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Author Topic: Dune  (Read 11546 times)

Zalman

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Re: Dune
« Reply #60 on: May 01, 2022, 11:06:44 AM »
Why the heck are stillsuits armored?

Maybe that tidbit would have been less distracting with a more engaging script.

But overall the imagery was great.
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Re: Dune
« Reply #61 on: May 01, 2022, 03:01:41 PM »
They don't seem very armored. One poke, and Liet was spurting water. They just seem to be somewhat complex rubber suits.

Ratman_tf

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Re: Dune
« Reply #62 on: May 01, 2022, 08:19:56 PM »
Why the heck are stillsuits armored?

Maybe that tidbit would have been less distracting with a more engaging script.

But overall the imagery was great.



They don't look particularly armored to me. Maybe you're thinking of the battle gear the houses were wearing?

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Zalman

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Re: Dune
« Reply #63 on: May 02, 2022, 11:44:30 AM »


They don't look particularly armored to me. Maybe you're thinking of the battle gear the houses were wearing?

Huh? This stillsuit has leather armor across the chest, at the shoulder, knuckles, even a cod piece ... it's literally covered in leather armor. Pretty obviously (and distractingly) patterned from motorcycle gear.

And before you go defending some notion that the leather parts like the cod piece are housing important water-retrieval mechanisms ... please explain what the shoulder pads are for. Or the rubber sliders on the arms. Or the armored knuckles.
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Trond

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Re: Dune
« Reply #64 on: May 02, 2022, 01:11:37 PM »
It didn’t really look like armor to me either, more like what a sci-fi movie team could think a stillsuit might look like, whether that’s “realistic” or not. It’s supposed to have tubes and pumps and such built in. It is meant for a brutal environment though so it might have some protective function in that regard as well. The codpiece is probably at least partially for collecting urine.

hedgehobbit

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Re: Dune
« Reply #65 on: May 02, 2022, 01:50:59 PM »
Why the heck are stillsuits armored?

The real question is Why wouldn't the stillsuits be armored? You've got a bunch of knife happy nutters crawling all over sharp, jagged rocks with the stillsuit protecting their most valuable resource.  A cut-proof covering would be a core design criteria.

Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: Dune
« Reply #66 on: May 02, 2022, 03:57:25 PM »
Why wouldn't the stillsuits be armored? You've got a bunch of knife happy nutters crawling all over sharp, jagged rocks with the stillsuit protecting their most valuable resource.  A cut-proof covering would be a core design criteria.

I'm trying to remember if in the novel Dune either Paul or Jamis made a point of taking off their stillsuit before their duel. On the one hand it's certainly true that if repairing damaged stillsuits is difficult, you'd avoid it if possible given their necessity; on the other hand, the entire point of stillsuits is to recover moisture expended via sweat, and you sweat more when fighting than anything else.

From a physics point of view, armour would almost necessarily be a major heat trap simply by virtue of being a second layer. It might be that wearing separate armour over a stillsuit would be medically dangerous on Arrakis. You could try to work rigid plates into the stillsuit itself, but that would probably increase weight and make the movement that supplies the suit's pumping action less efficient.
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ThatChrisGuy

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Re: Dune
« Reply #67 on: May 02, 2022, 04:03:40 PM »
I'm trying to remember if in the novel Dune either Paul or Jamis made a point of taking off their stillsuit before their duel. On the one hand it's certainly true that if repairing damaged stillsuits is difficult, you'd avoid it if possible given their necessity; on the other hand, the entire point of stillsuits is to recover moisture expended via sweat, and you sweat more when fighting than anything else.

They do take them off, that's why Paul gains possession of Jamis' water.
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David Johansen

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Re: Dune
« Reply #68 on: May 02, 2022, 07:19:17 PM »
You'd probably want reinforcement on knees and elbows at any rate.  You don't want to spring a leak.
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Omega

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Re: Dune
« Reply #69 on: May 02, 2022, 08:19:11 PM »
They look lightly armored. Some sorts of plates and whatnod. But it looks intigrated into the suits.

The real problem is, like everything now. They look overwrought.

Ratman_tf

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Re: Dune
« Reply #70 on: May 02, 2022, 09:50:50 PM »
Why the heck are stillsuits armored?

The real question is Why wouldn't the stillsuits be armored? You've got a bunch of knife happy nutters crawling all over sharp, jagged rocks with the stillsuit protecting their most valuable resource.  A cut-proof covering would be a core design criteria.

Yeah. the stillsuits from the image seem to have bits exposed between straps and pads. You'd get some protection, but a well placed knife looks like it would puncture something important. (Besides the wearer)

Maybe it's a bit of reinforcement, a bit of protection, and a concession to the function of the suit to reclaim mosture all in the same deal.
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hedgehobbit

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Re: Dune
« Reply #71 on: May 03, 2022, 08:12:37 AM »
From a physics point of view, armour would almost necessarily be a major heat trap simply by virtue of being a second layer. It might be that wearing separate armour over a stillsuit would be medically dangerous on Arrakis.

The whole point of sweating is to cool the body via evaporation. Since the stillsuit collects your sweat, this isn't happening. So a stillsuit would need some sort of active cooling system anyway, whether armored or not.

Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: Dune
« Reply #72 on: May 03, 2022, 09:09:06 AM »
The whole point of sweating is to cool the body via evaporation. Since the stillsuit collects your sweat, this isn't happening. So a stillsuit would need some sort of active cooling system anyway, whether armored or not.

True, but if the stillsuit worked by providing a cooling system for the body, then the wearer wouldn't be producing sweat moisture for it to collect in the first place.

Perhaps the first inner layer of the suit is some kind of nano-structured thermoconducting aerogel that reproduces the heat-dissipation effect of evaporation without actually losing the H2O to the atmosphere. Or similar handwavery -- according to TVTropes.org the stillsuit's actual physics and engineering aren't ever more clearly explained.
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BoxCrayonTales

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Re: Dune
« Reply #73 on: May 03, 2022, 11:31:14 AM »
The whole point of sweating is to cool the body via evaporation. Since the stillsuit collects your sweat, this isn't happening. So a stillsuit would need some sort of active cooling system anyway, whether armored or not.

True, but if the stillsuit worked by providing a cooling system for the body, then the wearer wouldn't be producing sweat moisture for it to collect in the first place.

Perhaps the first inner layer of the suit is some kind of nano-structured thermoconducting aerogel that reproduces the heat-dissipation effect of evaporation without actually losing the H2O to the atmosphere. Or similar handwavery -- according to TVTropes.org the stillsuit's actual physics and engineering aren't ever more clearly explained.
The fremen make plastics out of spice and have an industrial capacity that lets them harvest sufficient spice to maintain a conspiracy with the Spacing Guild, so it stands to reason that the stillsuit is similarly advanced.

Trond

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Re: Dune
« Reply #74 on: May 03, 2022, 12:33:03 PM »

The whole point of sweating is to cool the body via evaporation. Since the stillsuit collects your sweat, this isn't happening.

I think it is happening. It’s collecting water vapor from your breath as well as from your skin. Of course if you wonder how that actually works then you’re into territory where the author probably did not go. Similar to  “how on earth does the sand worm extract energy from sand”. But the still suit at least seems more plausible than many other things in the books.