Stasis
Utility
There are several types of stasis in wide use.
Medical Stasis
By far the most painless form of stasis is that used for serious medical procedures, such as surgeries, where it serves as a form of anesthesia. It is also used to aid recovery by ensuring the patient gets the required amount of rest in order to heal properly. It is most akin to sleep, although it is not always restful (a lot of energy goes into recovery, after all).Trophy Stasis
Another form of stasis widely in use is for the preservation of certain hunting trophies, such as those obtained during the Leadership Challenge.[The human trophies] are held in stasis, in our trophy chambers, on the cusp between life and death.Those who have been let out describe it as a physically painful and disorienting experience. (Note: Although this has been derided as leaving people "to rot", stasis technology as known does not allow for such a thing.)
Prison Stasis
Related to stasis for trophies, stasis as a prison serves to keep an individual in one place for an extended period of time. It is only reserved for highly dangerous creatures, such as the Stone Menace. There are rumors that if a live "Space Brother" is ever found, it will be imprisoned this way, as well.On Trapping Civilizations
Some Stenza (including Blue Period T'zim-Sha) advocate for the trapping of entire civilizations, sometimes as a point of pride (akin to pearls on a necklace) and other times as a means of expediting this whole conquering business. It should be noted that the only known method that came close tends to purge the target planet of all life before shrinking it down to fit into a convenient trophy case. It should also be noted that this is a subject of heated debate.
Children Technologies
Discovery
The principle of stasis was first proposed in the year -2, after work on killing the Stone Menace produced worthless weapons that were capable of storing small bits of food almost indefinitely. (This may not be groundless; rumors float around that the creature has the ability to appear on the other side of a wall or locked door, with no sign of disturbance to the structure.) This prompted the design of a chamber which could keep a subject under chemical sedation almost indefinitely. The most anyone knew of the creature was that it only moved while free of observation, suggesting that it was not permanently made of stone. The theory went that if view of it could be obscured, it could be sedated.
It took two years to find a suitable crystal and carve it into opaque panes. The panes, along with gas sprayers full of sedatives, were assembled around the statue while soldiers kept watch, and the entire device was watched for almost four days to ascertain that the theory held. Allegedly, after the collective sigh of relief, someone said, "Write that down! That worked!"
Both interesting and terrifying, particularly the trophy stasis. D:
Trophy stasis is not a fun time (and frankly neither is prison stasis, but that's by design).