tushanshu_logs | raise your weapon; closed

Characters: Gene Khan, Captain Amelia
Date: Early May, prior to the siege
Location: A park in the Water District
Situation: Heigh ho, heigh ho, a-fencing we will go attempt and then get immediately sidetracked talking about SPACE!
Warnings/Rating: ~~gymkata~~ ~~SWORD KATA~~ DORKS TALKING ABOUT AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGY

Gene had decided that he needed to practice more with the sword Eshai had given him for Christmas. He was no stranger to armed combat; one of the advantages of growing up in such an unorthodox manner was that he had been trained in wushu for twelve years, and some of that training included swordplay.

The sword he'd been given was an elegant blade similar to a jian, not some butcher's sabre but a civilized weapon, and so he had to adjust his style to match. While he preferred the dao for its power, he knew how to use this sort of weapon as well, and he grudgingly had to concede that it was better for him. The raw power of a more brutish weapon appealed to him, but what need did he have of mere weaponry for power when nine of the greatest weapons in the world frequently rode on his hands?

Besides, he thought, he could murder well enough with the armor, as the incident with Bakura had proven. It had lacked finesse. He could use a bit more of that.

Which is how he finds himself practicing the drills he'd learned while he was younger, warming up. All of the kedan are opting to keep well clear of the crazy Foreigner with the bladed weapon, which he thinks is funny; it's not like he's flailing around uncontrollably, here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So he does remember their first conversation. "It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," she corrects. "I was on leave from official duty at the time, but normally it is our duty to tend to the security of the empire."

"Oh, okay. Interplanetary empire, huh? Must be a pain to travel around. Unless you have some sort of faster-than-light drive?" Yes, Gene did occasionally listen when Tony waxed poetic about sci-fi and other shit Gene didn't care about. And he knows that space is definitely too fucking big to cruise through at the universal speed limit. ~~Even if he can manipulate that speed limit himself, if he really tries. c be damned!~~

"Voyages can take days or even months, depending on the destination, but travel is fairly easy." She shakes her head at his last question. "No, nothing of the sort. It'd be rather improbable for our ships to move faster than their power source. Solar sails are efficient, but they do not bring enough power to even dream of approaching such speeds."

"Solar sails? Can't say I've ever heard of those." He has a basic idea of how they'd work, though. Gene's not convinced of their efficiency if they can't even break c. "Then again, we're barely past our own moon ourselves where I come from. All our spacecraft are powered by rocket engines."

"Ah, baby steps are important. And I wasn't being clear enough; the solar sails gather the light of the stars, which is transferred to the ship's engines, propelling the whole affair. Rocket engines, as it were." Amelia is actually enjoying this conversation quite a bit more than she's letting on. It's been a while since she's been able to speak at length of he homeworld.

Edited 2014-06-08 01:36 (UTC)

It's funny to think of the moon landing and the Mars rovers as 'baby steps', though he supposes they must be, to a proper spacefaring civilization. "Oh." There's a pause. For now, all talk of swords has been forgotten - Gene's really curious about this. "I guess the sails would have to be pretty big, to collect enough solar energy? Unless you have more efficient solar panels than we've managed to make."

"That would depend on your frame of reference. A larger vessel will have more sails to make up for its increased energy requirements, while smaller boats need fewer. For example, the great Arcturian merchantships can have upwards of nine sails on each of its four masts, whereas my own ship merely has three sails at most on the main mast." Amelia pauses a moment, thinking of a better way to explain. She settles on a diagram of sorts, using her sword to sketch out a rough outline of the Legacy in the dirt. By no means is she an artist, but it resembles the profile of her ship closely enough.

Sails. Masts. Sails and masts. And a hull. And it's a boat. Amelia hadn't been kidding when she'd said it was a navy, because that is a god damn boat.

"...it looks just like an old sailing ship," Gene manages after a moment. "Doesn't that cause problems getting out of the atmosphere? Do the masts retract?"

None of this makes any sense whatsoever.

What Gene has to say about her drawing of the ship catches her completely off-guard. "I'm sorry?" she replies, quite off-put by the description of 'old sailing ship'. "The Legacy is a modern frigate of the navy. I assure you, she is not at all archaic. What manner of ships has your world used for your limited space ventures?"

Clearly a bit ruffled about the phrase - old sailing ship! - Amelia proceeds to answer Gene's other questions. "No, the masts do not retract at all, and it is difficult for ships to exit planetary atmospheres. Normally they remain outside it, docking at the nearest spaceport instead."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend," he says, frowning. "It just...looks like the ships that were common on my world a couple hundred years ago."

He sketches out a reasonable approximation of the space shuttle in the dirt near Amelia's rendering of the ~~fucking boat~~ ship. "This is a space shuttle. It's designed similarly to an airplane, so it can leave the planet on booster rockets and come back to land multiple times. Mostly the old spacecrafts were one-offs." He tries to remember what the Apollo 11 space capsule looked like, and sketches it as well. "This was the part of the rocket from the moon landing that came back to Earth with the astronauts inside. It landed in the ocean, I think."

Amelia matches his frown. "If that is the case, then the offense is unintended. It is very interesting, though. Yet they weren't spacefaring vessels, I take it?" Likely sea-going, then.

She glances over his sketches, taking in the unfamiliar designs. "I'm afraid I don't know what an airplane is, but I assume it is something that is capable of flight of some sort. A one-off spacecraft seems quite wasteful, though."

Her focus is on the shuttle drawing. "Where does it get the energy needed for its thrusters?"

Gene shakes his head. "No, we only achieved spaceflight within the past sixty or so years. Like you said, baby steps."

So you have spacecraft and an interstellar empire, but no airplanes? Amelia. What fool designed your world backwards? He does his best to hide his bafflement and says, "Yes, it's a..." He sketches an airplane out next to the space shuttle, a simple top-down view. "It's what most people use to travel great distances now." He's plenty familiar with airplanes, having blown one up in flight and all. Amelia doesn't need to know that. "Ships - sailing ships, on the water - are now mostly used for military purposes, pleasure cruises, or commercial freight. Flying is a lot faster than sailing."

He looks at the shuttle. "There are two large rocket boosters that get it up off the ground in the first place, and then come off the shuttle after liftoff - those are reused, I think. The fuel for the orbiter goes into the engines. I'm not really sure how it works. Ask Stark." Then his throat inexplicably tightens when he remembers Stark's not here, none of them are here. Not like that bothers him.

raise your weapon; closed

it's 2 am i do not need to be reminded of that series because i will go watch it again

jesus christ I didn't mean THOSE

oh. well then.

indeed.

Re: indeed.

annddd we're hitting on it now.

prepare yourself gene.

[psyduck intensifies]

Re: [psyduck intensifies]

lmao amelia, slow your roll

what is airplane though

plane and plane, what is plane?