New to Orion's Arm + questions :)

[Rynn]

1) Could you explain how it is possible that the Queen of Pain can alter the bodies of her victims and also make them immortal? In the story she is described as not being a simulation (being a biological entity that started life as a cat) her victims are also described as being enlarged to massive proportions or being turned inside out, or  having new eyes and mouths grown on them. I think there is some sort of mention of "hypersentient utility fog" which I understand to be trillions of tiny nanobots. I can understand how they could alter surroundings but not how they could physically alter a being's body or render them immune to senescence?

Welcome to OA

If we knew exactly how that could work we'd all be picking up our nobel prizes but in terms of what lore we have on it; medical technology in the terragen sphere is very advanced. Of particular note are medicytes which are microscopic machines designed to operate in the body to facilitate health and healing at multiple levels. You can think of them as artificial cells ranging from a few hundred nanometres to tens of micrometers. Like biological cells they monitor the environment and respond to it, but with the benefit of thousands of years of medical protocols and mass coordination to aid them.

One example of a medicyte that would be involved in longevity (along with anti-cancer and anti-radiation sickness) is an intracellular model that latches onto the cell nucleus and checks the genome for errors. Using molecular tape of alternating carbon-12 and carbon-13 (to represent 1s and 0s) you can fit a triplicate copy of a human genome into about a cubic micrometer, smaller than a mitochondria. A DNA repair medicyte would be about the size of a mitochondria and on this tape hold three copies of your genome. DNA reading "fingers" extended through nuclear pores on polymer tendrils can read the genome and transmit the results up the polymers. If they find a mutation (i.e. a disagreement with their stored data) they snip it out and repair.

That's just one of many ways that longevity and healing can work in OA. Other methods include using implants and medicytes to monitor and adjust hormone levels, to stimulate healthy stem cell replication, adjust epigenetic factors etc. Most biological sophonts have a suite of implants and medicyte cultures living in their body to both accelerate healing and provide healing capabilities beyond the norm.

https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/4e9acfae0a72c
https://orionsarm.com/eg-article/4e9ac6f7295a4

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https://www.orionsarm.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3500