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In EU, bacta seems to be the best shit ever, it can seemingly cure and heal anything. Not only that, but it's supposedly almost the only medical technology they have in Star Wars, besides cyborg technology. What's up with that though? Bacta is only seen once in the movies, and that is when it's used to heal Luke (who seemed to be hurt more by the cold than any grievous wounds). Why was it assumed that this was standard procedure for all injuries, and not something used to treat hypothermia or something?

To tell you the truth placing someone in a liquid is the worst treatment for Hypothermia.

The best treatment is to warm them slowly. A liquid can not give you the control you need for that.

To tell you the truth placing someone in a liquid is the worst treatment for Hypothermia.

The best treatment is to warm them slowly. A liquid can not give you the control you need for that.

actually you can do that by slowly increasing the liquid's temperature.
the advantage of a liquid is the great contact area, so a better warmth transport.
also the lemperature in the liquid will be uniform

Dooey Jo wrote:In EU, bacta seems to be the best shit ever, it can seemingly cure and heal anything. Not only that, but it's supposedly almost the only medical technology they have in Star Wars, besides cyborg technology. What's up with that though? Bacta is only seen once in the movies, and that is when it's used to heal Luke (who seemed to be hurt more by the cold than any grievous wounds). Why was it assumed that this was standard procedure for all injuries, and not something used to treat hypothermia or something?

There are quite a few other medical procedures and medical technologies explored in the EU, even if most of them are largely limited to the Medstar duology. The books describe all manner of surgery, organ replacement synthetic flesh, anti-bacterial technology, and a host of others. Bacta is a "miracle" drug, but immersion can't treat especially egregious wounds, severe organ failure, neurological conditions, and the like (and there are certain instances where bacta can't be used at all on individuals of specific medical backgrounds, species, etc). There are also a wide variety of other medications noted in the EU, like bota in KotOR.

Bacta seems to be used largely for dermal injury and general systemic afflictions, like certain bacterial and viral infections and nerve damage. Its hardly a cure-all.

I wonder is there any specific information on what they do with children placed in the tanks?

Gotta be boring as hell for a kid in there after awhile...

Invictus ChiKen wrote:I wonder is there any specific information on what they do with children placed in the tanks?
Gotta be boring as hell for a kid in there after awhile...

Gotta be boring as hell for anybody...assuming they're conscious all the time, which we know they aren't.
Besides it gets kind of boring lying in a hospital bed with your limbs in casts, too, yet kids seem to survive it reasonably sane nevertheless in the real world.

Nobile Ire wrote:]There are also a wide variety of other medications noted in the EU, like bota in KotOR.

Nitpick: Bota was introduced in the Medstar duology.
KotOR had a substance known as "kolto", harvested from the oceans of the water-covered planet, Manaan.

Batman wrote:Gotta be boring as hell for anybody...assuming they're conscious all the time, which we know they aren't.
Besides it gets kind of boring lying in a hospital bed with your limbs in casts, too, yet kids seem to survive it reasonably sane nevertheless in the real world.

And the children might enjoy floating and bobbing like in a swimming pool.

Some specific things about bacta; it can be naturally alergic against (X-wing Books), it can be poisend (also, X-wing), and all my things I know about BActa come from the X-wing books.

Cykeisme wrote:

Nobile Ire wrote:]There are also a wide variety of other medications noted in the EU, like bota in KotOR.

Nitpick: Bota was introduced in the Medstar duology.
KotOR had a substance known as "kolto", harvested from the oceans of the water-covered planet, Manaan.

Thanks, I tend to mix the two up.

Isolder74 wrote:To tell you the truth placing someone in a liquid is the worst treatment for Hypothermia.

The best treatment is to warm them slowly. A liquid can not give you the control you need for that.

We don't know if they immediately placed Luke in the bacta after recovering him. They might have treated his hypothermia through more conventional means and then used the bacta to treat skin damage due to frostbite.

Cykeisme wrote:

Nobile Ire wrote:]There are also a wide variety of other medications noted in the EU, like bota in KotOR.

Nitpick: Bota was introduced in the Medstar duology.
KotOR had a substance known as "kolto", harvested from the oceans of the water-covered planet, Manaan.

Kolto is most likely natural bacta. It has all the properties assosiated with bacta. The Republic was mentioned working on a synthetic version of it during the sith war. The synthetic kolto probably later became known as bacta.

Actually, bacta and kolto are unrelated, although they both have similar proporties, bacta is more efficient than kolto. According to Wookieepedia, there's also something called "Kolcta", a "rare hybrid" of Bacta and Kolto that is apparently even better than either product.

To quote the very short article on Wookieepedia:

Kolcta, a rare hybrid of bacta and kolto, was an extremely powerful curative agent. The fluid was so scarce that full submersion was unpractical, so it was usually sold and applied as a simple soaked cloth. Kolcta treatment could help reattach severed limbs, heal almost any kind of wound and, if ingested, counter the effects of aging.

Bacta was fleshed out in one Star Wars Adventure Journal, I forgot which issue. Everything about Bacta in the X-Wing novels was derived from that article. Even about the major Thyferran houses, the vratix, the bacta elements alazhi and kavam...Mike Stackpole went on record in one of his interviews saying he used a lot of the Adventure Journal article elements in his novels.

One of the brainbugs related to bacta is that after 4000 odd years of bacta history and it's still mostly produced by one planet? I rather have the concept originate from the Vratix on Thyferra, but can now produced on any planet with any industrial capacity, If it really is a miracle medicine I can't believe the Empire during its rule did not forcibly nationalize Thyferra and its bacta production for its own purposes.

No, Bacta can't be produced in large quantities without large quantities of Vratix, as we can see here, Bacta is produced from chemicals made inside a Vratix combined with certain plants, this is why it's only produced in any significant quantities on the Vratix' homeworld.

Such simple biological chemical reactions obviously can't be replicated, you have to actually have one of the beasties to do it for you! That's... stupid.

Stark wrote:Such simple biological chemical reactions obviously can't be replicated, you have to actually have one of the beasties to do it for you! That's... stupid.

That's the reason they came up with for it only being produced on that one planet, I never said you or I had to like it.

I guess EU writers don't know anything about eggs, either. Can we say 'battery Vratix'? No, obviously we can't.

To be honest, some of the stuff posted in this thread about bacta and derivatives is just fucking loopy. It sounds more like goddamn healing potions than any medical agent. Reattach severed limbs eh? I hope that's 'reattach right after', but somehow I doubt it.

Stark I know exactly how to solve this problem we've created by trying to solve another problem, the Vratix long ago had Vong genetic material added into their genepool, thus explaining how the Empire can't replicate the chemicals their bodies make! Wait, then we might have to explain how it got there since the Vong are mammalian... I got it there was a secret race of Insectoids from the Vong home universe and they bred with the Vratix, despite logically being incapable of doing it because they evolved seperate from one another, but no one would call us on that, I'm sure of it.

Can't the Empire replicate Vong stuff at all? That seems bizarre: they're aliens in a galaxy of aliens.

But you're right, clearly it's the actions of the Vong vanguard dudes in the distant past. The explanation could only be made better by including the Rataka guys somehow.

I don't remember Bacta being mentioned in the prequal movies, although I haven't read the books. If anyone could use a miracle bug juice its Vader after being toasted but he was just carried around on a normal looking operation table.


Aaron

It was mentioned in the X-Wing books that the bacta cartels had developed many colony worlds to further develop bacta production, back in the day when their where many producers. However when Uncle Palpy seized power he orderd that only 2 families could produce it and only in Typherra(sp?) that way it's be easier to lock down the source if the families rebeled.

So it's a political limitation?

General Schatten wrote:No, Bacta can't be produced in large quantities without large quantities of Vratix, as we can see here, Bacta is produced from chemicals made inside a Vratix combined with certain plants, this is why it's only produced in any significant quantities on the Vratix' homeworld.

Except that we know bacta factories exist elsewhere, and production has been corporatised, which heavily suggest against the existing reason.

Methinks the current fleshing out of bacta is inferior to the older variant, where production methods was left unexplained.

Stark wrote:So it's a political limitation?

Yup. That and the fact that monopoly= big big profits:D