Death
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Finality of death
Even in this world of science-fiction, it is generally impossible to raise a person from the dead. However, rapid medical intervention can occasionally save body parts from necrosis even if the remainder of the person is clinically dead.
The brain is considered the core of a sapient being and if its brain is destroyed (or, in the event that it has redundant brains, if all are destroyed) the creature is irrevocably dead. The body could potentially be reanimated by the installation of a computerised brain, but the construct would not have any of the personality of the original person and would merely be a cybernetic organism with control over a formerly dead body.
Otherwise, as long as the brain has not been destroyed, a person can be restored to life if gotten to in time.
Cardiac arrest
When a person's integrity is reduced to zero, their heart fibrillates (beats inconsequentially) or stops entirely and they lose consciousness. The heart is essentially a bioelectric device that responds to signals from the brain. If the signals from the brain are interrupted due to trauma or if the rhythm is thrown off significantly, arrest or fibrillation can occur.
A fibrillation rapidly leads to total cardiac arrest as the heart loses adequate blood pressure and the momentum of bloodflow falls enough that the heart cannot pump any blood effectively at all. The heart stoppage is believed as a biological safety mechanism to preserve the brain as long as possible (instead of wasting signals to pump blood even though the blood cannot move), but unfortunately no biological mechanism is proven to exist in Vilani, Solomani, Vargr, Zhodani, or Aslan beings to restart the heart. Spontaneous restarting of the heart with no external intervention is documented, however, and the criteria which cause this spontaneous restarting are ill understood even in the High Stellar era.
Medical technology may be capable of reactivating the heart, or at least stimulating its repeated activity in the hopes that the brain will ultimately resume transmitting the signals on its own. See PPP:Medical/Life support equipment.
Respiratory failure
When a person's integrity is reduced to zero, a haunting exhalation of air occurs (often referred to as a "death rattle") as the diaphragm loses strength, and the person stops breathing. All known biological sophont species use a biomechanical respiration function in order to provide oxygen to their circulatory system.
Because inhalation of useful oxygen and exhalation of toxic carbon dioxide is critical to survival, a person will eventually die regardless of whether the heart is intact.
In species that use non-biomechanical respiration function, only the lack of air can cause lack of respiration. This can be seen in insects, who respirate through the incidental absorption and release of particles that enter their spiracle cavities, or in bacteria that obtain usable oxygen merely by naturally absorbing and releasing particles through their cellular membranes.
Brain death
Regardless of the means of death, a person's brain runs out of usable oxygen within 24 hours of cardiac arrest and the cessation of respiration, as both of these functions must operate to provide the brain with oxygen. It is also possible for a brain to die regardless of artificial circulation, if neurochemical and bioelectrical function cessates due to cascading necrosis or other difficult-to-quantify phenomena.
A circular condition of death occurs when the brain is incapable of stimulating the heart to beat and the lungs to inhale/exhale, the heart is incapable of delivering oxygen to the brain, and the lungs are incapable of obtaining oxygen. At this point, the person's physical and mental forms are entirely dead. A spiritual argument exists which believes that a third metaphysical portion of sentient life exists, whose status is less understood, and thus is not generally considered in the purely scientific definition of "death".
Organ prosthesis
All internal organs are important for the function of life, and permanent damage to these organs can itself cause the person to eventually die. For instance, without food, the body's cells must cannibalise themselves, resulting in widespread cellular necrosis and eventual stoppage of the heart and lungs, which causes brain death. Thus, if the stomach or viscera are damaged to the point of non-function, the person will eventually die regardless of whether the heart, lungs, and brain are operating fine.
Installation of synthetic organs is possible at Average Stellar technology levels, which generally provides the ability to survive for longer periods.
Much like the debate surrounding robotic life, the addition of these prostheses causes a portion of the sophont to become synthetic and may result in the belief that the sophont is thereby a cybernetic organism or—if the loosely-defined threshold is exceeded significantly enough—no longer sapient at all, and thereby no longer a person.
Enumeration of biomechanical causes of death
Immediate death
Immediate death occurs if the brain stops functioning and remains non-functional, e.g., is destroyed, as science currently accepts the brain as the basis of sapient consciousness. Regardless of whether the person is dead, their organs may still be salvageable for transplant.
Rapid death
If the diaphragm is stopped, the chest cavity collapsed, the lungs punctured and/or collapsed, the heart fibrillated, or the heart stopped, respiration and circulation will cease and the brain will go comatose to attempt to preserve its available oxygen until the cells can restore function on their own or until brain death occurs.
Destruction of any of these organs denotes a condition that is almost guaranteed to be fatal at tech levels before the Stellar era.
Rapid death can also occur if blood loss (exsanguination) is significant enough to cause the heart to suffer critical underpressure and circulatory shock and thus stop automatically. Finally, rapid death can occur from trauma, a stress condition that causes the brain to revert to a comatose state, causing stoppage of the heart and lungs.
Slow death
If the stomach is ruptured, the viscera ruptured or severed, the kidney function halted, the bladder ruptured, or the liver ruptured or destroyed, the person will either not obtain nutrients or will suffer from cellular toxicity. This leads to widespread necrosis of tissue, ultimately resulting in a condition where one of the "rapid death" systems loses function; at this point, death will occur rapidly.
Slow death cannot generally occur from external blood loss; open wounds heal too quickly to allow the body to die slowly. However, regardless of whether the wounds have healed over, the internal blood loss can be difficult to heal and can cause sepsis, leading to slow death as cellular toxicity increases beyond the ability of the body to handle.
Slow death can also occur as a result of trauma, as the brain goes into a "mild coma" to attempt to preserve itself while the body heals. While comatose, the body might be incapable of awakening and will slowly starve to death.
Indirect death
The loss of any number of organs is generally non-fatal. The severing of limbs, the loss of portions of skin or muscular tissue, the loss of eyes, ears, or teeth, and the breakage of bones are all conditions that themselves cannot generally cause a fatality. However, these conditions cause disabilities in the person that will make them more susceptible to accident or predation, and thus can be indirect causes of death.
Representing death in MegaTraveller
These rules assume you are using the MTWiki RCS.
Life-threatening conditions
Whenever the character suffers a severe injury, check the descriptions of all of the following conditions to see if they apply. Unless the conditions are corrected, the character will eventually die.
Organ damage
When the character suffers a blow, impact, or other injury to the Chest or Abdomen that causes a shift in Limb Damage level, the sensitive internal organs may have been damaged as a result. If a given organ has been damaged twice, it is considered to have been destroyed instead.
Throw for the following organs:
Lung
- One lung, chosen randomly, is damaged on a throw of 10+ when the Chest is Injured.
- Each lung is damaged on a throw of 8+ when the Chest is Incapacitated.
- Both lungs are damaged when the Chest is Wrecked.
- Both lungs are automatically destroyed, regardless of current state, when the Chest is Ruined.
Heart
- The heart is damaged on a throw of 9+ when the Chest is Incapacitated.
- The heart is damaged on a throw of 6+ when the Chest is Wrecked.
- The heart is damaged on a throw of 3+ when the Chest is Ruined.
Diaphragm
- The diaphragm is damaged on a throw of 10+ when the Abdomen is Injured.
- The diaphragm is damaged on a throw of 9+ when the Abdomen is Incapacitated.
- The diaphragm is damaged on a throw of 7+ when the Abdomen is Wrecked.
- The diaphragm is destroyed when the Abdomen is Ruined.
Brain
- The brain is damaged if any damage to the head causes Int or Edu to be reduced to zero.
- The brain is damaged on a throw of 10+ when the Head is Incapacitated.
- The brain is damaged when the Head is Wrecked.
- The brain is destroyed when the Head is Ruined.
Damage to internal organs should be checked against the following sections to see what harmful results may have been caused.
Cardiac arrest
Cardiac arrest is applied in any of the following situations:
- The Chest is Wrecked or Destroyed.
- The Head is Wrecked or Destroyed.
- The character is in a state of progressive circulatory shock.
- The character's heart has been damaged or destroyed.
Lung collapse
Lung collapse is applied in any of the following situations:
- The Chest is Incapacitated and a throw of 6+ fails.
- The Chest is Wrecked and a throw of 8+ fails.
- The Chest is Destroyed.
- Both lungs are destroyed.
- The diaphragm is destroyed.
Lung collapse prevents any oxygen from being received by the heart, and causes immediate progressive circulatory shock.
General hypoxia
Hypoxia occurs when the respiratory system is damaged enough to prevent the character from obtaining enough oxygen, but the character is not actually suffering from lung collapse. Explicitly:
- The diaphragm is damaged.
- Both lungs are damaged.
- One lung is destroyed but the other lung is only damaged.
If one lung is healthy and the other damaged or destroyed, the character may still survive on the remaining lung, although the character's current Endurance is considered to be halved unless the damaged lung is rectified. If both lungs are damaged or worse, however, general hypoxia can result.
Each damaged lung contributes 1d6 hours of hypoxic state. While in a hypoxic state, the character can still function -- and in fact if the character is not otherwise injured, may actually remain conscious. However, when the hypoxic state expires, the character moves to an automatic state of lung collapse due to the inability to gain enough oxygen.
General hypoxia cannot be corrected without surgery.
Progressive circulatory shock
When the character's Chest or Abdomen are Incapacitated and the character has received a number of points of Lethal Damage to the Chest or Abdomen at least equal to the character's Endurance, the character begins to bleed at a rate proportional to the character's total Lethal Damage suffered. At this time, the character not considered to be in progressive circulatory shock (the character is still in compensatory shock and the body is still trying to rectify the condition).
If the character bleeds for a number of minutes equal to the character's Endurance multiplied by 5d6 and divided by the total Lethal Damage suffered, the body is considered to go into progressive circulatory shock.
While the character is suffering from progressive shock, check a random internal organ every 30 minutes to see if it has suffered from necrotic damage. A throw of 10+ means the organ has been damaged (or destroyed if it was already damaged).
Brain hypoxia/anoxia
Brain hypoxia begins in the following circumstances:
- The body is suffering from cardiac arrest.
- The body is suffering from lung collapse.
- The body is suffering from progressive circulatory shock.
The brain will remain safe for 1d6 hours without any added oxygen. The character will of course be comatose and helpless during this time.
If this time passes, the brain goes into the more dangerous state of anoxia. The brain has only a few more hours to survive. Each hour in this state forces an 8+ throw on 2d6. Failure will cause the character to lose 1 point of Intelligence or Education (player's choice) permanently. If both of these attributes are reduced to zero, brain death occurs.
Correcting a medical condition
Severe medical conditions can be treated by attaching the character to a corresponding life support device. Organ damage can be corrected by surgery. Organ destruction can be corrected by replacing the missing organ with an artificial or bioware total prosthetic organ.
TODO life support TODO surgical intervention
