salty plains

drawing possibly one of the funniest moments in the book. chain… must chain……. quote below !!!!!

NAOMI KLEIN to SAM ALTMAN:

"...you ingested the entire written output of human civilization without consent, without compensation and without credit to build a system whose primary commercial application is eliminating the jobs of the people whose work you consumed.

All of this is speculation based on Andy Weir's informational document on Eridians.

I've seen some tags and comments and yes, the Eridian system is largely steam-hydraulic, AKA water state change, so Rocky's regimen isn't exactly due to 'muscle atrophy!'

🌟It's kind of worse, it's 'heart atrophy.'

Now, only major blood circulatory issues and injuries are healed during dormancy (sleep), since it's the only time the Hot Circulatory System is cool enough for the worker cells to survive and work in. This is actually what we saw in the book/movie in Rocky's case, during the Tauboeba Incident. That was a special case of healing. For the average eridian, regular sickness and superficial injuries are healed by exercising to move the blood flow along, as opposed to humans resting/ sleeping to recover!

Eridians have two separate blood systems (both containing tens of thousands of blood vessels) :

HCS (hot circulatory system): Thermal insulator, 310 C

ACS (ambient circulatory system.): Contains all the regular worker cells.

And two types of muscles:

Skeletal muscles: The eridian muscles, spongey, full of expandable vesicles that each have a small amount of liquid water in them. Surrounded and interspersed with HCS and ACS capillaries. Performs the main macroscopic movement.

Micromuscles: Valves in the blood vessels that control the blood flow, exists inside the bloodstream. They are powered by microelectric charge from the bloodstream.

How does the hydraulic system work?

The HCS vessels flows and heats up the miniscule amounts of water contained in the structures of the skeletal muscles into a gas, which expands the vesicles. This state change results in ACTION and MOVEMENT.

Flexing: HCS heats up to expand (via steam) and ACS vessels constrict

Relaxing: HCS constricts and lowers the heat back to normal body temperature, steam returns to water, ACS vessels return to normal

Water has a different boiling point under different atmosphereic pressure, so due to long-term exposure to the much lower atmospheric pressure of the hail mary (and 0 pressure for space in general), it's the circulatory systems that go out of whack.

Then what Eridian organs are weakened in space?

Eridians have 5 hearts, each near the major joint of the leg. They not only pump blood along the limbs, but metals that alternate through the body to create a steady electrical charge (energy) for the micromuscles.

Rocky's hearts are the actual organs that are weakening. they're used to pumping the heavy mercury under Erid's intense atmospheric pressure, so they are definitely affected by the gravitational difference in space.

When the hearts weaken, so does the blood flow that maintains the energy required to power the micromuscles, which control the blood flow, which is required for heating water for expanding vescicles.

How would surgery work for inorganic body parts?

They get a soldering iron and go at it /j

Haven’t figured that part out yet (I’m figuring it out as I’m writing this lol). There’s definitely labs where they breed new worker cells to synthesize the inorganic compounds required for the part that needs repair, but the complexity of the reattachment process would take a hell lot of work, especially if it’s fine internal capillaries. Maybe they crack ‘em open like a lobster boil, fix the problem, and reassemble them. While keeping the brain functioning and alive and staving off the automatic worker cell reaction to the intrusion of surgery. Good luck doctors!

TLDR: Eridian muscles require state change, which is affected by different atmospheric pressure. Eridians exercise to heal in general, but Rocky's regimen is mainly cardiovascular exercises, reintroducing the circulatory system to the atmospheric and gravitational pressure on Erid.

Grace's regimen is focused on his muscular system!

THANK YOU @silosene LMAOOOO I totally forgot about Rocky's space being hermetically sealed, mainly because i mixed up atmospheric pressure with gravity like a total grade schooler (I was thinking of the fuel migrating scene during the Taumoeba incident where the intense changes in gravity was putting belt to ass on both Grace and Rocky.) In hindsight idk why it didn't click for me because eridians die if the atmospheric pressure goes anywhere below 19 atm.

Reviewing some canon information

How gravity in space works for eridians from Andy Weir's document.

The Hail Mary's programmed so that its acceleration and deceleration created a gravity 1.5 times of that on Earth during it's journey from Earth to Tau Ceti, so we're assuming it's the same during Grace and Rocky's journey.

Earth's Gravity: 1 g

Hail Mary's Gravity: 1.5 g

Erid's Gravity: 2.03 g

So here are the main sub-saharan animals in the room to address:

1. I sometimes confused gravity with atmospheric pressure. oops 2. Other than the major incidents, the atmospheric pressure of Rocky's space is perfectly normal. 3. The Hail Mary isn't usually under microgravity! On it's journey to Erid, it's at 1.5g, so heavier for Grace and lower for Rocky.

The Edit

Water has a different boiling point under different atmosphereic pressure, so due to long-term exposure to the much lower atmospheric pressure of the hail mary (and 0 pressure for space in general), it's the circulatory systems that go out of whack. The atmospheric pressure in Rocky's space is normal most of the time so there's not much to worry about on this aspect.

Eridians have 5 hearts, each near the major joint of the leg. They not only pump blood along the limbs, but metals that alternate through the body to create a steady electrical charge (energy) for the micromuscles.

Rocky's hearts are the actual organs that are weakening. they're used to pumping the heavy mercury under Erid's intense atmospheric pressure gravity, so they are definitely affected by the gravitational difference in space and on the Hail Mary.

When the hearts weaken, so does the blood flow that maintains the energy required to power the micromuscles, which control the blood flow, which is required for heating water for expanding vescicles.

It should be noted that there's a big difference between the heart adjusting to pumping mercury under microgravity vs. 0.75 the gravity it's used to. So the hearts would not weaken as much, but it will still weaken. So all in all the results are more or less the same? Right answer wrong equation situation happening over here. I could've just skipped over explaining the Hydraulic System, but at least we have a deeper understanding as to how eridian bodies work.

Supplementary Notes!!!

Rocky requires gravity for his entire eating process, which lasts at least 3 hours. There are big problems if the Hail Mary was in microgravity, but it isn't. It's just in a lower gravity than Rocky's used to on Erid. Short term there shouldn't be any problem, but there would be repercussions to 4+ years of incision and healing of the abdomen fissure under lesser gravity.

Grace and Rocky could have averted this problem if they turned on the centrifuge to 2.03 g every time Rocky ate, but it's such a tedious and energy consuming process that they probably wouldn't bother. I don't think Rocky would've noticed the difference in gravity affecting their eating anyways, and if he did he wouldn't be willing to subject Grace to more Situations(even more gravity) than strictly necessary. It's only obvious in zero g because, well, no gravity.

The result is a weaker immune system and a struggle to kill deadly pathogens from his biosphere. Ergo Rocky's immunocompromised, ergo major problems with his digestive system. By the time Rocky actually feels this backlash, which is maybe a couple months until arrival to threeworld, I think he would just power through the pain. Between Grace and Rocky at least one of the two has to be as stable as possible.

TLDR:

Weak hearts (perhaps not as bad as atrophy) due to long-term exposure to lower gravity.

Rocky's regimen is still mainly cardiovascular exercises, reacclimatizing the hearts to gravitational pressure on Erid.

On top of this, due to lower gravity Rocky's ability to open and heal his ventral seal has weakened. That's right folks, Rocky has major tummy aches now.

More or less the same result, just different road as to how we got here. But I'm also finding new and interesting repercussions for Rocky as I figure my way through these hypothetical situations.

Bonus tangent here bc ADHD and also i'm too lazy to make a separate post about it

Went on a dive about the state change of liquids in space and found some interesting stuff. Liquids boils differently in microgravity, in a way that it actually takes much much MUCH more heat for it to actually evaporate. (Bt this point my brain has decided to stop processing any more scientific concepts so apologies for the innaccuracies. a multitude, i'm sure) From what I gather there is no bouyancy and natural convection, so instead of the air bubbles rising into vapor, it just condenses in the center into one large bubble. The evaporation rate in zero-g is much slower, in the way that the boiling point is the same, but water actually enters a super-heated state instead of evaporating. Not sure exactly how it will affect the expansion of the muscles, but my verdict is A Not Good Time. Best guess is the super heated water boils against the vessel walls so there's still expansion, but gas expanding and water expanding is pretty different isn't it? The water probably chafes against the vesicles, slowly wearing away at it (brought to you by that one magic school bus episode on water erosion.) Despite what Weir says about zero-g having less severe problems on eridians, in this case all I would argue that it it would suck more, not less; lots of problems with heat distribution, from overheating killing worker cells to the strain required from the hearts for muscles muscle to body/ vent regulation and whatnot. But this is such a pedantic detail for how Eridians fundamentally function on the Blip-A, and the Hail Mary's journey to Erid isn't even under microgravity anyways, so we can just treat this tangent as a fun(Loud Incorrect Buzzer) thought experiment. Or maybe this is another reason the Eridian crew died off so quickly, the effects of radiations exacerbated by heat irregularity.

Also. Is there a mod that lets you put a Stellar Devourer in your home system? 🤔 without breaking the game, that is?

Eridian speculative biology time!

Erid is a very big planet, very very very big planet, twice the size of earth in fact- and divided by oceans, perfect conditions for populations to remain and develop separately and for long enough to create diferent species. So, unlike us, Eridians are a Polytypic genus: there's more than one species of sapient eridian, All of them sharing a common ancestor in the form of a small, 5 legged ambush-hunter land carnivore, all share common traits taking only slightly different evolutionary paths

Divers- get their name from living in semi-flooded caves, their high small vents allow them to be partially submerged without drowning and their long arms allow them to grip things easily underwater, similar to a sea-horse tail

Climbers- similarly, they get their name from their living enviroment, living in very high caves, their long thin arms allow them to grip and climb very steep rock walls, kinda like goats in a way

Drills and Stompers get their name from the shape of their arms, they both developed closer to the surface compared to the others, their arms are like that for dealing with sandstorms, while Drills "drill" themselfs in place, Stompers use their body weight to keep themselfs down

Blocks are very similar to Stompers, but they live in caves much deeper down, so they're quite compact

Common traits between all species: all Eridians can thrum, all Eridians organize in "colonies" like ants or termites (tho the specifics of how each colony works varies), all Eridians are True Carnivores(can only eat meat) and all Eridians are unisex

In theory any one eridian can procreate with any other eridian, between the 5 species there are 4 fertile hybrids and 3 infertile hybrids posible

note: tho each species has a more broad vague shared culture between themselves, none of them are a monolith, all of them have vastly different culture, language, texture, practices and even phenotypes between different colonies around the world

note 2: the fact humans are a monotypic species (there is only one in our genus) is really fucking weird to them

obligatory grace almost kills rocky scene. they make me ill

NO he doesn’t look anything like rgos but he does have kind eyes. is that not enough?

plus full canvas for those who celebrate ->

no they make things worse (continuation to this comic)

rocky’s been hogging grace’s attention recently so this is deserved //jk

locked in biodome jail HAHAHA

side effect of watching james cameron’s avatar and sharing one very smart brain cell.

no touching happened that day bahaHAHA