Goonhub
11-02-2013, 05:44 PM
Crossposting this from SA, where Cogwerks mentioned he might be thinking about reworking antihol since it's still kind of space-magic, and doesn't have any traceable roots in real-world chemicals. Someone else posted that they wouldn't like this, because it's currently not too hard to make antihol outside of medbay and sober up drunks in the bar. I proposed a solution:
Captain Bravo Wrote:Ok, check this out, it might be a little roundabout but I think it's a good idea. Here are the issues:
Antihol is too simple.
People want to be able to make antihol outside of medbay.
(This one is mine) Nicotine is not used in anything.
Now, the body has a way to break down alcohol naturally. It's called Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide, a main ingredient of which is Nicotinamide. (And yes, I know that NAD only assists in breaking down metabolized alcohol and sugar, but work with me here.) It's a bit of a kludge, but what if we add in a way to hammer out Nicotinamide using easily-found ingredients in vending machines around the station? Kind of like how you used to be able to buy limeade, just a bit more involved?
Hear me out, all we'd need is to add something to coffee machines called "Fish Oil". Discount Dan brands it as a cheap, effective health supplement. In reality, it would show up in chemmasters as Pyridine. Pyridine is derived from bone oil, and smells like fish, so there you go. The fun thing about it is that it would react to alcohol in two different ways. Just mixing Pyridine and Ethanol gets you Denatured Alcohol, more commonly known as Methylated Spirits. Fun both because A) It would be another neat poison available outside of chemistry. B) We don't have a lot of things that can induce blindness. C) It has "Meth" in the name, so it would be super easy to trick people into taking it themselves. And, D) Since Methylated Spirits burn well, we could use it to give bartenders a flaming drink.
Now, if you already have Nicotine in your system, instead the Pyridine would combine with the Nicotine to create Nicotinamide inside your body. Nicotinamide has two uses, the first is that it breaks down metabolized alcohol (AKA Ethanol) into sugar. And the second is that it breaks down sugar into energy. (AKA Meth)
There you go. Not only a possible way to treat alcohol poisoning outside of medbay, but also easy access to a kind of shitty poison with situational use, a way to treat diabetic shock without having to figure out how to get Insulin, and a possibility for hobo chemistry meth.
