Drunkard's Walk Forums

There isn't that much here yet, but I had to write it up to get it out of my head. And since nobody's introduced this grand old lady
to the Fenspace universe yet, I thought I would.

---

I stepped into Engineering, where I saw Agatha tinkering on...something. It should be a new power generator if the report she'd sent me was accurate.
We'd see. It was certainly a gorgeous piece of steampunk engineering, though. As I came closer, she waved. "Hey, Kevin. Come to see how it's
coming?"

I nodded. "A bit. Though I really wanted to run something past you." I grinned. "I had an idea for a new car. Well...an old
car, really. I wondered if you'd want to help out?" She looked intrigued and came down off the ladder where she'd been making adjustments on the
machine, wiping her hands on a rag as she walked over. "I'm listening. What did you have in mind?"

I chuckled. "I'm not sure if you came across it when you were going through the Archive or not. Got time to watch a show? It'll
give you a better idea of what I'd like to try." I grinned. "It should catch people's attention, if we can pull it off." She nodded.
"All right. Show away." I laughed, and called up a pair of chairs, and a screen. "OK...here we go. Have a seat." We settled back to watch
the movie...Agatha laughing as the show progressed.

---

Agatha was making the final adjustments under the hood, as I checked over the main body of the car, giving the wood a bit of a polish with a
rag. "How's it looking? Everything good to go?" Closing the hood, she nodded. "Looks ready to go. You have the mobile emitter set up?"
I grinned. "Yep. All set for you to tag along on the test drive. I've got my suit on and ready to go, just in case this doesn't work like
we're hoping, but I think it'll be OK." She nodded and got into the passenger's seat, and I climbed in the right side, behind the wheel.
"Let's see how she works, then. Might be fun to head down to Australia...test out a few features down there." Agatha nodded, and I started the
car, the engine immediate settling into a distinctive rhythm.

Edging out of her parking spot in Yggdrasil's landing bay, we headed towards the force screen shielding the opening to space. A
button blinked on the dash, and I pushed it. Fins came out of the sides of the car, near the bumpers, and a glowing tube protruded from the rear. Lifting off,
we flew out into open space...an odd feeling in an open roadster. Fortunately, the faint shimmer around the car held in the air...and there was even a breeze
in our faces. No idea what was generating that, but it was a nice touch. I grinned as we flew towards the Earth, the roadster's chrome and polished wood
gleaming as we came around the dark side of the planet into sunlight. The light caught the white letters on the front plate, too: GEN 11.

I glanced over at Agatha, and grinned. "Want another project to play with, now that we've got this lovely lady built? I was
considering another vehicle that was made of wood..." She raised an eyebrow at me. "Oh...what did you have in mind?" I chuckled. "I figured
we could use something with a fair bit of cargo space...and there's this plane that I always loved. Built by a bit of an eccentric, and never really used,
sadly. I figured we could make our own version." My grin widened. "The original was called the Spruce Goose...."

---

Sorry...I had to. I'm still trying to work out some of Chitty's features in Fenspace. I do know a few of her quirks, though. And
yes...the Jason IS hoping to build his own version of the Spruce Goose one of these days. We've got the space to work on it in Yggdrasil, though
we might have to complete the assembly outside. *grin* Besides, it's too lovely a plane not to do anything with. And with stained wood and resin (and
different woods) instead of what they went for in the original, she could be absolutely friggin' GORGEOUS.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - Fenspace version

User Friendly: There's no AI to speak of...at least, that's spoken back. But the car has a definite
personality. Needed controls will blink to point themselves out if the user doesn't seem to know what to do, and the car can literally drive herself.
There's definitely something in there, even if she doesn't talk.

ALL-Terrain Vehicle: Like the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the Fenspace version doesn't let a lack of
roads...or land...curtail her jaunts. She's been tested in land, air and sea modes...and has a finned 'rocket' version for space. When being tested
by Agatha and the Jason in boat mode near Australia's Great Barrier Reef, a chance comment about wishing for scuba gear caused one of the dashboard buttons
to blink...and a modified version of the rocket mode quickly demonstrated it was quite adept at underwater maneuvering as well. This startled more than a few
divers that day, to the testers' amusement. Tests on the Moon and Mars have shown that the tires will adjust to meet the conditions there. She hasn't
been tested on ice or snow yet, but they're hoping to get around to it one of these days, to see what happens.

In Space, No One Can Hear You...*chitty...*?: The car's distinctive motor noises and backfires can be heard
anywhere. Even in hard vacuum. Needless to say, this drives Fivers and new Galactica fans nuts. Anyone can hear her, though those who are modded or have more
exposure to handwavium seem to hear the noises more clearly.

.... Excuse me for a moment.

*Goes off to a corner to shatter and geek out.*

*Returns once he can compose himself*

That. Is. Awesome. Benjamin is going to want them to visit. And he'll want Agatha to come along as well to see if she can't get Jerome hooked on
Steampunk...

Somehow I knew it was Chitty before the end of the third paragraph.

I officially declare this idea made of win.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

*grin* What can I say? I'm a huge Chitty fan, and I figured she'd fit into Fenspace very well. Plus, there's the whole open-air roadster as a
spaceship factor that makes me want to grin.

*laugh* Agatha and the Jason would both love to help you get Jerome hooked on Steampunk. Fenspace allows Steampunk - and lovely cars like Chitty - to actually
work. We need more people using it. And the boy sounds partway there already, since he likes pipes/mechanical stuff.

I've also been trying to think of names for the Jason's version of the Spruce Goose. Spruce Goose II is just no good. I was thinking
about the Birch Bustard for a while, but I think I'm going to settle on the Maple Mallard. Thoughts? I figured that of the current
cast of Fenspace characters, the Jason was one of the most likely to try a version of the Goose, since he can supply the wood needed pretty easily.
Grover's Corners or Noah and his crew were the two other groups that I considered likely possibilities for it, but I have this love for weird/unique
vehicles anyway, so....

Mm. I don't know that the Corners will be into lumber any time soon... the woods aren't infinite, after all, and are part of the life support system.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

This is, without a doubt, the *best* vehicle I've ever seen done here, and I don't except mine. Kudos.

Maple Mallard sounds like it's going to be a pretty big project. If The Jason needs any help, Benjamin will be more than willing to provide it - he's a Goose fan himself and the idea of a monster like that making trips to and from Sidney and Melbourne just tickles me. Also, you'd probably have the biggest cargo making regular stops on Earth, besides the Galaxy Express - the Goose was originally intended to be able to carry main battle tanks, after all.

*grin* I'm glad everybody is happy to see Chitty. She just seemed so right for Fenspace.And Benjamin is more than welcome to help with the Mallard. One reason for building her is that the cargo space will be useful in finishing up theYggdrasil over the next few years; there's still a LOT to be done inside, and being able to send a large cargo ship down to Earth will be durnuseful in getting some of the stuff I need. Another reason, of course, is love of the Goose.I'm lousy with Photoshop and similar programs, sadly...but this is a VERY rough idea of what the Mallard might look like in woodtones. The engines- I left them in black and white from the photo...but with Agatha being involved, it's hards to say what they'll look like. Lots of brass involved,I'll bet. *laugh* And gods only know what the plane will be like after handwaving. But...see what you think. Anybody out there a better hand withphotoediting that might want to play with this? The ship has a picture of a drake mallard in flight beneath the cockpit, with the bright green head and thewings showing the purple-blue feathers that mallards have in breeding season. The ship's name is below that in a nice fancy script, red outlined in blackto show up well. If anybody wants to play, contact me - I've got pictures of wood planks and of the Goose that I can send you.

Benjamin would be particularly useful in waving up an engine system - it seems to be his speciality to be able to build wave-tech engines with very little quirk. The worst that's been seen so far is a particular desire for an odd fuel, like the Bullet Boy Express getting its best mileage on imported German beer.

Putting Ben and Agatha together on the Mallard will most likely result in having a central boiler plant with steam engines in the wings. I'm thinking of some bastardized twenty-four cylinder version of the Rolls Royce Merlin, built to run on high-pressure steam. Properly waved, it'll be obscenely powerful and insanely efficient. The only drawback is having a boiler plant inside the main fuselage, but I'm certain that with Agatha's help and a healthy dose of Handwavium that can be reduced to a very managable size.

Hmmmmm... a steam-powered wooden aircraft... and they might be getting the lumber for it through Stellvia...

You know, of course, that Kohran would actually pay to be involved in this project.

And if she's involved, she'll agree with Agatha - all metal surfaces simply must be brass. She'd also want to overcharge the steam boiler to the point of perpetually risking an explosion, so be careful about what parts of the Maple Mallard you let her work on.

(Speaking of steam-powered aircraft, http://www.airbornegrafix.com/HistoricA ... Besler.htm]here's a real-world one.)
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Maple Mallard.... I posit that the Ship's AI be based on one Drake Mallard, formerly of Saint Canard, Calisota, USA.

I am the terror that flaps in the night!
I am the cargo ship that carries your Parcels!

I am the Maaaapllllle Malllllard!
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

Oh, and http://www.theworldwidegourmet.com/reci ... int-salad/]lacquered duck might be a good dish to serve on the flight, if you're carrying passengers. Thematically appropriate, and all that...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

*laughs* Thanks for the recipe. And it's definitely appropriate, since it's maple-lacquered duck at that. Though it might tick off the ship's
AI....

*grin* You see....we were originally going for a Howard Hughes AI. But got something even better. A certain Glaswegian duck, known for his money skills -
definitely useful, since the Jason is expanding, business-wise. *broad grin* A rather old, cantankerous Glaswegian duck, with sideburns. He WAS an aviator,
according to the stories....

SCROOGE MCDUCK!? You sick twisted bastard, you.

After looking at the website for the Bessler steam plane, I believe that the Handwavium will like the piston engines better than the turbines - it's more
steampunk that way. ^_^

rob - Kohran is more than welcome. We'll just have to remember to triple the strength of the boiler walls, and use handwaved titanium steel or something
similar.Steam has great power, and should be treated with care. It will also save the world!

Fox - it's not quite who you had in mind...but I hope you like the ship's AI anyway.

Benjamin - *grin* What can I say? I've been reading Scrooge McDuck stories for a LONG time... *laugh* I even know what caused it. We loaded the computer
with information on navigation/aeronautics, plus all sorts of financial data and the like. But we did give it a link to the big Archive that Fate is working on
as well. And...well, in an effort to increase the ship's speed, the Jason did a ritual to invoke Mercury (hey - it's a BIG ship. Every little bit could
help). Since we were trying to get a rich financial aviator for the AI for the ship, he used a Mercury-head dime as a focus for the ritual and embedded it in
the dash, with a glass cabochon over it. While it's not a seated Liberty dime (which is what Scrooge's Number One Dime was), the symbolism was
apparently good enough for the forming AI, and it went McDuck.

Magica DeSpell: We MUST be STEALINK Scrooge's Number one DIME! *throws Foof powder!*

Is it me, or can we see a number of Disney fen Buzzing Disney's World and "unintentionally" annoying the suits?
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

I'm wondering what'll happen when Lebia gets Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie working.

(As a note, I did think about a Scrooge as well when Fnord pointed it out to me in a backstage discussion but I never got a good enough idea to start it off.)

I expect that either Noah will get along quite well with Scrooge McDuck, or they'll hate each other's guts. They're both money men, after all...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Well, I think he might get along pretty well with Noah, as he's EARNED his money.

After all, in Scrooge's own words.... "I made [my money] by being tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties! And I made it square!"
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

Re: Lumber.

Rockhounds, Inc., would not find it at all odd to expand their business slightly to broker the importation of timber products from Earth.

Liking this idea.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

I think it's official then: the Maple Mallard is a GO for launch! ^_^

OK...The Mallard probably won't be out for a while - it would be started in mid-2014, and would probably take some
time to design and build. Agatha is starting to devote more of her time to vehicle work, I'd say; I've found a few neat things, including one bike
that's got ME drooling, and a car that is definitely her. With Barry handling ship systems, we're in need of power engineers. And well....the ones that
popped to mind are perfect, I think. Though I still worry about using up too much cool. See what you guys think?

First - a few neat vehicle links:

Agatha's car...

Sidecars are
win...

And the bike to make me
drool...scroll to the end of the thread to see it.

Second...recruiting for the power room....

---

I leaned back in my chair, the screen that was hovering in front of me moving to stay in a comfortable reading position in front of my eyes. Agatha's notes
on the current state of the power room showed we were doing well so far - keeping ahead of our power needs at any rate, even with opening another two levels up
for farming and habitation. Still....we were getting more Fenkinder aboard, and some families, and the need for more power kept growing. Agatha was being more
and more distracted by vehicle design as well; the Mallard was coming along pretty well, but it was absorbing a lot of
her time, along with a few of her other projects. Barry was picking up the slack in ship maintenance, but we could really use another engineer just in charge
of the power level.

I breathed a sigh, and rubbed at my eyes. Well...hopefully that would be taken care of shortly. I'd gotten Fred's help in putting together another
computer, and it had been 'waved. We'd put just about everything Fate could find on power, reactors, generators and electricity into the hard drives,
too, along with the basic 'intro to Fenspace and the Yggdrasil' notes that we'd used in making the
original crew. Fate had been monitoring it, and we were just waiting to see if an AI formed, one that wanted to stay with us. At that moment, a soft chime
interrupted my thoughts, and I saved and dismissed the screen. That was the signal Fate had told me would mean there was an AI, and that it was now fully alert
and able to communicate. Getting to my feet, I cleared my throat. "Um...hello. I'm the Jason. Welcome to the Yggdrasil." A moment later, the air shimmered in front of me, revealing a woman.

She was beautiful - even I noticed...I'm gay, not blind - in her thirties, I'd guess, with short blond hair and blue eyes. She was also dressed in
black BDUs...and peering closely at her collar, I noticed an eagle in dark blue. I gave her a grin, and nodded. "Welcome aboard, Colonel." The grin
was returned with a smile. "Colonel Samantha Carter...reporting for duty, I suppose. Nice setup you have here." The smile turned into a grin.
"It's not naquadah, but this handwavium substance looks fairly interesting, I must admit." I laughed. "You could say that. You're
willing to be part of the crew, then?" She nodded, "As long as you don't mind me experimenting...?" I shook my head, grinning. "With
Barry, Agatha, and Junior on the crew? Welcome to Mad Scientist Central." That got another grin.

I hrmed softly. "We used the same sort of setup that formed most of the original crew. Are you alone, or..." I broke off as someone else appeared.
This was a man, maybe in his late twenties, early thirties. He was wearing an old-fashioned suit, and had dark hair parted in the middle and a neatly-trimmed
mustache. He also looked damned familiar, but I couldn't place him immediately. "I guess not. Hello, sir."

The man nodded to me, but didn't offer to shake hands. "The notes you left us said we could conduct our own experiments, yes? If so, I am willing to
aid you. At least you use a proper form of electricity." That started bells ringing in my mind...even as a box appeared in front of the man. He pulled out
a crackling blue-white globe of what appeared to be ball lightning, and started to juggle it from hand to hand. "Unlike that fool Edison." He gave me
a dry smile. "Nikola Tesla. You wanted someone familiar with electricity, yes?"

---

*grin* So...should I hide from the thrown objects?

More like thrown bolts of electricity. Nice one, bringing Tesla into the mix. You do realize that you probably now have someone ideally suited to R&Ding
energy-based weapons technology, yes? And that Benjamin and his 'Lost Boys' are going to be hitting up your collection of mad geniuses for
brainstorming sessions? Which, btw, I would love to write simply because of all the SCIENCE! that would get bandied and tossed around.

What do you think? Should we start an dialog of emails between our characters for the sake of viable energy weapons? Not that the stuff that B.5's got
isn't good, but there's always room for improvement, I say. ^_^

*chuckle* I have no problems with the research, but the results...well, let's see where things go. I don't want to see anything overpowering, and
energy weapons are a bit much maybe, at least for now? I'd say we leave it up to the rest of the board to decide when/if it should be feasible. But
starting research towards them - full steam ahead. Personally I want to see what the Reactor Queen and the Father of Electricity can do working together
for the state of the art in power generation.

Sounds like fun. Just let me know when you want to get started. ^_^