Intergalactic Summit

Hello, Summit;

I have occasionally wondered how similar we are in our experiences. While we obviously can't compare qualia directly, I've always found it interesting how widely our differences in sensations vary. So I come here with a question - how does being plugged in to a ship feel to you?

For myself, I find the sensation of active shield boosters to be initially quite stifling, but after a few cycles it's rather comfortable. Railguns are almost dizzying - the significant capacitor discharge and the electromagnetic burst against the hull is quite something! Microwarp drives are tension-inducing, like a smaller form of the sensory snap that you get when you take that jump into warp.

What about you, are there any noteworthy sensory experiences you get while plugged in? Or am I the only one?

Consider the feeling one has when thinking about rushing forward quickly, of imagining oneself moving forward at a sprint: not the feeling of one's legs pumping, or of one's stomach tightening, or of one's eyes stinging against the wind, but the sensation of feeling a rush of energy, of tension, of visceral drive and the urge to go faster. Though the sensation is by no means intense after several years of accommodating myself to it, sudden acceleration used to be a very gut-wrenching and disorienting experience. I can recall imagining, even though space is empty, that my eyes were burning from the wind and rain; I can recall an odd combination of physical and visual distortions as I imagined everything—again, when there were mostly no 'things' around me—blurring into colorful streaks as though I were watching a landscape rush past me from the vantage of a low-flying atmospheric shuttle. It was a very interesting experience, and this is what we subject our rookie combat pilots to every day in my organisation: a breath-taking and dizzying flurry of sensation such that it's a wonder any of them manage to properly activate any other module.

And that's what separates capsuleers from other humans: we are emotionally, neurologically, and physiologically capable of adapting to those extremes of sensation that our bodies never evolved to process, and to integrate them into our own dynamic thinking structures without going mad. Well, most of us.

Same here. Neuro-visuals are enough for me. My eyes are drawn to quick changes and colors and notifications. Sounds, feelings, pokes, whatever, they all act as kind of a distraction. Though sometimes if the situation is bad, I set my pod to prioritize crap and pull me towards, say, a target that might be more of a threat. Or pull me to notice a shield or armor or internal issue (crew or mechanical). But not too much, otherwise I'd get pulled to say, an in crew scuffle right before I let the ship take a missile to the stern.

I quite enjoy it. Its very odd I must say. There's always a moment of sensory overload as your mind expands to intake all the new data, like getting into a new body every time you board a new ship, but then that really is exactly what you're doing, isn't it?

It feels...I couldn't adequately describe in words a lot of the sensations, they're unlike anything a human would experience, some sensations are similar, but none exactly the same. I think the feelings that stand out the most are the sensations of speed, energy, damage, things we can easily understand as humans. But there's no human bodily function that maps to 'turn on the shield booster' The sensations associated with most modules are very difficult to describe. The thing that turning on a shield booster feels like to me, is turning on a shield booster. Maybe in time the words will come to me.

Like Ms. Vitalia, I also prefer to shut off some functions of the feedback mechanisms, but for a less efficient reason; running in the pod with all of those bells and whistles turned up for hours or days at a time gives me migraines....probably has to do with the 1stGen implants...

Recently I would get rather painful migraines and nausea once I unplugged from the pod or even bouts of momentary aphasia and periodic blackouts when I was interfaced with a vessel. At first I thought it was just cynosis kicking in since I had higher incidence of warp activations since graduating as a freelancer. Upon investigation I was told that the culprit was a transfer from CalNav standardized hydrostatic capsule systems to Ishukone standards. The technicians tell me it was an inability to maintain an effective neurochemical homeostasis when synchronized with Ishukone capsule interfaces.

I've moved on to use KK or Lai Dai designed hydrostatic capsules and interfaces and the side-effects have dropped off considerably since I've started using them and I would certainly recommend them to anyone who has had similar experiences such as myself with Ishukone capsule interfaces.

As for neurological synesthesia, I have not experienced it when in the pod but then again I'm usually on a coterie of suppressants and inhibitors in addition to a muscle relaxant when I'm in the pod. I don't think I need those sorts of crossed wires when going through simulated engagement drills as I attempt to build effective fleet-combat operant conditioning reflexes. It would prove far too distracting I'd say.

Much like lady Vitalia and Anslo, I tend to turn down or out everything except the visual feed and HUD data overlay while in combat to maximize efficiency. So no feeling lasers hitting the structure or armor repair cycles (eww.)

But while just flying around or exploring, that's another matter.

It feels like i'm some sort of marine animal and the universe is my ocean. The space feels viscous like water because of the warpdrive drag effect (still, i wish there was a way to offline the thing...). Everything is beautiful. Each planet is a jewel. The color-enhanced nebulae are breathtaking. It all is just awesome. I like it!

I would not disagree that Ishukone designs and builds quality products including capsule interfaces. However, I believe the difference in Naval Standard (Perhaps to a lesser extent KK and Lai) capsules is that they're intended to maximize high-intensity and high information capacity bursts through the interface during a potential engagement followed by a downtime. It may be specific only to myself or due to current political state of affairs that I was trained with Naval Standards, but comparatively I believe I'm a few percentile points higher at risk of side-effects such as wetgraving in addition to a variety of disassociative and schizophrenic disorders in their use.

It certainly does make me question if the (Supposed) benefits of Naval Standards are worth it when compared to Ishukone designs which appear to emphasize safety and long-term use.