Low Berth Maintenance

[EDG]

1) Someone with no skill has the same chance as someone with Medic 0?

IIRC you get an extra -3 if you're unskilled. So it'd be impossible for someone with no skill to succeed here.

2) With those odds, wouldn't it be very rare for someone to use low berth without a Medic 3?

One would hope so!

3) No associated characteristic is mentioned in S&P. Shouldn't there be one?

INT or EDU seems most likely? In which case the DM from the characteristic could mitigate the skill penalties in some cases.

Though I wonder if it'd be better to have it as an "Aiding Another Character" roll, where the person in the low berth is making a STR or END roll as well.


(also, were these rules really not in the corebook? I could have sworn this came up in the playtest).

 

[katadder]

from page 142 of MGT (pocket ed) the check for opening a low passage capsule is a medic check applying the passengers endurance DM anyway so not sure where all these other numbers came from.

 

[Supplement Four]

Yes and no. TNE assumes a "less computerized" version of the universe due to VIRUS.

That's a good point and makes a lot of sense.

 

[alex_greene]

The whole philosophy of the article I wrote is based on a far less computerised, far less mechanised, society and culture, where it really is "all hands on deck," and where the final arbiter is a living sophont, not a machine with a blinking panel.

Nanotech, genetech, drug advances and cryotechnology might advance beyond what we can possibly imagine - even as I wrote the article, medics were coming up with new ideas, such as portable life support machines for kidneys for transplantation; dialysis machines and maternity incubators built from car parts; liquid bone to aid in setting fractures; a laser cast that measures when a bone has set perfectly; and so on - but despite that, the philosophy of Traveller maintains that when all the technology in the universe is insufficient or unavailable, which is far more likely to happen when you're out there on your own, far from convenient repair shops and shipyards, the best and most efficient diagnostic tool you can get still takes the form of a living, breathing, trained physician, and not some damned robot or autodoc.

Even at the highest technology low berths are still the most risky form of space travel, because man was never meant to have his bodily processes brought to a screaming halt, and his bloodstream replaced with antifreeze to prevent ice crystals forming in his body during transit and turning all his internal organs to a thick paste on thawing.

Hence the low berth lottery rules in the core rulebook on p. 142. They could have simply stated something to the effect of "At TL 14+, low berths are completely safe," but what would be the joy in taking all the risk out of it for medic players?

Low berth transit really is a scary option, a fancy version of being locked in a trunk and stowed away in the cargo bay with a blanket and a bottle of oxygen for company, the equivalent of posting yourself to your destination to save on air fares and really just as dumb.

And in ships with lots of low berths, including capital ships with a frozen watch, it therefore pays to have as skilled a supervising medic as you can possibly get on board, to minimise that risk, if not eliminate it completely. That level of skill costs a lot of credits. And it's money well spent.

 

[alex_greene]

An addendum:-

There's a precedent for keeping a human presence fussing over low berths, and not leaving it all to the computer.

Think of what happened to the frozen crew of the Discovery in Kubrick's movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The tech was absolutely safe ... right up until the machine went mad and killed them while they slept.

 

[EDG]

The whole philosophy of the article I wrote is based on a far less computerised, far less mechanised, society and culture, where it really is "all hands on deck," and where the final arbiter is a living sophont, not a machine with a blinking panel.

I suppose you're ignoring the fact that someone in a low berth actually is in a machine with a blinking panel?

I mean, if you're going for that approach then why not dispense with the low berth completely and have the 'hibernation' done solely by drugs? Heck, there's Fast Drug available for 200Cr a dose. It apparently has no fatal side effects, one dose slows the user's metabolism down so much that 1 subjective day is equivalent to 60 days of realtime. The most you need is a medic to administer the right dose (about 1/9th of a dose per jump should do it), and away they go. And it's cheaper than a low berth by several orders of magnitude - even if you include other support factors.

So why on earth would anybody use low berths in the Traveller universe, ever? In an emergency people could just don vacc suits, pop a fast drug, and still be alive when they get picked up months later - you don't even need power on the ship for that.

Seriously - given the existence of Fast Drug, what place is there for Low Berths?

 

[captainjack23]

The whole philosophy of the article I wrote is based on a far less computerised, far less mechanised, society and culture, where it really is "all hands on deck," and where the final arbiter is a living sophont, not a machine with a blinking panel.

I suppose you're ignoring the fact that someone in a low berth actually is in a machine with a blinking panel?

I mean, if you're going for that approach then why not dispense with the low berth completely and have the 'hibernation' done solely by drugs? Heck, there's Fast Drug available for 200Cr a dose. It apparently has no fatal side effects, one dose slows the user's metabolism down so much that 1 subjective day is equivalent to 60 days of realtime. The most you need is a medic to administer the right dose (about 1/9th of a dose per jump should do it), and away they go. And it's cheaper than a low berth by several orders of magnitude - even if you include other support factors.

So why on earth would anybody use low berths in the Traveller universe, ever? In an emergency people could just don vacc suits, pop a fast drug, and still be alive when they get picked up months later - you don't even need power on the ship for that.

Seriously - given the existence of Fast Drug, what place is there for Low Berths?

How long does a dose last ? How many doses can a human tolerate ?

 

[rust]

Seriously - given the existence of Fast Drug, what place is there for Low Berths?

I ran into this problem when I wrote my current setting. Since a low berth
"feels" more like technology and science fiction, and fast drug "feels" more
like a magic potion from a fantasy setting, I decided to eliminate fast drug
from my setting.

 

[EDG]

How long does a dose last ? How many doses can a human tolerate ?

Unclear in MGT.

MGT says that it slows the users metabolism down by a ratio of 60:1. It doesn't explicitly say how long a single dose lasts, but the implication seems to be that one dose lasts 60 realtime days (so is one subjective day per dose).

In Marc's canon (CT book 2, p44), one dose explicitly lasts for 60 days, and an antidote exists that cancels out the remaining effect when taken. (CT book 2 also claims that each Fast Drug dose is 2,000 Cr, not 200 Cr. Whether this is deliberately different in MGT or not, I don't know - it could be, or it could be that someone missed a zero in the description. Either way, it's still a hell of a lot cheaper than a low berth).

I can't find any statements anywhere on how many doses a human can tolerate.


TBH I find it much more believable to have a drug that induces a non-cryogenic hibernation state in humans than technology that turn them into and revives them from frozen corpsicles. The latter has far more potential for permanent cell damage than the former, after all.

 

[alex_greene]

And what's to say that Fast Drug is not part of the standard regime of drugs prescribed for low berth patients anyway (including factoring the cost into the low berth fare)?

Low berths are, in many ways, medical intensive care life support systems retooled for a commercial rather than a primary medical use, namely keeping cheapskate passengers who can't even fork out for Mid Passage and are too lazy for Working Passage quiet and stowed away so they don't use up all the air. They're used for medical purposes only when there's some sort of emergency and other means of keeping patients alive are not available - the captain might have skimped on keeping the medicine cupboard up to date last trip, and there's no Medicinal Slow to hand.

It's not as if you can just nip out to a corner pharmacy while in the middle of Jump space, or exploring the surface of some Tech 0 world back in the Stone Age.

Besides, the point of the article is to present ideas for a medic-themed campaign, in much the same way as High Guard and Mercenary have presented options for things like advanced space combat, capital ship design, mass troop unit movements, ballistic arc fire and so on - they expand upon the core rules but focus the lens on their particular small aspect of the game at the expense of other aspects of the basic game.

The rules I posited expand upon the Medic character, and offer possibilities for a medicine-themed campaign, somewhat at the expense of other aspects of the game such as world building and trade.

If you're satisfied with just the core rules, which mostly just abstract the active role of medics, just go with those rules and leave it to the dice rolls from the core. I believe the main rules on healing and injury are on pp. 73-75.

 

[rust]

TBH I find it much more believable to have a drug that
induces a non-cryogenic hibernation state in humans than technology that
turn them into and revives them from frozen corpsicles. The latter has far
more potential for permanent cell damage than the former, after all.

This was the reason for the second change I made: In my universe low
berths are just life support units which keep people in a kind of artificial
coma, they do not freeze people.

Besides, the point of the article is to present ideas
for a medic-themed campaign ...

And I am very much looking forward to the second part with the medical
equipment.

 

[EDG]

And what's to say that Fast Drug is not part of the standard regime of drugs prescribed for low berth patients anyway (including factoring the cost into the low berth fare)?

Why would they be? Cryogenics would (if perfected) have the same effect entirely on their own (but with potentially more damage and risk to the individual).

Low berths are, in many ways, medical intensive care life support systems retooled for a commercial rather than a primary medical use, namely keeping cheapskate passengers who can't even fork out for Mid Passage and are too lazy for Working Passage quiet and stowed away so they don't use up all the air.

So is Fast Drug - in fact it's specified that it can reduces life support requirements. Fast Drug costs 200 per dose, and that would easily last for a normal jump trip. If you factor in an antidote (let's say at 90Cr a pop, since the MGT cost for FD is a tenth of the CT one) to wake them up before it runs out naturally, then you're still looking at it being a fraction of the cost of a low berth.

Given the margins, why would anyone possibly purchase low berths (which also require regular maintenance, installation etc) for 50,000 Cr each when a bed and a dose of FD and antidote costs about 1% of that? Not to mention the fact that FD doesn't draw power and also takes up a lot less room...

And do note that I'm not having a go at you here regarding your article - it's just a general point regarding something that makes no sense to me in the Charted Space setting.

They're used for medical purposes only when there's some sort of emergency and other means of keeping patients alive are not available - the captain might have skimped on keeping the medicine cupboard up to date last trip, and there's no Medicinal Slow to hand.

True, but chances are the guy's screwed anyway. It doesn't cost much to have some Fast Drug to hand - it does cost a lot to have a low berth available though. Not to mention that out in the field on a planet you can pop a FD pill, and you're not exactly going to be lugging around a low berth in case of an emergency.

 

[Gee4orce]

In My TU Low Berths are routinely safe, and they use drug induced hybernation (not coma or cryogenics). I find it hard to believe that ANYBODY in an advanced civilisation would routinely use low berths if they had an 8% risk of fatality !

(IRL researchers have induced hybernation in mice using, I think, minute doses of hydrogen sulphide, or some other common gas). The hybernation reflex is present but dormant in all mammals I believe.

Normal low berths still require a minimal amount of life support - the sleeper still breaths and metabolises, just at a very slow rate. The main benefit for the passenger is you sleep through the boring journey, and the benefit for the crew is the passengers can be treated almost like cargo, and don't need feeding or entertaining.

Revival from hybernation is as routine as waking up from sleeping, although most people have a raging hunger.

Emergency low berths however are designed for use in situations where there might be no life support available, or the occupants could be hibernating for extremely long times - therefore they cryo-freeze the occupants once they have entered hybernation, so that there's effectively zero life support requirement. Revival from an emergency low berth uses the standard Traveller rules for low berths.

...that's in my Traveller Universe at least.