Stasis Tube

Description[edit]

A stasis tube is a highly advanced medical device produced by the Magistracy of Canopus with Star League assistance during the height of the Star League era. These medical devices permit the cryogenic freezing of a patient - particularly those with serious illness - so as to allow time for a cure to be discovered. The freezing process takes twenty-four hours, after which the patient exists in a suspended state where they age at a vastly reduced rate: one year outside the tube is equivalent to one day for the patient. Once ready, the patient can be revived safely through a thawing process which requires another twenty-four hours and restored to their original condition. While the technology behind the stasis tube greatly reduces the risk of cell crystallization, there are still dangers involved with the freezing and thawing process, or if the patient is kept in the stasis tube for too long. In the case of a power loss, an emergency thawing process attempts to preserve the patient at all cost.[1]

Stasis tubes represented the pinnacle of the Canopian biomedical industry, but the knowledge behind their construction became lostech after the First Succession War. Many Canopian noble families donated their personal stasis tubes to local hospitals for the greater good afterwards, and Precision Institute of Luxen maintained the ability to produce some of the electronics required for their operation, but the ability to reconstruct the necessary technology to safely freeze and thaw a person remained lost well into the thirty-first century. As such, many stasis tubes are dependent on equipment hundreds of years old, which have increased the dangers naturally associated with cryogenic freezing.[1]

The Clans, descendants of the original Star League army, were able to preserve the technology necessary for stasis tubes and have continued to employ them (albeit sparingly).[1]

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Handbook: Major Periphery States, pp. 185–186: "Stasis Tube"

Bibliography[edit]