Cyborgs and Exoskeletons

Walks Alone wrote:One thing that repeatedly occurs to me... Emily doesn't regenerate, and is confined to a chair. My question is, why?

It surprises me that she can't have the equivalent of pacemakers implanted in her to regulate her autonomic functions, which is one of the purposes of the chair.

Taking it further, you might be able to have a computer control the muscles or joints and "walk" the body.

Even if you couldn't do that, couldn't you use something like a civilian version of battle armour, under computer control, for mobility purposes.

Finally, how come she couldn't just have artificial nerves bypass the damage?

I sort of suggested something similar but realized that for someone as proud as Emily once was, the idea of walking around like a motorized robot would be sad. And demeaning. She was a graceful performer once.

Walks Alone wrote:

I sort of suggested something similar but realized that for someone as proud as Emily once was, the idea of walking around like a motorized robot would be sad. And demeaning. She was a graceful performer once.

Obviously, I can't speak for someone else, but as someone who is already facing minor mobility issues which are likely to get worse as I get older, I know that I would much prefer to have the option of an exoskeleton 'walker'.

However this is mainly due to most things in our world being designed for people who can walk... whether it be the heights of things supposed to be hand reachable, door widths, steps... vehicles. In the Honorverse this might be less relevant, especially if counter-grav could be used to adjust the height of a chair, and overcome any steps.

Which raises the question of why battle-armour is necessary. Wouldn't it add a lot of complexity and weakness in engineering? Wouldn't some kind of small armed and armoured counter-grav pod be better?

quite possibly a cat wrote:Also combat contra-grav combat units could have trouble with recoil from heavy weaponry or get knocked around easily if hit. I would assume at least some models have built in contra-grav. It would be pretty stupid to sink a thousand feet into the ground because you're too heavy!

Think of how awkward that would be.

Chapter 44 - Shadow of Saganami
Barto Jezic looked around, just a bit uncomfortably, as he stepped into the spaceport hangar and saw the Manticoran Marines strapping into their equipment. It was a clear, breezy evening, a far cry from the rainy night when the police captain's SWAT teams had foiled the terrorist attack on the Macek Avenue Treasury compound, and he felt more than a little out of his depth.
"Excuse me, Captain," a voice said behind him in an oddly musical foreign accent.
He turned and saw a tall, female noncom. He wasn't familiar with Manticoran rank insignia, but she seemed to have an awful lot of chevrons stenciled on the upper arm of her coal-black powered armor. There was something particularly sleek and deadly looking about that armor, he thought, unable to suppress a pang of envy as he considered what his people could have done with it when Nordbrandt and her murderers began their attacks.
"Yes, Sergeant—?"
"Urizar, Sir. Sergeant Major Hermelinda Urizar. If you happen to hear someone talking about 'the Gunny,' that's me."
She smiled, white teeth flashing in a naturally dark complexion which was even more darkly tanned, and he smiled back.
"Captain Barto Jezic, Kornatian National Police." He started to hold out his hand, then paused, glancing at her armor's powered gauntlets, and her smile grew broader.
"'S okay, Captain," she said, extending her own hand. "I've got the governors kicked in. They limit the armor's force levels to what my muscles could do unassisted."
Jezic decided to take her word for it, but it was still hard not to flinch as his hand disappeared into the Sergeant Major's hugely armored paw. To his relief, her grip was no more than firm, and he recovered his hand unmashed.
...
"What we're planning to do, in simplest terms, Captain," Kaczmarczyk said, "is to drop Lieutenant Kelso and her armored people on individual counter-grav. We'll toss them out in a high-altitude/low-opening drop from several kilometers out. They'll freefall towards the installation, using skydiving techniques and their armor's thrusters, and pop their counter-grav at the minimum safe altitude. That ought to put them on the ground, right on top of the the bad guys before they have any idea we're coming.
"Her first objective will be to secure or destroy this structure here." He indicated the stubby, camouflaged tower on top of the hill. "We can't tell whether this tower—it looks like more of a tall bunker, really—is just an observation post, or if it mounts heavy weapons. Since we can't tell for certain, we'll go ahead and be sure it's neutralized, just to be on the safe side.
"While one of First Squad's fire teams takes care of that, her second squad will set up over here, covering the one apparent vehicle ramp we've identified. They'll be dropping in heavy-assault configuration, with maximum firepower and minimum endurance. Hopefully, the entire operation will be over very quickly, but we're bringing in backup power units for their armor and weapons in the event that it turns into some kind of siege operation and they have to stay on site for more than a couple of hours. With the plasma cannon, heavy tribarrels, and grenade launchers they'll be bringing in, I don't think anything's likely to get out of the ramp and away from us."
...
"Now," Kaczmarczyk said, turning back to Jezic and continuing before the Kornatian could thank him for the implied generosity, "once Lieutenant Kelso's on the ground and has the site basically secured, we'll bring in the rest of First Platoon and Lieutenant Hedge's Second Squad. They'll be in regular Marine skinnies, which're probably as good as any of your local body armor, but not anywhere near as tough as battle armor. They'll spread out to take over the perimeter, and Second Squad, as soon as it's been relieved from that duty, will execute the break-in into the underground installations."
...
Captain Tadislaw Kaczmarczyk thrust himself out and away from Hawk-Papa-Two. His external sound pickup was adjusted to its lowest sensitivity, but the ear-piercing wail of the pinnace's turbines was still deafening. For just an instant, the air around him seemed almost calm; then his plummeting body crossed the boundary between the baffles' protective bubble and the air beyond.
Despite his protective armor, he grunted in shock as Kornati's atmosphere punched savagely at him. It was a sensation he'd felt before, although he hated to think what it would have been like for someone without armor.
He flung out his armored arms and legs, simultaneously triggering his suit's built-in thrusters, stabilizing himself in midair. This section of Kornati was virtually unpopulated, an endless forest of virgin, indigenous hardwoods and evergreens, which undoubtedly explained why the bad guys had chosen it for their installation. It also meant there were no artificial light sources below him. He gazed down into a vast, black void—the bottom of the greedy well of gravity into which he'd cast himself—and he could see nothing.
Until he brought his low-light systems on-line, that was.
Instantly, the forested terrain below him—very far below him—snapped into visibility. He was still far too high to make out details, and from his altitude, he seemed scarcely to be moving at all, despite a forward velocity of more than six hundred kilometers per hour. His rigidly extended limbs meant his angle of descent was shallow, and the glowing green crosshair of his objective floated above the horizon line projected across his HUD. The armor's exoskeletal "muscles" meant he could hold his posture forever, despite the clawing pressure of the steadily thickening atmosphere, and he adjusted his position carefully, dropping the crosshair directly onto the horizon line. A soft audio tone confirmed that he was back on trajectory, and he settled down.
Minutes ticked past as he continued to slice through the air, First Platoon's first two squads stretched behind him like some formation of stooping hawks. The ground beneath drew steadily closer, and his speed across it became increasingly apparent. He checked his altitude. It was down to little more than a thousand meters, and the crosshair began to blink—slowly, at first, then more and more rapidly. Another audio tone sounded—this one sharp and insistent, not soft—and he popped his counter-grav.
It wasn't like a standard counter-grav belt or harness. There wasn't room for one of those, or not for one with the power he needed tonight, at any rate. Instead, the backpack harness strapped between his armored shoulder blades popped open. A tether deployed from it, and an instant later, the extraordinarily powerful counter-grav generator at the tether's far end snapped to full power, with no gradual windup.
Kaczmarczyk grunted again, this time explosively, as his airspeed checked abruptly. He swung on the end of the tether, outside the actual field of the generator, and the treetops flashing past below him slowed. They reached up for his boots, but he was coming down far more gradually now, and he checked his HUD one more time.
Right on the money. Good to know I haven't lost my touch.

tlb wrote:If you would read Shadow of Saganami, then you would see marines moving around in combat armor and making a drop on the Kornatian weapons cache. Even On Basilisk Station goes into some detail on the powered armor.

quite possibly a cat wrote:

tlb wrote:If you would read Shadow of Saganami, then you would see marines moving around in combat armor and making a drop on the Kornatian weapons cache. Even On Basilisk Station goes into some detail on the powered armor.

Yeah, I have. You'll notice the lack of built in contra-grav. Not all powered armor has to be identical.

I still think they got absurdly luck with that by the way. The only place five cars were meeting in the woods just happened to be terrorists? Look normally when a bunch of people meet in the wilderness its something like camping or a retreat. And what kind of moron flies a god damn plane to their secret base?

Although to be fair, sometimes the bad guys are really stupid. See: History.

On the plus side, now that the baddies know the Manticorian M.O. they know how to spoof them into doing something moronic next time they start a terrorist campaign.