Organic hulls - details?

[Baroun Tardis]

Looking for a sanity check on my detail notes on Organic Hull ships...
Does this make sense? Am I missing what they were supposed to be?

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The hull is multiple layers of hard "shell" with a soft living gene-engineered bacteria between each layer. The bacteria take CO2, break out the carbon and use it to make a shell of long chain nanotubes bound together with plastic (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen ) resulting in a fairly sturdy material
The layering is designed to handle normal spacecraft shock/impacts, but also to deal with heat during reentey
The bacteria will regrow damage to the hull when exposed to normal air and sunlight. In space, CO2 rich air is piped through the layers
There's a basic frame made from polymer with wires, heating elements and light, and pipes for super-moist, high CO2 air to be piped through

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Sure, if you like...

It is not defined exactly, so it can be about anything you like.

 

[mike wightman]

I would try to handwave silica into the mix

Biogenic silica - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Phytolith - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Baroun Tardis]

I would try to handwave silica into the mix

That would certainly explain the portholes/windows.
Thanks for the tip!

 

[Condottiere]

Organic iris valve openings.

 

[whulorigan]

Organic iris valve openings.

Hmmm . . . that sort of makes moving between compartments and exiting the airlock a little unsettling . . .

 

[ThornPlutonius]

Holy Farscape, Batman!

I like the bit about organic ships. Like much else in T5.10, one needs to massage it a bit for personal taste.

 

[Baroun Tardis]

Holy Farscape, Batman!

T5 does make a comment that an organic ship is not nessecarily a living ship, like in Farscape.

There's this blurb about the Biologics skill in T5.10 :
Biologics (Biologic) is concerned with devices based on living matter. Example biologic devices include grown hull panels, interior shock absorbers, water purifiers, carbon dioxide scrubbers, and motion sensors. It includes activities with synthetics (design, build, repair), clones (design, create), chimera (design, create), although it falls short of medicine, xeno-medicine, or veterinary science. Characters with biologics are skilled in the maintenance, repair, and construction of biologic devices.
---- (bold is mine)
I went with that when doing this design, that the hull panels were grown over a more conventional frame, but when damaged would grow back.

 

[Condottiere]

Coral reef skeletal frame.

 

[Baroun Tardis]

Coral reef skeletal frame.

Yeah, basically - build a frame, grow the panels on it

 

[mike wightman]

Coral isn't strong enough - bioengineered coral that includes more silica in its structure would be how I would do it.

 

[Baroun Tardis]

Coral isn't strong enough - bioengineered coral that includes more silica in its structure would be how I would do it.

I'm thinking grab hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, chlorine, nitrogen from the air and sea water and make plastics...

 

[Grav_Moped]

Holy Farscape, Batman!

I like the bit about organic ships. Like much else in T5.10, one needs to massage it a bit for personal taste.

Space Whales.

 

[Condottiere]

Bugs or crabs, or turtles, with external shells.

 

[Captain_Ahab]

check out the old anime 'Outlanders' for organic ships

 

[bookwyrm]

From Star Wars, there are the Yuuzhan Vong who were a 100% bio-technological using race. their capital ships had tough armor and I believe some self repair capability. On the other hand, they have a religious based hatred of mechanical technology. This would be a form of living bio-tech.

Then there are the Zentraedi from Robotech. Their capital ships were able to self repair minor hull damage, and maybe the larger ships up to medium hull damage. The interiors were 'normal' technology. This would be a form of non-living bio-tech, I think.

It's always kind of fun when explorers are investigating a 'living' ship. If the bio-tech is alien enough, you can start the creepy & scary bgm.

I would wonder, how do organic hull types compare to other hull types for defense and protection.

 

[Starglim]

I would wonder, how do organic hull types compare to other hull types for defense and protection.

For bone-like, wood-like or chitinous materials to have comparable properties to steel is probably fantasy. Could a quasi-biological technology base use diamondoid or other exotic stuff? Better than hardtech could? Who's to say, really? We have experience with neither at that level of development.

 

[Baroun Tardis]

I would wonder, how do organic hull types compare to other hull types for defense and protection.

T5 gives them half the armor value that metal has