulate him providing life-support until the injured character could be gotten to a medical facility.
 
If one envisions circulating chemicals more or less continuously, then a PICC line should be adequate. PICC is an acronym for Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter. They insert a small catheter through a peripheral vein, like one in your upper arm, and guide it through that vein until it reaches a larger vein close to the heart. The procedure requires a degree of medical expertise and a means of following the progress of the catheter while you're inserting it - they use an ultrasound.

This is quite a bit more than what the typical free trader is capable of, unless the unit has such capability built in. It's possible; it's a 100,000 credit machine, there must be something in there for that value. However, the clever player may find other uses for that kind of imaging tech; you may not want that kind of a tool in your player's hands. Alternately, the prospective passenger may need to have the procedure done at a hospital or clinic before reporting for boarding, but that implies additional cost. Still likely to be cheaper than mid passage, but there's nothing in canon about checking in at a clinic before going on a low passage.

A port in a major artery is also no small thing. It likewise implies skilled medical services or a very competent machine. Unless you run with the competent machine idea, you run into the same canon issues the PICC line has: this isn't the kind of thing you do without solid medical training - you basically can't do this without Medical 1 or maybe 2, and failure could hospitalize or kill them before you even launch your ship.

Either the low berth unit has very good independent or semi-independent capability to place these lines, or you're left with using either plain ol' fashioned IVs (which still require a bit of skill) or some sort of inhalation system to get whatever chemicals you want into the passenger's system.
 
If one envisions circulating chemicals more or less continuously, then a PICC line should be adequate. PICC is an acronym for Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter. They insert a small catheter through a peripheral vein, like one in your upper arm, and guide it through that vein until it reaches a larger vein close to the heart. The procedure requires a degree of medical expertise and a means of following the progress of the catheter while you're inserting it - they use an ultrasound.

This is quite a bit more than what the typical free trader is capable of, unless the unit has such capability built in. It's possible; it's a 100,000 credit machine, there must be something in there for that value. However, the clever player may find other uses for that kind of imaging tech; you may not want that kind of a tool in your player's hands. Alternately, the prospective passenger may need to have the procedure done at a hospital or clinic before reporting for boarding, but that implies additional cost. Still likely to be cheaper than mid passage, but there's nothing in canon about checking in at a clinic before going on a low passage.

A port in a major artery is also no small thing. It likewise implies skilled medical services or a very competent machine. Unless you run with the competent machine idea, you run into the same canon issues the PICC line has: this isn't the kind of thing you do without solid medical training - you basically can't do this without Medical 1 or maybe 2, and failure could hospitalize or kill them before you even launch your ship.

Either the low berth unit has very good independent or semi-independent capability to place these lines, or you're left with using either plain ol' fashioned IVs (which still require a bit of skill) or some sort of inhalation system to get whatever chemicals you want into the passenger's system.

I wore a PICC line for fourteen weeks after surgical incisions got infected with MRSA. Insertion used a small portable ultrasound to track the end of the PICC from its insertion point in my left bicep until it reached the desired position near the heart. Took all of a minute. Smearing my arm and chest with the gel that they use for the ultrasound sensor took longer than inserting the line. Removal didn't even require that; they just pulled it out while I was talking to another nurse and I didn't even know they had started until they were already done.

A competent Registered Nurse can do the procedure, so that's Medic 2. Once the PICC was in, I just had to visit a clinic once a week to have blood samples drawn through the PICC. After the nurse demonstrated the procedure for the first time, I administered the antibiotics, the anticoagulants to keep the PICC from clogging, and the antiseptics to keep the PICC ports sterile all by myself, three times a day. So actual use of the PICC is Medic-0.

Superficial mishap indicates one PICC port is clogged (it has two). Minor mishap indicates both ports are clogged. Major mishap indicate the PICC tube collapses, requiring the entire PICC be removed and replaced with a new one. Destroyed mishap indicates the PICC ruptured a blood vessel, which requires surgery due to internal bleeding. Level of surgery required depends on how close to the heart the rupture occurred.

I would think that for a cold berth (passenger completely frozen) a PICC would not be necessary, only a (large) injection. A chill berth, where the passenger is placed in a cold-induced hibernation (similar to some cold-water drowning cases), a PICC could be used to circulate a biodegradable organic antifreeze to keep ice crystals from forming in the cells— failure of which could be the main source of low berth mishaps, depending on what organ(s) are affected, fatality might be due to localized frostbite of brain, lungs, heart, whatever due to incomplete circulation of the fluid. Lesser mishaps could be due to the same cause, except the organs involved are not necessarily life-threatening (eyes— blind in one eye, larynx/esophagus— laryngitis and trouble swallowing, stomach— ulcer, etc.)

I say biodegradable antifreeze because that's something the kidneys could filter out of the bloodstream once the passenger is awakened. "For the next 24 hours or so, your urine will be kind of a fluorescent yellow, and your vision will have kind of a pink tinge due to the chemical in your blood affecting your retinas. Don't worry about it, that's normal for people who use low berths." (By the way, those specific colors come from the chemicals used for fluourescene angiograms done by my ophthalmologist, though in that case the pink vision only lasts 15 minutes or so.)

Given that Traveller already has increasingly capable medical scanners at various tech levels, there's no reason why a canonical scanner wouldn't be able to monitor the insertion of a PICC without the need of a separate ultrasound machine.
 
In some ways that reminds me a bit of something from 2300AD, where (if I am recalling correctly) the Pentapods had some form of bio-engineered casket-like alien gourd/plant that was engineered to allow for an injured character to be placed inside the gel-filled container which would encapsulate him providing life-support until the injured character could be gotten to a medical facility.

You recall correctly: the stabilizer (2300AD equipment list, page 38).
 
IMTU, I presume contact sensors and a strap-on "cuff" that includes the ability to "spray" drugs automatically, or in response to a medic's override.

Those in low berths are essentially frozen. Either the freezing is relatively quick, and the wakeup slow (medical care is intensive over a period of hours during wakeup), or the freezing is slow (up to days, on a case-by case basis) and the wakeup rapid. The former is the commercial method, as it economizes on medical manpower, the later is military.
 
Those in low berths are essentially frozen. Either the freezing is relatively quick, and the wakeup slow (medical care is intensive over a period of hours during wakeup), or the freezing is slow (up to days, on a case-by case basis) and the wakeup rapid. The former is the commercial method, as it economizes on medical manpower, the later is military.

In one MT article about low berth (sorry, I'm not sure about the source, but, IIRC it was either TD or MTJ), it was spicified that the former option you talk about was for emergency low berth, and the latter for frozen watch. Commercial low berth was somwhere in between.

ITTR the same article told that low TL low berths (called chill berths) were really frozen people, while higher TL (TL13, IIRC again) were more drug induced (akin of fast drug). They didn't give rules that I remember to discriminate both methods, though.
 
Key CT points regarding the low berth:

Flying in Low Passage: "... He does not age, and requires very little life support. Unfortunately, the low passage system involves some intrinsic dangers to the passenger, and he runs some risk of not surviving the voyage. Throw 5+ for each passenger when he is revived after the ship has landed. DMs: Attending medic of expertise of 2 or better, +1; low passenger with an endurance of 6 or less, -1."

Note that the rull occurs on revival, not on entering the unit, ergo entering the unit is not obviously dangerous. Note also that while there is a benefit to high medical skill, there is no penalty for no medical skill: Joe the Pilot can put Jeb the wounded engineer in there and then try to revive him later. In other words, while medical supervision is helpful, a low berth should be usable by someone with no medical training, especially for the part where you're putting people in one. Implication is the unit is either not intrusive or is able to handle that end of things without help, but having someone medically trained monitor the tell-tales when arousing the passenger is a useful thing.

Life Support cost: "Each occupied low passage berth involves an overhead cost of Cr100 per usage."

This would presumably be the cost of drugs and other consumables used in the course of using the berth.

The Low Berth unit: "One low passage berth carries one low passenger, costs Cr50,000, and displaces one-half ton."

Same space alotment as for a crash couch. This makes it a stand-up or sit-down model, since the average person is over 1.5 meters length when lying down. This was changed for MT, where they decided it didn't allow enough room for passageway (which leaves me wondering just how much machinery this thing has, that 6.75 cubic meters wasn't enough to contain a body of less than 2 cubic meters and still provide an aisleway).

The ELB: "Emergency low berths are also available; they will not carry passengers*, but can be used for survival. Each costs Cr100,000 and displaces one ton. Each holds four persons who share the same revival die roll ..."

This always puzzled me. It suggests that it's the machine's function, not the people's bodies, that decides whether you live or die. It also implies that whatever's happening is happening identically to everyone inside, which to me says any chemicals are being pumped into the air rather than administered intravenously. Size was likewise doubled in MT.

*Unless you're a Supplement 7 lifeboat, in which case your six emergency low berths, "provide acceleration couches for six passengers in ordinary use while quadrupling the lifeboat's capacity to 24 in emergencies."
 
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