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[Parsely]

((Are there half-units here, or does the all or nothing rule apply to potions/motax? I'm thinking burn'em, then either a. topically apply less than 1 unit of motax to help them heal, or dress their wounds. Cauterizing may stop the bleeding, but it does nothing for infection.))

((You're over thinking this. Who cares about infection? They only need to be alive for less than a day.)) -1 to wasting time or supplies on properly patching up the raiders; +1 to burning the stumps.

[PyroDesu]

((I bet that at some point in this game, somebody is going to speculate that the Warden didn't just wipe our memory, but also gave us multiple personality disorder, because we occasionally give contradicting statements.

Also, let's just burn them. The heat should kill anything that's already made its way in (tetanus from our rusty knives, anyone?), and infection will kill 'em slowly enough that we can afford not to care.))

-1 to wasting Motax or wound dressings on the scum.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Our contractor cares, and how he comes out of us doing the job for him reflects on our reputation. If we have a good reputation, people may seek us out for easy jobs with high rewards. If we're not concerned about the guy actually getting his money's worth out of us, we could just shoot the bandits and show him the hands of dead men. Would certainly save some time.

I (obviously, granted) wouldn't be so quick to bypass the details. There's a spare 9mm pistol & mag sitting in our abandoned locker to attest the value of being thorough. (Edit: hang on a second, fact-checking)
Hmm, coulda sworn I'd seen an opportunity to grab an extra mag somewhere. Musta dreamed it. Revision:
'Almost leaving the SMG behind attests to the value of being thorough.'


I think cugar canons an amalgam of the suggestions.
Sepsis can kill in days, and if we can use 1 motax or less for all of them..


Make sure we actually cauterize them- don't just apply the open flame to their stumps, heat up a piece of metal.

[Silcugar]

((Are there half-units here, or does the all or nothing rule apply to potions/motax? I'm thinking burn'em, then either a. topically apply less than 1 unit of motax to help them heal, or dress their wounds. Cauterizing may stop the bleeding, but it does nothing for infection.))

((You can use a portion of the Motax for a reduced effect, yes.))

"Bud, take their gear. Silly, check out the watchtower," you command. Silly picks up the bloodied knife and walks away while Bud untangles the two knocked out raiders from the netting and loots them. They don't have any useful or valuable armour, but bud does find twelve tokens and one Motax. You are starting to get annoyed by the raider's screaming, so you knock the two others out and loot them. This nets you six more tokens and a syringe of green liquid.

Bud manages to saw through two more hands, while you cauterize the stumps with the burner and some scrap, before you hear the scream of a raider in the distance. You think it came from the watchtower.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

"Bud, you got this?"
Head to the watchtower to check on silly.


My vote's to split a motax between the 8 of them, once we've got them all together & cauterized everything.

[PyroDesu]

((Grizz, our contractor only cares that we bring him the hands. Besides, the heat from cauterizing them (which will also seal the wound decently) will kill anything that would kill them within days, and as for sepsis, the most common primary sources of infection resulting in sepsis are the lungs, the abdomen, and the urinary tract, not limb wound infection. Worst comes to worst, they'll get necrosis on their stumps, which won't kill them (too quickly).))

Check on Silly, don't waste supplies.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Necrosis = gangrene = sepsis. Once you're septic, (immuno compromised), you can develop any number of secondary issues. That's what kills you. It'll take a couple days for the fevers to get really bad, and after that they'll be passing out, getting other infections elsewhere, (like pneumonia), suffering organ failure etc.
A cauterized wound isn't sealed, it just isn't bleeding anymore. It's still an open wound, and a direct path into the body for anything on the outside.
Those are the most common sources of sepsis because we've gotten much, much better at cleaning/treating wounds.

[PyroDesu]

((I'm no doctor, but I do know enough that 1: Sepsis is not the same as having a compromised immune system; rather, it is a very specific condition of being in a whole-body inflammatory state in response to a very, very serious infection, 2: Gangrene is not caused by necrosis (nor does it cause sepsis, it is a local issue and not caused by infection), rather dry gangrene can be thought of as a specific type of necrosis different than that caused by infection, 3: Cautery has historically been a way to close off amputations, as it destroys the tissue that is exposed as well as sealing the blood vessels, so it effectively does seal a wound, though in a traumatic manner that does leave an environment that is ideal for microbiological growth, but with less of a way to actually infect, especially in such a massive manner as required for sepsis.))

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Mmm-mm, what we're dealing with is wet gangrene. Dry isn't as serious because it's caused by a lack of blood flow- that inherently prevents the toxins, (which cause the sepsis), from permeating the blood supply. Here, went and wiki'd it:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Wet

Wet gangrene occurs in naturally moist tissue and organs such as the mouth, bowel, lungs, cervix, and vulva.[citation needed] Bedsores occurring on body parts such as the sacrum, buttocks, and heels — although not necessarily moist areas — are also categorized as wet gangrene infections. It is characterized by numerous bacteria and has a poor prognosis (compared to dry gangrene) due to septicemia. In wet gangrene, the tissue is infected by saprogenic microorganisms (Clostridium perfringens or Bacillus fusiformis, for example), which cause tissue to swell and emit a fetid smell. Wet gangrene usually develops rapidly due to blockage of venous (mainly) and/or arterial blood flow. The affected part is saturated with stagnant blood, which promotes the rapid growth of bacteria. The toxic products formed by bacteria are absorbed, causing systemic manifestation of septicemia and finally death. The affected part is edematous, soft, putrid, rotten and dark. The darkness in wet gangrene occurs due to the same mechanism as in dry gangrene. Wet gangrene is coagulative necrosis progressing to liquefactive necrosis.

The part where dry falters is reabsorbing the toxins- circulation isn't good enough to do that, so

Dry gangrene spreads slowly until it reaches the point where the blood supply is adequate to keep tissue viable

A layer of burned/dead tissue isn't a good replacement for the complex organ, skin, that serves the purpose of keeping stuff out (and in). It's why, (in addition to a kind of immunological shock I think), infection is such an issue with burn wounds.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Plus they also tend to be dirty wounds, ('burn blankets' are standard-issue in ambulances, but they're never used; the burn ward doesn't like them, keeping the wound clean is pointless and iirc they tend to cause more trauma).
This cauterizing job we did shouldn't be very nasty, but yar, just fyi.

[PyroDesu]

((Except we aren't dealing with wet gangrene (or, really, with gangrene at all, we're dealing with necrosis, probably caseous). To quote your very own source (although I will admit, it is one of my major sources as well):

Wet gangrene usually develops rapidly due to blockage of venous (mainly) and/or arterial blood flow. The affected part is saturated with stagnant blood, which promotes the rapid growth of bacteria. The toxic products formed by bacteria are absorbed, causing systemic manifestation of septicemia and finally death.

A cauterized wound is not "saturated with stagnant blood" (though the area near it may be, but that's separated from the bacterial/viral/fungal vectors that would cause the gangrene), which is one of the major factors of wet gangrene. And like I said, tissue destroyed by cautery leaves an environment that bacteria and infectious fungi will love, but it is at least separated from the bloodstream and living tissue, and virii won't take hold at all - they require living tissue to reproduce.

Now, though I may very well be wrong in the science of this, I can also say in-character reasons, one of which being why we would care. We're being paid more to bring hands and leave them alive, whether they live for a week after or a year after, that's not our problem. If anything, if they come back faster, then they might try for the scrapyard again and give us another go.))

[GrizzlyAdamz]

For cautery, in our case the infection comes first- then, once the cells have died from the infection, you get the necrosis, and gangrene/sepsis sets in.
There isn't really a barrier between the dead tissue & the living- it's just a very fast gradient between the two, (which minimizes the dead stuff). Further, the gradient wouldn't be perfect; there would be exposed (not-yet-dead) tissue mixed in with the cauterized stuff. All of it right on the blood vessels and also exposed to whatever he rubs his stumps on.


Well, I guess this is a philosophical question- we could sabotage our employer to assure more work sooner in the future, or we could do our best job to accomplish his goals- which is to keep them alive & harmless, (or rather, to keep them from respawning), for as long as possible. In my mind the latter choice is the 'honest' one, but that's just me.

[PyroDesu]

((That's the thing - the dead tissue is the barrier, and the cauterization itself will have killed anything that was in the wound beforehand that would cause the necrosis, so at the very least it is slowed. Besides, sepsis is still unlikely, it requires a very, very heavy infection to take hold before that happens. And please stop treating gangrene like it's the result of necrosis, it's not.

And it's not really sabotage, since how long would the raiders last without hands even if infection didn't end up eventually killing them? It's been mentioned that they're too crazy for decent people to do anything with, and I would think that their able-bodied comrades would kill them for being useless (and to get them back useful in about a month). They're likely to get themselves killed one way or another soon, they're completely defenseless.))

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Except the dead tissue isn't a barrier, it's the environment that the little critters love to grow in. The gangrene is what happens when bacteria are left to run wild in the (wet) necrotic tissue, (which makes more (wet) (liquefactive) necrotic tissue). Sepsis follows, when the byproducts of this massive necrotic infection are circulated in the bloodstream. If we let it get infected, (by not treating it), sepsis & death is the end result.

I used the s-word because you listed their 'earlier return, giving us another go' as support for not worrying about their wounds, which is counter-productive to our employer's goals.

Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction.

2. Treacherous action to defeat or hinder a cause or an endeavor; deliberate subversion.

As an alternative, we could leave them tied up & handless in the scrapyard for whoever he is to deal with, (for all we know he could cook up a (likely inhuman) prison-dungeon to keep them in).


I'm glad we don't all have PCs of our own- I have a feeling I'd be getting my hands cut off as well.

[PyroDesu]

((I'm saying it's a barrier in that it is separating the living tissue that is actually vulnerable from the environment at large, and if you've been reading my responses, then you know that I know that it makes a very good breeding environment (for bacteria and fungi, at least). Thing is, right now the only tissue that is necrotic is the newly dead tissue from the cauterization, which certainly would not count as a 'wet' environment, I don't think, and at the moment is sterile from the heat killing anything that got in beforehand. Only once the infectious agents breach the dead tissue barrier, which, while it will happen, won't be for a little while, do they hit the bloodstream, and at that point it depends on what got in for what happens, sepsis, normal infection, more necrosis near the wound, any number of things.

And whether or not it's sabotage depends on how you look at it, I suppose. I don't think it is because they're dead soon enough anyways.))

[Silcugar]

((Grizz, our contractor only cares that we bring him the hands. Besides, the heat from cauterizing them (which will also seal the wound decently) will kill anything that would kill them within days, and as for sepsis, the most common primary sources of infection resulting in sepsis are the lungs, the abdomen, and the urinary tract, not limb wound infection. Worst comes to worst, they'll get necrosis on their stumps, which won't kill them (too quickly).))

Check on Silly, don't waste supplies.

"Bud, you got this?"
Head to the watchtower to check on silly.


My vote's to split a motax between the 8 of them, once we've got them all together & cauterized everything.

You run towards the scream, to the watchtower. Navigating though the maze of scrap piles is easy enough, and you soon come upon the tower. A raider lies dead, wearing only a shirt, at the foot of the tower. Silly waves at you from the top. She slides down the ladder to meet you.

"They were fucking when I opened the door. This one charged me. I threw him over the side easy enough. The chick was harder. She had a meat cleaver, but I was faster." She looks at the dead raider for a bit. "This is why you don't put a man and woman on watch together."