Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Life support systems are a basic staple technology of space flight since even its earliest stages. While life support systems in general have not experienced any breakthrough changes in hundreds if not thousands of years, Lucerne Labs took note that several more advanced life support systems such as the Chyrsalis and LS-132 Terra Life Support Systems were making inroads into the galactic scene. While the company board wasn't entirely certain that this was the wave of the future, the possibility of being left behind in this trend led them to authorize the slow development of a more advanced life support system. While the market didn't grow as exponentially as thought, the development continued unhindered at a leisurely pace to produce the Vitae.
Vitae provides all the features of a basic life support system along with a few minor tweaks and improvements. Most of these augmented safety features, with a particular eye towards the possibility of encountering bio-based threats which seemed to be more frequently deployed by authoritarian governments. Vitae also was designed for the diverse nature of its clients, being capable of programmed to support a variety of different atmosphere types, which is particularly important for its mon calamari clients who often prefer more humid and even wet environments compared to galactic standard. In order to increase its appeal though, Vitae also has adaptable programming and materials containers that can hold a variety of gases and liquids for special circumstances or particular needs aside from the basic needs of air and water. Last of Vitae's refinements is the inclusion of leak-seaker balloons into its ventilation shafts, allowing Vitae to automatically act to immediately repair breeches through natural air currents, even if those areas of the ships didn't have any electricity or sensor readings.
Vitae is only marginally more expensive than the typical life support system, making it a likely feature in most of Lucerne Labs upcoming capital ships and larger subcapital ships. However, this system isn't easily retrofitted into existing designs unless that ship has an exceptional excess of space and structural flexibility. Outside of military use, Vitae is most likely going to be popular among vessels that are employed in scouting and disaster relief, where there is a more likely threat of encountering dangerous pathogens.
- Intent:To provide an advanced life support system in Lucerne Labs product line
- Image Source: N/A
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Labs
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi, Closed-Market
- Model: Vitae-class Life Support System
- Modularity: different species/climate settings, different supplemental gases/liquids
- Production: Mass-Produced.
- Material: Calor-series Bio-computers, Biolux series Organoform Circuitry, durasteel gas tanks, ventilation tubing, liquid tanks, valves, and plumbing, air filters, enviro filters, irradiators, water reprocessor, atmospheric reprocessors, automatic ventilation seal-up systems, Leak-seeker balloons, osmotic fields, bioscans
- Capillary Networks: Vitae is a decentralized life support system where a complete circuit of tubing along with an environmental node supplies environmental support to several adjacent compartments. Each environmental node holds gas and liquid tanks, air filters, irradiators, atmospheric reprocessors, and local repair systems. Environmental nodes are then connected through another series of tubing to other environmental nodes supplying different rooms. This provides some redundancy in the ship's life support, ensuring that the entire system can't be destroyed or put off line by a single instance of damage.
- Variable Environmental settings: Vitae can be configured to support a wide variety of atmospheres to make it comfortable for different species or users. This extends not only to different types of gases in different atmospheres, but the temperature and humidity of the circulating air as well.
- Preventative Medicine: Vitae includes several design features designed to improve the health of the ship's occupants. Bioscans and osmotic field generators are located at key junctions of the ship, primarily to monitor for potential respiratory issues such as toxic gases, airborne infections, smoke, and to detect parasites and help contain them. While Vitae does notify the ship's crew of abnormal findings, it also has the ability to react instantly with some of its other systems. Vitae can control the feeding pressure of the ship's compartments, making them positive or negative pressure rooms based on its sensor's finding. It can also route air in that affected chamber directly to the node where it can be rapidly contained, irradiated, and/or filtered in the case of toxins or other dangerous threats. Some users fix have secondary containers which are filled with gases or liquids that can be applied to help deal with such situations, such as different types of disinfectants or quick-acting pesticides.
- Secondary Gas/Liquid containers: Each Environmental node in Vitae has a pair of secondary containers that hold either gas or liquids. In common use, one container is attached to the water reprocessor to release or reclaim moisture. The other container typically holds a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, which has been traditionally used a fire suppressant and common pest poison. This latter gas is rapidly pumped into the appropriate room as needed and then recovered by the environmental node through its filters and stored as needed. However, different users find different uses for these tanks and program the system accordingly. The uses of such a payload are almost as diverse as the users themselves: A prison transport might fill a tank with sleeping gas (in case of a prison riot or attempted escape) whereas a pleasure yacht might have some euphoric gases in case just to lighten up the mood. One mon calamari user is known for filling up both of the tanks in his system with water, allowing him to fill up rooms entirely with water, allowing him to easily work in them while severely hampering any intruders.
- Emergency Sealing: Vitae automatically monitors atmospheric conditions within each compartment of its vessel. If a hull breach is detected, it can seal off atmospheric supply to that compartment to immediately cut down on atmosphere loss. Perhaps just as importantly, each node also has several leak-seeker balloons which automatically drift down ventilation tubes towards the pull of a vacuum, which provides a limited ability to automatically seal minor hull breaches.
- Automatic Safety Features: Vitae provides its using ships with a variety of situational safety features that can make space flight 'more boring'.
- Versatility: Vitae can not only provide life support for a variety of users, but it's secondary tanks gives the user more options than standard life support system.
- Systems Support: Vitae is a bit more complicated compared to many typical life support systems. It is more bulky, which typically means that it can't be retrofitted onto older craft with out a very extensive rebuild (to the point of almost being a new ship). It also requires more maintenance and has a higher upfront cost.
- Complex Systems: As with many technologies, the more complex a system is, the more can potentially go wrong with it. Vitae is no exception to that trend, and it's entirely possible for the system to be turned against its user by attackers (either through hacking or physical sabotage) or be otherwise affected by ways unintended by the users or designers.
Life support systems are a basic staple technology of space flight since even its earliest stages. While life support systems in general have not experienced any breakthrough changes in hundreds if not thousands of years, Lucerne Labs took note that several more advanced life support systems such as the Chyrsalis and LS-132 Terra Life Support Systems were making inroads into the galactic scene. While the company board wasn't entirely certain that this was the wave of the future, the possibility of being left behind in this trend led them to authorize the slow development of a more advanced life support system. While the market didn't grow as exponentially as thought, the development continued unhindered at a leisurely pace to produce the Vitae.
Vitae provides all the features of a basic life support system along with a few minor tweaks and improvements. Most of these augmented safety features, with a particular eye towards the possibility of encountering bio-based threats which seemed to be more frequently deployed by authoritarian governments. Vitae also was designed for the diverse nature of its clients, being capable of programmed to support a variety of different atmosphere types, which is particularly important for its mon calamari clients who often prefer more humid and even wet environments compared to galactic standard. In order to increase its appeal though, Vitae also has adaptable programming and materials containers that can hold a variety of gases and liquids for special circumstances or particular needs aside from the basic needs of air and water. Last of Vitae's refinements is the inclusion of leak-seaker balloons into its ventilation shafts, allowing Vitae to automatically act to immediately repair breeches through natural air currents, even if those areas of the ships didn't have any electricity or sensor readings.
Vitae is only marginally more expensive than the typical life support system, making it a likely feature in most of Lucerne Labs upcoming capital ships and larger subcapital ships. However, this system isn't easily retrofitted into existing designs unless that ship has an exceptional excess of space and structural flexibility. Outside of military use, Vitae is most likely going to be popular among vessels that are employed in scouting and disaster relief, where there is a more likely threat of encountering dangerous pathogens.
