Anagathics: dosage amount? shelf life of doses?

[GamingGlen]

So my players found a stash of Anagathics*. Then came up the question of how large a dose is, which none of my Traveller books says. Then it occurred to me that such a large stash might not last those many years to use it all up.

So how much "stuff" is a dose of Anagathics? Right now I'm going with 100 ml per dose.

Does Anagathics have a shelf life? Probably, but what would be a fair length? (be ironic that the drug has a very short shelf life while making human life very long)


* another question arose while writing this: are there other names for "Anagathics"?

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

So my players found a stash of Anagathics*. Then came up the question of how large a dose is, which none of my Traveller books says. Then it occurred to me that such a large stash might not last those many years to use it all up.

So how much "stuff" is a dose of Anagathics? Right now I'm going with 100 ml per dose.

Does Anagathics have a shelf life? Probably, but what would be a fair length? (be ironic that the drug has a very short shelf life while making human life very long)


* another question arose while writing this: are there other names for "Anagathics"?

Being the ref, you get to decide. Especially since you put the drugs* where they could find them.

 

[rust]

So how much "stuff" is a dose of Anagathics? Right now I'm going with 100 ml per dose.

There is probably no "canonical" answer to this, but 100 ml seem
a bit much for what is basically a medical drug, in real life most of
them are much smaller, rarely more than 10 ml when they are in-
gested and rarely more than 5 ml when they are injected.

 

[alex_greene]

So how much "stuff" is a dose of Anagathics? Right now I'm going with 100 ml per dose.

There is probably no "canonical" answer to this, but 100 ml seem a bit much for what is basically a medical drug, in real life most of them are much smaller, rarely more than 10 ml when they are ingested and rarely more than 5 ml when they are injected.

I just had the image of the anagathic being fed to the patient as a drip. Anagathics are usually something that is taken during downtime. Nobody says that anagathics have to look like a small black pill or a derm or a single shot.
For all we know, a dose of anagathic could look like some small, green tentacled thing that latches onto the patient, injects it with the Venom Of Life and then dies; and after the patient hallucinates for thirty hours straight he wakes up and his telomeres have been reset to the physiological age of 21 again. Since the toxin cannot be synthesised or replicated, this could be the only way this drug could be administered.

 

[GamingGlen]

I just had the image of the anagathic being fed to the patient as a drip. Anagathics are usually something that is taken during downtime. Nobody says that anagathics have to look like a small black pill or a derm or a single shot.

At TL 15 it's delivered as a drip? Dr. McCoy was right... savages. :mrgreen:

For all we know, a dose of anagathic could look like some small, green tentacled thing that latches onto the patient, injects it with the Venom Of Life and then dies; and after the patient hallucinates for thirty hours straight he wakes up and his telomeres have been reset to the physiological age of 21 again. Since the toxin cannot be synthesised or replicated, this could be the only way this drug could be administered.

Interesting idea, but think I'll pass on the tentacle thingie. But it does not reset your age to 21, you just do not age more than you already are.

 

[alex_greene]

I just had the image of the anagathic being fed to the patient as a drip. Anagathics are usually something that is taken during downtime. Nobody says that anagathics have to look like a small black pill or a derm or a single shot.

At TL 15 it's delivered as a drip? Dr. McCoy was right... savages. :mrgreen:

For all we know, a dose of anagathic could look like some small, green tentacled thing that latches onto the patient, injects it with the Venom Of Life and then dies; and after the patient hallucinates for thirty hours straight he wakes up and his telomeres have been reset to the physiological age of 21 again. Since the toxin cannot be synthesised or replicated, this could be the only way this drug could be administered.

Interesting idea, but think I'll pass on the tentacle thingie. But it does not reset your age to 21, you just do not age more than you already are.

Well, human anagathics don't ...

 

[rust]

I just had the image of the anagathic being fed to the patient as a drip.

I would imagine a single, monthly depot injection which places
the anagathics into the body where they are slowly absorbed
over the course of one month.

 

[Burocrate]

I know I have seen descriptions of various Anagathics in several incarnations of Traveller. There must be many traveller articles on the topic;

To Live Forever
Immortality in Traveller by Andy Slack
Originally published in White Dwarf 52 - © Games Workshop Limited 1984

Doping the Inevitable. By Philip Athans
published with permission on the Freelance Traveller.com site

[Google-fu; use it or loose it!]

 

[videopete]

I just had the image of the anagathic being fed to the patient as a drip. Anagathics are usually something that is taken during downtime. Nobody says that anagathics have to look like a small black pill or a derm or a single shot.

At TL 15 it's delivered as a drip? Dr. McCoy was right... savages. :mrgreen:

For all we know, a dose of anagathic could look like some small, green tentacled thing that latches onto the patient, injects it with the Venom Of Life and then dies; and after the patient hallucinates for thirty hours straight he wakes up and his telomeres have been reset to the physiological age of 21 again. Since the toxin cannot be synthesised or replicated, this could be the only way this drug could be administered.

Interesting idea, but think I'll pass on the tentacle thingie. But it does not reset your age to 21, you just do not age more than you already are.

Why use a intravenus drip, well its a consistent means of delivering medication, it also requires little to no moving parts, this makes them cheap and easily storable. Why make something more complicated, unless of course you need to be mobile then at that point a belt or arm band sized delivery device can be used ala insulin pump.

 

[alex_greene]

I just had the image of the anagathic being fed to the patient as a drip. Anagathics are usually something that is taken during downtime. Nobody says that anagathics have to look like a small black pill or a derm or a single shot.

At TL 15 it's delivered as a drip? Dr. McCoy was right... savages. :mrgreen:

For all we know, a dose of anagathic could look like some small, green tentacled thing that latches onto the patient, injects it with the Venom Of Life and then dies; and after the patient hallucinates for thirty hours straight he wakes up and his telomeres have been reset to the physiological age of 21 again. Since the toxin cannot be synthesised or replicated, this could be the only way this drug could be administered.

Interesting idea, but think I'll pass on the tentacle thingie. But it does not reset your age to 21, you just do not age more than you already are.

Why use a intravenus drip, well its a consistent means of delivering medication, it also requires little to no moving parts, this makes them cheap and easily storable. Why make something more complicated, unless of course you need to be mobile then at that point a belt or arm band sized delivery device can be used ala insulin pump.

Even if the character has to be put into an autodoc for it, a drip delivered slowly over a period of an hour or two sounds like the most efficient delivery mechanism for a drug which is supposed to have an effect on every single cell of the body.

Think of it as kind of like chemo, only applied to aging rather than cancer cells.

 

[Epicenter]

For purposes of emotional pathos, I prefer anagathics to be a plain, unassuming pill like a modern-day gelcap. You wouldn't know it was anagathics unless someone told you.

Tyvas looked down at the ground where something caught his eye. He kicked it away from the Vargr's outstretched hand. Even in dying, Vuovurr had tried to crawl to shiny foil packet and not his pistol.

Could anything have been more precious than the safety of his sidearm?

As a veteran of the Frontier War, it was hard to imagine. Tyvas bent and picked up the shiny thing and looked at it. The transparent bubble-pack plastic caught the dull light of the yellowing glow-tubes overhead. It was the kind of vaccuum sealed foil packet, the kind you could pick up in any starport concessionary on a thousand different planets. The clear plastic was backed with the heavy foil over most of it, except for the thinner foil in the back where you pushed the pill out of it. In each blister was a semi-transparent amber lozenge, helpfully marked with the manufacturer with one to four tiny dots to keep count of the weekly doses. They looked like pills that everyone took when visiting a new planet to protect against whatever natural diseases they had down there.

Could anything have been worth this?

Tyvas looked at the bodies. It was a clandestine sale of those little capsules, between a seller and lackeys of some noble. Somehow word about it had gotten out, and it was attended by a few such as himself.

Of course it was worth it.

Each of those pills were the key to immortality after all. TL16 universal anagathics? A treasure worth more than all the Iridium in the Imperial Palace.

Tyvas wiped the blood off of the 16-packet and stuffed it into his pocket, took a furitive look around, and fled the area before the INI arrived. It'd be good for four months. Then the dance would begin again.

 

[WoodsWalker]

I recommend a suppository. Okay not really but I recall an article about Anagathics that mentioned that delivery vector.

The only guidance I would recommend is start off with crap drugs that require regular dosages, are expensive and once on them you can't go off. Like dialysis for the immortal. When the tech level goes up things get easier but the really good stuff shouldn't even be available. I mean most people never even hear of them. You have to own a planet before they give them to you. The cost you ask? Why free of course. One little pill a year and that's that. Benefit of being part of the most exclusive club in the galaxy.

It certainly would explain why the 1st Imperium was so culturally and politically stagnant. The same people were in charge for a thousand years and nobody heard about it.

 

[F33D]

The only guidance I would recommend is start off with crap drugs that require regular dosages, are expensive and once on them you can't go off. Like dialysis for the immortal. When the tech level goes up things get easier but the really good stuff shouldn't even be available. I mean most people never even hear of them. You have to own a planet before they give them to you. The cost you ask? Why free of course. One little pill a year and that's that. Benefit of being part of the most exclusive club in the galaxy.

I don't use anagathics. IMTU it is whole body genetic reprogramming. Available only on TL 15 "rich" worlds and requires 6 months of inpatient time. The cost (price may be different of course) is MCr2 in personnel, facility & materials. It resets your age to 25 yrs.

 

[Hopeless]

I pictured this as something as dark as shown in an episode of Babylon V or have the recipient have to enter a suspension cubicle to allow the treatment to work properly keeping the patient in suspension as the process is considerably nastier as lacking such facilities could result in the patient dying because of a lack of suitable medical facilities to help their body cope with the changes the drug imposes as it halts the aging process...

I still think the Babylon V episode makes a more interesting way to handle this! :twisted:

 

[JP42]

Lots of great ideas here, and the best part is - no one of them has to be entirely right. Perhaps it differs by world, by tech level, or any number of variables. Maybe it's a combination of chemo and dialysis, replacing your whole blood supply with red blood cells enriched with the necessary stuff. Maybe it involves being bombarded with some manner of radiation. Maybe it's a naturally occurring plant. Or maybe you can get any one of the three, depending on where you're at in the universe.