Med-Tube

(Copied straight from .XML 'backup' file, needs formatting and corrections. ZM User (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2024 (PDT))

   This article discusses a subject with undecided "Canon".  The Swarm Cycle writers need to discuss this on the email list, come to a decision, and then update this article to let readers know what Swarm Cycle "true canon" is.

Assembled from various pages, much in discussion phase. Use caution when relying on this information for stories.
(Note that all calls for "Sleep-Trainers" and "CAP Testing Stations" should go here, as a sleep-trainer is a minimal Med-tube and a CAP testing station is a minimal sleep-trainer.) (Also see Medical_Equipment)

A Med-Tube is an enclosed device for providing medical care for Confederacy personnel. The ones we see are all designed for human use so they are shaped and sized like coffins for much the same reason. They contain a bed to lay on and a sealing cover. Since some early users were found to suffer from claustrophobic issues when entering, it has become common to put the patient to sleep immediately upon entering, before closing the lid. The method used has been described as a "neural field dampener".

The med-tubes have been described as "fully automatic doctors" as well as "simple nanite programmers that cannot do anything without an AI driving it". The truth is probably somewhere between. They can inject nanites, re-program already existing nanites, provide raw materials for repairs, remove waste products including heat, and keep a human alive while undergoing repairs to critical systems.

There is a growing body of evidence that, once the lid has closed, the tube fills with a multi-purpose gel or foam that provides nutrients to the nanites and removes all the extra heat that their work generates. It is known that the tubes are space-rated as long as they are sealed; we have several times recovered healthy people from med-tubes from broken ships that were no longer capable of supporting life and had no other live people onboard.

Med-Tubes can be found at every Confederacy facility from small patrol ships to isolated posts. They are a fundamental pillar of Confederacy culture.

Medical Functions

1. Medtubes first treat every appropriate cell w/ telomerase to push back the Hayflick limit and kill off any cancer cells as they are recognized (and, likely, leaving some cancer cell detection nanites floating around);

1. Tissue "creation" may be done by turning off a cell's "specialization", rendering it into a "generic" stem cell, encourage reproduction levels that would boggle the ambitions of even the most aggressive varieties of cancer cells, and re-specialize them as they are placed into the appropriate tissues;

1. The tubes provide power to the nanites as well as using the nanogel "fluid" to transport heat out of the body, ensuring that it doesn't get cooked by the wild-assed cellular reproduction;

1. Mechanical devices-- augments-- may be emplaced -or replicated on the spot- inside a human subject's body;

1. During mechanical operations, a form of nanite-induced cryptobiostasis is induced (see Drexler's book) in order to reduce stress and trauma on the patient;

1. A myriad of precision tractor/pressor projectors line the interior of a medtube to provide positioning, massaging, traction, etc, for the subject within the tube, like when re-assembling arms and legs (or just repairing breaks);

1. Sadly, the rules keep germ cell lines from being replicated, so, once you are in a space battle and lose, say, both testes, you are sterile for the rest of your life, even though the cells producing various hormones will still be around.

Limitations

Med-tubes WILL do certain procedures while fixing the body, including menopause management. This MAY result in reversing the Menopause status and giving a few years (maybe 5 or 10) of viable pregnancies. However it seems to be a SPONTANEOUS reversal in only certain individuals. The younger the patient and the more recent the change, the more likely the reversal. This seems to indicate that certain women had an early onset of menopause this procedure can reverse that.

Ovaries, on the other hand will NOT be replaced, just as testes are not.

Canon is WON'T not CAN'T. Some type of Confederacy morality. Same reason they WON'T reverse completed menopause, even though its possible for them.

Med-tubes cannot "create" living tissue, but can stimulate healing and regrowth.

Variants

   Sleep-Trainers are basically minimal med-tubes that do not fully enclose the user.  They can be used for medical diagnostics and re-programming nanites but they cannot perform repairs or inject new nanites.  They do, however, take advantage of the neural dampener to ensure the user is immediately immersed in the selected training or educational program.
   Sleep-Trainers can be found in almost all Confederacy living spaces, whether permanent homes or temporary barracks.  They are the standard method of instruction for Confederacy citizens. A very incomplete list of sleep-trainer modules can be found here.

   CAP Testing Units are still more simplified sleep-trainers that can only do interactive training or testing. They include the neural dampener but not the nanite programmer.
   One oddity of the testing units is that they are all different.  This is thought to be by design, in an attempt to hide how simple the interface really is and cut down on attempts to analyze how they work.  From the email list 2/9/19:
   "Both med-tubes and sleep-trainers were used to do the first CAP tests simply because they could both do what was needed.  However, both machines include all sorts of things that aren't needed for a simple test.  Besides, the med-tubes require an immense amount of AI support.  The sleep-trainers, too, but not anywhere near as much as the 'tubes.
   Once it became clear that we were going to have to test every human on the planet, machines were set up to do the testing.  The testing stations are as minimal as they can be, simply to minimize the AI support required.  For the brains needed to run four med-tubes, you can run fifty testing stations, right?  They include the mental blanking mechanism, whatever it is, that the med-tubes and sleep-trainers have, as well as the communication and monitoring systems that both have.
   On the other hand, a testing station doesn't need the physical safety field or the nanite reprogramming system or even a bed.  And, since we are trying to keep people from learning anything about the test, we will try to make every testing station different.  The ones in New York's LTI offices look like beds, because they were first.  The ones in Sacramento look like easy chairs.  The ones in Tokyo look like school desks.  The ones in Berlin look like a dentist's chair.  In many stations, there is a helmet or headband or even individual electrodes which attach to the subject's head with wires returning to a 'control unit' as in an EEG unit.  And so on.  Every author will describe them differently, because they ARE all different."
   Since CAP Testers are only useful to determine whether a Human is eligible to emigrate, they will only be found in Confederacy facilities on Earth.  All CAP testing done in Confederacy facilities elsewhere will be done in any convenient med-tube or sleep-trainer.

(Someday this will be a navigation template.  It will provide a bar across the bottom of each article with useful navigation links.  Until then, this is just a placeholder to get rid of all the red "broken link" indicators. -ZM User (talk) 10:00, 3 May 2024 (PDT))