Sci-Fi Checklist MeMe (sort of)

[binidj]

So we're about 50 years in the future and great strides have been made in computing, space flight and medicine but not in much else. You're on a sub-light spaceship sent through a stable wormhole to explore hitherto unknown planets. What items of personal equipment (ie. stuff you could carry on your person) would you most want to take with you? If you can think of ten items that'd be great but don't feel obligated.¹

In other news:



¹ Regular readers will probably have deduced that this is another shameless attempt to garner 'stuff' for my sci-fi RPG ... please give generously.

Comments

[s0b.livejournal.com]

Computery thingy - like my Treo except more l33t and with direct access to google via the wormhole (so I can look stuff up)

A Big F*cking Gun

A medical implant or box or doohikcy that will monitor my health and provide me with antibiotics, stimulants, painkillers, sedatives, or a combination thereof where appropriate (or where interesting from a recreational standpoint)

Sunglasses providing me with a heads up display and protection for my

eyes
a very sharp knife (because low tech solutions are often the best)

On the subject of low tech, I'd like to be able to make fire without using any electrical gizmo... i think the ubiquitous Zippo is probably as good as it gets

One of those anti-mugging electrical coats that only come in women's sizes, because nothing says "go away" like 40,000 volts

A kazoo

suntan lotion ... if you think about it you *know* it makes sense

a photograph of Elvis "have you seen this man"

and now I have obviously run out of ideas

[anatosuchus.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming that non-personal (i.e. group) supplies will cope with water purification, food, tents/accommodation and so on, and I'm also assuming breathable atmosphere and an ecosystem.

Stout stick (or walking pole)
Waterproof hat with a brim
Decent sunglasses
Large-ish sharp knife
Modest tarpaulin
String
Trauma patches - assuming that leap in medical science.
Multi-tool - A Leatherman, pretty much.
Chemical testing kit - to scan for toxins in the environment.
Rifle - maybe an FN P90 or similarly portable weapon. I don't intend to shoot other folks, but a large predator might need discouraging...

[captainweasel.livejournal.com]

if by On you include In and those medical advances allow I'd say;

.Personal computer doodhickey that has big database of stuff, records audio and video, wirelessly communicates to other devices, that sort of thing. possibly linked into optic nerve/ear so it can record what I see and feed me what it sees.
.Personal defence weapon system. Probably a big chemically propelled pellet job, but could be a chemical laser, micro-missile pod or chemical spray. Perhaps a bit of all the above, just in case. recoil and stuff in space suggests a cold launched mini-missile.
.Device to monitor atmospheric temperature/pressure /chemical composition/radiation/gravity etc and warn of any changes
.similar for body chemistry, probably a worn device that links to a net of implanted biomonitors throughout the body.
.Space suit in case the ship gets fuxored
.Current Swiss army knife / Multitool
.A good knife that can be opened one handed and is bloody sharp.
.First Contact protocols
.Long reel of cable
.Towel

[wulfboy.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Let me see. Presupposing that i have any skills useful in a survival situation ... in no particular order.
1) Medical Supplies
2) Something to drink, probably something I can then put more liquid in later.
3) Some sort of personal secretary computer thing for meking notes and doing calculations, maybe with a database of some sort.
4) A compass. It might be useful but it would be comforting.
5) Something to eat
6) A knife - possibly a penknife.
7) A lighter and lighter fluid for making fire because fire = protection and light.
8) A tent and a *warm* sleeping bag. I can sleep under the sleeping bag if it is warm.
9) A radio of some sort, hopefully with calm-voiced people on the other end of it.
10) A buddy, preferably one who cannot run as fast as I can.

[quintus.livejournal.com]

Now me, I operate on Avon's principle : "I'm not stupid, I'm not expendable and I'm not going..."

Put me down as the geek who stays behind and operates an R.O.V. carrying a suite of microbiological and environmental sensors. Any planet with a breathable atmosphere probably has a biosphere maintaining it and despite the long odds on compatible proteins and sugars (left verses right handed molecules) I don't want to risk getting a bizarre local fungal infection and becoming the mushroom monster from Zarg-9.

Not the answer you were looking for I reckon :-)

[binidj.livejournal.com]

Well it did confirm that choosing to put an ROV on the equipment list was a good idea. =)

[curlwomble.livejournal.com]

1. Protective gear: a sealable environment suit with its own air supply and the ability to use ambient atmosphere with appropriate filtering. Helmet will incorporate magnification, HUD and NV gear and illumination and video recording will be built in to the suit. the HUD will be capable of incorporating data from additional sensor modes such as millimetric radar, sonar and non-visible spectra. Suit filtration systems would reclaim water and be capable of filtering found water to potable standards, as well as crude methanol to fuel cell standards.
   
2. A machete analogue made from tough corrosion-resistant alloy and with short-range locator systems ranging from tritium glow to a PAN triangulator.
   
3. Crash-inflatable tent with environment controls comparable to the environment suit. If you get injured you want to have a place to get treated that isn't the local biosphere.
   
4. Trauma/first aid gear.
   
5. Personal Defense Weapon/carbine + ammo with both dot-sight and electronic rangefinder/HUD interface
   
6. Water bottle and concentrated food.
   
7. Personal electronics to include: PDA (for timekeeping, note taking etc); Personal Area Network (for controlling team equipment); short range and satellite comms; GPS (the survey mothership should seed the nearspace with microsatellites before team insertion).
   
8. Multitool.
   
9. Source of flame. Blowtorch-style butane lighter or zippo. Zippo's more use in a long-term stranding.
   
10. Rope and fixings for.
    
    Electronics gear should be networked and hardened against EMP and intrusion. Power should be fuel cells using something easily distillable like methanol.

[spiraltower.livejournal.com]

Item - Photo of my loved ones back home, to remind myself of the better life we can afford just as soon as I've done this one last mission.

Item - Nice warm jumper. Red.

[rjstra.livejournal.com]

Your looking at three levels of equipment in this respect.

A) Mission equipment - What you need to do your job on the planet
B) Personal maintenance eqipment - what you need to keep you functioning while on the planet
C) Personal survival gear - stuff to survive with between something going wrong and recovery by the mother ship


A is going to contain a weird an wonderful array of stuff but isn't realy relevant here.

B & C will change depending on your environment.

Techwise we are looking at essentially electronics, bio sensors, pharamacuticals, environmental systems and hopefully energy systems.



You'll probably find that most of the gubbins is built into a funky environment suit. So this is item 1
1) Exploration suit.
gastight and elastically pressurised (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_activity_suit). We can therfore use it in space aswell as in not to excessively pressurised planteary environments.
Armoured. Not necessarily enough to stop bullets but certainly capable of protecting the wearer from most knocks.
Internal thermal control, both heating and cooling.
Internal air system using both stored oxygen and whatever free oxygen available. We can even have features to recover exhaled water vapour.
And now the funky electronics.
-Bio-monitoring system to tell whether you're okay or not. Linked to a somewhat expert system to tell you whats wrong with you. Included is a system for provding drugs via a variety of methods.
-Personal navigation system using both whatever form of GPS the mothership can provide and a personal inertial system. Preferably with some kind of automatic mapping capability.
-Lowlight and thermal vision. plus whetever other sensors you can fit in.
-Environmental sensors to determine whether you want to be where your standing. These will cover airborne gasses and partiulates, radiation etc.
-Internal computer to link everything together. Would also provide vast quantities of space for reference material. Displays via HUD and removable wrist mounted screen. Voice and wrist conrtolled.
-Comms system. Voice, data and telemetry to your friends and back to the ship.

Your main issue with the suit is going to be power. With 50 years there will be more power and less drain so hopefully life will be in the days rather than hours field. You could off course rig things so that body movement provides power, though this would require extra food.

What else you have under B is going to depend on how long you expect to be on planet. If its more than a few days though you wont be
carrying it yourself. So let see.

2) Food, water,batteries and possibly air.

3) Shelter system if you're going to be staying over night.

And now for C

2) Additional power system for the suit. Lightweight solar pannels etc.

3) Decent knife

4) Axe

5) Gun

6) Water purification unit.

7) Food concentrate and not all of it dehydrated.

8) Resuce beacon

10) Hand powerable torch

11) Survival kit - You know wire saw, rabbit snares, fishing hooks, flint and steel, condoms etc.

12) Lighter

13) large sheet of high contrast waterproof plastic film. Several uses, emergency shelter, water collector, large I am here sign etc.

14) Ball of fishing line.

15) Spare radio

16) Distress flares

And finally an awful lot of training.