Talk:Floran

Discussion page of Floran
Revision as of 04:43, 4 August 2021 by Cyclops (talk | contribs)
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A discussion on Discord by Ryu about the CO2 levels needed by Florans on Nimbus Station, so I had to do some research.

Nimbus is probably kept at Earth-Normal levels, which is about 400 ppm by volume, which is more than any other time on Earth (about 0.04%). This means all of our current plant life exists on very tiny amounts of carbon dioxide by volume to maintain photosynthesis.

On Nimbus Station while it does have life support, and can be sealed to be air tight either with the city shield or by sealing external doors, it is generally accepted that the outside air of Soteria is allowed to circulate. Class M is consider Earth-Like so we can roughly figure that it's CO2 content is similar to Earth, probably lower in fact because there is far less polution. As far as Ariana goes, it is reasonable to assume that if her species derives energy from sunlight way the contemporary plants do, that she may require more carbon dioxide than other plants.

According to the USDA has guidelines for how much CO2 people should be breathing in, not to exceed 8-hour exposure to CO2 levels above 5000ppm (or 0.5% by volume) with an upper limit of 30,000 ppm in a 10-minute period (3% by volume). at 40,000 ppm (4% by volume) it is considered immediately dangerous to health, i.e. potentially fatal. See source information here.

Plants do actually take in oxygen and give off CO2, especially at night / in the dark (see here). The only thing they use CO2 for is photosynthesis. I would wager it is reasonable to assume a Floran can use both -- the same way an amphibian can breath air or extract oxygen from water. I would say a Floran would breath in Oxygen and release CO2 but that in the sunlight, they can derive energy from the sunlight and it would flip (or both go on at the same time).

This is why I added the section on respiration, it is a bit of a fudge but then no one can possibly know how much sunlight or anything else a sentient plant without roots requires.

Cyclops (talk) 21:40, 3 August 2021 (PDT)