exsilium | Second | Video --> Action

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Second | Video --> Action

[The video starts up and you get a blonde with an upticked mouth looking at you.]

So everyone got these new tablets, but teaching us how to use them was just one step they weren't willing to take. I figure I could step in here and offer to teach the basics to anyone who was having a problem using theirs.

I'll be at the *insert random place here idk* for most of today, so if anyone wants to stop by for a lesson, I'll be there. [Grins a little wiser] I hope ya'll are good, attentive students so I don't regret this later.

[/feed ends]

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Is it only me, or did this get simpler than how things worked with the other book-thing they gave us?

[ She's pleased by this, honestly. And more than ever, she wants to know how it works. ]

I wonder what the stress point in breaking is for this thing. Can they make plastics with greater flexibility and strength than metals? That'd open up a whole new world if they can handle heating and cooling more efficiently while being full weight bearing...

I think that's how it worked for most people. This is more like what I have at home. [tap to the home screen and he sets it down on the table]

I'm not sure about greater strength than metal, but they have flexible, durable plastics that are sturdy and light weight that do all the same structural work as metal. It may not be as strong, but for the stresses they're under it's more than enough to replace metal. [Chin on his fist and he smiles at her] What do you do, to be asking questions like that?

[ Working with children, maybe... she'd need to actually see more of these plastics in action, paired with traditional and even lighter alloys. Some combinations, perhaps? The plastics might serve better aesthetically while the rest were serviced by the durability of metal to protect joints and more sensitive inner wiring. ]

Hmm?

[ She'd been starting to build in her own mind again. Augh, a month away (getting close to, now) from her grandmother's and the workshop and all the customers they serviced was starting to drive her up a different kind of wall. ]

I'm an automail mechanic, back in Resembool. My hometown is Resembool, so you could say it's what I've been doing for most my life. Automail is a type of prosthetic, one that directly connects to a patient's nervous system. Not something I've seen much of here, or really heard all that much about.

[Automail was a new word for him, but prosthetic was definitely one he knew. You have him interested, Winry.]

Directly connected? Do you have all the same mobility as the amputated hand? [Shifts a bit more to face her.] Do you only use metal?

After a full recovery and therapy to build up the connections and muscle strength to handle the weight of automail.

[ She sets down her tablet, warming to her favorite topic: automail ]

Copper wiring's still copper, isn't it? It's not just about interlinked parts working together as part of a greater machine. I've seen people work with integrating diamond directly into specialized automail, but most of it's wiring and metal plates, rods, bolts and all different types of joints coming together to work in a perfect harmony!

[ Oh, to be working with automail even now! Finding a means of making it lighter or better serving to the customers that relied on her and Pinako... and ugh, to instead be here in someone else's war that might, possibly, also be hers. ]

Which is a long way of saying after undergoing at least a year of physical therapy, a properly outfitted automail user should have the same mobility as they had before their amputation. The fine motor control isn't compromised by weakening the overall structure, as long as you choose your alloys right.

[His chin is now on his palm and he's drumming his fingers against his cheek as he listens to her. It didn't seem they had the technology he had in his world, but with just regular metal and alloys they were making nerve connections that could do the detailed work of your nervous system? Ugh, how was that possible. His mother would dissect Winry's brain for this information.]

But how do you mean such sophisticated connections to the nerve endings? What kind of metal do you use? They've been doing this for years and they still haven't gotten it up to the dexterity of the amputated limb.

[He gives a bit of a laugh] My mother would pay to switch places with me and pick your brain.

[ She's about to launch into an explanation, but the end sidelines her ~~and saves the player from inventing logic for an inherently nonsensical technology~~. ]

Does your mother work with prosthetics?

Yeah, she works with prosthetics. More so into equipment for doctors to use in surgery, but she changes her mind on which project she's most interested in at the drop of a hat. [He grins fondly at this]

To use in surgery, and not after the fact?

For the doctors it would be during surgery, to give them more precision in small places. Really it's more like a neural link to the equipment. [Waves his hand] The prosthetics are for people who've already lost a limb, but they kind of tie in together the way she studies it.

[ She really wishes Blaine's mother was there right now, too. No offense to the man, he's been very helpful, but there's a certain frustrated excitement about hearing on this topic so close to her own heart. ]

Aah! So she's hoping to get full connective nerve impulse control back for the amputees, and something with finer handiwork for the surgeons?

That's right. They have basic movements down, but the fine detail work in motor control is hard. Getting the electrical signals to transfer over the wires hasn't been perfected yet. [Hey now, he can have a scientific-y conversation, too!]

( Winry listens, nodding her head and -- wishing she had any of her works in progress around to demonstrate how connections were modified back home. )

The fine tuning can take years, if a patient manages to pull through surgery for the initial installation of the connective plates. It's the hardest with kids, since the adjustments have to happen so often to compensate for growth, but once the brain and body's figured out how to respond to the wiring and the differences in synapse response time, you never lose the responsiveness.

I'd really like to see that. [He definitely would, because he can't imagine how it works without all of the high tech gadgetry his world has.]

Once the connections are made you don't really lose responsiveness, it's just getting it in the first place. Opening and closing the hand is easy compared to moving the digits individually. Nevermind getting it to acknowledge the strength of your grip with no real sense of touch in your fingertips.

Modulation is an important part of the recovery process. Peeling oranges, handling easily bruised fruits, people need help retraining themselves to compensate for what pressure used to tell us about our limitations and sensitivities.

( By extension of being an automail mechanic, she had to be good with adaptive physical therapy and retraining programs. )

I think they were working on a synthetic skin for that... but that's in early stages as well. We can regrow skin cells to graft for burn victims, but attached it to a non-organic surface is different.

You're thinking of putting actual skin over a mechanical support structure?

It'll probably end up being synthetic. [he shrugged.] But we'll see what they come up with.

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