Transporting fish low passage

[kilmore]

Do you sell it as fresh or frozen?

 

[BlackBat242]

If you thaw it out at the other end and its still alive, its fresh.

Otherwise, its frozen.

 

[LiminalMask]

Hmmm. A low passage cargo container? Keep your fish in suspended animation, wake them up at market?

I mean, if low berth technology exists, why apply it solely to sophont travel?

 

[Enoki]

Gives a whole new meaning to the term "fresh frozen."

 

[far-trader]

Well, my memory is fuzzy on this, and I think it's from a sci-fi fiction that probably inspired Traveller lowberths, but I do recall lowberths originally being livestock transport somewhere (larger sized, like the emergency lowberth that can hold 4 people at a time who share the revival roll). At some point in the story (or history of the setting) desperate people resort to shipping themselves as livestock in these lowberths, risking death as a better alternative than their life on whatever (crowded?) world. Sound familiar? Cheap interstellar travel with risks. In fact imtu the 4 lowberths aboard the standard config far-trader are in fact a pair of large format livestock berths pressed into cheap people transport (each holds up to 4 people who share the survival roll). Or a more compassionate captain may restrict himself to using it for it's original role as livestock shipping. One can even make money shipping prize specimens.

 

[Icosahedron]

I'm sure there's reference to livestock low berths somewhere in canon. Maybe JTAS. Does the Safari Ship have them?

 

[Enoki]

Its mentioned in the CT supplement Gunboats and Traders about those large low berths.

 

[saundby]

In the Dumarest books (e.g. Winds of Gath), low berths are typically intended for livestock and pets, but also used by people who are sufficiently desperate.

 

[BytePro]

Sure, though there is the chance of loss (survival roll) - which may be okay if occupants are dinner on arrival, but not so good if transporting prize studs or the Global Aquarium's Koi Collection

As a child I heard anecdotal stories of fish surviving freezing in RL, but I tend to discount them as not actually freezing solid. Just because they were surrounded by ice doesn't mean the water froze in their cells - and freezing point changes with pressure and chemical content of water (ala anti-freeze, alcohol, salinity, etc), not to mention their metabolic processes must stop or they must breathe, requiring gill movement or other means of gaseous transfer.