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It's spoopy season, so how about some good ol' fridge horror regarding metabolic suspension?

What do we know about Amnions thus far?

- They halt a person's metabolism while keeping the brain active.
- They can present a simulacrum to the suspended person.
- They can alter a person's time perception.

What do we know about yinrih neurology thus far?

- They can't go unconscious without dying.

Amnions were originally designed to allow Claravian missionaries to cross the fathomless distances between stars, speeding up their time perception to make the journey pass more quickly and presenting a simulacrum to their active brains to stave off insanity. As seen in my stories, the simulacrum need not be a Matrix-like experience. It can just as easily be an abstract 3D space representing a womb ship's systems, and there's no reason the amnion can't present a real-life sensor feed to the suspended person's brain.

There's nothing stopping the amnion from simply not presenting any form of sensation to the occupant either. Keep in mind it's impossible for a yinrih to go unconscious, so they're still aware, but they lack any form of sensation, including proprioception. If you combine this with slowing down the occupant's time perception so they experience perhaps centuries or even millennia while mere minutes pass outside, and you've got the spitting image of The Void, the Claravian version of Hell.

The Partisans jump on this as a method of punishment for a few reasons. It's comparatively cheap to chuck a convicted murderer in a suspension capsule for six measly minutes while the prisoner experiences a thousand years or more of ultimate isolation. Of course the Partisans, devout materialists that they are, love the fact they're able to perfectly simulate Hell with no pesky metaphysics ruining their day. There's also the fact that it angers the Bright Way, since they regard amnions as sacred objects used to carry out the Great Commandment, and view their use as instruments of torture as sacrilege.

Then again, perhaps this is too grimdark even for the Partisans.


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