The Suit and I
Some people don't think that there's a man underneath the suit. Or at the most, he's only half the man he was - organic limbs lost to synthetic ones, a pulse replaced by an electronic shock to the heart to create a beat, blood no longer fabricated by my own body but specifically engineered and held in containers to be pressure-fed into the systems that require the fuel. The truth of the matter would come as a surprise to those people, however.
Underneath the impenetrable, I am a whole man, and along with being a whole man comes being a whole human being with all the functions, products, effects; all the desirable and disgusting. I sweat, eat, shit, breath, stretch, bend, break, grind, salivate, leak, dry out, grease up, and just about any other function you probably do yourself.
No, I do not break down nutrients by shooting out an enzyme-degrading biochemical that I then soak up through tubes or synthetic pores or vacuums and then have them direct-fed to my bloodstream. I did not have surgery to bypass my rectum by connecting my feces recepticle to my lower instestines. I am not pressure regulated by a computer-set rhythm so that my lungs may be forced to pump, nor do I carry around an air-take because my lungs cannot/do not/will not function. I've even heard of rumors where the upper layers of my skin were replaced with a specially-designed fabric that allowed the sweat glands to secrete in a more pure form, or a unique gel was constantly administered so that my skin would always be constantly moisturized - never too dry and never too oily. Or some similar bullshit.
The truth is that I interface with my outter skin as much as you do in your buttoned suit, or track suit, or battle suit (to which the engineers that designed my personal armor had a proficient amount of expereience in), or mascot costume, etc. The giant cartoon that cheers on your favorite sports team sweats as much as I do into their shell, and just like most of you I do not go to sleep in my clothes.
I am not one with my suit: it is a part of me. I had to deal with it and it has to deal with me. I show it care and it takes care of me. I have to run tests and check-ups on it, and it shows me my vitals. I pour waste into it in one form or another, and I have to clean it out. It's a relationship, like you and your car, or your computer, or dog, or wife, or sibling maybe, or your neighborhood: give, receive, be cheated, be disappointed, and praise it - all in the same lifetime.
Internally it is pressure, temperature, and humidity regulated. I have air reserves if I ever need them, but they don't last forever. I breathe the same air that you do, only that if it has to be cooled, pressurised, and dehumidified for me to maintain as comfortable as possible, then it will be processed as such. Jump into the next mascot costume you come across. I recommend the chicken ones - plenty of plastic feathers. Good. Now, are you wearing a sweater under there? No? Good. Go find your arctic weather suit and make sure you've got that, a scarf, a hat, goggles, 3 pairs of thick socks, gloves, and thermal underwear on. Now put the chicken suit back on. Walk around for a while. Welcome to my suit. Only mine is heavier if you didn't have the artificial muscle system online. But it's just as hot: it's a different atmosphere inside than it is outside, completely. Some people just don't get that. If I draw my air from your breath, then it must be the same atmosphere we both breathe, right? Wrong. I breathe in the same O that you do. The rest of the inside might as well be in the chamber that houses the gases below old faithful.
You used to be able to see old faithful as a tourist attraction. I'd never been there, but it was surrounded by a large USA-gov't park - lots of trees and wild animals. The only reason it might be a tourist attraction these days is the ruins of a land that used to be - and could be, maybe, in the future. Keep hoping and waiting. Ysomite'll come back. Yeah, once the radiation dies to a livable level. How long? Keep listening to the promises they keep: you'll live a happier life.
I sweat a lot regardless. The suit can only have so much shit crammed into it: there isn't a whole lot of space you are afforded until it just becomes too bulky to move, and then you're buying into maneurverability, fluidity of motion. There's a balance. People think i'm perfect because I can't be shot. If I get shot with an X megaton whatever, trust me: i'm dead. Small calibre weapons I can take in moderate amounts, it's true. That is, after all, what the suit was made for (aside from being made for me, of course). I can take 2 or 3 high-calibre artillery shots, granted that they are on the right spots, but beyond that the crater in my chest will be big enough to where systems will stop operating right, malfunction, shut down, or simply fuck me up. If that doesn’t happen, then even a punch to the chest might kill me beyond that.
The company that made it patented the whole thing, and went through a few prototypes. At the end, they did deliver a finished product. Mark I - 1 for you idiots who don't know history or arn't classed enough to count I's past the number 3. So it was Mark 1, the first of it's kind. They've come out with more marks after that one was made - sometime a whole suit, sometimes pieces that would be interchangable with the previous mark - and i've since integrated all the marks. Some upgrades were better than others, and i let 'em know. They love me, too: They try out their tech on me, and since i'm in the thing almost every waking our, I really get to know the pieces and tech and shit all around and on me all day. So I give them feedback. I work with them. It's not a one-way street either: the more they help me the more I help them, then I get a new product, and the cycle happens over again. I'm their best test subject for their ideas. They did base mark I (i'm back to numerals - deal with it) on current battle armor tech of the time, but my job was to push that far beyond even the technology's next phase. My idea was to make it perfect. Of course, it never will be, so we make it as good as possible. We're getting pretty good at that too.
The actual materials and layers are thus only known to a handful of people. But this is just between you and I, isn’t it? I wont give the whole magic trick away, but I’m sure most of you’ll be plenty satisfied with what detail I will go into. I wear magnetically-attached patches of dense fabric on my armor - it’s the last layer I wear if I wear it at all. “But if they’re magnets all over you, then all your electronics would be fucked! And what about EMPs? Your suit ain’t shit after all, huh?” some of you would say. The cloth that is attached by magnets are done so by tiny magnets, and there is a layer in the armor that negates EMP effects. It’s TS, and I can’t comment on it at all. The rest of the canvas, nylon, etc. patches are attached via Velcro, buttons, zippers, sticky surfaces, etc etc. The list goes on and the list always changes as they try new stuff out and swap new versions of new armor out with the old versions. Regardless the cloth is somewhat low on the list of their priorities. The entire point of the cloth is basic: to protect from minor scratches and stains. So yes, in the end, I actually do get to have a sense of fashion aside from the one chosen for me. I get an exciting chose of basic colors: red, blue, yellow, and green. If I’m going to be in a situation where I could, at any point, have a bigger stain on me, then a basic plastic coat can be worn over the armor and fabric patches. Now that’s the extreme externals. The outer layers of the actual suit itself are many. The gloss you see is due to a thin plastic layer that can be easily peeled off and reapplied, as well as a varnish that is applied to the first actual defensive layer at the end of their production process. From there is a series of ballistic, ceramic, and other layers that defend against any threat. The ceramic material is situated between layers of differing baslitic-absorbing materials, and absorb any non-kinetic, non-electronic energy - mostly temperature related threats. There is only one ceramic layer, and it’s because it is very good at doing what it was meant to do. Like every single material and layer they are the epitome of technology and are very good at their job, as well as being as lightweight as possible. Below all this crap that actually helps me survive is all the crap that actually allows all the first layers of crap to exist and be supported: the largest skeletal system of the whole suit, the electronic systems, and the life-support systems. Below that is the shit I interface with, and below that is me. Anyway - that’s enough secrets for now.
So I sweat (yeah I sidetracked. I'll polish this later - i'm not a writer here, it's just a journal). The reason I mentioned my suit doesn't have every single bell and whistle imaginable is that that air-monitoring system I just mentioned is damn thorough - just not very fast. When i've been sitting on my ass for hours on end, lets say im on a trip somewhere, and then I break straight into a full sprint and manage to keep that up for a a decent amount of time, the air doesn't cool fast enough, doesn't vent the heat my body's puming out and wash me over with cold air as quick as i'd like. It does it fast enough, but it still gets stuffy in there.
Manage to understand that and you might even wonder where all that sweat goes. The intelligent or experienced would realize that the internal side of my suit must be padded to some extent, and if you can manage that then you'll also come to the conclusion that I either have to clean out the suit, as I sweat directly onto said padding, or I sweat onto some other surface/fabric and that is sepereately cleaned. Hell, it may even be removable so that I can chuck it in Joe "Buddy" McNeighbor's centrivical clothes washer he's got in his bathroom, garage, or out back. You'll have to make up your mind on that one.
Anyway.
All this just adds to my previous argument: the suit, and thus part of me, is not perfect.
Earlier I mentioned an artificial muscle system. I do not push the suit. I do not even wear the suit. The suit and I coexist together. It is heavy. Without muscular amplification my body would be crushed under the weight of the suit. If I wasn't lucky enough to have my nervous systems severed or my heart squeezed into the shape of your morning pancake when I was pulverised, then i'd break most of my bones and be left helpless in an asymetric, crippled mess that would probably, after a few minutes of being squashed, be composed of a more jam-like subtance than anything remotely solid.
This intricate (I will not lie), complex, and difficult system of force amplification is electronic, pressure, and magnetically propulsed. It's basis is the multitude of directions, in the form of motion, that the human body can produce because of it's muscles. Our muscles move us, and thus the motions from those muscles are what tells the suit to do - where to go, how strong, how far, twisting or bending in what manner and so on.
There was an easier, and far more complex way. A painful and life-altering surgery could create a middleware that would allow the nervous system to interface in a much more direct manner with the suit. From the nerves to the wires to the computer to the wires to the engines in the suit, all the way to motion. The responses are more accurate, faster, and are indefinately more rare in misrepresnting the motion or malfunctioning. In the end however, this was not the best option. The company didn't want to risk it on me, and I agreed with that decision. If I soldier needed the suit for a one-time mission, or only a few missions in their career, then the surgery was deemed too risky, not to mention the maintinance required to upkeep and monitor that new nervous system would not be worth the military outcome. If I had had the surgery, and lived through it, then the multitude of side effects alone would be enough want me to scratch my eyes out. Everyone knows what an itch feels like, and a lot of people know what radiation burn, or hell even sunburn, feels like. Some of you've been burned by fire, or fried by electricity. Combine all that shit. Now get it throughout every cell, tissue, organ, fluid, and secretion in your body and you've got nerve-fallout. The soldiers that need the ultra-quick and accurate responses that this operation provides calls this feeling a number of things. The big burn, the hells, the big freeze, devil's posession, bodystorm (from lightening storm), etc. Some are more embarassing to hear/speak/write than others, some more colloquial, and so on. Military jargon's always been colorful. For short, my end usually calls it 'Nerving out'. I don't get it any more. I used to when I had a small-scale surgical operation a long time ago for some basic devices at the time, but the outting was bad enough for me to head straight back to the clinic after my first lovely experience. I've had the rare occasion to talk to fielders that do fulltime operations requiring the operation for suit-use. Big bulky things. They say they get the 'burns' at least twice a year. Some say more, but I wonder if they're bragging, which makes me wonder if the onces that say twice a year are telling the truth at all as well. Once was enough for me thanks.
I've gone on long enough about that bit though. And for that matter, i've gone on quite a bit. I'll let my mind settle into another mode so that I can get another perspective on all this - help you better understand it. Whoever 'you' may be. Whoever happens to read this all, I guess.
Underneath the impenetrable, I am a whole man, and along with being a whole man comes being a whole human being with all the functions, products, effects; all the desirable and disgusting. I sweat, eat, shit, breath, stretch, bend, break, grind, salivate, leak, dry out, grease up, and just about any other function you probably do yourself.
No, I do not break down nutrients by shooting out an enzyme-degrading biochemical that I then soak up through tubes or synthetic pores or vacuums and then have them direct-fed to my bloodstream. I did not have surgery to bypass my rectum by connecting my feces recepticle to my lower instestines. I am not pressure regulated by a computer-set rhythm so that my lungs may be forced to pump, nor do I carry around an air-take because my lungs cannot/do not/will not function. I've even heard of rumors where the upper layers of my skin were replaced with a specially-designed fabric that allowed the sweat glands to secrete in a more pure form, or a unique gel was constantly administered so that my skin would always be constantly moisturized - never too dry and never too oily. Or some similar bullshit.
The truth is that I interface with my outter skin as much as you do in your buttoned suit, or track suit, or battle suit (to which the engineers that designed my personal armor had a proficient amount of expereience in), or mascot costume, etc. The giant cartoon that cheers on your favorite sports team sweats as much as I do into their shell, and just like most of you I do not go to sleep in my clothes.
I am not one with my suit: it is a part of me. I had to deal with it and it has to deal with me. I show it care and it takes care of me. I have to run tests and check-ups on it, and it shows me my vitals. I pour waste into it in one form or another, and I have to clean it out. It's a relationship, like you and your car, or your computer, or dog, or wife, or sibling maybe, or your neighborhood: give, receive, be cheated, be disappointed, and praise it - all in the same lifetime.
Internally it is pressure, temperature, and humidity regulated. I have air reserves if I ever need them, but they don't last forever. I breathe the same air that you do, only that if it has to be cooled, pressurised, and dehumidified for me to maintain as comfortable as possible, then it will be processed as such. Jump into the next mascot costume you come across. I recommend the chicken ones - plenty of plastic feathers. Good. Now, are you wearing a sweater under there? No? Good. Go find your arctic weather suit and make sure you've got that, a scarf, a hat, goggles, 3 pairs of thick socks, gloves, and thermal underwear on. Now put the chicken suit back on. Walk around for a while. Welcome to my suit. Only mine is heavier if you didn't have the artificial muscle system online. But it's just as hot: it's a different atmosphere inside than it is outside, completely. Some people just don't get that. If I draw my air from your breath, then it must be the same atmosphere we both breathe, right? Wrong. I breathe in the same O that you do. The rest of the inside might as well be in the chamber that houses the gases below old faithful.
You used to be able to see old faithful as a tourist attraction. I'd never been there, but it was surrounded by a large USA-gov't park - lots of trees and wild animals. The only reason it might be a tourist attraction these days is the ruins of a land that used to be - and could be, maybe, in the future. Keep hoping and waiting. Ysomite'll come back. Yeah, once the radiation dies to a livable level. How long? Keep listening to the promises they keep: you'll live a happier life.
I sweat a lot regardless. The suit can only have so much shit crammed into it: there isn't a whole lot of space you are afforded until it just becomes too bulky to move, and then you're buying into maneurverability, fluidity of motion. There's a balance. People think i'm perfect because I can't be shot. If I get shot with an X megaton whatever, trust me: i'm dead. Small calibre weapons I can take in moderate amounts, it's true. That is, after all, what the suit was made for (aside from being made for me, of course). I can take 2 or 3 high-calibre artillery shots, granted that they are on the right spots, but beyond that the crater in my chest will be big enough to where systems will stop operating right, malfunction, shut down, or simply fuck me up. If that doesn’t happen, then even a punch to the chest might kill me beyond that.
The company that made it patented the whole thing, and went through a few prototypes. At the end, they did deliver a finished product. Mark I - 1 for you idiots who don't know history or arn't classed enough to count I's past the number 3. So it was Mark 1, the first of it's kind. They've come out with more marks after that one was made - sometime a whole suit, sometimes pieces that would be interchangable with the previous mark - and i've since integrated all the marks. Some upgrades were better than others, and i let 'em know. They love me, too: They try out their tech on me, and since i'm in the thing almost every waking our, I really get to know the pieces and tech and shit all around and on me all day. So I give them feedback. I work with them. It's not a one-way street either: the more they help me the more I help them, then I get a new product, and the cycle happens over again. I'm their best test subject for their ideas. They did base mark I (i'm back to numerals - deal with it) on current battle armor tech of the time, but my job was to push that far beyond even the technology's next phase. My idea was to make it perfect. Of course, it never will be, so we make it as good as possible. We're getting pretty good at that too.
The actual materials and layers are thus only known to a handful of people. But this is just between you and I, isn’t it? I wont give the whole magic trick away, but I’m sure most of you’ll be plenty satisfied with what detail I will go into. I wear magnetically-attached patches of dense fabric on my armor - it’s the last layer I wear if I wear it at all. “But if they’re magnets all over you, then all your electronics would be fucked! And what about EMPs? Your suit ain’t shit after all, huh?” some of you would say. The cloth that is attached by magnets are done so by tiny magnets, and there is a layer in the armor that negates EMP effects. It’s TS, and I can’t comment on it at all. The rest of the canvas, nylon, etc. patches are attached via Velcro, buttons, zippers, sticky surfaces, etc etc. The list goes on and the list always changes as they try new stuff out and swap new versions of new armor out with the old versions. Regardless the cloth is somewhat low on the list of their priorities. The entire point of the cloth is basic: to protect from minor scratches and stains. So yes, in the end, I actually do get to have a sense of fashion aside from the one chosen for me. I get an exciting chose of basic colors: red, blue, yellow, and green. If I’m going to be in a situation where I could, at any point, have a bigger stain on me, then a basic plastic coat can be worn over the armor and fabric patches. Now that’s the extreme externals. The outer layers of the actual suit itself are many. The gloss you see is due to a thin plastic layer that can be easily peeled off and reapplied, as well as a varnish that is applied to the first actual defensive layer at the end of their production process. From there is a series of ballistic, ceramic, and other layers that defend against any threat. The ceramic material is situated between layers of differing baslitic-absorbing materials, and absorb any non-kinetic, non-electronic energy - mostly temperature related threats. There is only one ceramic layer, and it’s because it is very good at doing what it was meant to do. Like every single material and layer they are the epitome of technology and are very good at their job, as well as being as lightweight as possible. Below all this crap that actually helps me survive is all the crap that actually allows all the first layers of crap to exist and be supported: the largest skeletal system of the whole suit, the electronic systems, and the life-support systems. Below that is the shit I interface with, and below that is me. Anyway - that’s enough secrets for now.
So I sweat (yeah I sidetracked. I'll polish this later - i'm not a writer here, it's just a journal). The reason I mentioned my suit doesn't have every single bell and whistle imaginable is that that air-monitoring system I just mentioned is damn thorough - just not very fast. When i've been sitting on my ass for hours on end, lets say im on a trip somewhere, and then I break straight into a full sprint and manage to keep that up for a a decent amount of time, the air doesn't cool fast enough, doesn't vent the heat my body's puming out and wash me over with cold air as quick as i'd like. It does it fast enough, but it still gets stuffy in there.
Manage to understand that and you might even wonder where all that sweat goes. The intelligent or experienced would realize that the internal side of my suit must be padded to some extent, and if you can manage that then you'll also come to the conclusion that I either have to clean out the suit, as I sweat directly onto said padding, or I sweat onto some other surface/fabric and that is sepereately cleaned. Hell, it may even be removable so that I can chuck it in Joe "Buddy" McNeighbor's centrivical clothes washer he's got in his bathroom, garage, or out back. You'll have to make up your mind on that one.
Anyway.
All this just adds to my previous argument: the suit, and thus part of me, is not perfect.
Earlier I mentioned an artificial muscle system. I do not push the suit. I do not even wear the suit. The suit and I coexist together. It is heavy. Without muscular amplification my body would be crushed under the weight of the suit. If I wasn't lucky enough to have my nervous systems severed or my heart squeezed into the shape of your morning pancake when I was pulverised, then i'd break most of my bones and be left helpless in an asymetric, crippled mess that would probably, after a few minutes of being squashed, be composed of a more jam-like subtance than anything remotely solid.
This intricate (I will not lie), complex, and difficult system of force amplification is electronic, pressure, and magnetically propulsed. It's basis is the multitude of directions, in the form of motion, that the human body can produce because of it's muscles. Our muscles move us, and thus the motions from those muscles are what tells the suit to do - where to go, how strong, how far, twisting or bending in what manner and so on.
There was an easier, and far more complex way. A painful and life-altering surgery could create a middleware that would allow the nervous system to interface in a much more direct manner with the suit. From the nerves to the wires to the computer to the wires to the engines in the suit, all the way to motion. The responses are more accurate, faster, and are indefinately more rare in misrepresnting the motion or malfunctioning. In the end however, this was not the best option. The company didn't want to risk it on me, and I agreed with that decision. If I soldier needed the suit for a one-time mission, or only a few missions in their career, then the surgery was deemed too risky, not to mention the maintinance required to upkeep and monitor that new nervous system would not be worth the military outcome. If I had had the surgery, and lived through it, then the multitude of side effects alone would be enough want me to scratch my eyes out. Everyone knows what an itch feels like, and a lot of people know what radiation burn, or hell even sunburn, feels like. Some of you've been burned by fire, or fried by electricity. Combine all that shit. Now get it throughout every cell, tissue, organ, fluid, and secretion in your body and you've got nerve-fallout. The soldiers that need the ultra-quick and accurate responses that this operation provides calls this feeling a number of things. The big burn, the hells, the big freeze, devil's posession, bodystorm (from lightening storm), etc. Some are more embarassing to hear/speak/write than others, some more colloquial, and so on. Military jargon's always been colorful. For short, my end usually calls it 'Nerving out'. I don't get it any more. I used to when I had a small-scale surgical operation a long time ago for some basic devices at the time, but the outting was bad enough for me to head straight back to the clinic after my first lovely experience. I've had the rare occasion to talk to fielders that do fulltime operations requiring the operation for suit-use. Big bulky things. They say they get the 'burns' at least twice a year. Some say more, but I wonder if they're bragging, which makes me wonder if the onces that say twice a year are telling the truth at all as well. Once was enough for me thanks.
I've gone on long enough about that bit though. And for that matter, i've gone on quite a bit. I'll let my mind settle into another mode so that I can get another perspective on all this - help you better understand it. Whoever 'you' may be. Whoever happens to read this all, I guess.