Accept our Terms of Service
Our Terms of Service have recently changed! Please read and agree to the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy
Demon Cam in the Space Silmarillion
Next Post »
Permalink

The grownups are all very busy, but the children are all bored. 

 

Bored or having nightmares. But Tasárinon was not on a ship and did not see the people dying and has only heard it thirdhand and can't exactly have nightmares about the look in his mother's eyes - well, he probably could, but he hasn't - so he's bored, and he is drawing on the floor. It is an absurdly intricate drawing. He has been embellishing it for three days. 

Total: 1885
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

So he meets him and takes him in to meet the medical team, who promise they've been thinking about nothing but the problem since the Prince Nelyafinwe made them aware of it and should they just dive in?

Permalink

"Yeah, go for it, but mind I have medical background applying to a different species entirely."

Permalink

The most important difference, which becomes apparent after barely a minute of speaking, is that Elves can consciously perfectly regulate most aspects of their body - heart rate, blood pressure within some constraints, pupil dilation - and to some extent need to do this to survive. There are no records of Elves living in a coma for more than a few days; the body just gives out all at once. Putting Elves in comas does not seem feasible, temporarily knocking them unconscious - which was their understanding of Prince Nelyafinwe's orders - is much more tractable. 

The Valar healed most things in Valinor so Cam's medical knowledge will be ahead of theirs in some important respects. 

Permalink

Okay. The drugs thing seems like a risky possible dead end from his preliminary tests, though Cam is happy to test things on basement dwellers if they have promising avenues. Before reasonably safe coma drugs were invented the standard technique to the extent there was one was to compress important arteries with something, then cut the something by saline interpolation after unconsciousness is achieved, which leaves the target with some something in their neck but these days there's this cool material that gets used for stitches that can dissolve in a (human) body... Also he tried painkillers on his basement dwellers and that didn't work that's kind of bad if they're about to be away from their usual healing mechanisms.

Permalink

They are kind of alarmed at the 'compress important arteries' thing but orders were to figure something out perhaps that can be tested. Painkillers probably won't work but Elves can also tell their pain nerves to tone it down to a cool 'something's very wrong' at need. Worth experimenting on, but not as urgent as the coma problem. 

Permalink

Both the coma problem and the painkiller problem are things Cam was investigating under the "what medical kinda stuff might he need to do in an emergency" so if Elves are their own painkillers then yes that is the priority ordering. Well. Here are human coma drugs and how they work on humans and what happened when he tried them on Elf basement dwellers.

Permalink

That's the priority ordering the Prince gave so it's good it's also Cam's. They have some speculations about why he'd have gotten those results but nothing concrete enough that he could make another drug out of them. 

Permalink

Yeah, pharmacological development is not a subspecialty he took up, but he is interested in their theories.

Permalink

And Maitimo comes by a few hours later to ask if they've gotten anywhere and if it'll be helpful for anyone to spend the six weeks building and terraforming a secret planet with Cam. 

Permalink

"We have not gotten much of anywhere and I am not sure whether we ought to expect to," Cam reports.

Permalink

He bites his lip. "Okay. Could you please give people a warning, in that case?"

Permalink

"...a warning that...?"

Permalink

"If you find yourself in a situation where if you had the means to nonlethally stop us all, and you do not have the means to nonlethally stop us all - I have no doubt you could lethally stop us all and it's possible people, knowing that, will be happy to pretend you have safe coma drugs..."

Permalink

"I can probably still nonlethally stop you all it'll just involve something inconvenient like 'now you are all in a bubble of keratin still attached to my hand and I am annoyed'," Cam says.

Permalink

"Oh, good. I'll tell them it makes sense to also have some other priorities, then. That's a thing you can do?"

Permalink

"I am indestructible. I didn't start with wings and a tail, but they too are indestructible as long as I decide they're part of my body. Using bits of fingernail and their indestructibility in this way is my Black Hole Plan and will work for less dire situations."

Permalink

"I am glad to hear it. I thought you might feel more comfortable helping us when you had a reliable means short of murder of stopping us from doing things you dislike."

Permalink

"Yeah, I appreciate that. It doesn't have to be as convenient as mass drugging people to serve the purpose, sorry if that wasn't clear."

Permalink

"I am apparently insufficiently creative about your abilities. I need to amend that. I'm badly needed here or I'd want to go out to the secret planet, I feel like there are probably other things I'm missing that I wouldn't if I got more accustomed to thinking in the terms your capabilities permit. Before you left for Valinor we spoke of ensuring you felt like you could ask questions of us and get true answers without damaging your working relationship here. I still have a great deal of interest in that being true."

Permalink

"Well, if you have an idea of what I'd need to copy to get the Valar's FTL information transfer..."

Permalink

He frowns. "Let me run it by Father."

Permalink

"It'd be very handy! Ansibles!"

Permalink

"How do you have that word, we cannot possibly have the same science fiction... I suppose it'd just need to be a corresponding word... obviously it'd be convenient, it's just not something we'd even know how to approach. But if anyone can do it my father'd be able to."

Permalink

"No, we presumably have totally different science fiction but a corresponding word will do. Summoner doesn't have to know it, either, I get comparable fluency but not their exact vocabulary. Speaking of my science fiction do you also want the entire library of Hell? I won't even have to redact it to keep dangerous summoning-related information gatekept."

Permalink

"I would love the entire library of Hell. I may not have time for much fun reading before the war's over but still."

Total: 1885
Posts Per Page: