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WafflesToo — TFS ch.4 page 27
Published: 2011-09-05 02:33:24 +0000 UTC; Views: 1034; Favourites: 3; Downloads: 0
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Comments: 20
She's got an extremely admirable determination to complete the mission, but she's got to temper that reckless streak.
Fantastic detailing, including the ghost image of her tail to show movement.
That is, to me, the most interesting part of her EVA suit, having a section for her tail.
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It's pretty much what she lives for. I have a feeling she's taken risks like this before and gotten away with it.
Thanks. After getting SICK of having to draw the detail on the breather on all three characters through the last half of chapter two I went and wrote another EVA sequence... WTF was I thinking?
Well, the suit works on elastic compression (NOT air pressure) so I figured it needed to conform pretty closely to the body (of whatever species was wearing it).
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True, but eventually the odds catch up. "But it worked 12 times before."
Well, I must say a huge thank you for putting the extra work into the details of the breather unit.
Now that's an interesting suit. One size fits all or species general?
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Not quite individual specific but close. Sandra and Hriss' suits had to be pretty much custom made since at this time there are only a handful of Fen in the Alliance.
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Interesting. The techie side of me wants to learn more about these marvelous suits but the sci fi side of me says..."Just read the story and don't sweat the details".
How long have the Fen been in the Alliance?
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Less than 30 years since the first colony world joined. They're very much a novelty within Alliance space so far.
It's kind of an interesting situation; The central Fen authority isn't part of the alliance (though diplomatic channels are somewhat open for now and Droog and Humanity both would like to see them join) but some of the border colonies are.
Cpt Vidini Hriss was among the first of his kind in Space Command and lobbied unsuccessfully for years to get Vet-Ava to join as full members (they did eventually; but not until after a disastrous famine caused by breakdown of the Fen's FTL network).
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Not a very long amount of time at all.
I can understand why the Central Authority is leery of joining, not enough contact time yet. But, like you said before, the colonies are an entirely different matter.
I can imagine that when Vet-Ava joined the Alliance, their troubles with the homeworld really started.
Not only do you have a wonderful comic, you have the awesome imagination to back it up. Ever thought of writing a full scale timeline and history to go with the story? I'd be the first in line to buy a copy and read it.
Oh, another question, as long as I'm throwing them at you. Do you have any internal detail drawings of the SCS Morocco?
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That is certainly a huge factor and there's a lot of pride going around as well. The colonists are far more pragmatic though. It all stems from the fact that the Fen's central authority overreached itself trying to "catch up" with the Alliance. Their FTL fleet is stretched so thinly that anytime one of the ships breaks down it causes a famine on several worlds (I need to stop; this is chapter six and seven stuff here XD).
The Droog and Humanity both want them to join so that they have a political forum to work their differences out on; because the last time Droog and Humanity worked it out martially 13 billion people and three worlds died.
Thank you, and I really hadn't thought about it. Maybe I'll have to start considering doing other stories in the setting at some point.
No internal drawings yet; but it's a work-in-progress. I'd like to get a set of deck plans made one of these days at the very least.
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Oooo, a technology race, those can be really disasterous. Fear not, you aren't spilling the beans, just highening my anticipation of the storyline.
I'm glad to see Droog and Humanity put the hammers away and talk with each other. That's a huge, ugly price to pay for misunderstanding. Hopefully the Fen Central Authority will put their xenophobia aside and act accordingly.
You're very welcome. Maybe not so much complete story's as little snippetes of information. Travel log sort of thing. A paragraph about the XYZ system or the background of the Type 23 FTL transport. How FTL capability came into being.
From the bits and pieces of info you've given on the Morocco, I think it'd be crowded with just Mark on board. Add Sandra and Sam, they must have to step outside to change their minds. Now a deck plan would be very interesting indeed.
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Technology race, arms race, AND a massive land grab. They've bitten off quite a lot and might choke on it if they aren't careful.
Both sides figured out that given the nature of the strategic weapons they were using it was find another solution or mutual extinction (R-bombs are relatively cheap, difficult to intercept, and will crack a planet down to the mantle; seismic effects alone are enough to destroy a planet's biosphere even without thermal and nuclear winter effects). That the conflict arose in the first place through lack of communication was painful and obvious enough once both sides opened diplomatic channels. Trust was still a long time in coming which is why ships of the Morocco's vintage retain very heavy armor and weapon packages. The later generations of space fighters are smaller, lighter, and have only minimal weaponry (in a later chapter ANGIE comments that despite her antiquated fire-control system she could easily take three-to-on or even four-to-one odds agains the Mk.III and IV fighters).
You'll notice the Mk.V fighters like the Kashmir are heavily armed just like the Morocco
It's a bit small for a live-aboard, nominally a bit more spacious than a submarine but not much. Deck 3 is the largest single living space on the ship and it's a disc about 12 m in diameter with various facilities lining the walls(galley, laundry, fitness, along with fold-up cots). It's designed for up to a four-man crew and up to 12 passengers/evacuees. Better get to know your neighbor really well
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Sounds to me like the Central Authority suffers from a definite lack of caution in trying to play 'One Up' with the Alliance.
It is nice to see that Humanity and Droog both pulled their heads out in time. These R-bombs sound similar to what Robert Oppenheimer postulated about nuclear weapons. Theoretically there is no top end to the size of a device. Teraton (no pun intended 
I'd figured that 2 Quad Railgun turrets was a bit on the overkill side, now I understand why. So the Mark III and IV were a step backward, as far as armament was concerned?
I also noticed the crew pod (?) on the Kashmir was quite a bit bigger, too. More living space or ???
Your description of how everything's packed into the Morocco sounds like the Troop Ships I had the minimal pleasure of sailing on in the 60s. ONLY 12 of us would have been quite nice.
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True, but they're doing it out of perceived neccesity. You don't want to go into negotiations as the measurably weaker side so it's as much to avoid desperation on thier part as it is arrogance on ours.
An R-bomb is brutally simple; it's a fusion torch with a guidance package deployed at a range of 2 - 4 AU and allowed to build up speed at a constant rate of acceleration. By the time they impact they're travelling a several tenths of c... Cheap planet killers.
Yes, by then the alliance was over 100 years old and the martial portion of Space Command's mission was deemed largely obsolete. The ships of that era were mostly tailored for presence and rescue / mercy missions. The Mk.III was pretty much unarmored and carried minimal laser and railgun armament. The Mk.IV replaced the spherical pressure hull with an even cheaper to manufacture cylindrical one. Armament was just as light but they did add an armor belt to the forward half of the pressure hull.
There's actually not that much difference in the internal volume of the Mk.V's pressure hull (mostly optical illusion, it looks larger because it's a cylinder but its diameter is smaller).
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So even after the disasterous first contacts between Droog and Humanity the Alliance still suffers from arrogance. Amazing, but so damn human (dare I say...so damn droog?)
Let's see, if I remember my Physics correctly (which I probably don't
Usually, when the politicians say the military's combat mission is obsolete, you sure better have a bunch of MkII in a hangar somewhere. I'm sure the MkIV crews are very happy to hear their rides were produced by the lowest bidder. Now where have I heard that before?
"Yes the added length does give one extra deck, but don't plan on storing anything there, it's just to fill up the internals."
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Pfffft, you know it. And that's the really crappy part; it wasn't even first contact. They'd been in contact for half-a-century at that point.
At that point I'm pretty sure you're measuring the energy-released in either Megahurts or Trainwrecks... But yes, three worlds were destroyed before the politic got control of the situation enough to put a cease-fire in place.
Oh god that's so true 
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So are we looking at a case of "The politico's aren't moving fast enough so we'll sort this out ourselves"?
Megahurts, you come up with the grandest terms. Now 'Trainwrecks' is a good measurement system for disasters too. Forget the Cat 1, etc..."We have a Class 4 Trainwreck!!!"
I take it, with the Striker, you have to step outside to change your mind? It looks damned huge on the outside, but...
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More-or-less, yes. A problem exasperated by the limited speed of interstellar communication (speed-of-light limitations for interplanetary com, and messages between the stars can travel only as fast as the ships carrying them).
Hahaha, sadly, I can only claim credit for stealing only the finest material from the best sources. "Megahurts" is how weapons were rated in Douglas Adam's "Hitchhiker" series. "TrainWreck" comes from a collection of essays on atomic rockets through the Project Rho website. (warning, math ahead!)
Oh beleive me, the M1 MBT was plenty cozy on the inside; but it could take a hit and shrug it off. The Striker appears to be lightly armored, have limited-to-poor off-road capabilities, and far less firepower than we did (I've heard that the Striker is capable of firing it's main gun only over the front and back decks; shooting over its flanks risks a rollover). Basically a vehicle that can own the roads but can't chase the bad-guys to thier nests; worse, I hate to think of what could happen should we be forced into direct conflict with China with such light ground forces.
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That's something that I always figured would be a huge hindrance to any endeavors in space. Anything farther away than say a few light hours, would only be practical sending it through the mail.
Now that I look back on it, Megahurts did seem familiar. I read the entire Hitchhker series back in the early 80s, I'll have to read them again. Thank you for the link, that's a very interesting site. I always have several of my trusty calculators handy so I might be able to stumble through the math...never to be mistaken for tiptoeing through the tulips.
I did a lot of digging looking for info on the Stryker and it's pretty limited what's out there. There are several reference to major modifications in the armor, suspension and cross-country abilities. The Army went with road speed (wheels) verses rough terrain (tracks), so I'm not quite sure what they were trying to do there. There is one varient, which is quite interesting, there's a "mini" Abrams turret on it with a NATO 105mm! I can easily see that flipping the vehicle over if fired over the side. For me, in a straight up gunfight, I'd have the M-1s and Bradley's handling enemy armor and the Strykers escorting supply convoys.
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Well, empires have been run in the past with two-way communications measured in months so it would likely run along those models.
*Grumble* well understand that we were all a little bitter getting yanked off our 60-ton ass-kickers and tossed into these little 16 ton tin-cans XD. Didn't help that we kept hearing rumors that this wasn't temporary, that some brain higher up had a new idea for the army and frankly we didn't like it much.
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Very true, a fast turn around 300 years ago would have been measured in months.
The logic of taking highly trained tank crews and putting them in armored cars escapes me. But then, the "front office" was probably just as confusing for Roman Legionnaires in the field, too.
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