Grav Serum

'Grav serum' is a colloquial term for micro-gravity adaptation serum. This biologic drug, produced and licensed by White Mountain Laboratories for consumption by clients throughout the Cobalt Protectorate Periphery, reduces many of the negative health effects of long-term exposure to micro-gravity, including muscle and skeletal atrophy.

Mechanics & Inner Workings

Cobalt Knights espatiers and others who spend an extended amount of time in micro-gravity may opt to have miniature colonies of serum-producing microbes implemented as cybernetic augmentations, eliminating the need for regular injections in the field. This convenience comes at a cost, however, as it has been shown that extended use of grav serum can cause progressive liver damage - especially when taken in combination with other drugs metabolized in the liver. Knight-Espatier Howard Kinnon is a notable example of a person who faces this dilemma, as he is not keen to have his implants removed - even though his position aboard the ESCI Revelation will keep him in spin gravity and (supposedly) take him away from extended micro-gravity combat operations.

Manufacturing process

Grav serum is produced by bioengineered algae, similar to that found in most standard closed ecology life support systems which rely on aquaponics tubes. Serum doses are implemented by various means, depending on the needs of the end-user. For example, those looking to go on short journeys (i.e. aboard a cycler, like the ECV Frosty Maiden) will often get an extended-release pellet embedded just beneath the skin. Those with more variable itineraries will instead recieve regular injections, as medical personnel are generally loathe to continue grav serum treatment when an individual is safely within the gravitational pull of a planet's surface.

Significance

Grav serum is important because it allows spacefaring vessels to either reduce the RPMs of their rotating habitat sections or, for short journeys, eliminate the rotation altogether. This is important for a number of reasons. High RPMs produce nausea, gyroscopic forces confound maneuvering, separate rotating sections introduce mechanical complexity and more modes of failure, and rotating an entire spacecraft imposes certain limitations on design with regards to moment of inertia, and spin-up/down requires the expenditure of fuel or energy to accomplish. With grav serum, limited periods of micro-gravity are much less likely to result in deleterious health effects regardless of the presence or absence of spin-gravity. Soldiers also like the steroid-like effects of grav serum, though the drug is not without its issues as a supplement (see Mechanics & Inner Workings).

Item type

Drug / Narcotic / Medicine

Manufacturer

White Mountain Laboratories

Related ethnicities

• Asteroid Colonist

Rarity

Grav serum is extremely common among spacefaring populations in the human and human-adjacent regions of the Sealed Kingdoms Nebula.