Liquid Breathing - Examples in Fiction

Examples in Fiction

• Joe Haldeman's 1975 novel The Forever War describes liquid immersion and breathing in great detail as a key technology to allow space travel and combat with acceleration up to 50 G.
• In The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, Robert Langdon (the protagonist) is completely submerged in breathable liquid mixed with hallucination agents and sedatives as a torture technique by Mal'akh (the antagonist). He goes through a near death experience when he inhales the liquid and blacks out, losing control over his body, but is soon revived.
• The James Cameron film The Abyss features a character using liquid breathing to dive thousands of feet without compressing. The Abyss also features a scene with a rat submerged in and breathing fluorocarbon liquid, filmed in real life.
• In the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, the cockpits of the titular Mecha are filled with a fictional oxygenated liquid called LCL which helps to dampen impacts on the pilot in battle and helps him to better psychically-synchronize with his biomechanical vehicle. However, the pilots are able to see through it, hear and speak normally as if it were air, things humans are incapable of doing in aqueous media.
• The aliens in the Gerry Anderson UFO series use liquid-breathing spacesuits.
• Hal Clement's 1973 novel Ocean on Top portrays a small underwater civilization living in a 'bubble' of oxygenated fluid denser than seawater.
• In an episode of the Adult Swim cartoon series Metalocalypse, the other members of the band submerge guitarist Toki in a "liquid oxygen isolation chamber" while recording an album in the Mariana Trench.
• In an episode of the Syfy Channel show Eureka, Sheriff Jack Carter is submerged in a tank of "oxygen rich plasma" to be cured of the effects of a scientific accident.
• In the movies Mission to Mars and Event Horizon (film), a character is depicted as being immersed in apparent breathable fluid before a high-acceleration launch.
• In season 1, episode 13 of Seven Days chrononaut Frank Parker is seen breathing a hyper-oxygenated perfluorocarbon liquid that is pumped through a sealed full body suit that he is wearing. This suit and liquid combination allow him to board a Russian submarine through open ocean at a depth of almost 1000 feet. Upon boarding the submarine he removes his helmet, expels the liquid from his lungs and is able to breathe air again.
• Ben Bova's novel Jupiter features a craft in which the crew are suspended in a breathable liquid that allows them to survive in the high pressure environment of Jupiter's atmosphere.
• In the book Mechanicum from the Horus Heresy series of novels in the Warhammer 40,000 setting, physically crippled Titan pilots are encased in nutrient fluid tanks to allow them to continue operating beyond the limits normally imposed by the body.
• In the classic PC Turn-Based Strategy game X-COM: Terror from the Deep, "Aquanauts" fighting deep ocean conditions breathe a dense oxygen-carrying fluid.
• In the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel "The Children of Hamlin" the crew of the Enterprise-D encounter an alien race whose ships contain a breathable liquid environment.
• In season 1 episode 10 of Seaquest DSV (the regulator), a rogue genius was anathema because of his theory of "cyclical evolution" which involved mammals returning to the sea. He tried to place artificial gills on apes and mice so they could breathe under water.