For those of you aware of what Starcraft I and Starcraft II are, you can skip this little forward. For those of you that are unaware, I shall gladly make you aware. The Starcraft games, produced by Blizzard Games, are RTS (Real-time strategy) games that revolve around 3 playable races all battling for survival and/or supremacy. The human race, the Terrans, focus on Marine combat units as their primary offensive, mirroring the modern military outfits of soldiers with guns and protective gear. In Starcraft I, a group of Marines would be accompanied by a Medic, naturally, to keep them healed.

What I’m interested in is the science behind the Medic and how the Medic heals the Marine on the battlefield. The lore behind the Medic is that the Medic uses a thin laser and an anesthetic to perform on-site surgery.  In Starcraft II, the aerial replacement for the Medic, the Medivac, operates in a similar fashion. The Medivac is an aerial dropship equipped with a healing laser beam that can fix wounded soldiers on the ground. The lore for the beam is that there are actually two beams at work: a laser-scalpel and an auto-suture, which, when combined, can patch-up all sorts of wounds. The main question, then, is “How do these things work?”. Additionally, if these fantastic elements are a little too bizarre to accept, I’d also like to explore alternative answers to the thought of battlefield healing through lasers.

Read more …

Description (Healing Blade Lore)

Nocardia asteroides are wicked foes that can wreak havoc on nearly every inch of Soma’s once serene habitat. They can live harmoniously around the rim of the Buccal Bay, but when they begin to meander inland, particularly to areas already under attack by other Lords, the consequences can be devastating. One of only two Lords in the Gram Positive Legion that can grow in both size and number, and armed with a handful of weapons, including the dreaded cord factor wielded by Mycobacterium tuberculosis that obstructs the activation of Soma’s valiant Defenders, N. asteroides can spread their wrath to each of Soma’s major cities. They commonly attack the Great Respiro Forest, leading to minor earthquakes and sudden wind storms in the region, and can choke the land’s supply of the Blood River’s life-giving magic. From there, N. asteroides often make their way to Left and Right Heart Cities, causing inflammation at the cities’ limits as Defenders gather to guard their inhabitants from the impending menace. The opportunistic Lords can also travel to the Sententia, where they ravage Soma’s Axonias and threaten the country’s harmonic alliance. And at the crater wall that surrounds the island, N. asteroides can cause lesions that expose the world to other fearsome intruders.

Protecting Soma from such a formidable enemy is no easy task. N. asteroides can thrive in a wide range of climates, and once they take hold throughout the land, are often a lasting presence. Though many Apothecaries are often called to the job, it can take up to a year of constant defensive fronts to finally defeat the persistent N. asteroides.

While the happy reunion with Princess Hygiena was taking place, Clostridium difficile sat silently beneath the cover of darkness plotting his quest for total gastrointestinal domination.  Billions of innocent Normal F’Lora had fled from their ravaged homeland after the Apothecaries had made an unsuccessful attempt to banish the Lords of Pestilence.  “Friendly fire” and the annihilation of the caretakers of Gastropolis had made the job of Clostridium difficile much easier.  Violent mudslides devastated the land as the tundra quaked and rolled.  Metronidazole was on the scene summoning Vancomycin to stand beside her against this formidable enemy.  Clostridium difficile was prepared to sacrifice himself rather than surrender.  He had expected this, and prepared for it.  Throughout his travels through Gastropolis, he had secretly hidden tiny spores to lie in wait like landmines.  “Go to sleep, my babies,” he cooed, as he gently removed the toxic pellets from his back and placed them in the ground.  Princess Hygiena awaited her call to action.  Would Metro and Vanc remember to use her?  The dark curse had made it impossible for her to use her powers unless summoned to do so.  She knew that with the proper tactile friction, her potion would envelope the beastly beads in opalescent bubbles of doom and send them down the Stygian Sewer.  Swift action was needed to prevent the menacing spores from germinating into a Garden of Despair.  Gastropolis was facing an impending implosion – Today, Gastropolis….Tomorrow, Places Unknown.  Would Metro and Vanc call upon the Princess???  

…To be continued

My wife and I often discuss my various dalliances with other women. The only way I am able to say that without fear of genuine physical harm is because I’m referring to my relationships with women who happen to be video game characters. As narratives in games become more complex, it stands to reason that character development and one’s interaction with said characters becomes accordingly more complex.

I used to feel that humor was one of the most difficult concepts to do well in gaming, and was shortly proven wrong by Ron Gilbert and his Monkey Island games, followed shortly by what I’ll refer to as the “golden age” of LucasArts’ point and click games, citing The Day of the Tentacle and Full Throttle as experiences that got humor right. The evolution of humor has progressed to the point of ultra-satire with the tight writing of Portal 1 and Portal 2, and frankly, I’m loving it.

Read more …

The Apothecaries were growing weary.  They had waged their battles against the Lords of Pestilence for many moons and their power was slowly becoming depleted.  Their potent elixirs were beginning to fail them – the Lords of Pestilence had learned to use the elixirs to strengthen themselves!

They sat in a circle staring into the fire and pondered their impending defeat.  With such limited numbers, the Apothecaries knew that spawning offspring was unlikely.  There had to be another solution.  Then, it happened – like a smooth drink of spring water, the “Ancient One” flowed into their camp like an answer to their prayers.  Princess Hygiena had returned!

Read more …

After doing some further gameplay to explicitly test the physics of Skyrim, I felt the need to do some background on the physics engine at hand. The engine, which many of you have probably heard of before, is the Havok physics engine. This is a collision-based physics engine that focuses on the dynamic interaction between any given body (bodies of mass, that is) and other bodies, resulting in (mostly) realistic interactions. This engine is popularized in major titles, such as the Assassin’s Creed series, the Halo series, Starcraft II, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and many more. Those moments where you blow something up and little parts of it are scattered across the land are brought to you by Havok.

Satisfied in my thirst for knowledge (and a growing fanboyism towards the Havok system), I continued my physics abuse. Though my next point may not directly refer to the physics, it was fascinating nonetheless: weight. The game has a weight system built in to punish the player for taking too much loot, forcing the player to make value-based decisions on what to hold and what to drop. For example, if I’m at max weight (starting base is 300 units of measurement), and I decide to pick something up and it puts me over, I have to drop something to bring me back down to an even max (exactly 300) or under. If I stay above the max weight, I receive a significant cut to my movement speed. As all gamers know, movement speed is crucial to all games, and being slow is usually a bad thing.

Read more …

The room is dark, musty, and strangely cold. You can’t quite figure out what it is that chills you, but the source must be here. As you reach out to feel the walls, you are startled by low-hanging moss. There is water in the air, meaning a source of water must be nearby. With a waterway there is an outlet, there is freedom. You begin to feel along the cold stone walls, hoping to come across a door. After stepping in a puddle and walking an eternity of 20 feet, it dawns on you that the source of water is above you. You are underground with no light and a low chance of survival. What do you do?

The answer is to continue along the path the game allotted to you, since the sequence of these dungeons is linear. However, there is one great obstacle in your path, the one thing that is truly the source of your dread: The mule cart. A simple cart meant to be drawn by a beast with the intention of delivering goods is the greatest threat in this damp dungeon of horror, but why is that? Well, there is (or at least, was. It’s probably been fixed by now) a physics issue with the mule carts of Skyrim.

Read more …

Description (Healing Blade Lore)

Helicobacter pylori are formidable members of the Gram Negative Legion that primarily affect the central regions of Soma’s aqueduct.  They take advantage of the waste produced by Soma’s natural aqueduct inhabitants to generate the energy they need to survive, and have adapted to the relatively low oxygen levels of the semi-aquatic environment. They use their tentacled appendages to burrow into the aqueduct’s lining, avoiding the acidity secreted by the upper part of the aqueduct, which has its own defenses in its lining to prevent erosion.

As the aqueduct sheds its lining, a continual process to ensure the purity of Soma’s main water line, H. pylori sense the increasing acidity and burrow further into the wall. They also protect themselves from the toxic chemicals found in the aqueduct’s flow with specialized scales that break them down. The resulting byproducts, however, are known to damage the land. Indeed, while many strains of H. pylori can live quietly in the aqueduct, others can cause severe damage to the aqueduct walls. Moreover, the influx of laborers to repair the damage, and the slew of supplies they bring to the site, can have the paradoxical effect of rendering the region vulnerable to more serious injuries, as communication breakdowns can lead to utter chaos. On occasion, debris from the repair site can even get washed away into the rivers or Canals of Lymph, lodging some distance downstream to wreak havoc elsewhere in Soma.

Read more …

We’re looking for a few fresh new voices in the world of NerdcoreLearning to bring us experiences of geekery with a medical flavor. Of course you needn’t be a doc or med-student to write for the ‘Core – in fact, we’re just looking for people who are passionate about learning and creativity in general. Contact us via the contact page at NerdcoreLearning.com or the NCL Facebook page, and we’ll give you the nuts and bolts of the opportunity.

“I’m actually still playing Sons of Liberty (the sequel to MGS on the Playstation 2), and am stuck on the part where you have to defeat that army of huge serpentine robots called Rays.”

“Easy. Just use chaffs to scramble their radars, stay in the corners, and wait until their mouths open to attack – that’s their only weak spot, really.”

Read more …