In message 5.0.1.4.0.20010208230526.00a02310@pop3.wish.net, Jacqueline Thijsen inquisitioner@wish.net writes
At 22:16 8-2-01 +1100, Julia Jones wrote:
"Once you start lubricating you have to continue to do so, as the lube gets in the innards and f*cks them up, so they won't work properly without anymore." Seen on alt.fan.pratchett
The Dutch railways actually tried that with their switch points (cleaned away all the old oil and then left them alone) and it seems to work perfectly. They need far less maintenance that way.
ObB7: Ermm.... Would they still have to use lube on the Liberator? Or in the mutoids?
The quote in question was actually about Rubik's cubes, but I thought it looked very nice quoted out of context.
Presumably if lube is used on the Liberator, it's applied as part of the self-maintenance routines. I'm somewhat curious as to exactly where the supplies for the self-repair and maintenance come from. Some of the time the ship seems to be using a form of nano-technology, building parts out of raw materials, other times there's a stock of spare parts, used by both the ship itself and the humans. Perhaps the explanation for this is that self-repair is a nice SF idea, but if the ship was entirely self- repairing, you couldn't have "obtaining a replacement McGuffin" as an excuse to drive the plot.
The ship has a strong suggestion of organic technology, and "feeds" off energy. It's possible that it can create much or all of what it needs so long as it has raw materials to work with. How far down do those raw materials go? All the way down to being able to convert energy to matter? How complex are the things that can be built up? Pretty sophisticated, I would think. Weight for weight, spider silk is one of the strongest materials we know. Bones are made largely of apatite crystals, laid down on a framework to build up a lightweight but strong structure. There's more than one species of fish out there capable of giving its prey a nasty shock.
This leads me into some speculation about the kitchens that I'm not sure I want to pursue... And yes, Predatrix *has* speculated on what an organic ship might do with lubricant:-)