I'm tremendously amused by the discussion of the Venus project that's broken out... because, while I was AFK for my sister's sake, I'd written up the first part of an idea of my own.
Castle Magellan was the first and still most ambitious of the Venusian Cloud Cities, a shallow dish of rock scooped from the surface of the far side of Earth's moon and thoroughly honeycombed through with tunnels. The carefully-built handwaved machine that had bored them had coated their walls with a transparent materiel that had so far resisted analysis but proved stronger than steel. A variation of the same design had covered the isalnd's surface in a roomy, transparent tent that spiraled out in sealed chambers like an ammonite's shell.
The tunnels and chambers that had simultaneously lightened and strengthened the mass of rock were filled with the constantly laboring machinery of the Venusian Terraformation Project, while the sealed surface above had been landscaped into a sprawling garden of fields, lakes, forests, and a small town clustered around the soaring central towers that speared up through and past the protective roof.
With the lightening of the rock underlayer and the lofty height of the segmented dome and the relative densities of Terran and Venusian air, Magellan didn't need any further 'waved help to tug taunt the kilometers-long cable that anchored it to the burning planet's surface so far below.
The compartmentalisation of the dome and the sheer scale of the structure made it almost impossible for any single accident to 'sink' the flying city, but it still sported flight-control regs that were strict even by 'Danelaw standards. Most of the docking facilities were small bays along the underside, but larger craft had to settle on pads cantilevered out from the island's rim.
Besides being small targets, those platforms were fully exposed to the strongest gusts the platform had to offer, making landing a large ship at Castle Magellan and... interesting experience.
Doing so in a ship whose diameter was greater than the pad's, and whose mass was enough to tear the entire thing free if set down too hard, and which maneuvered in a way that the dockside watcher's couldn't predict or assiste with, was downright exciting.
It always gave me a tension headache, let alone the cramps that tended to go off in my shoulders when I tried to relax after we were down.
On the other hand, the Senshi were among the biggest importers of bulk finished goods in the system. Every additional Cloud City they could finish speeded the project considerably, but most of the terraforming machinery was hardtech, complicated and technically demanding enough that it had to be produced on Earth and shipped to Venus in a ship with an environmentally sealed hold. Heck, a few types were big enough that Moondance was the only hold roomy enough to carry them whole; the cost and time savings from not having to piece them back together from being shipped dissassembled would have had the VTP willing to pay a hefty bonus to get us to run the route, if it had been neccessary.
Which, honestly, it wasn't. I like Magellan, even if landing there is enough of a cast-iron bitch to make me forget the fact most times. It's comfortable and relaxing and a lot more restrained and tasteful than the usual fennish design, and the scenery is nearly as spectacular as the view out the windows.
The Dancer's drive isn't really a reaction type, of course, but it acts a lot like one and we tend to talk about it as though it were, particularly since it's unsteerable - that is, Moondance accelerates along the axis of her poles, period. Steering and rotation has to be handled by reaction thrusters, if 'waved ones.
Overall, getting her safely onto one of Magellan's pads is something like trying to balance a water balloon on the tip of a pencil in a windstorm, using nothing but your fingertips. Without external camera feeds, I'd dare say it'd be pretty much impossible.
Finally, when the fifth and last landing leg gave the soft 'chunk' that indicated it had locked down to the pad's surface, I was able to relax. Something between my shoulderblades shifted and went pop! as I stretched, noticably louder than the distant machinery had been.
"Damn, I love watching that," Stacy said after she'd logged us off of the flight controller's scopes.
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. "Oh, yeah. Scared to death I've been and you're getting turned on. Why is it I'm only now finding out you're a sadist?"
"You never were very observant... but no. I'm nearly as busy in landing as you are, but watching you stretch out after is worth it!"
I blushed and fumbled for what to say, and then she laughed and started to tug me off of the bridge. "C'mon. Let's get this cargo signed for and then we can catch lunch and start working on this drug thing they've set us on. I'll even tell the crew."
"You'd want to do that anyway; you like watching Kramer get all twitchy."
"Of course I do, he's an ass."
"Of course."
...so it's obviously not quite the same thing. But definitely close enough to mix together without much trouble.
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"
Castle Magellan was the first and still most ambitious of the Venusian Cloud Cities, a shallow dish of rock scooped from the surface of the far side of Earth's moon and thoroughly honeycombed through with tunnels. The carefully-built handwaved machine that had bored them had coated their walls with a transparent materiel that had so far resisted analysis but proved stronger than steel. A variation of the same design had covered the isalnd's surface in a roomy, transparent tent that spiraled out in sealed chambers like an ammonite's shell.
The tunnels and chambers that had simultaneously lightened and strengthened the mass of rock were filled with the constantly laboring machinery of the Venusian Terraformation Project, while the sealed surface above had been landscaped into a sprawling garden of fields, lakes, forests, and a small town clustered around the soaring central towers that speared up through and past the protective roof.
With the lightening of the rock underlayer and the lofty height of the segmented dome and the relative densities of Terran and Venusian air, Magellan didn't need any further 'waved help to tug taunt the kilometers-long cable that anchored it to the burning planet's surface so far below.
The compartmentalisation of the dome and the sheer scale of the structure made it almost impossible for any single accident to 'sink' the flying city, but it still sported flight-control regs that were strict even by 'Danelaw standards. Most of the docking facilities were small bays along the underside, but larger craft had to settle on pads cantilevered out from the island's rim.
Besides being small targets, those platforms were fully exposed to the strongest gusts the platform had to offer, making landing a large ship at Castle Magellan and... interesting experience.
Doing so in a ship whose diameter was greater than the pad's, and whose mass was enough to tear the entire thing free if set down too hard, and which maneuvered in a way that the dockside watcher's couldn't predict or assiste with, was downright exciting.
It always gave me a tension headache, let alone the cramps that tended to go off in my shoulders when I tried to relax after we were down.
On the other hand, the Senshi were among the biggest importers of bulk finished goods in the system. Every additional Cloud City they could finish speeded the project considerably, but most of the terraforming machinery was hardtech, complicated and technically demanding enough that it had to be produced on Earth and shipped to Venus in a ship with an environmentally sealed hold. Heck, a few types were big enough that Moondance was the only hold roomy enough to carry them whole; the cost and time savings from not having to piece them back together from being shipped dissassembled would have had the VTP willing to pay a hefty bonus to get us to run the route, if it had been neccessary.
Which, honestly, it wasn't. I like Magellan, even if landing there is enough of a cast-iron bitch to make me forget the fact most times. It's comfortable and relaxing and a lot more restrained and tasteful than the usual fennish design, and the scenery is nearly as spectacular as the view out the windows.
The Dancer's drive isn't really a reaction type, of course, but it acts a lot like one and we tend to talk about it as though it were, particularly since it's unsteerable - that is, Moondance accelerates along the axis of her poles, period. Steering and rotation has to be handled by reaction thrusters, if 'waved ones.
Overall, getting her safely onto one of Magellan's pads is something like trying to balance a water balloon on the tip of a pencil in a windstorm, using nothing but your fingertips. Without external camera feeds, I'd dare say it'd be pretty much impossible.
Finally, when the fifth and last landing leg gave the soft 'chunk' that indicated it had locked down to the pad's surface, I was able to relax. Something between my shoulderblades shifted and went pop! as I stretched, noticably louder than the distant machinery had been.
"Damn, I love watching that," Stacy said after she'd logged us off of the flight controller's scopes.
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. "Oh, yeah. Scared to death I've been and you're getting turned on. Why is it I'm only now finding out you're a sadist?"
"You never were very observant... but no. I'm nearly as busy in landing as you are, but watching you stretch out after is worth it!"
I blushed and fumbled for what to say, and then she laughed and started to tug me off of the bridge. "C'mon. Let's get this cargo signed for and then we can catch lunch and start working on this drug thing they've set us on. I'll even tell the crew."
"You'd want to do that anyway; you like watching Kramer get all twitchy."
"Of course I do, he's an ass."
"Of course."
...so it's obviously not quite the same thing. But definitely close enough to mix together without much trouble.
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"