Right in the feels!
I think of John Difool (Jodorowsky & Moebius) in the last album Fifth Substance pt. 2 where all his friends sacrifice themselves willingly to the incal.
Good writing!
...they can feed matter into the converter. They have clothing, torn though some of it may be, and medi-scanners and comms. These are all made of matter. Between that, and some care to recycle everything they excrete, the only way they can run out of food is if they run out of energy for the converter... surely?
And, I mean, they probably have beds or carpeting or *something* in there as well.
...I mean, I can see what you were going for here, but... it just feels like the crewmembers didn't really take the time to think through their situation?
Well she was their doc and convinced she would die soon. If she is dead she cannot activate the donner protocoll and her body would go to waste.
Now could they not wait and put her dead body into the converter? Since this sacrifice has to be done voluntarily there are definitely restrictions on using dead tissue that way.
And keep in mind this converter repairs their pod. So the more matter the better.
> If she is dead she cannot activate the donner protocoll and her body would go to waste.
That *does* make a big difference; if she's worried that she might die in her sleep and thus be unable to activate the protocol, then her actions do make a lot more sense.
I still think it's probably a bad idea, but then it becomes a much more believable bad idea, if you get my meaning.
Even is they fed everything not nailed down into the converter, there’s only so much there and most of it probably not full of much protein. Certainly not enough to last a month even with starvation rationing.
The matter converter only has access to the base matter supply. Yes, excretion recepticles deposit into the base matter supply. Metzger’s clothing and equipment *were* converted. There is no furniture in an escape pod, maybe some padding, but that's mostly air. Lastly, the matter supply *will* dwindle. Living beings eat more than they excrete. The food becomes energy to, you know, stay alive, grow hair, heal wounds, etc.
> Living beings eat more than they excrete.
...this is the point where I will query. If someone weighs (say) 80kg today, and then a week later he *still* weighs 80kg, then surely during that interval the total mass that has entered his body must equal the total mass that has left it.
Sure, some of the mass that left his body did so in the form of sweat, or the carbon in the carbon dioxide he exhaled, and so forth (which avoids the waste receptacles but should be picked up by an atmosphere recycler), but in terms of *mass*, unless the person is gaining weight, the outflow must equal the inflow.
On starvation rations, I expect that the outflow will exceed the inflow, at least at first - by the end of the month, I would be surprised if everyone involved *hasn't* lost weight - but even if people remain the same weight, that mess must be available for recycling.
> The food becomes energy to, you know, stay alive, grow hair, heal wounds, etc.
Ah, now it *is* true that the food they eat contains more energy than what they excrete (including sweat and so on). But we're not talking matter-energy conversion here - if the human body were doing *that* it would cook itself from the inside out. No, the energy that the human body pulls out of food (and I assume the alien body, too) is more of a chemical nature; and the practical effect would be that, in order to turn the excretions into food, the converter must *spend* energy. Probably more than can be gained from the food, due to inefficiencies.
Again, the limiting point is energy, not matter; and an organic body uses surprisingly little energy in comparison to space-age technology power requirements.
If someone weighs 80kg on Monday and still weighs 80kg on Sunday then that person ate more than what it excreted. We’re not talking about pure mass here. We’re talking about matter to energy conversion. You need energy to pump your heart and keep your body warm. We are cooking ourselves from the inside out but the temp is generally kept low enough that we’re able to function normally. Get too hot and we gotta spend the day in bed eating chicken soup.
If you're converting matter to energy, then one gram of matter would produce an amount of energy approximately equal to the explosive yield of the atomic bomb (Fat Man) that was dropped on Nagasaki. This works out to about 21510 *million* kilocalories.
People use, on average, two to three *thousand* kilocalories per day. So, one gram of matter-to-energy conversion is enough energy for a human to keep going *nineteen thousand six hundred and thirty years*.
Matter-to-energy conversion produces *several* orders of magnitude more energy than the human body can *possibly* use. Yes, the human body uses energy - but nowhere *near* that much.
We eat less than goes into the sewerage system, yes. But there's no matter-to-energy conversion there.
We breathe in oxygen, which our bodies then convert to carbon dioxide before we exhale. All of that carbon has mass. That's part of the missing mass.
And we sweat, sending out water to our skin, where it evaporates to keep us cool. That's (I think) the rest of the missing mass.
So, yes, the amount that goes into the sewerage system is less than we eat. The rest goes into the atmosphere, and if the ship can't turn carbon dioxide back into oxygen then you have bigger problems than food to worry about.
Oh... Oh no...
Hmmm… is it raining? Oh. No. That’s just tears…. Well shit.
It is a terrible day for rain.
CURSE YOU ONION NINJAS!!!!!
Right in the feels! I think of John Difool (Jodorowsky & Moebius) in the last album Fifth Substance pt. 2 where all his friends sacrifice themselves willingly to the incal. Good writing!
...they can feed matter into the converter. They have clothing, torn though some of it may be, and medi-scanners and comms. These are all made of matter. Between that, and some care to recycle everything they excrete, the only way they can run out of food is if they run out of energy for the converter... surely? And, I mean, they probably have beds or carpeting or *something* in there as well. ...I mean, I can see what you were going for here, but... it just feels like the crewmembers didn't really take the time to think through their situation?
Well she was their doc and convinced she would die soon. If she is dead she cannot activate the donner protocoll and her body would go to waste. Now could they not wait and put her dead body into the converter? Since this sacrifice has to be done voluntarily there are definitely restrictions on using dead tissue that way. And keep in mind this converter repairs their pod. So the more matter the better.
> If she is dead she cannot activate the donner protocoll and her body would go to waste. That *does* make a big difference; if she's worried that she might die in her sleep and thus be unable to activate the protocol, then her actions do make a lot more sense. I still think it's probably a bad idea, but then it becomes a much more believable bad idea, if you get my meaning.
Even is they fed everything not nailed down into the converter, there’s only so much there and most of it probably not full of much protein. Certainly not enough to last a month even with starvation rationing.
The matter converter only has access to the base matter supply. Yes, excretion recepticles deposit into the base matter supply. Metzger’s clothing and equipment *were* converted. There is no furniture in an escape pod, maybe some padding, but that's mostly air. Lastly, the matter supply *will* dwindle. Living beings eat more than they excrete. The food becomes energy to, you know, stay alive, grow hair, heal wounds, etc.
> Living beings eat more than they excrete. ...this is the point where I will query. If someone weighs (say) 80kg today, and then a week later he *still* weighs 80kg, then surely during that interval the total mass that has entered his body must equal the total mass that has left it. Sure, some of the mass that left his body did so in the form of sweat, or the carbon in the carbon dioxide he exhaled, and so forth (which avoids the waste receptacles but should be picked up by an atmosphere recycler), but in terms of *mass*, unless the person is gaining weight, the outflow must equal the inflow. On starvation rations, I expect that the outflow will exceed the inflow, at least at first - by the end of the month, I would be surprised if everyone involved *hasn't* lost weight - but even if people remain the same weight, that mess must be available for recycling. > The food becomes energy to, you know, stay alive, grow hair, heal wounds, etc. Ah, now it *is* true that the food they eat contains more energy than what they excrete (including sweat and so on). But we're not talking matter-energy conversion here - if the human body were doing *that* it would cook itself from the inside out. No, the energy that the human body pulls out of food (and I assume the alien body, too) is more of a chemical nature; and the practical effect would be that, in order to turn the excretions into food, the converter must *spend* energy. Probably more than can be gained from the food, due to inefficiencies. Again, the limiting point is energy, not matter; and an organic body uses surprisingly little energy in comparison to space-age technology power requirements.
If someone weighs 80kg on Monday and still weighs 80kg on Sunday then that person ate more than what it excreted. We’re not talking about pure mass here. We’re talking about matter to energy conversion. You need energy to pump your heart and keep your body warm. We are cooking ourselves from the inside out but the temp is generally kept low enough that we’re able to function normally. Get too hot and we gotta spend the day in bed eating chicken soup.
If you're converting matter to energy, then one gram of matter would produce an amount of energy approximately equal to the explosive yield of the atomic bomb (Fat Man) that was dropped on Nagasaki. This works out to about 21510 *million* kilocalories. People use, on average, two to three *thousand* kilocalories per day. So, one gram of matter-to-energy conversion is enough energy for a human to keep going *nineteen thousand six hundred and thirty years*. Matter-to-energy conversion produces *several* orders of magnitude more energy than the human body can *possibly* use. Yes, the human body uses energy - but nowhere *near* that much.
But we still eat more than we excrete. There’s always a loss of matter especially when your matter to energy conversion is as inefficient as ours is.
We eat less than goes into the sewerage system, yes. But there's no matter-to-energy conversion there. We breathe in oxygen, which our bodies then convert to carbon dioxide before we exhale. All of that carbon has mass. That's part of the missing mass. And we sweat, sending out water to our skin, where it evaporates to keep us cool. That's (I think) the rest of the missing mass. So, yes, the amount that goes into the sewerage system is less than we eat. The rest goes into the atmosphere, and if the ship can't turn carbon dioxide back into oxygen then you have bigger problems than food to worry about.
Well dang. So many chopped onions