Question Healing Devises

Admittedly we haven't seen to many medically minded devisors/gadgeteers yet, but are there medical devices in the WU that could be compared to say the Stargate Sarcophagus, the Trek Bio Bed, or the Star War's Bacta tank or does the medical community prefer to keep things less exotic?

Jericho's Rafe armor provided a very good medical description of his medical condition, and everyone else.

The cage literally came apart so they didn’t have to move him, and they must’ve had access to some way of opening the armor because the faceplate soon opened. I don’t know how much damage Razorback did to him on a regular basis, but I bet it didn’t include light bleeding from the lip, eyes, ears, and heavy bruising. I listened to the EMTs while they worked, ignoring me hovering over them.

“Hey Bill! The suits got built in health monitors! Look at this!”

“Yeah Jim. Looks like he’s one lucky kid. If these are functioning correctly I’d say he has a concussion and a few broken bones. The docs will have him on his feet in no time.” He plugged some kind of sensor gear into the suit. “DAMN! I’m getting medical stats on everyone in range! All of it! Heartrate, respiration, physical stress analysis, triage, JESUS!”

Jim leaned closer and examined them closely. “They look to be functioning fine. At least they seem to be as near as I can tell from what I’m seeing and what they show. Suit actually came out of it pretty well. A few bad dents and all. Mustn’t have been much fun being in it though.”

Jade's Medical Devises are pretty good too.

While I love Jericho's medical/EMT tech as much as or more than the next guy, I'm pretty sure Cryptic isn't referring to the variety of sensors and scanners and tools that our favorite walking fashion travesty employs so much as a "magic box" kind of healing devise. Something that you can either treat a person with or put them inside and it will not only heal most major kinds of injuries but do so exceptionally quickly as well. Specifically, the devise of choice that you would turn to when Jericho's toys identify a case of "well this doesn't look good."

To answer the question, the only such devise in the WU that comes to mind for me is a non-canon example in Domoviye's "For Master" WhatIF. That one seemed to work rather well for young Glitch, who was in a rather bad way before getting to use it, but came with the side effect of him growing scales in the healed areas. So it definitely wasn't perfect.

To me, the idea of a healing devise makes me think of the doohicky that McCoy used to do internal surgery on Chekov in Star Trek IV - totally non-invasively repairing a torn blood vessel.

While there may be some magic healing devises around, they are bad from a story pov.

One of the things in the Whateley Universe is that being a hero, villain, or even bystander has consequences. If we allow magic Heal Anything McGuffins, this vanishes. By not having any visible, it allows long term injuries. And if we do want someone to get better anyway, we can use a big difficult plot to find the Healing McGuffin.

NeoMagus wrote: While I love Jericho's medical/EMT tech as much as or more than the next guy, I'm pretty sure Cryptic isn't referring to the variety of sensors and scanners and tools that our favorite walking fashion travesty employs so much as a "magic box" kind of healing devise. Something that you can either treat a person with or put them inside and it will not only heal most major kinds of injuries but do so exceptionally quickly as well. Specifically, the devise of choice that you would turn to when Jericho's toys identify a case of "well this doesn't look good."

To answer the question, the only such devise in the WU that comes to mind for me is a non-canon example in Domoviye's "For Master" WhatIF. That one seemed to work rather well for young Glitch, who was in a rather bad way before getting to use it, but came with the side effect of him growing scales in the healed areas. So it definitely wasn't perfect.

It also took a week or so to do it. So not something that would help a lot if time was of the essence.
And the devisors were a bit worried it could start a zombie apocalypse.

I've got nothing against a healing devise or machine as long as it has side affects and/or is rare. If its a case of almost die, get popped into a machine and five minutes later you're healthy it removes some of the danger.
I'd rather have it, "Oh you need some fast healing, it's going to hurt like hell and you're going to be extra weak and fragile for at least a week or two if your lucky. Try not to bump into a table too hard or you'll break your hip." Or have it take a while be very thorough and leaves you at 100% but something bad happens, like an extra head, scales, etc.
It helps mitigate some of the benefits, throws in new complications and gets a character back on their feet if you've bashed them up too hard.

Domoviye wrote: It helps mitigate some of the benefits, throws in new complications and gets a character back on their feet if you've bashed them up too hard.

Something you have plenty of experience with, no?

NeoMagus wrote:

Domoviye wrote: It helps mitigate some of the benefits, throws in new complications and gets a character back on their feet if you've bashed them up too hard.

Something you have plenty of experience with, no?

...
Maybe.
It helps if the characters have regeneration, which is probably why so few of my characters ever get that blessing.

Domoviye wrote:

NeoMagus wrote:

Domoviye wrote: It helps mitigate some of the benefits, throws in new complications and gets a character back on their feet if you've bashed them up too hard.

Something you have plenty of experience with, no?

...
Maybe.
It helps if the characters have regeneration, which is probably why so few of my characters ever get that blessing.

Of course, then once you DO have a character with regen in your clutches, you promptly throw them off of 4 story rooftops...

NeoMagus wrote:

Domoviye wrote:

NeoMagus wrote:

Domoviye wrote: It helps mitigate some of the benefits, throws in new complications and gets a character back on their feet if you've bashed them up too hard.

Something you have plenty of experience with, no?

...
Maybe.
It helps if the characters have regeneration, which is probably why so few of my characters ever get that blessing.

Of course, then once you DO have a character with regen in your clutches, you promptly throw them off of 4 story rooftops...

Hey I was being nice, there was snow at the bottom.
My next couple of characters with regen would practically sell their souls to just jump off a 4 story rooftop.

Beyond the story ramifications of "magical healing boxes"... irregardless of the methods used, we can compare them to a self-driving car in the real world... Would you REALLY want something, that has a set of instructions based on medical science (which is STILL best guess in way too many instances), fiddling around with the things that let you live?

A self-driving car works on a similar principle... they've put in what happens when it runs into (poor choice of words there) the normal things cars can be expected to encounter but it really has issues when it runs into the unknown (other drivers, an airplane landing on its' roof, etc.)... a healing box would have to be made to expect and respond to ALL of the unknowns or it would never be trusted...

Now, does that mean we can't have them? no... it just limits the scope of what they can accomplish... maybe a box that you stick a limb into and it scans and creates a cast around it ... or a military battlefield triage unit that stabilizes the soldier until actual care can be given(yes, getting close to the line BUT they're experimenting with them in real world)

... ... Open the pod bay doors, HAL! *snickers*

Me, I would make it like a tank of exotic fluid where you have to wear a breathing mask and float in it. It would stabilizing someone put into the fluid and help boost the natural healing process. And it would only heal you at the rate of peak human or maybe twice that at best. And if you want to regrow lost limbs, damaged or destroyed organs, it is going to take months at the minimum to do. If not a year or longer for stuff like regrowing an entire lost arm or leg.

NeoMagus wrote: While I love Jericho's medical/EMT tech as much as or more than the next guy, I'm pretty sure Cryptic isn't referring to the variety of sensors and scanners and tools that our favorite walking fashion travesty employs so much as a "magic box" kind of healing devise. Something that you can either treat a person with or put them inside and it will not only heal most major kinds of injuries but do so exceptionally quickly as well. Specifically, the devise of choice that you would turn to when Jericho's toys identify a case of "well this doesn't look good."

To answer the question, the only such devise in the WU that comes to mind for me is a non-canon example in Domoviye's "For Master" WhatIF. That one seemed to work rather well for young Glitch, who was in a rather bad way before getting to use it, but came with the side effect of him growing scales in the healed areas. So it definitely wasn't perfect.

I was thinking of the Star Trek TOS Medical Bay beds that provided the constant medical monitoring.

Thuban's Bioregenetics or whatever the name was was working on the Magic Regen Pill, but I don't think there is a "Autodoc" around, unless some Deviser has one.

Only auto doc type thing i remember was the nano's that helped to turn Whisper into who she is now. And that was part of a US military prototype.

There was the nanites Lady Havoc used to save Al Morgan, which brings up exactly why they aren't exactly comon, other than the devisors not being medically minded, whenever you are dealing with devises there is an inherent unpredictably so you would only use them as an absolute last resort or indirectly, as for devices made by gadgeteers, its probably more of an issue of clinical trials, or if the gadgeteer is high level, production cost and understanding what it's doing.

Dreamer wrote: Me, I would make it like a tank of exotic fluid where you have to wear a breathing mask and float in it. It would stabilizing someone put into the fluid and help boost the natural healing process. And it would only heal you at the rate of peak human or maybe twice that at best. And if you want to regrow lost limbs, damaged or destroyed organs, it is going to take months at the minimum to do. If not a year or longer for stuff like regrowing an entire lost arm or leg.

Why have a breathing mask when you could have them breath the healing toxins through the liquid. There is a substance that allows a person to breath when submerged in it. The only downfall would be after being submerged, taking said individual out they have to cough up everything out of their lungs.

There are a number of liquids that allow you to 'breathe' them, but there are a number of medical problems.

The reason you cant breath water like a fish is you cant extract enough oxygen fast enough. So any liquid that will support more oxygen - enough for your lungs - will work.

But your lungs arent adapted to handle liquids - they act differently inside the lung, and they are much more dense. There were experiments along these lines in the 60'2-70's - if it worked, it would have allowed divers to go a lot deeper - but the side effects were too bad, so they went to exotic gas mixtures instead.

Not that a devisor couldnt make it work (or an exemplar/regen recover from the damage), but why bother when gasses have far less problems?

Astrodragon wrote: There are a number of liquids that allow you to 'breathe' them, but there are a number of medical problems.

The reason you cant breath water like a fish is you cant extract enough oxygen fast enough. So any liquid that will support more oxygen - enough for your lungs - will work.

But your lungs arent adapted to handle liquids - they act differently inside the lung, and they are much more dense. There were experiments along these lines in the 60'2-70's - if it worked, it would have allowed divers to go a lot deeper - but the side effects were too bad, so they went to exotic gas mixtures instead.

Not that a devisor couldnt make it work (or an exemplar/regen recover from the damage), but why bother when gasses have far less problems?

If I remember correctly one of the side affects on the rats they tested was fatal pneumonia as the liquid stayed in their lungs and caused serious infections that were inevitably fatal.

Astrodragon wrote:
Not that a devisor couldnt make it work (or an exemplar/regen recover from the damage), but why bother when gasses have far less problems?

The answer of course to that question is because they are devisors and therefore that devisor's own "devisor logic" may necessitate the use of liquids, or because they can. Devisor logic is like most gravity plating in SciFi or rather the propulsion systems NOT using the same tech to move the ships, there is no reason why it shouldn't be used, logically, but it never is.

One could consider that the complexes of mutants makes the use of quick fix boxes unusable. As what would heal one would kill another.
And any that work on mundanes would have to be a device and probably operated by the deviser. So they wouldn't be anymore useful than a mutant with healing powers but with more restrictions on how it's used.