MAD

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

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 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!

There are 760,000 Australians on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the system that - if they feel like it and your personalised plan says you get to have it - provides funding for everything from personal hygiene care to support workers to therapies to assistive technology. It's already very hard for disabled people to get on the NDIS, regardless of your disability. It's near impossible to access most support and equipment without being on the NDIS. And the government has announced that they want that number to drop to 600,000 in four years. 160,000 of us cut off the Scheme - and countless more denied access. This will cause deaths. People will die and people will suffer because there is no safety net. The NDIS is the only option for most of us. Even private health insurance doesn't cover most of these things. Nobody will swoop in to save us.

The bill wants to give the (non disabled!) NDIS minister basically unlimited power to cut our funding. They're already planning what they'd do with that power. What rights they'll strip from us. What dignity and freedom they'll remove to make their budget look better.

The bill wants to force people to try every treatment out there before they're allowed to be on the NDIS. Including if the treatment is literally impossible to access. There’s a lot of us living in regional areas or out bush who can't just pop to the capital cities for specialists. This will especially hurt disabled First Nations people in regional and remote communities, who already experience limited access to healthcare. Oh, and it includes chemical restraint, too. The government has directly refused to exclude chemical restraint from the required process, calling it "trialling medication".

If you're australian and worried, the ABC did a good breakdown of the proposed changes.

I know australia stuff doesn't really pop up on the radar on this site, but I want everyone to know what's going on. What we're fighting for here. Your australian disabled friends might be NDIS participants fearing for their life, rights, and freedom. They might not be a participant and afraid these changes mean they never will have access. We deserve better. The government built a system with no backup plan, and now they want hundreds of thousands of disabled people to pay the price for their bad planning.

The labyrinth streaches infront of you. You are lost. Which way do you choose?

Go into the light.

To the weird squeaking from the right.

Is someone there at the left corridor?

…are those whispers?

Venture into the dark.

Stay.

Warning.

Lets Venture Forth