random ponderings

[Intensity Angel]

I would certainly. I wouldn't be able to cope with indestructibility.

[Shades]

I'm not sure if this has been brought up yet, but I've been thinking on something I've seen in various bits of fanfic- Scarlet's ability or lack thereof to get drunk.

Some stories have it that he can, others that he can't, one I remember where he could and could will himself into sobriety, and others where he can, it just takes something 99-proof and in a 1L bottle for him to become pleasantly mellow.

Just throwing this idea out from the position that it's very hard for him to get drunk (and I'd say his tolerances would have been quite reasonable in the first place, being a soldier) Because alcohol is an irritant and dehydrates you, his body would try metabolise it as soon as possible. What if his system was distracted with something else (like a shot-glass full of salt) that it had to deal with before it could get a chance to deal with the three pints of beer that followed? Would that let him get drunk?

I guess this could also bleed over into his job. Would his recovery be affected differently if his body was given one hairy problem that it had to deal with before it had a chance to deal with a second? For example, being injected with cyanide before getting shot/thrown off a tall building? Or would his body multitask?

[Sage]

Good point.
I think he probably can't get drunk, at least to the staggering about word slurring extent. Or at least wouldn't stay intoxicated for long. For the average person alcohol is damaging the body and the liver processes it. So with a faster metabolism anyway his body would just do that more quickly.

It might work a little to add some distraction to the mix, but have you consumed salt straight up? If anyone wanted to get drunk that badly they'd regularly subject themselves to that then I think they have a whole other problem. So I doubt he'd even bother, doesn't seem worth it.

I doubt that tolerance is related to a career; there are other factors involved, and that drinking would be prohibited (or greatly restricted) on base so that would reduce their consumption and tolerance anyway. Considering their need to be on alert the majority of the time I shouldn't think any of the captains would drink much anyway, they couldn't afford to be recalled to duty while staggering drunk or hungover.

From what I can recall of canon he very rarely [if ever] suffers a single injury, so yes it seems natural his body would multi task as it was just used to it.
Your mileage may vary though, and there's no set standard for what he would recover from first. That's the fun of writing and conjecture. If your beta buys a theory then you're good to go.

[Captain Indigo]

Or would his body multitask?

A man multitasking? A curious idea .

I'm with Sage on this one - he'd be able to recover from it, but it would probably take longer than normal, which would give some lovely drama in the Amber Room.

The cyanide is an interesting choice though, and you've now got me wondering whether he would recover from that at all, purely because of how it works...

Blast it.

[Shades]

That's why I picked cyanide, because what it and other toxins do to the body is so radically different in effect to the trauma that he usually receives.

@sage- I have, but I'm of Dutch extraction, so it probably wasn't as bad I've done some studying up on British SAS, which I imagine Scarlet's 'special ops' being, if not closely based upon, and anecdotally, they seem to have not a drinking culture, but regularly going out to the pub or whatever's on hand with their unit for more male bonding sort of things.

[Mary]

We LOVE when our writers do their homework!

As you have probably seen in your research, Shades, the US Special Operations Forces (not just the "Special Forces" aka the Green Berets), SAS et al really aren't as Hollywood paints them to be. Their missions are usually more of the coordination and support variety nowadays rather than the more well-known spectacular raids. It comes as a surprise to many that the majority of special ops troops have stable family lives with spouses and children, unlike the borderline-psychotic loner often portrayed in the movies. But, when one thinks about it, that's exactly what their line of work requires: someone who can be counted on to do the right thing when they're supposed to.

I suggest you also read the novel Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy. It's the story of a multinational special ops force called "Rainbow" with its headquarters in London... hmm, where have we seen that before...? It gives some great insights into the off-duty lives of the members as well as the action.

A side note - you said in your reply "@sage- I have, but I'm of Dutch extraction, so it probably wasn't as bad". While I'm sure Sage knows what you meant, not everyone else who reads this sentence will. Please remember that these are public discussions and others read this thread too. It's considered good form to quote text when you reply to someone so everyone can follow the thread easily. I know many of us are guilty of just replying without quoting, but it's annoying to have to keep looking up at the previous one or more forum posts to see what is being discussed. Since you're new, this is not meant as a criticism, just an observation.

[Shades]

It's considered good form to quote text when you reply to someone so everyone can follow the thread easily. I know many of us are guilty of just replying without quoting, but it's annoying to have to keep looking up at the previous one or more forum posts to see what is being discussed. Since you're new, this is not meant as a criticism, just an observation.

Ah, sorry. Different forums different ettiquette.

I suggest you also read the novel Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy. It's the story of a multinational special ops force called "Rainbow" with its headquarters in London... hmm, where have we seen that before...? It gives some great insights into the off-duty lives of the members as well as the action.

Oh yes, I've read it, and like you said it's such a help and insight into how both sides operate. Great source material

Something I've been wondering about with Scarlet though is the effect of when he'd last eaten on recovery time.

Also, it takes a great deal of energy to recover, so would something like a glucose injection or glucagon (used by diabetics when they're hypoglycemic, makes the liver dump all it's glucose into the system for an instant sugar jump) be useful in shortening recovery time for those 'we need him awake to tell us what happened yesterday' situations?

[Captain Indigo]

Something I've been wondering about with Scarlet though is the effect of when he'd last eaten on recovery time.

Also, it takes a great deal of energy to recover, so would something like a glucose injection or glucagon (used by diabetics when they're hypoglycemic, makes the liver dump all it's glucose into the system for an instant sugar jump) be useful in shortening recovery time for those 'we need him awake to tell us what happened yesterday' situations?

I've wondered the same thing, and have WIP (that some people have seen) where I actually mention this problem. I think that Scarlet's body will naturally store up enough glycogen to last for a couple of revivals, but more than that would start to cause serious problems.

Because of this, I think a glucagon injection would be useless, mainly due to my theory that it's the glycogen that fuels the recovery anyway. Glucuse infusions, however, would be an extremely good idea if there's trouble.

For those who haven't studied higher-level biology, a quick explanation:

After you eat, your blood-sugar goes up and your pancreas releases insulin. This prods your liver into transforming the sugar (glucose) into glycogen, which is stored until you need it.
When your blood-sugar levels drop, your pancreas releases glucagon* - basically the opposite of insulin - which tells the liver to turn the glycogen into glucose, giving you more energy.

* glucagon has to be one of my favourite names for a hormone, purely because it's so descriptive - 'glucose gone'
Yeah, I'm a weird biology student.

[MMK]

* glucagon has to be one of my favourite names for a hormone, purely because it's so descriptive - 'glucose gone'
Yeah, I'm a weird biology student.[/color]

If only I had thought of that when I was studying biology! .... it would've made life so much easier
(I'm a weird ex-biology student )

[Captain Indigo]

Tell you what - I've never forgotten it. I'll probably never need to know it again either. Now, if only I could remember exactly what the spleen does again...

(I know, I know - we're off topic. Sorry )

[Shades]

What about chilli? I can't remember the exact name for whatever chemical it is that makes chillis hot, but would Scarlet's retrometabolisim give him 'fireproofing' and let him eat more, or conversely make him more sensitive as the overloaded/damaged cells and nerve endings are repaired/refreshed to experience the burn all over again?

[Captain Indigo]

ROFL - what a thought! Would certainly make curry nights interesting.

In all honesty, I'm not sure how capsaicin (the active ingredient) works on the body so I'd have to look into it before giving you a decent answer. It might take me a while as I've got a test on Thursday that I feel I should actually revise for if I wish to pass this year.

A little later...

Okay, now I grasp the mechanism a little better, I'd say (as a preliminary biological finding) it wouldn't be any different for Scarlet than it would for anyone else for the immediate exposure. He's unlikely to have trouble with the carcinogenic properties, however.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin

Of course, it could make for an amusing scene in a story somewhere if you decide differently. There are no right or wrong answers when it comes to retrometabolism - we're all guessing, and we don't all have the same opinion on things.

[Shades]

ROFL - what a thought! Would certainly make curry nights interesting

Indeed I got the idea from my mother. She has this lovely stuff called sambal olek. You only need the barest tip of a teaspoon of it to really spice up a bowl of food, and she had a teacher from Indonesia who used it as a sandwich spread. That turned into an idea for a charity curry-eating contest (organised by Green for some reason) and then had me wondering if anyone would bother to go toe to toe with Scarlet if he had an asbestos palete.


Do you think that Spectrum would ever deliberately use Scarlet's retrometabolism for some sort of plan? I remember an X-Men comic from way back when to get Wolverine out of a country his allies had to inject him with enough poison to either kill him or bring him close enough to the brink of death to make him look dead so that they could say they were taking him to be buried.

Would Spectrum ever do something like that to Scarlet? If it could be reasonably estimated how long something would keep him in the retrometabolic coma for (perhaps via prior experience?) would it be feasable to replicate it so that they can smuggle him in some way that they couldn't get him in otherwise or would there be too many variables, considering the nature of retrometabolism?

I guess a secondary question would be if he'd even agree, but I think that if he thought it worth it the risk he'd agree. Though somehow I don't think Colonel White and the others would let it happen without protest, especially if the plan came from outside Spectrum's 'inner circle'.

...we really need a place where we can leave plot bunnies and the like for adoption.

Just editing in a second idea that I've had.

Ever had it when you never 'realised' you've fallen asleep and it's a surprise when you wake up? Do you think it's possible something like that might happen with Scarlet if he gets taken by surprise and doesn't realise he's been killed?

I've got a plot bunny running around of Fawn getting one of the biggest shocks of his life (I think it'd be hard to top Scarlet's first recovery on Fawn's shock-o-meter) when Scarlet wakes up still in 'fight mode' (got shot from behind with a silenced gun while fighting hand to hand with someone) and in a case of 'body is awake before the brain is' mistakes Fawn for whoever he was fighting before he was killed and attacks him.

[Sasha Metcalfe]

Tell you what - I've never forgotten it. I'll probably never need to know it again either. Now, if only I could remember exactly what the spleen does again...

(I know, I know - we're off topic. Sorry )

i know the spleen filters out damaged & dead blood cells, don't know if it does anything else.

[Intensity Angel]

The spleen also is part of our immune systems.

Anyway,

say Scarlet does get some mental truma, he'd tell someone wouldn't he. I mean, captain blue is his best mate. Surely Scarlet would tell him what was on his mind, like in NCS in that episode where NCS Scarlet has doubts and tells NCS Blue.