Stasis Module

The Stasis Module was a supplementary device fitted to a RIG suit, capable of producing a temporary field of dilated time that made objects move at an extremely slow rate for a period. Built for surgery and for slowing dangerous machinery, it became one of the tools Isaac Clarke relied on most through the Necromorph outbreaks, and its corruption in infected hosts gave rise to the Twitcher.

Principle and uses#

Stasis was a field of science and technology grounded in advanced quantum physics. In plain terms, a Stasis Module suspended a volume of slowed time in a chosen space, so that all motion and physical activity within it slowed relative to normal time. It was initially feared that any living thing subjected to such a slowdown would die, since the aerobic and anaerobic activities vital to life would be affected. In practice Stasis merely shifted the afflicted into a slower state of time; their bodily functions still worked relative to that state, and so they came to no harm.

This safety gave the technology wide use. In surgery, patients suffering otherwise terminal conditions or severe trauma, such as the loss of whole limbs, could be placed in Stasis while suitable equipment and staff were gathered to treat them. Commercially, Stasis slowed dangerous malfunctioning machinery until it could be repaired or replaced. Built into the RIGs of security and military personnel, it served as a non-lethal weapon for apprehending dangerous criminals, freezing them long enough to be restrained. Carried by survivors of the outbreaks, the same field stopped or slowed approaching Necromorphs and held back dangerous environmental hazards. A Stasis unit did not require a full-body RIG to function; one survivor wore a wrist-mounted unit operated by pulleys over his fingers.

The module in use, and its corruption#

On a RIG, the Stasis Module appeared as a band secured to the wearer's left forearm by metal straps, with a secondary component fixed to the back of the hand, each part carrying a short cylindrical element that helped focus the aim of the Stasis bolt. Stasis energy was monitored through an indicator embedded in the suit's armor over the right shoulder blade, and it was replenished at recharge stations, from portable Stasis Packs, or, on later RIGs, slowly over time on its own. The fired bolt took the form of a blue ball of energy that released its field where it struck and across a small surrounding area, affecting whatever it touched.

Two episodes set the device's history apart. Aboard the USG Ishimura, Dr. Challus Mercer built an advanced Stasis Module, drawing on a large quantity of osmium that he had Brant Harris collect from the Mining Deck. Unlike ordinary Stasis, Mercer's field let the afflicted keep their consciousness and awareness in normal time while the rest of their body was slowed, a process Harris described as agonizing after the doctor used it on him for brain surgery. Mercer most notably used it on Jacob Temple, immobilizing his body while his mind stayed aware, then firing a bolt from a Rivet Gun into his brain so that Temple experienced a slow and painful death. The module's darker legacy lay in the Twitcher: when the Necromorph infection took a host whose RIG carried a built-in module, the unit could merge with the new creature and its effect was reversed, speeding the body dramatically rather than slowing it and producing the rapid, twitching monster. A Stasis field from outside could override that reversal and bring a Twitcher back down to the pace of an ordinary slowed Necromorph.