Writing Meme, Part 11
Feb. 5th, 2012 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lyorn11. All the Ships in your Story
Ships? What ships? Who said there would be ships?
Just joking. It's Space Adventure, of course there are ships!
Off-screen but quite dominant is the STARDUST II, a battleship of the 800-meter-class, seized by Rhodan's people in a campaign in the Vega system nine years ago. Most of the canon characters, who could solve the tiny problem developing on Mars before they had their second cup of coffee in the morning have (canonically) left the Solar System on the STARDUST II and won't (canonically) be back for a few months.
Second, there's a GOOD HOPE class (Solveig doesn't give its number) ship's boat, spherical, 60 metres in diameter, and currently used as a training vessel. This ship is important mostly because Solveig nearly crashes it when approaching one of the moons of Jupiter during training, thus establishing that she's not qualified as a pilot.
Third, there's a poor unnamed transporter owned by the Mars Terraforming Project, flying the Mars route with people and supplies. It gets shot down by Karkoff's people (who might have been acting on orders from him, or not) when approaching the habitats of Xanthe Alpha and Beta on Mars. Fortunately, everyone inside survives the crash. The ship, however, is lost.
Finally, and the most important ship in the story, there is the JAMAICA. A 60-meter-class ship, same size as the GOOD HOPE class, but designed to operate independently of a mothership. The JAMAICA and her two sister ships were the last of their kind: When they were launched in 1978, they were already outdated, and their hyperjump control was buggy, so they were only used in-system. In 1979, the JAMAICA was stolen. Because everyone important was otherwise occupied (Solveig guesses that something was going on, but does not know what), it was never retrieved, and ended up in the hands of Colonel Karkoff.
However, space ship tech is complicated and not commonly known on Earth, there are few trained spacers for hire, and the ship's built-in security features keep Karkoff from putting her to full use. If he can get Seller's tech geeks and eggheads to unlock all those features and override the security, he'll have a very powerful tool in his hands, and he has some ideas what to do with it.
In the meantime, the JAMAICA is manned with what Karkoff could get, and training and discipline of the crew leaves something to be desired, which allows Solveig to follow the already time-honoured tradition of the Third Power: "When in need of a ship, steal one."
Ships? What ships? Who said there would be ships?
Just joking. It's Space Adventure, of course there are ships!
Off-screen but quite dominant is the STARDUST II, a battleship of the 800-meter-class, seized by Rhodan's people in a campaign in the Vega system nine years ago. Most of the canon characters, who could solve the tiny problem developing on Mars before they had their second cup of coffee in the morning have (canonically) left the Solar System on the STARDUST II and won't (canonically) be back for a few months.
Second, there's a GOOD HOPE class (Solveig doesn't give its number) ship's boat, spherical, 60 metres in diameter, and currently used as a training vessel. This ship is important mostly because Solveig nearly crashes it when approaching one of the moons of Jupiter during training, thus establishing that she's not qualified as a pilot.
Third, there's a poor unnamed transporter owned by the Mars Terraforming Project, flying the Mars route with people and supplies. It gets shot down by Karkoff's people (who might have been acting on orders from him, or not) when approaching the habitats of Xanthe Alpha and Beta on Mars. Fortunately, everyone inside survives the crash. The ship, however, is lost.
Finally, and the most important ship in the story, there is the JAMAICA. A 60-meter-class ship, same size as the GOOD HOPE class, but designed to operate independently of a mothership. The JAMAICA and her two sister ships were the last of their kind: When they were launched in 1978, they were already outdated, and their hyperjump control was buggy, so they were only used in-system. In 1979, the JAMAICA was stolen. Because everyone important was otherwise occupied (Solveig guesses that something was going on, but does not know what), it was never retrieved, and ended up in the hands of Colonel Karkoff.
However, space ship tech is complicated and not commonly known on Earth, there are few trained spacers for hire, and the ship's built-in security features keep Karkoff from putting her to full use. If he can get Seller's tech geeks and eggheads to unlock all those features and override the security, he'll have a very powerful tool in his hands, and he has some ideas what to do with it.
In the meantime, the JAMAICA is manned with what Karkoff could get, and training and discipline of the crew leaves something to be desired, which allows Solveig to follow the already time-honoured tradition of the Third Power: "When in need of a ship, steal one."
