I’m sure the Star Wars Fan base and EU stuff has fanwanked to near-death what carbonite is, and how it worked as a bio-hibernation something-or-whatever; but I’d rather hear any ideas or even a theory how a process like that is supposed to work as seen in Empire Strikes Back, and Jedi from here.
For starters, I’m thinking buckyball nano-bots are involved…
“It works very well indeed, thank you.”
The carbonite itself just forms a matrix for a stasis field. Without it, such a field is so unstable that it takes Jedi-tweaking to make it safe for living things, and even with the carbonite, it can cause tissue damage and death if the field doesn’t take effect simultaneously across the subject’s entire body. Han did suffer from temporary blindness and other side effects upon coming out of the field because the field stabilized around his torso first, subjecting the rest of his body to oxygen deprivation and odd blood pressure effects. This is a common effect when relatively large creatures are subjected to carbonite stasis, and is referred to as hibernation sickness.
The jets of vapor are part of a cooling system. Solid carbonite sublimes slowly at temperatures in the same general range as the body temperature of many common endothermic life forms; the carbonite shell had to be cooled slightly until the field was established, or Han’s body heat would have caused it to evaporate. When the field was shut down, the thin part of the shell sublimed almost immediately; the main block would take much longer. Curiously, this phenomenon is accompanied by emission of visible and infrared light. When incident light strikes the stasis-stabilized carbonite, most of it is reflected; however, some percentage of photons enters microscopic pores in the carbonite matrix and becomes trapped in the stasis field. With prolonged exposure, the field can absorb substantial amounts of light. When the field is withdrawn, these photons are able to escape, making it appear that the carbonite (or its contents) are emitting light. Naturally, the parts of the carbonite exposed to the most light will radiate most strongly. Pro tip: don’t leave carbonite-encased objects in the sun too long, or you run the risk of being blinded or burned when you extract them. Exposing it to lots of ionizing radiation is probably unwise, too.
What happened to his binders when he was frozen? My fanwank was always that they broke off in the process and he threw up his hands in an instinctive reaction to protect himself.
I don’t know where I got this from, I may even be making it up, but Cloud City’s industry was built around mining gas from Bespin’s atmosphere. Tibanna Gas as I recall. The carbon freeze process was how the Gas was prepared to be shipped (it is easier to ship blocks with Gas inside than just tanks of gas I suppose).
At some point, Vader decided freezing Luke in there was the best way to transport him to the Emperor, but no one ever put a human in there so they tested it on Han and the rest is history…
ETA: I agree about the binders although I seem to recall reading once if you look carefully you can see them being removed before he goes in. Either explanation works for me.
Well done, Balance!
I can suppose the binders are retracted automatically right before the freeze is initiated, causing Han to react and ultimately freeze in the tortured and defensive pose we know and love.
What I think is most interesting is that the word “carbonite” was borrowed from the language of the Ewoks.