Give and Take

[moonchildfic]

Title: Give and Take
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Pre-Nate/Sophie, hinted pre-Dean/Eliot
Verse: Steal The Sky
Fandoms: Leverage, Firefly, Supernatural
Summary: Three times Dean was caught taking care of Eliot, and the (many) time(s) Eliot took care of Dean.
Notes: This is after the Things They Carried arc and happens over the course of the first three

Comments

[randomstasis]

Will comment for real later, but something that always bugged me about Firefly is- in most sf, long-term voyage ships have a hydroponics lab, to produce fresh food and convert CO2-oxygen. (Most plants just need light and water;) Also, canon Eliot grows his own food. Just a thought?

[moonchildfic]

That's a pretty good idea but in Firefly it's been established that fresh food on ships is rare and that CO2 to Oxygen is a function of the ships life support (Out of Gas is partially about what happens when that system goes off line afterall). There's also the fact that the ship is a stealth-transport class. It's designed to be small and quick for flights between planets, not long voyages.
Also the drama, but that speaks for itself I think.
Thanks anyway though! I may eventually have Eliot steal a section of the hold for a garden (or as much of one as he can get).

[randomstasis]

That's exactly why it bothered me so much in Firefly- the no-brainerness of it made it seem like TV logic to create false drama. Kind of like Buffy's crowd not having cell phones;D

You'd think after a couple centuries of fresh food being rare on ships and nearly as hard to get on the hardscrabble planets of the Edge, the lightbulb would go on and they'd do the obvious. (they'd have to be doing it on the stations anyway)
Then, Out of Gas cinched it in my mind- their systems and cash flow for restocking are dodgy anyway, so they should have some independent auxiliary, and although hydroponics couldn't replace ships recycling systems, it's always designed to take some of the burden off!

And, after a wakeup call like this situation, where one of the crew can't survive on rations- again, wouldn't one of these brilliant minds come up with a no brainer solution? (wouldn't need a big space-high density greenhouse systems already exist, btw;)

[moonchildfic]

There are some issues with the concept. For one thing as we've seen in various episodes (Out of Gas, The Message, The Big Damn Movie) turbulence can get pretty violent. People get knocked around a bit. Plants that get violently shaken can get large parts broken off and killed and that's without the danger of something running into them

[randomstasis]

Well, you've pegged a lot of the main problems (there are also issues with mold spores and zero-g/extra gees,etc.) But a lot of those are the same as with cooking, plumbing and dealing with human waste products- and those have been solved even in Serenity. Others- well, like I said, I'm an old school hard sf fan-so rather than little patches of soil it would be high density hydroponics, which is all tubes, tiered nutrient tanks and netting anyway, so neither turbulence nor the low production you're thinking of would be a problem. (Sci-fi does affect modern tech, btw- I could link you to a 10"d 5'H dripfed tube that holds 96 plants, for instance=annual production of 40-60 pounds of fruit

[randomstasis]

Sorry, on rereading this this last bit now I'm not so tired- I get we're talking about 2 different things- garden vs hydroponics, my bad for not catching it!

Briefly then, "A three by three foot patch of well planned earth" No, that wouldn't be viable- but that same area, as a tiered contained system on a 12-foot vertical? would produce several pounds of food/day, and 3-4 such units would do it year round. And *that* would be cost effective:)
And I am shutting up now- to go read more;)