Getting rid of rad damage?

[Sigtrygg]

Your entire genome is likely a footnote in your digital ID.

 

[Geir]

I never wrote anything on that with the medical nanos, but I would think it would be important enough that someone would have done it - TL13, Cr40K per package - 2d x 10 rad reduction per package?*

*Not an official addendum to anything, but what I would make up on the fly for a campaign if it came up. There'd be a clinic on Efate** for sure.

**(okay, does anyone actually know how that's pronounced - it's a Frenchish name for an island in the south pacific, but I can't do French, other than to assume - probably with less than a 50% chance of being right - that the second 'e' is not silent - though as a far as I know both 'E's are silent and it's pronounced 'Fat')

 

[Sigtrygg]

It's the 57th century, how would the Vilani pronounce it.

Personally I have always gone with eff eight.

 

[agentwigggles]

At that TL who doesn't have their genes sequenced as a routine medical procedure? Most therapies and medicines will be customized to the individual patient.

Folks visting to get the rad exposure taken care of.

 

[Condottiere]

If there are two suns, Ee Fat Major, and Ee Fat Minor.

 

[Arkathan]

Radiation alters the genome. it isn't a tangling issue, it is a break

I never wrote anything on that with the medical nanos, but I would think it would be important enough that someone would have done it - TL13, Cr40K per package - 2d x 10 rad reduction per package?*

*Not an official addendum to anything, but what I would make up on the fly for a campaign if it came up. There'd be a clinic on Efate** for sure.

**(okay, does anyone actually know how that's pronounced - it's a Frenchish name for an island in the south pacific, but I can't do French, other than to assume - probably with less than a 50% chance of being right - that the second 'e' is not silent - though as a far as I know both 'E's are silent and it's pronounced 'Fat')

Google wants to use Haitian Creole and says it is OO-feight

 

[WHULorigan]

**(okay, does anyone actually know how that's pronounced - it's a Frenchish name for an island in the south pacific, but I can't do French, other than to assume - probably with less than a 50% chance of being right - that the second 'e' is not silent - though as a far as I know both 'E's are silent and it's pronounced 'Fat')

I don't do French either, but I think the final "-e " is virtually silent unless it has the accent to make it vocalized "-é ".

" ef- FAT " would be my guess.

 

[J. L. Brown]

MTU I'd let it be removed if the PC had their genome sequenced before the damage. Elsewise what are you restoring to.
And id make the same tl as synthetic anagathics. As for me at least this would reset your telomeres and reverse a lot of aging.

MTU I can see most militaries doing it, the scouts. Though I wouldn't deny it to any character if the player can just tell me where and why it was done.

Assuming any cells at all are intact, you could read the genetic sequence (and epigenetic factors) from multiple cells, and use that consensus information to do the corrections. Medical nanites (TL 13+) should be able to do this pretty easily.

For medical approaches, there are several options.
1} Thermal-shock proteins that function to (provided the critical structural amino-acid residues of the target protein have not been altered) reconfigure proteins which have been knocked out of shape & become non-functional. In base-line humans, they do a mediocre job -- but I can easily envision TL-8+ medicine being able to deliver mRNAs for those proteins (signifcantly modified for better function) to cells in a living being.
2} Chelating agents can lock up & assist in removing specific substances from the body.
3} Some types of genetic damage can be detected and corrected (single-strand breaks, Thymine dimers, etc) without having to know the original code.
4} Anti-oxidants and similar substances could neutralize / stop on-going damage from a variety of free-radicals,

I am sure there are others, as well -- but I really love the 'stand next to a nuclear damper' approach. I could absolutely see a TL-10 (Early Prototype -- 20 dTons, 100 MCr, +two disadvantages) or TL-11 (Prototype -- 10 dTons, 50 MCr, +one disadvantage) 'medical' version being part of a well-equipped medical facility.


[Edit: I have always pronounced it 'Ee-fayt'. No idea what the correct pronunciation is. /Edit]

 

[Limpin Legin]

Radiation alters the genome. it isn't a tangling issue, it is a break

Radiation sickness means there is a higher risk of a break, but does not guarantee a break until clustering is too high. The body can repair at lower Rads:

DNA damage
Exposure to high doses of radiation causes DNA damage, later creating serious and even lethal chromosomal aberrations if left unrepaired. Ionizing radiation can produce reactive oxygen species, and does directly damage cells by causing localized ionization events. The former is very damaging to DNA, while the latter events create clusters of DNA damage.[38][39] This damage includes loss of nucleobases and breakage of the sugar-phosphate backbone that binds to the nucleobases. The DNA organization at the level of histones, nucleosomes, and chromatin also affects its susceptibility to radiation damage.[40] Clustered damage, defined as at least two lesions within a helical turn, is especially harmful.[39] While DNA damage happens frequently and naturally in the cell from endogenous sources, clustered damage is a unique effect of radiation exposure.[41] Clustered damage takes longer to repair than isolated breakages, and is less likely to be repaired at all.[42] Larger radiation doses are more prone to cause tighter clustering of damage, and closely localized damage is increasingly less likely to be repaired.

Acute Radiation syndrome (aka Radiation Sickness) via Wikipedia.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I never wrote anything on that with the medical nanos, but I would think it would be important enough that someone would have done it - TL13, Cr40K per package - 2d x 10 rad reduction per package?*

*Not an official addendum to anything, but what I would make up on the fly for a campaign if it came up. There'd be a clinic on Efate** for sure.

**(okay, does anyone actually know how that's pronounced - it's a Frenchish name for an island in the south pacific, but I can't do French, other than to assume - probably with less than a 50% chance of being right - that the second 'e' is not silent - though as a far as I know both 'E's are silent and it's pronounced 'Fat')

Yeah, I figured it was a maybe since medical nanos can heal and environmental nanos can remove damaged and irradiated things. btw. This should be an official addendum.

 

[Arkathan]

Radiation sickness means there is a higher risk of a break, but does not guarantee a break until clustering is too high. The body can repair at lower Rads:

Acute Radiation syndrome (aka Radiation Sickness) via Wikipedia.

Point being, you need something to rewrite the genome back to its initial state, not changing the expression of now flawed genes.

 

[Condottiere]

You'll have to look up your health insurance policy.

Likely covered for the bureaucracy, military, and megacorporations.

 

[Limpin Legin]

Point being, you need something to rewrite the genome back to its initial state, not changing the expression of now flawed genes.

Damage can occur naturally in small amounts, even without radiation energy, and is typically recoverable. The original poster mentioned 60 rads as the focal point of the question, which is a modest yet notable amount. It is when at higher doses, exceeding 400 rads, clustering of damage effects becomes more common and, as you say, is irreparable, unless DNA samples were somehow preserved before the incident, for comparison.

 

[Arkathan]

This is the totality of my argument: When we are talking about resetting the rad exposure of a person, the only option you have beyond listed rad meds is somehow rewriting the DNA to a pre-exposure level. That is all I am injecting into the conversation here.
Regardless of the source, damage not repaired by meds must either be rewritten, killed off and cloned from undamaged adjacent cells or monitored for cancerous mutations. That latter choice does not reset the rad damage.

 

[Geir]

This is the totality of my argument: When we are talking about resetting the rad exposure of a person, the only option you have beyond listed rad meds is somehow rewriting the DNA to a pre-exposure level. That is all I am injecting into the conversation here.
Regardless of the source, damage not repaired by meds must either be rewritten, killed off and cloned from undamaged adjacent cells or monitored for cancerous mutations. That latter choice does not reset the rad damage.

That is a good point... anything that can 'fix' radiation damage after it's set in would probably also be related to something that could reset aging, and we don't have any regenerator juice, just ways to stop aging. So TL13 is probably too low. TL17? And a long adventurous hunt for the early prototype (or just plain prototype on Vincennes)
And don't want to hijack the thread but back to F8, um Efate - Travellermap has the primary as F8 V - true, or jokey? Because the wiki has it as K4 V, as does the Spinward Campaign from 1985.

 

[CordwainerFish]

There'd be a clinic on Efate** for sure.

**(okay, does anyone actually know how that's pronounced

I pronounce it 'F8'. But then I pronounce Dpres 'diapers'.

 

[agentwigggles]

That is a good point... anything that can 'fix' radiation damage after it's set in would probably also be related to something that could reset aging, and we don't have any regenerator juice, just ways to stop aging. So TL13 is probably too low. TL17? And a long adventurous hunt for the early prototype (or just plain prototype on Vincennes)
And don't want to hijack the thread but back to F8, um Efate - Travellermap has the primary as F8 V - true, or jokey? Because the wiki has it as K4 V, as does the Spinward Campaign from 1985.

Thats why I said it'd be at the level of synthentic anagathics.

 

[NOLATrav]

Or Skorkowski’s way, ee-FAH-tay.

 

[MasterGwydion]

That is a good point... anything that can 'fix' radiation damage after it's set in would probably also be related to something that could reset aging, and we don't have any regenerator juice, just ways to stop aging. So TL13 is probably too low. TL17? And a long adventurous hunt for the early prototype (or just plain prototype on Vincennes)
And don't want to hijack the thread but back to F8, um Efate - Travellermap has the primary as F8 V - true, or jokey? Because the wiki has it as K4 V, as does the Spinward Campaign from 1985.

Something tells Me that repairing aging will be far easier in real life as We expand in TLs versus in a game world where one of the most restricted things has always been anything that can give "immortality" or extended life span. Likely this will occur long before TL-15, but My guess is the writers of Traveller wanted Traveller and not 40k. lol. In the end human bodies are just machines and every part of a machine can be replaced once you know how. Heck, with genetic engineering you can probably just turn off the genes that are responsible for controlling when our natural regeneration process slows. That is likely not too far off in the future, but it doesn't really fit in with Traveller's Charted Space setting.

 

[Vormaerin]

That is a good point... anything that can 'fix' radiation damage after it's set in would probably also be related to something that could reset aging, and we don't have any regenerator juice, just ways to stop aging. So TL13 is probably too low. TL17? And a long adventurous hunt for the early prototype (or just plain prototype on Vincennes)
And don't want to hijack the thread but back to F8, um Efate - Travellermap has the primary as F8 V - true, or jokey? Because the wiki has it as K4 V, as does the Spinward Campaign from 1985.

I can't find any source for the F8 V data. I don't see any stellar data in the various adventures that take place on Efate or otherwise reference it. So the only thing in print that I can find is the K4 V from Spinward Campaign.