Animavitrifier

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Dance, O Freest Aeon

This content is a part of Cosmoria.

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Animavitrifier

Physical and Technical Properties

Inventor

Maya Kalkleteyn

Invention Date

5134 CE

Energy Consumption

Varies by temperature alteration, ~245 kJ per degree C (initialization and reheating)

Energy Output

~99.7% of energy consumption

Major Producers

Planetary settlement corporations, government-backed infrastructure agencies

Major Consumers

Exploration agencies, recreational travelers

Average Price

Somewhat affordable

Mass

~20-30 kG by model

The Animavitrifier is a revolutionary technology, expanding on the field of cryonics established early on in most civilizations' spacefaring eras. It is meant to be an alternative or extra measure to other extraplanetary protective equipment, enabling living beings to walk with their bodies exposed to the atmospheres of much colder planets. While its effectiveness in preventing toxic reactions with incompatible gases is minimal, it allows much more personal contact between several species of differing solvents.

Function

The animavitrifier's primary function is to allow survival in colder atmospheres. Imagine for a second, a planet that is -150 degrees Celsius with an atmosphere rich in nitrogen and oxygen. Generally breathable for a human, but much too cold. Terraformation takes a lot of time and investment, and if there is native life it is an issue of ethics as well. One might adapt to the climate in many ways, but the psychological effects of living somewhere so unsuited to your life are immense. You wouldn't be able to feel the wind on your skin, nor the snows or rain. Not the faint sunlight nor the unique soundscape. Specialized suits take away from that connective aspect, and even one tear in them often spells disaster.

Built off of cryonic technology, the animavitrifier essentially kills its wearer. The main device nodes are placed around the torso at the location of the heart(s) and at the skull nearest the brain stem. This design is modified per species, of course, and several are incompatible with its principles at all. There are dozens of auxiliary nodes connected by tubes to the main back node, which carries the energy needed for a 72-hour activation period and has tanks to be filled with breathable gas. This gas is not always necessary, but it allows further exploration of more foreign planets. Once activated to a set temperature, the main nodes monitor and control vital functions like circulation and brain activity to keep the user conscious and alive.

The nodes placed over the rest of the body have a triple function. First, they are what cools the body evenly. Second, they vitrify the entire body's tissues, preventing it from freezing well below the point it should. The barbs on the inside stick into the skin to prevent any detachments and rapid freezing or necrosis therein. The final function is to supply extra respiration where super-cooled circulation fails. Together, this keeps most of the body in a state of false cryostasis, where muscles and blood are able to move and function as normal far below their normal limits. Excessive strain can cause fiber tearing, though, and a week of rest after a full 3-day animavitrification period is recommended for safe usage. Some find that this strain causes their muscles to grow back stronger, but many have also suffered permanent damage because of overuse.

Other attachments sometimes present include a set of tubes directly inserted into the lungs, allowing gas transfer without needing the mouth to be obscured by a mask. The process of insertion and removal is delicate, and this is a more niche modification. More customization includes differing energy storage units, deeper-penetrating barbs that give a fully breathless respiration through direct blood-gas transfer, and visual attachments that show statistics on heart and brain data.

A thawing process is completed when switched to a higher temperature, and when returned to the normal temperature of the wearer, it jolts the heart and brain before powering off to make sure they do not fail. This does, however, require more energy to be stored in the animavitrifier after the use time is up. Some people have spent too long and not paid attention to this required buffer, perishing as they failed to return to normal before the life support functions ran out of power. A separate battery specifically for this thawing is often included to reduce this risk.

Flaws

The process of freezing one's body with the animavitrifier, as well as the thawing afterwards, makes a person briefly very sensitive to whatever temperature they are in. Chambers in shelters that link up to the temperature and change with the body are common on frontier worlds that use animavitrifier technology, but in their absence it can be extremely painful to activate or deactivate. The thawing in particular is painful, as the body is essentially exiting a state of cryostasis.

Furthermore, the 72-hour limit on most modern animavitrifiers is a tricky time period. It's almost long enough to forget about, and while charging of one's gear while it is active is a possibility, there is only a couple hours past the upper limit that one has to find one of these chargers. Attempts to thaw out without the requisite energy will leave the body in an intermediate temperature and without the final defibrillating shock, giving great risk of heart failure, as well as a sure case of extreme hypothermia. Temperature shock related deaths are almost guaranteed past 20 minutes overtime used.

Energy transfer is done within the animavitrifier by wires, and if any of those are severed, that part of the body is almost guaranteed to freeze and shatter. Sturdier wires and wire coverage can only do so much to mitigate this risk. Some extreme users have implanted the full set of nodes into their body, only leaving a plug on their back for the main chest and brain nodes to attach to. The procedures for this, which do protect against damage that would be inevitable with the injury required to damage the wires anyway, are extremely expensive.

By far the largest functional flaw in the animavitrifier is that it only works in the direction of cold. Silicon-based species that live in relatively frigid temperatures have no use for it, unless they encounter another world even colder than their own. The reactivity of materials is increased with more heat energy, and so a similar technology for heating up an individual's body is an entirely different technological conundrum.

Benefits

The animavitrifier saves lives when a spacesuit might not. A sharp rock might tear a spacesuit and cause someone to be asphyxiated and frozen, but having an animavitrifier on instead of or underneath it removes most of that risk. It allows much more freedom of movement as well, since a specialized protective suit usually involves some restrictions on motion.

For interspecial governmental meetings, the "colder" species' temperature can be used as a default setting, and the animavitrifier allows all members to be fully present without anyone needing to be in a protective suit. This brings more of an air of equality to these events, and allows for much better visual recording of who was present where.

And as many people in the wide cosmos do, some may enter deep relationships with one another. Incompatibilities are common, obviously. The most damning one is usually chemical composition or temperature, preventing all contact no matter how close they might become emotionally. The animavitrifier allows some relief on the front of temperature, giving just a little more hope to the bonds forged between the stars.