What is an Emergency Low Berth?

[Madmax]

I have three sets of rules, CT, MT, and TNE. In all these rules they refer to ships as having Low Berths, or Emergency Low Berths, but no where that I can find is it explained what the difference is.
Does anyone know of any official explanation of this?

If there is not one, then this is what I think it should be:

Low Births, such as ae offered for passengers on merchant ships, are designed for carrying a passenger for up to a few weeks at most. The passenger is in a 'Light' freeze state. These berths are fairly safe (usually) but the safety decreases markedly after more than, say, 3 weeks.

Emergency Low Births are a different and more extreme technology that 'Deep' freezes the occupant for years, perhaps decades. These are, on average, significantly more dangerous than a regular Low Berth.
However IMTU Emergency Low Births are a necessity because I implement a literal interpretation of the MisJump rule. When rolling for the end point of a MisJump I do NOT adjust to the nearsest star system, so most MisJumps end up in deep interstellar space. Since the ships are usually not capable of making another jump at that point, the only option for passengers and crew is to occupy the Emergency Low Berths and activate the ships distress beacon. Eventually the distress beacon will be heard at the nearest Starport, though it will usually take YEARS or DECADES, at the speed of light, for that to occur. It may then take some time, possibly more years, before the Starport can mount a rescue mission, depending on just how far out in the void the stranded ship is.
If the characters survive all this they will not have aged, but the game world will have in their absense. ("What's Virus?").

 

[Vile]

What is an Emergency Low Birth?

I imagine it involves some sort of ceasarean section? :smirk:

The difference, IIRC is that a 4-person emergency low berth takes up 0.5 tons and a 1-person standard low berth takes up 0.25 tons. I don't think there are any practical differences as to how they work in the rules, which is obviously an oversight.

 

[BeRKA]

Madmax, I like your ideas.

That goes directly to my house rules...

 

[aramis]

Emergency Low Berths are implied to be "one-shot" and long duration, while there are a few implications that standard low-berths are short term only, and they absolutely can be recharged.

There's no LS cost for an ELB, and no recharge cost listed; it's likely that it's recharge costs are much higher (being shelf-stable for potentially years)...

IMTU, the ELB is a one use system, with chemical cryo. put 1-4 people in, jab the jugular and femoral with the drug inducers, and close the door... it won't open again until the thaw cycle is run. Reconditioning is usually done at the factory... and the cost is almost the same as buying new ones.

IMTU, the LB is a unit that has accessible access points, and is a chill & tetrodotoxin hybrid... not good for more than a month.

 

[Icosahedron]

Going purely from CT:

LBs are 0.5 dT and carry 1 passenger.
ELBs are 1.0 dT and carry 4 passengers who share the revival roll.

There is no functional difference suggested, the ELBs simply take up less space, but have the disadvantage of a shared roll on revival.

IMTU, any berth can sustain life for decades, maybe centuries, but the revival roll gets progressively more difficult.

 

[HG_B]

MGT has them holding 4 people for emergency long term storage. The main difference being that all 4 people share the same survival roll.

 

[BlackBat242]

They way I run them (CT only), the standard Low Berth can operate on automatic... at the pre-set time it begins the revival cycle, which is fully automatic. This is where the standard survival roll comes in.

This is possible because, like Madmax, my standard Low Berth is a "light" version... the occupant's blood is pumped out and chilled separately, to be replaced by a chilling fluid that circulates through his body for the duration of the trip (the chamber also provides external cooling of the body).

At the preset time, the blood is warmed and pumped back into the occupant, replacing the chilling fluid and aiding in warming the body from the inside, while the chamber warms him from the outside. The process takes about 30 minutes.

If there is a medic who supervises the process, then you get the normal positive die modifier (he knows when to over-ride the system and how to adjust the process for the individual).

If the occupant is removed from a functioning low berth in a medical facility* and immediately revived by a medical team, only a roll of exactly 2 (without modifiers) will result in a fatality... any other "failure" result will reflect an injury only (Ref's discretion).

If the occupant is not revived within 30 days, a -1 DM is applied to the survival roll for each additional 5 days spent in the Low Berth**.



Emergency Low Berths have no "preset"... a live person is required to perform the revival (to insure that the occupants can survive if revived).

This is because, again like Madmax, the Emergency Low Berth fully freezes the occupant(s), to insure that they will be revivable even after decades "on ice".

As the Emergency Low Berth does have revival capability (both automated and manually-controlled), the process is fairly straight-forward... if the reviver has Med-1 or less, then the standard survival roll applies, and the positive DM is applied for Med-2+. The process takes about 21 hours (~20 hours to fully thaw the "corpsicle(s)" to +5°C, then 30 minutes more to finish re-heating), and should be monitored throughout for best results.

As the occupants cannot be removed from the Emergency Low Berth until fully thawed, there is no "remove at medical facility" option. The only advantage of performing the "thaw" in such a facility is the ready access to medical aid if an emergency arises (no modifier to base survival, but a separate Med roll is allowed to convert "death" to "injury").

If, however, revival is attempted by a being who cannot (or does not) read & follow the instructions posted on the outside of the berth, then all bets are off, and the Ref is free to assign whatever negative modifiers he sees fit.




* I rule that a standard Low Berth has a removable capsule, with a 6-hour power supply built in.

Emergency Low Berths are also movable, but as all occupants must be revived at the same time, this is normally done only in a purpose-designed facility (large rescue ships normally are so equipped), and all "corpsicles" are thawed simultaneously within the berth (they cannot be removed and thawed outside the berth).


** current technology limits "chilled blood" storage to around 6 weeks, with adverse effects showing up until about 12 weeks, when it becomes completely unusable. While blood can be frozen for longer storage, it is the body tissues that limit the process, as they are less amenable to chilled storage than blood. Thus, there is no need to freeze the blood of standard Low Berth occupants.

 

[HG_B]

** current technology limits "chilled blood" storage to around 6 weeks, with adverse effects showing up until about 12 weeks, when it becomes completely unusable. While blood can be frozen for longer storage, it is the body tissues that limit the process, as they are less amenable to chilled storage than blood. Thus, there is no need to freeze the blood of standard Low Berth occupants.

If I recall CT HG, a person can spend an entire year in the "frozen watch". (Character generation rules)

 

[aramis]

If I recall CT HG, a person can spend an entire year in the "frozen watch". (Character generation rules)

It's not in Bk5 CGen, only in ship building, that FW is mentioned.

They get added to CGen in MT. And in MT, yes, it's spend a year frozen. In CT, however, its undefined.

 

[HG_B]

It's not in Bk5 CGen, only in ship building, that FW is mentioned.

They get added to CGen in MT. And in MT, yes, it's spend a year frozen. In CT, however, its undefined.

Thank you. Yes, the length was 1st defined there. (MT)

In any event, cannon shows that at least a year can be had in a LB.

 

[aramis]

Thank you. Yes, the length was 1st defined there. (MT)

In any event, cannon shows that at least a year can be had in a LB.

It doesn't specify how many cycles; it could be thawed every two weeks for an hour...

 

[HG_B]

It doesn't specify how many cycles; it could be thawed every two weeks for an hour...

Well, I'll go by cannon which has them in there for a year. Absent other written rules data of course.

 

[far-trader]

Of course if you want to go by cannon, you'll lose a lot (16.7%) every time you thaw your frozen watch since HG (2nd print) has no medical personnel to speak of (1) and would default to the crappy Book 2 survival rolls. Right?

(1) Pending errata may correct this by restoring the 1st printing Medical Section. As it stands now though all you have on any IN ship in HG 2 is 1 Medical Officer. Unless you want to lump medics into the "services" section (or rely on a single medic to thaw hundreds of crew in a few minutes), but you can't if you want to go by the literal rules as written In fact the literal RAW in HG doesn't say how often you cycle as Wil pointed out, and the only cannon on it for CT is the Book 2 one or two weeks in lowberth and out you come.

My point is mainly that strict adherence to cannon and RAW leads to silly results. Justifying one bit over another by claiming cannon or RAW adherence is also silly. Make your choice by choice instead.

As for your crew being in lowberths for a year at a time, that seems silly to me except as a punishment detail (which I've used, but it's not really supported). They'll be so out-of-the-loop as to be pretty useless. Even a week or two is gonna require a quick situational awareness brief...

...<THUNK>

FW117 "OW! Hey! Where's the iris hatch that used to be here!?"

AW007 "Oh, that. We sealed that 6 months ago during a quick refit."

FW117 "Well how the heck do I get to my Sand caster turret?"

AW007 "Well it was linked into Sand Battery 3 just after you went into the berth, so your station is now in FDC. Was in FDC, but we swapped the sand casters out for a PA Battery last month, I don't think you're rated for PAWs."

FW117 "Battery? Wait, what's a Pause?"

AW007 "Oh yeah, you missed the overhaul to HG from B1 while you were chillin."

FW117 <consults updates> "So, my B1 Gunnery Skill assignment to Sandcasters is only good for operating Screens now?"

AW007 "Well, you can probably operate lasers and missiles too if the Captain is feeling generous, but not the PA or the rest. Sucks to be you bub."

 

[far-trader]

For what it's worth to the original question I recall a magazine article (MT era iirc) that went into details about lowberths. Broke it down by TL and types.

Low tech were cold berths (freeze them, dangerous) while high tech were gravity manipulated freezing (stop the molecular movement, and restart it later, safer).

Basic lowberths required moderate time and skill to install or revive passengers.

Emergency lowberths required little (or no) time or skill to install, but considerable time and skill to revive.

Also iirc there were Timer lowberths (so named for use by clubs whose members would "time" travel into the distant future) required more time and skill to install and revive, but had better survival and durations, decades and centuries.

 

[aramis]

The Article is in Traveller's Digest.

 

[HG_B]

As for your crew being in lowberths for a year at a time, that seems silly to me except as a punishment detail (which I've used, but it's not really supported). They'll be so out-of-the-loop as to be pretty useless. Even a week or two is gonna require a quick situational awareness brief...

D

Not at all true. Frozen watch pilot: "okay, you're defrosted. We are in the X system regrouping after a battle, here's the summary to read as you head to the bridge." Marine: "Go to your repel borders station. Zho's inbound & looks like we could get cut off and overwhelmed."

Not a problem.

 

[kafka47]

I have overcome that with the use of mindtapes....where a computer feeds news, events, battle readiness into the trooper throughout the "sleep" period. It sounds a bit 40k, I know, but it was a program that was developed to counter use of geneering soldiers for battle (an earlier and despised by the wretched Solomani/Terrans during the IW). These tapes keep the frozen watch always ready for battle. In exchange there is a bonus pay for submitting to such a procedure.

These Emergency Low Berths are located in key areas of the ship and sometimes are hidden from general view. Sometimes, the watch has been waken prematurely these "zombies" or "frozen meat" (as the regular crew calls them) are slow yet when their combat senses are awakened can be quite fast and agile - disorientation from emerging from an emergency low berth is common - hence the need for medics to apply sedatives and other drugs to counteract what has been pumped into the troopers body. All this is part of the SOP of the Third Imperium...

The Rebellion mucked this up quite a bit...as nobody in the Imperial Command was prepared to fight another Civil War. A decision by some was to prolong the duration of the ECB to more than a year but as Commanders were quickly replaced by cadets in the course of the war. More and more of the knowledge was lost in the protracted fighting that was the Rebellion. The Black War saw the return and desire for the Supersolidier - whereby changes were introduced on a genetic level once again. Total obedience to one's faction leader was not unheard of...especially under the pain of execution. And, more and more of the

The New Era which saw hundreds of derelicts and boneyard worlds. Some of these artifacts still contain the EMBs. Emperor Avery of the 4th Imperium has decided to set all these sophonts free. He is opposed to this by the High Command who sees their continued purpose to fight on the wars of the New Era. The outcome is yet to be determined IMTU.