[BBS] Insert Ship Here

[espio]

[Hey, guys? Remember Espio? The instructor who supposedly quit? Well. He kind of decided that actually, he was gonna keep his job, because teaching is fun. Or something. Yeah, not exactly going to be announcing that, after kicking up such a fuss - he's a little ashamed of making such a U-Turn.

But there's something he does want to talk about.]

For those who don't already know, Balamb Garden has acquired a new airship, the Chaotix.

[It looks like this.]

It's an off-world ship from the Special Zone, but before the natives start freaking out over it, I'll state right now that the Ragnarok completely outclasses it - the Chaotix has a similar carrying capacity and depending on its load it can almost rival the Ragnarok for speed, but its main advantage is its fuel efficiency. Better for the budget and all.

The controls are considerably different to those of the Ragnarok, and someone needs to show people how to use it. I will be offering familiarisation classes when I'm available, which is generally during the mornings.

Apply by PM, and I'll make arrangements. Any applicant must already be a qualified pilot through the SeeD program, capable of flying the Ragnarok, or have demonstrable prior experience as a pilot in their home world.

Got questions? Ask them here.

ESPIO

Comments

[elementofloyalty]

is it gonna be part of the interning program too

[espio]

I expect that's only likely to happen when I've taught Nida how to fly it. I won't be teaching those courses myself - they clash with my current schedule.

[elementofloyalty]

darn. okay.

[espio]

When are you aiming to take the internship?

[elementofloyalty]

i'm enrolled this quarter. guess i'll have to get that lesson on flying it when i'm done, huh

[espio]

Most likely, unless I can somehow collaborate with Nida. But you probably have classes in the morning, so chances are high you won't have the time.

[elementofloyalty]

yep. oh well. it's not going anywhere so i'll get my chance

[BBS]

[fierybluebird]

You named it the Chaotix? Wouldn't that get confusing?

Re: [BBS]

[espio]

Not really. I mean, the name was already painted on it, although it was more a "THIS BELONGS TO US" label - like branding or something. I don't know. If you ever meet Vector, ask him, he's the one who plasters our team name on everything we own.

The ship is... kind of one of my last memories of home, so it's strongly tied to my memory of Chaotix anyway. It's where we all were when Shadow happened.

And where I come from, it's not really unheard of for people to name their treasures after the people they're closest to.

[Yes. As much as Espio wishes it was more like the Ragnarok, its sheer sentimental value marks it as a treasure.]

[BBS]

[fierybluebird]

Understood. We named our ship Moby Dick after all, and she was our nakama as much as the rest of us.

I guess that means you have another nakama here now?

[BBS]

[espio]

I guess. Of course, Chaotix will always come first.

[tiamat_shot]

What's so special about the zone?

[espio]

Not the kind of question I was looking for, but whatever. The Special Zone is the name of a universe - my home universe, to be specific.

As for what makes it special... you'd really have to see it to understand, but it basically runs on its own set of rules rather different to most realities.

The most vivid example I can think of would be Space. For example, Space here? Is kind of this dark black void with light-years of distance between stars and millions of miles between planets - you need special technology just to survive up there, let alone move around. In the Special Zone, you can easily hop around all the multicoloured junk that litters the place, or use a half-pipe as a road. If you wanted, you could get across Space with as little as a rowing boat, as long as you keep your eye out for the floating bombs.

[tiamat_shot]

Well, I could ask questions about the ship, but it looks pretty standard aside from its design. I guess my only question there is "what kind of tech makes it more fuel-efficient than this place's finest?" but I figure that's the usual dimensional secret sort of deal.

So you're saying that you came from surrealist nightmares.

[espio]

Surrealist nightmare is kind of harsh.

[Accurate, though. Espio's home is what would happen if you took every single Special Stage from the Sonic the Hedgehog games and put them in a blender with Silver Age Marvel.]

You need to remember that this place's finest is over forty years old, and in general my home is more advanced than this one in the present. The fuel efficiency simply comes from the march of progress - we need less to accomplish the same. That, and the Chaotix is much lighter, so it needs less power to go at the same speed.

It doesn't have weapons, or a gravity generator, and its construction doesn't need to handle exiting the atmosphere or the vaccuum of Space - like I said, we can cross Space with a rowing boat and gravity is a given, so we don't need that sort of thing.

[tiamat_shot]

Aha, aluminum-titanium alloy instead of steel for the chassis, more chocobopower on the engine, that sort of thing?

[Sorry, Espio; airship nerdery is one of the prerequisites of time as a gadgeteer.]

So in the Special Zone, there wasn't atmospheric differences between Here and There. Interesting.

[Aaaand it just clicked who he's talking to. Cautiously, the moogle adds in:]

...you realize that it could be used for more missions like the one the cadets had over the break. Are you okay with that?

[espio]

Yes, exactly.

[...chocobopower. Espio is shaking his head.]

I've made my perspective on missions of that nature very clear. I expect that to be respected. If not, I will assert my ownership of the vehicle and withdraw the ship from SeeD usage. I don't care if it's something like the Survival Skills field trips, but throwing untrained children against the most dangerous monsters on the planet is an absolute no go.

[tiamat_shot]

[He knows by now that arguing the pros and cons of that fiasco was wasting time, so he doesn't touch on it. Which, naturally, means more airship questions.]

You said 'similar carrying capacity' - I've never been aboard the Ragnarok, so what kind of numbers are we looking at here?

[espio]

[Insert numbers here, because Kiwi's lazy and her maths is fail. Just know that Espio's pretty knowledgeable on the subject and can reel this stuff off quick. However, the Chaotix can carry more people, and the Ragnarok can carry more cargo - it needs to carry more fuel, for a start.]

[tiamat_shot]

[Laziness mode go! It actually works better, because expect him to ask for a side-by-side analysis of Chaotix versus Ragnarok here, along with his occasional comments about the capabilities of airships in his world. Expect some words that certainly don't make sense in the context of airships in this world, such as "skystone" and "stable mist capacity". The moogle also has no idea of what's actually used as fuel in airships elseworld.]

[espio]

[Well, since Espio never gets a chance to geek out about vehicles these days - his friends are not particularly technologically inclined - any character looking at this thread would see the geekiest load of TL;DR and probably go to find a more interesting thread to stalk because holyshit numbers and physics and details and stuff!

There's only a few random snippets of things that aren't full-on crazy detail about modern aircraft.]

You'll have to tell me about your skystone and stuff.

You know, I've been kind of wondering if I could get one of the ships to tap into the Emerald's power somehow, give it a speed boost or maybe reduce its fuel consumption some more. It's a major power source. Problem is, I've got one, but I have no idea how to use it, and neither does anyone else here. Not exactly helpful to anyone.

[tiamat_shot]

...Emerald? That actually ties into talking about skystones, because it sounds like this emerald is something similar to magicite.

Okay, gonna get long-winded myself here. Special forms of crystals can soak up the inherent Mist in the environment and store it, like a battery or a sponge. We call those magicite. It comes in several types - Spellstones are catalysts for high-level magicks, mostly being large stores of Mist. Skystones are a special variety of spellstone that are specifically charged with high-powered Float and Aero magicks, allowing flight. Then there's Memstones, which can actually be used as sorts of memory recorders - they draw out and copy the wielder's memories for future archival.

Finally, there's nethicite, which actually absorbs the Mist in the air and nullifies it, making it an outstanding means of magick-proofing something. Unfortunately, the type of crystal that can be cultivated into nethicite doesn't naturally exist any more, and the manmade varieties are imperfect at best.

That Emerald you mentioned sounds like it might be a variety of magicite - can you tell me more about it?

1/2

[espio]

I don't know the full details about the Chaos Emeralds. There's only a handful, and they're a bit of a mystery to even the one who's supposed to guard them. But I can kind of see some sort of similarity - I get the impression that these Emeralds can do pretty much anything, but they're mainly used to levitate a small continent.

They contain a large amount of power, but they're not very stable, especially when you have all of them together. The energy they contain, however, can create a whole reality - from what I overheard, the Special Zone was made by the Chaos Emeralds. More specifically, from waste energy radiated when the Emeralds became unstable.

2/2

[espio]

Unfortunately, they can also take that energy back.

[tiamat_shot]

[...Ouch. Emias may not be all that socially gifted, but he can tell "tragic backstory" when he sees hints of it. Again, he doesn't pry.]

Unstable energies are particularly dangerous to work with, especially in things such as airships. Trying to use one of these Chaos Emeralds as a fuel source... in the best case scenario, you'd need a good chunk of nethicite and at least three times the amount of glossair rings to process it... and some drained magicite, too.

You'd want to find a way to funnel the energy into a more stable container, and then disperse it as rapidly as possible where it needs to go - kind of a magickal prism theory at work, there. Of course, that's assuming that the energy in the Emerald is similar enough to Mist to run on the same principles.