Kaufman/Symphony-Hayes Tube Experiments

Last mod: 7/4/2006

Here's the tentative experiment list, with implementation notes. If it's in bold, it means we're doing it right now; if not, we're probably waiting for some opportunity or holding off while we do other experiments. Contact Hippocrates with any questions, or to volunteer.

1. Test its normal operation--curing someone of Kaufman degeneration
   • Implementation: We need six subjects, each of whom should have some conceptual point of difference. (Examples: Jim is still growing, Sophia is rejuv'd, etc.)
   • Status: Successful: Katya (Incurable condition-mute), Ruehan (Vertaki), Max (Human with alien substat), Akito (still growing), Kye (tech stat), Twig (Brochoah), Sophia (Standard human).
2. Have someone hold out against kaufman degeneration as long as possible, and then throw them in clear instead.
   • Implementation: We need a volunteer. Presumably, they come out in pain and agony for a full run, and then want to go back to Kaufman Degeneration. (I.e., don't volunteer if you'll be particularly sad to be in horrible physical shape for a run.)
   • Status: Volunteered: Sharra
3. Throw in someone who has not-green nanites--Black, Yellow, or perhaps group-mind.
   • Implementation #1: Throw a Black addict in, and they have to roll on the Random Replacement Addiction Table. (We have to generate an addict, which means re-addicting someone on the crew, or else finding someone who doesn't want to be on black.)
   • Implementation #2: Throw a group-mind member in, and see what trouble we get for it.
   • Status: Successful: Cured a White addict. Maury is looking into possibilities with Cain's chimerae, for Yellow interaction.
4. Put a Kaufman Goo I.V. into someone who's in a Clear tube, and let Kaufman and Clear fight it out. OK, what you really have to do is implant them with a little Kaufman Goo Generator. But whatever.
   • Implementation: GMs say: The concept is OK, but it would be good to think of an implementation in the genre of acid races.
   • Status: Successful
5. Contrive some test in which some organs are Cleared and others are left Kaufman-dependent.
   • Implementation: Rig it up and see what happens.
   • Status: Waiting for a chance to implement.
6. Find some tech or psi way to be "fighting off" nanotech while you're in the tube.
   • Implementation: The results are unpredictable. Six people have to endure Disad-of-the-week.
   • Status: I want to save this for the final stress test. Note, that means that the disads will be fierce.

1. Power down the tube with someone in it, and put it through a Mad Science timewarp to verify that it would keep someone safe for 300 years if they crashed on an icy moon.
   • GMs say we could do this, but they've warned me about failure modes, like we just age someone 300 years.

The following are leftover ideas from Green Tube research, some of which might be retooled for Clear if we need them. (Most promising-seeming ones have been re-sorted toward the top.)

1. (Proposed) "Heal Suppress". A riff on the "Few Nannites" concept: Inject people with something that suppresses healing, thus requiring the Kaufman nannites to work overtime.
   • Refrain from other methods of healing (it's a little too much to ask your poor anti-healing nanite to counter all the magic healing powers at the Hippocrates's disposal.
   • Make a batch of healing suppressors. Make a roll with Nanotech and Kaufman Process skill for 12s. Your nanite has this many suppression dice.
   • For each batch of these, treat a Kaufmanized person with the suppressor nanites. (It can be the same person over and over.)
   • The amount of skill you have for your next roll depends on how far damaged you let the person get:
     2) ever so slightly injured
     4) injured
     6) quite injured
     8) nigh unto death
     12) dead
   • Make a roll for 12s, using the nanite's dice and the above amount of skill.
   • Add the successes to your total. You need twelve total.

2. (Proposed) "Disad of the Week": Modify a Kaufman tube(s) to introduce some sort of damaging nannite agent into the mix while healing someone, attempting to exactly balance damage vs. repair. Mechanic: GMs inflict a disad-of-the-week or morph-of-the-week on participants. The peril is obvious, since mad science is inherent in the idea. Might want to save this for the extra-stressy test if it qualifies.
   • Pick a number, N. Pick N random words, using Laura's random-difficult-word generator (add boojum; randomword).
   • Put your volunteer into the Kaufman tubes, and tweak them. Make a roll with Nanotech and Kaufman process for 7s. Tell us if you don't get at least N.
   • They come out with some disads-of-the-week based on the above N words. (the higher the N, the more or more difficult disads). They must go through a run with these disads in order for it to count (if they end up being prohibitive, such as getting the word "decapitated" might be, then you can throw them back in the tubes, but don't get credit for them for that run.
   • Assuming they survive the run: roll N dice with 2N skill, for 12s.
   • Add the successes to your total. You need twelve total.
   • This can be repeated multiply with the same person, or with many different people.

3. (Proposed) Have people wander around in an acutely lethal environment (radiation, vacuum, Vircus, target practice) while hooked up to an IV feeding them Perilous Super Kaufman (PSK) nanites that are trying to keep up with damage in realtime. [Maybe they operate for X time, furiously pumping up your HP, except that they can't be stopped until they expire and it turns out that you pass out/die at double your hit points as well as at zero, or suffer other ill effects.]

4. (Proposed) Put a machine in a tube with someone, slowly beating on them through their whole cycle.

5. (Proposed) Cross-connect the programming on two tubes while they're both occupied; maybe the people will switch shticks or something.

6. (Proposed) An experiment similar to the "different types of damage, different methods of healing". Injuries would (once again) need to be relatively severe, and healing times might have to last up to three months to gather sufficient data.

7. (Proposed) Perhaps all these years, Hippocrates was constantly recompiling because there's a software version of Kaufman Nanites in his system! We could, ah...Kaufmanize other ships or computers. Er, something like that. (Except Sook should have figured this out a long time ago?)

8. (Proposed) A computer simulation based experiment?

9. (Proposed) Something engineering-based?

10. (Proposed) Something about cyborgs?

11. (Proposed) Maybe something that involves more active participation from/peril for the subject, in exchange for less mechanical complexity on the part of the researchers?

12. (Proposed) Different nanites, different tubes.

    • Put someone in a Green tube with a bunch of injuries and a bunch of animal blood or body parts.

    • Take medical sensor readings before and after. (Using Str of Mind with Sensor Ops, perception, Medicine, and nanotech. The sum of the before and after rolls must be at least 12.)
      (If you fail the readings for one of these, you will need to start over with a new volunteer.)

    • Repeat, with Black tube.

    • Repeat, with Yellow tube.

Notes from the initial experimentation stage:

1. (done!) Study Cain's Kaufman nanite variant; attempt to correct nanite senility or prevent nanite evolution.

2. (done!) Analyze data provided by Commodore DunWarwick and Hippocrates on prolonged exposure to Kaufman nanites.

3. (done!) Build a bunch of different sorts of nanite-killer nanites. Proposed types include:
   1. Kills Kaufman nanites by turning them into duplicates of itself. Done: Katya; 2 successes
   2. Kills Kaufman nanites by disassembling them. Done: Martan; 2 successes
   3. Kills Kaufman nanites by jamming their works with specially tailored molecules. Done: Sophia; 3 successes
   4. Kills Kaufman nanites by latching on to them and dragging them into the large intestine. Done: Sharra; 1 success
   5. Kills Kaufman nanites by latching onto a nanite and self-destructing (micro-boom!). Done: Kith; 1 success
   6. Kills Kaufman nanites by capturing them in 'bubbles' tagged with antigens that will trigger a natural immune response to come get rid of them. Done: Max; 2 successes
   7. Kills Kaufman nanites by tracking them down and zapping them with localized bursts of high heat. Done: Ace; 1 success?
   8. Kills Kaufman nanites by releasing chemicals to render the bloodstream an inhospitible environment (e.g. too acidic or basic or something). nanites prepped: they have 2 dice

   Define the type of nanite-killing it does. Make a roll with Nanotech and Kaufman Process skill for 12s. Your nanite has this many Killing Dice. If this was zero, your nanites are too lame to do anything. Try again.

   For each type of nanite, treat a Kaufmanized person with the killer nanites.

   The amount of skill you have for your next roll depends on how far you let the nanite killing process go:

   2) ever so slightly sick
   4) sick
   6) quite sick
   8) nigh unto death
   12) dead

   Make a roll for 12s, using the nanite's Killing Dice and the above amount of skill.

   Add the successes to your total. You need twelve total. Total so far: 12: done!

4. (done!) Healing different races/species.

   • We inflict twelve types of injury simultaneously on representatives of twelve different races or species (half of these must be sentient) and heal them in one or more ways. Possible subjects include Ruehan, Sook, the Tinoori, Maury, Humans, Deciders, Dolphins, Whales, horses, elephants, cows, pigs, sea lions, etc.

     Done: Human (Martan), Brocoah (Twig), Vertaki (Adrian Dalari), Stepchild, Dolphin (Sade), Hive (cow)

     Dolphin volunteer found on Juice. Damage dealers include Kith, Katya, Mirris. --done in run (check w/GMs that it's complete, but I think so)
     Hive cow completed except for data analysis. -- done: 13 successes!

   • Possible types of injury might include bruises (n+STR), burns, poisons (3n+3), bites, blaster damage (2n+5), psionic burnout, infections (3n+3), cuts (2n+STR), frostbite (3n+3), sprains/strains (n+STR), nibbled on by Vertaki, on Emerald/Turquoise (3n+3), broken bones/cartilage (n+STR), psi damage, nanite damage (3n+3), vacuum (3n+3), radiation (3n+3), damage caused by a teleport (3n+3), induce autoimmunity (3n+3), laser burns(?), or other mad science ("I suck all your neutrinos out!") For each type of damage, the person doing the damage should make a series of rolls. For those who already have damage mechanics, use those. For things like "frostbite", make Pre of Mind rolls, and take damage of 3 + 3N. Damage the subject until you get 12 successes, cumulative. If the subject passes out, you can keep experimenting; if he, she or it dies, the experiment fails. If the subject passes out and you inflict more damage after that, there may be longer-term side effects. Feel free to heal between types of damage, as long as some amount per damage type stays around.

     We have found that it is preferable to do the more harmful (larger multiplier) damage types first, starting with frostbite and working down through blaster fire to bruises.

   • Take readings and measurements when they're suffering from all the various conditions.

     You need 12 successes for 7s on Pre of Mind with medical and diagnosis skill; these can be cumulative. Any other diagnosing people can provide helping skill (including Kith & psi). If you get no successes on one of your rolls you mess something up and have to stop for this patient for the day.

   • Heal the subject. This requires appropriate use of whatever skills are needed. While doing so, take a set of readings again.

     Again, Pre of Mind and medical skill to get twelve successes, cumulative; again, if you get no successes on a roll, you mess something up.

     Hippocrates gets seven successes.

     Hippocrates healed Martan with the tubes. He wanted 12 successes to prevent long-term side effects and got 7. People scanned while this happened but no rolls were needed.

   • Crunch the numbers on the data.

     This is a single Pre of Mind roll for 12 7s, using all medical skill, biology, nano skill, and research. If you fail this roll, you can try again in N days when you failed by N.

5. Put dead things in the tubes. This was done; we got zombie Sharras

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