#orion drive

[aut2imagineart]

I did a minor update to my original Orion Drive Ship for my Centauri universe the Wabash Cannonball. The biggest changes are the increased length (175m to 184m) and the different color palette. Though I personally liked the original color palette better, having mostly silvery-white colors actually serves a functional purpose. It's not only the color of the preferred material used for spacecraft, it reflects sunlight that would otherwise overheat the ship. If there's any work around to this I would like to implement it and go back to the original color palette. For now, I'm keeping it scientifically grounded as possible.

As always, comments and critiques are welcome.

[whirligig-girl]

Guzcomic pt.8

Next part: (Link)

Previous part: (Link)

First part: (Link)

More of Eaurp Guz: (Link)

Sorry for how slow this update has been!

Begin image description:

First image:

Three panel comic taking place in a booth in the mess hall of the U.S.S. Cerritos. In the first panel, Guz, a green slimegirl in a yellow starfleet uniform, has dissociated and stares blankly ahead half-lidded. Her hair is shortened, and her right ear and left arm are missing. A model of an Orion Nuclear Pulse Rocket, with a pusher plate and pistons, falls from the ceiling. D'vana Tendi, a light green-skinned Orion woman in a blue starfleet uniform that has been spoiled by pasta, reaches out to catch it. 2nd panel: Close-up of Tendi catching the model rocket. 3rd panel: Guz stands up and shouts, with her eyes shut. Tendi grasps the model rocket as if it were a stuffed animal and leans away from the outburst. In large gooey text: FUCKING ARMING MECHANISM! But the F word has been censored and reads as a mess of symbols.

Second image:

Two panel comic. Reverse shot showing the populated mess hall as in Guzcomic part 6 page 1. In panel 1: We see Guz the slimegirl from the shoulders up, drops of green slime pouring off her neck and face, looking sadly but attentively towards the viewer. In the background in the mess hall are five bystanders, all looking back in shock except for one redshirt Bajoran, Ozu, who is panicking and looking down at her tray of coffee mugs which have spilled and broken. Guz says "Excuse me, Tendi." and then in panel 2, we see her run away from the viewer. All the bystanders look at her running out of the room, except for Ozu, who is kneeling over the mess and banging her fist in despair.

End image description.

[codylabs]

Last week I was Bored At Work and was just recovering from a seasonal bought of writer's block, so I drew a few disjointed panels from a proposed comic about the Last War of Green Night.

It's a story that's majorly important to the lore of my universe, but which I've never yet put to paper. Massive TL;DR: when a powerful wizard visits the homeworld of the merfolk, they make war against it. They succeed in inventing the one weapon capable of harming it, but fail to kill it, and lose their home.

[minersedgarsart]

Orion Drive Battleship Omega Supreme

[grayrazor]

“The Hardest Part of Learning to Fly”

I was having a picnic with Dasha in a wooded meadow near the eastern edge of Elysium Planitia. Even from this great distance the mighty Olympus Mons seemed to tower over us. The birds were singing in spite of our presence, flitting from tree to tree and engaging in little squabbles over love and food. Dasha’s hair and my beard blew in my face when the wind picked up. Though she was a year my elder, her hair was still dark and contrasted with her skin, though mine had long ago begun to turn grey. “You see, lyubovnik,” she whispered to me, her arm around my shoulders, her other hand daintily resting in my calloused and scarred glove of a hand, “You should have retired from the Fleet years ago. You don’t regret being here one bit, do you?”

I chuckled and held her tighter, “True enough, lyubimyy. I don’t miss those steely-eyed missile-men and their rickety tin cans even in my most delusional fits of nostalgia.” I turned to look her in the eyes, even as the wind blustered again and loose leaves and blossoms separated from the trees to cascade past magnificently and her hair blew back from her face. “To me, you are worth more than all those dead rocks and balls of ice they call ‘planets.’”

A bright light flared in my peripheral vision, and we both were driven by reflexive curiosity to see what it could be. “Lyubovnik, look! A shooting star!” Dasha had an almost childlike capacity for wonder.

“No,” I whispered at first, then in a fit of sisyphal frustration I roared “No!” as the light grew and brightened and the trees and birds and our skin flashed away into ash.”

Dasha’s scream echoed and distorted into a kind of high pitched wail--and then I found myself hitting my head on the ceiling of my bunk’s alcove. I rolled over, looked at my reflection in the screen set into the wall. My beard hadn’t been grey for years, and it’s length and whiteness often led my crew to call me Old Saint Nick behind my back. The intercom was ringing, its pitch irritating my tired ears.

I punched the answer button, and Commander Elizabeth Hartford’s face appeared. I took a perverse joy in the fact that she looked as disheveled at this late hour as I did, “Sorry to wake you, Igor.”

I grumbled and rubbed the bridge of my nose, “It’s an XO’s job to irritate their CO. You’ll learn that when you’ve been in the service as long as I have. Report.”

Hartford had always been a master of stiff-upper-lip, but her eyes sometimes betrayed her when she was really worried, “The skiff’s back ahead of schedule. They haven’t made any radio contact, and from the looks of it through our scopes they’ve been shot up pretty bad.”

“If they haven’t completed their mission, you know what that means?” I had already gotten out of my berth and was throwing on my uniform coat.

“I got the same briefing you did, Tsiolkovsky. I know what’s at stake,” Hartford had disabled the video part of the call, presumably still getting dressed herself.

“Then get started on the preperations,” I transferred the call to my wrist and continued as I pulled myself out of my quarters and into the corridor by the handholds. “Actually, scratch that. Get Takumi started on the setup, you meet me in the hangar and we’ll debrief the marines.”

***

As I reached the doors to the airlock I was a bit irritated to see that not only had Hartford beaten me there, but she was in full uniform and as presentable as a cadet up for inspection. She’d always had a way of making the basic duty jumpsuit look as formal as a dress uniform, but the way she had gone from bedhead to spotless with such a seeming lack of effort always got under my skin somehow. The airlock cycled and the marine team’s NCO, Forrester drifted through the dilating circular opening, helmet held under arm and drops floating loose from his forehead when he moved. It was probably sweat, no way a marine sergeant could be shedding tears. Some smell came through the doorway with him. It was horrible, made my eyes water, and was all too familiar.

Before I could open my mouth he grunted and raised his hand, “We failed, Captain. I’m so sorry.” He moved out of the way to let two other marines pass him, dragging some scorched and blackened thing between them that looked like it once could have been human. They passed it to the medical team that had been waiting, for all the good they could do. In the recycled air the stench would linger for days.

“What happened out there?” Hartford seemed unmoved, almost unsympathetic. “This was supposed to be the easy part.”

Forrester breathed heavily a couple of times, then looked up and spoke with an air of forced professionalism, “We came in too shallow on our approach. Skipped off the atmosphere. We were still confident we could pull it off after that mistake. We had enough fuel to pull it off and try again. But then some kind of orbital defense satellite came over the horizon. They tagged us with a laser before we could boost out of their line-of-sight. Skiff’s heat shield and port wing are compromised, I don’t think she’ll ever fly in an atmosphere again. Part of the beam clipped one of the cockpit windows. Murphy got burned to a crisp. Melted our antenna too, that’s why I had to make it back to tell you what was happening.”

I stroked my beard, “Are you up to lead your team in the backup plan?”

Forrester grabbed his helmet out of the air and put it back on, “I’ve been through worse than this. Only thing that’s different this time is the stakes are higher.”

I grabbed his shoulder, less to comfort or motivate him than to tell from his muscles how tense he was, “Get your men prepared, you know what we have to do.”

***

“Captain Tsiolkovsky on deck!” Hartford closed and latched the hatch behind me as I took my seat in the control room. Naturally, nobody stood, since they were all lashed into their gee-couches, set into alcoves around the cylindrical wall at the perimeter of the room like bunks, but they at least looked up from their workstations for a second, which I thought was a nice gesture.

“As you were,” I barked more out of tradition than necessity, since they had all already gotten back to what they were doing. “For any of you who don’t have the clearance or connections to know already, here’s the way it is: Sergeant Forrester’s team is back, but without the package.” I tilted the visor of my cap down to cover my eyes, “That means that, in order to complete this mission, upon which the outcome of this war may depend, we are going to have to land the Charles de Gaulle on Titan.

Takumi gasped audibly, “Captain, with all due respect, we can’t land a fusion-driven ship on Titan! Even if everything goes perfectly we could be looking at war crimes charges!”

I could feel my brow twitching involuntarily. I guess my chief engineer didn’t know me as well as I thought, if he didn’t realise that I had already been agonizing over the mere hypothetical possibility that we might have to do this. Maybe he was just making a jackass of himself for the sake of the crew, I don’t know, “For the sake of everyone we are fighting for back home, I consider that an acceptable sacrifice. The strategic value of the information we were sent for is absolute; failure of this mission might not just mean losing the war, but our extermination.” Several of the junior officers looked doubtful, whispered to each other, so I unzipped my jacket pocket and pulled out the letter I had received three months earlier, “Just so you know that I am not indulging in hyperbole, here are my signed orders from the Commander-in-Chief herself. She explained to me in no uncertain terms just what the enemy has in store for us, and it isn’t good. Based on the kinds of particles our telescopes have been picking up, they may very well be experimenting with antimatter weapons, as unlikely as that seems. Most of you have the personal experience, as I have, that they will show no quarter and will not hesitate to use such power, if they possess it, to annihilate us. For that reason, all measures necessary to retrieve the information on their research and production facility locations are to be considered not only acceptable, but required.”

Takumi grabbed Hartford as she passed by him on the way to her station, “You’re with him on this? You’re absolutely sure there’s no other way?”

Hartford pulled his hand away from her and continued to her seat, “The skiff got fried by a laser-armed satellite when they tried to land. That, combined with the fact that we’ve seen no civilian traffic entering or leaving orbit, tells me that the enemy has been tightening their hold on Titan after the attempted rebellion back in August. They hung that Sword of Damocles over the Titanites’ heads, probably wiped out their space-capable craft from above, to remind them who runs this part of the Solar System. A whole moon’s worth of hostages. If we are to get our guy out of there this ship is their only option. He couldn’t just broadcast the data, they’d pick it up and know we’re on to them, move their antimatter factory so we’d never find it again before it was finished.”

From the junior officers’ expressions, I felt it was time for me to step back in to the discussion, “The fact that we are fighting for survival does not mean that we will let ourselves become like them. All measures necessary and possible will be taken to minimize collateral damage. We’ll begin our descent over the far side so that our course will take us over the least-densely populated part of the surface when we’re making our braking maneuver with the Orion Drive. Because our guy is in a colony dome, and will have to make his way by ground to get to our landing site we’ll be landing near the city, using chemical rockets for the final stage of our descent.” I removed my cap, looked everyone on the bridge in the eyes one-by-one, “Does everyone understand what we need to do?”

They all nodded silently, and I turned to Hartford. She shouted, “You have your orders, get on it!”

Each officer and crewman lay back on their gee-couches and turned their full attention to the workstations that were now above them. “All hands to acceleration stations! This is not a drill! I say again…”

I noticed that a yeoman had left a bag of energy drink near my station and decided I had enough lingering tiredness to give it a go, even if it was warm. I wanted to be as awake as possible for what was to come.

“Radiators retracted to battle standard!”

“Shuttle and pods secured, get those hangar doors closed!”

I put the bag’s straw in the corner of my mouth and gave it as long a drink as I could bear, trying to keep it away from my tongue. It was times like that, when the orders had been given and there was nothing to do, when I started to get contemplative. It was a long and honored tradition, using drinkable chemicals to deal with your human failings. Archaeologists tracked the trading ships of Ancient Hellas by following their trails of discarded wine jugs. Wooden ships and iron men ran on grog. Steam-driven ships of steel had crews driven by coffee. Then came airplane pilots and astronauts and their myriad variety of stimulants, legal and illegal.

One thing had stayed a constant throughout history: the drinks may come labeled in different brands and flavors, but the best you can get for your choice is a different shade of vile.

“Orion drive loaded, ready to fire.”

“All decks report acceleration stations. Your orders sir?”

I buckled myself in, then pulled my hearing protection over my ears and plugged in the cord for its internal speakers, “You have clearance for main drive turn,” I said into the headset microphone, then produced my key from my jacket pocket. I turned to visually confirm that Hartford had hers. “Turn on my mark.” I inserted my key, “Three, two, one, mark.”

Naturally, no human being had the timing to execute the kinds of precision maneuvers we would have to perform. All we were doing was giving the computer permission to run the orders the crew had programmed into it. When the time was right the dispenser at the ship’s back end would expel a thermonuclear explosive. It would explode in a sphere of perfect white light, imparting momentum to the ship’s pusher plate. While the thick metal shield was still glowing another bomb would be dispensed and the process would begin again. No better way to travel, as long as speed was all you cared about.

The force of the first pulse shocked me in spite of my efforts to increase my alertness with the energy drink. There was never really any getting used to the experience of being blasted through space by atomic bombs. One moment you’re weightless, the next an elephant is stepping on your chest. Stomping on you, over and over again, trying to squeeze the air out of your lungs and pop the eyeballs out of your head.

Shock absorbers between the plate and the hull kept the acceleration from crushing us squishy humans like insects, but anyone late to take precautions against the gee-forces would be having a very bad day, deaf at best, concussion, broken bones, or ruptured organs at worst. There were no reports of any injuries so far, so at least the crew weren’t that green. Heavy cruiser Charles de Gaulle blasted her way out from behind the nameless small moon she had been using to hide from detection and expended just enough of her supply of nukes to set an orbit that would freefall past Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. With the drive no longer firing we were weightless again.

It would be a matter of hours before we needed to decelerate, but I was fully on edge by that point, and wouldn’t have been able to catch any more sleep that night even if I tried. It wasn’t the jostling of the Orion Drive, nor even the energy drink. I had been thinking about how sure we were that Forrester’s team would pull off their part of the mission. How landing the ship was a purely hypothetical last resort, we’d never thought we might actually have to do it. If the easy part of the mission had been a complete wash, how would it go when the enemy fleet inevitably spotted us on our way back out?

***

It would be only minutes now before Charles de Gaulle had to slow down in order to avoid overshooting Titan’s sphere of influence. After days of weightlessness, I felt like I needed to prepare myself mentally and physically for living in gravity again, first from the drive, then the real all-natural gravity of a moon. The Universe, however, was having none of that.

“I’ve got a hot spot on the hull plating, looks like a laser strike!” Takumi shouted.

“The satellite?” I grumbled in frustration. “Why didn’t we pick it up sooner?”

Hartford crossed her arms, “They must have risen over the horizon while we were making a course correction.” She twisted her neck to bark at Takumi, “Threat analysis!”

“I don’t think they’ve got the wattage to burn through our hull anytime soon,” the engineer was frantically flicking through tabs on his display to compare reports from sensors and damage-control parties.”

I stroked my beard contemplatively, “Flight control, roll the ship slowly on her travel axis. I don’t want to give them the chance to build up enough heat on any one spot to do us any damage.” I looked right at Takumi, “You’re sure this is all they’ve got?”

He scrolled up and down the sensor log one more time, “If they had more juice I don’t see why they wouldn’t have used it by now.”

I turned back to my own display and gave the data a once over myself, just to be sure, “I’m guessing the enemy must not have thought we’d send anything tougher than Forrester’s skiff. Our hull might be able to conduct this much energy, but any lesser ship, on a chemical or ion drive, would have probably been vaporized before they even knew they were being shot at. Forrester was damn lucky they didn’t get a clean hit on him; this would be more than enough to keep the civilian traffic on Titan locked down.”

Hartford chuckled crudely, “On the other hand, if the Admiralty had sent a proper battleship instead of just a cruiser they probably would have gone right by that satellite without ever noticing that they were being shot at.” She cast her eyes about the room, “Anyone have eyes on it?”

“Got it sir! Traced the angle of the beam back to it’s source. Eight marks off the ecliptic. Target locked.” a junior officer in the spotter department shouted back with enthusiasm.

I made a note to keep an eye on her, if she lived long enough for me to learn her name, “Let’s do the Titanites a little favor while we’re here. Open door torpedo tube one and fire when ready.”

“Torpedo away!” the call came from the gunners, then moments later, “Target hit, detonation confirmed.

“Target status?” out of the corner of my eye I could see that Hartford was switching rapidly between the various external cameras and LIDAR scopes on her display.

“Kill confirmed,” the same spotter smacked the hand of another in her department in celebration.

“Nothing out there but an expanding sphere of debris,” the other spotter added. “If you listen close you might hear them tinkling off the hull.”

“Just in time too,” I checked my chronometer and saw Takumi was already in the midst of delegating various tasks.. “All hands to landing stations,” I ordered, which was repeated by subordinates and distributed to everyone relevant.”

“Closing all missile silo and torpedo tube doors.”

“...I don’t care what they need on C-Deck, get those containers secured!”

“Radiators fully retracted!”

“Firing drive!”

Because of the speed we were moving we would have to push the limits and run the drive faster for the deceleration. Now it felt like a whole herd of elephants were running me over, and were it not for the gee-suit I had on under my uniform I would definitely have blacked out. I focused on my breathing, the exercises that had been drilled into me in training all those years ago to help keep your blood where it should be. In one of the lulls between pulses that young spotter tapped into my headset’s channel, “It feels wrong being this close to an atmosphere. Are you sure we can pull this off, sir?”

I chuckled in what I hoped would be a reassuring, grandfatherly tone, “Ensign, Orion ships are the best at getting through atmosphere as much as they are the best at getting through space. Why, the first of our sister ships to be built was assembled on the surface of Venus because they hadn’t finished the space construction yard yet!” A jolt punched the air out of me and I grunted involuntarily, “You didn’t think they built these cruisers and battleships bullet-shaped just for the sake of the angled armor, did you?” Unfortunately, that dredged up a memory of a time in my life I would rather have left forgotten, an Air Force flight instructor who repeated ad nauseum, “There’s no part of flying a plane harder than landing her when you’re coming home.”

Another light lit up on my console, this time Takumi requesting a private channel, “Sir, write me up for insubordination if you must, but are you sure there was no other way? Can you say that with absolute certainty?”

I let through all of the considerations I had been blocking out. The things I had been ignoring, because I knew they would crush my soul more surely than the acceleration was trying to crush my body, “I know the harm the fallout might bring. You know that there’s never a hundred-percent certainty when it comes to military intelligence. But if there’s even a chance that what we’ve heard is accurate, then the harm that comes to the people of Titan will be incredibly inconsequential compared to the slaughter that awaits billions if we fail.”

The engineer sighed bitterly, “I know you have set everything up so that the damage will be minimized. Shoot, in case of an emergency like this the propulsion charges had always been built to minimize neutron radiation and electromagnetic pulses. Nothing’s perfect though, with every detonation there’s a chance that an EMP will make the lights flicker in a hospital and a surgeon will make a mistake at a critical moment, and somebody will never go home to their family. Maybe a fragment of a bomb’s casing will become radioactive dust and drift down to the surface, to be tracked in by someone going out of a colony dome to do maintenance and a whole city’s air supply might be contaminated. I trust that we didn’t have the time to find a better way, but what would you say to a parent whose kids are all dying of radiation sickness or cancer because of our haste?”

I exhaled in weariness, “If nothing else, I can assure you that while this may not have been the right thing, it was the necessary thing. If God judges that I am due hellfire for ensuring that no one else gets stomped under the boot of our enemy then that is a small sacrifice by proportion.” Takumi did not reply.

Eventually the teeth-removing vibrations of the fusion-pulse drive stopped, only to be replaced moments later by the more continuous shaking of thick gases rushing past the hull at hypersonic speed. Instead of the stacatto pounding of the nuclear explosions there was the continuous roar of Titan’s atmosphere being set alight. Though I couldn’t see it I knew that the pusher plate must be heated to the point of glowing by the friction. Methane, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide were compressed into plasma and burned even without oxygen by virtue of the sheer amount of kinetic energy they were being forced to absorb. Something was loose near the base of my couch and it rattled rhythmically. The ship’s structural members groaned as they were slightly deformed by physical stresses and by the change in temperature. The sound was almost like whalesong, or maybe the creaking of an ancient tree being felled by the wind. It seemed to go on forever, until a small, solipsism-inclined part of my consciousness wondered if there had ever a time when there was not the roaring and the shaking. Then it stopped. After the strain of the drive and the aerobraking the relatively minor jolt of the landing rockets was like a mother’s comforting embrace, and only more so the little bounce of the shock absorbers rebounding as the plate impacted upon solid ground.

“Report!” I bellowed.

“Crewman on C-Deck injured by failed couch harness. Broken bones, minor concussion.”

“Steam pipe burst on F-Deck. Five injured, two with third-degree burns.

“Fuse blown in environmental…”

“Hey, Captain.” Takumi held out an empty ration bag and dropped it, letting it drift slowly to the diamondplate steel of the deck. “That’s gravity. We’re alive.”

I was already unbuckling my restraints. “The mission’s not over yet Chief. That was just the hard part. It’s all uphill from here.”

“You mean downhill don’t you sir? Sir?”

Hartford was already out of her harness and had walked over to the intercom by the door, “Armory, get gear ready. We’re sending out a landing party.”

She was still standing by the hatch when I walked through. She elbowed me in the side as I went by, “Don’t be cute. You’re crap at it and Takumi’s on the edge of a nervous breakdown already.”

[b0wi3sgir1]

Remus: where’s Regulus and Sirius?

James: oh Sirius is teaching Reggie to drive. Some good brotherly bonding :D

Remus:

Remus: Sirius never learned how to drive!?!

Meanwhile:

Sirius: so, there’s two pedals, sometimes three but you can ignore the left one.

Regulus: I don’t think-

Sirius: the lines on the road are more suggestions than anything, like the speed limit.

Regulus: are you sure that-

Sirius: I’m not sure how to turn on the blinkers. Ready?

Regulus: no wait I-

Sirius *shouting*: GO GO GO

Regulus, *screaming*: *floors it*

[laserbread]

Some TF comic screenshots that never get old:

[witchofthesouls]

The look on Megatronus/Megatron's face if and when Orion/Optimus snaps and goes full wilder in front of him. Claws and fangs extend and he fucking mauls someone or something. Better yet if the big if occurs on cybertron feral mode Orion/Optimus ends up with the Fragging Escaped Mountian Lion from all those vorns ago headbutting Orion and purring up a storm while Megs watches slacked jawed as Oppy talks to it in fragging mountain lion.

I'm sad to say that Orion Pax doesn't have the features that allowed him to thrive in the Wastelands.

Alpha Trion had firmly coaxed the newly named Orion Pax to modify parts of his frame to 'fit in better' with the rest of them. The extra bulk was taken away, the sharpened denta filed down with added suppression codes to ensure nanites wouldn't try to reconfigure it, claws pulled to make sure he only had access to blunted digits, took away the extra audials, and applied more cosmetic biolights to give off a more rounded, softer appearance that belonged to a mecha that developed inside the walls of Iacon. Alpha Trion knew exactly what would happen and proceeded to take the steps to ensure the ascension of Optimus Prime would come to pass. Orion Pax can not be too associated with his Wasteland roots. The current Council wouldn't tolerate a new Prime with pride as a Wilder.

I have a lot of thoughts about Alpha Trion. He's exhausted, depressed, and is a very dutiful, loyal spark. He will enact what the Covenant had shown him because surely Primus and Vector wouldn't lead him astray? Orion Pax may have reminded him of simpler days before his siblings had scattered, but the mech has a massive role to play in the rebirth of their planet, and he refuses to jeopardize it.

Umbra Pumas are able to travel short distances with shadows and communicate via telepathically in pictures via direct eye contact. That one in particular was an old companion to a Ranger that almost taken him. Unfortunately, they were separated by a flash flood, but Orion knows that pattern on its hide. Rangers use specific concoctions to permanently mark their companions for affiliation. This Umbra Puma has subtle dark blue and crimson striations over its torso as well as patterned scars around its optics to match the ones on its Ranger. This one personally would carry him by the scruff and nuzzle him into submission. A sparkling's claws and fangs are no match to its dense hide.

Umbras are silent group hunters but can be very vocal with their close cohorts. Their screaming vocalizations are absolutely terrifying if you're not used to them.

Orion Pax was near the dugouts -space reserved for the next troupe of performers as well as their invited support for wishes or goodbyes- when it Tamers had to drag it back to its cage. The moment it came across him, it lurched forward and howled-

The gladiators and performers were ribbing (both good-natured and ill-tempered) that it could smell the uppercaste mech among them. Meanwhile, Orion is reeling from the mental assault because poachers managed to catch it in its desperate attempt to lead them away from its wounded Ranger and other young sparks.

Orion basically made quite a few deals to ensure that Umbra's escape.

[sporkandpringles]

my problems with discovery's spore drive have nothing to do with the wacky mushroom science. Like this is Star Trek™ not some bonefide diamond on the Moh's Scale of Sci-Fi hardness like The Martian. I know to expect the writers playing a bit fast and loose with physics and how the real world works. I'm here for that wackniess, actually. Love me some technobabble about mycelial spores or tetryon particles or whatever! the thing that doesn't work for me is the way the spore drive acts narratively, and how the technology was introduced within the timeline of the series. Like it's just obvious that the writers aren't willing to let anyone else but Discovery have access to the spore drive. They twisted up the Glenn in season one, so Discovery is the only ship with a spore drive. They hemmed and hawed about genetic modification in season 2 so no one else got a spore drive. They purged records of the spore drive's existence from history and claimed that no one else had tried to make anything like it in 900 years despite a massive dilithium shortage and canonical search for other methods of propulsion in season 3. And then at the very end, just when you think, oh hey maybe the entire population of Kwejian will make for a nice crop of new spore drive pilots, the writers fucking blow up their whole planet just so they don't have to let anyone else have the spore drive. And to be fair, they can't really let anyone else have it, or else Discovery loses it's right to be "the only one we can turn to in a crisis". And that's really all it has going for it. So, I get it! Still hate it, though. And, even moreso than all the silly narrative contrivances that are used to nerf transporter technology so that the plot can still happen, this bothers me. Because sure, all the ion storms and interference can get a bit stupid. We all make fun of star trek for inventing a technology that could immediately yoink our blorbos away from their problems, only to turn around and force it to not work when it's needed most. But at least there isn't just one ship that has the ability to use the transporter at all. That would be ridiculous. Everyone would want their own transporter. And yet, that's the situation we have in Discovery. Only one ship can travel across the galaxy in the blink of an eye. The show writers keep contriving to keep it that way. And given how useful instantaneous travel is, the fact that it hasn't been replicated once, by any species in the galaxy, not just the Federation, in 900 years is just stretching the limits of my willing suspension of disbelief.

[hercarisntyours]

we look so cute together

[scribe-of-hael]

The Path to Hell is paved with good intentions

I think what is interesting is the drive that is the Autobots and Decpeticons. Mostly the cause of the Decpeticons and Megatron himself.

Alot of the time we see Megatron to be a crazy, battle hungry, warlord whos hel bent of causing destruction, conquering all in his path and who cares only about his goal to rule.

Over the years we have seen many version of Megatron. From silly goofy villain who's somtiems could acutally be a threat like in g1, to pash, cold, cunning like TFA, to being a crazy war lord who is incredibly cruel in TFP.

But these versions are mostly a Megatron who came from fighting, or had no good intentions to begin with besides being selfish or power hungry.

Then you have TFE and IDW/IDW2 (and possibly tf one). A different apprich to a character. Some may say its to make someone who has done cruel things as more sympathetic. But I think adds depth and personality.

Giving more than a crazy leader with silly goons, to a person who genuinely thought at the beginning, "I want things to change, for the better ,because it is broken"

Much howOptimus, the humble data clerk (hate he is a cop in idw tbh) and the hard working miner. Your everyday ppl, going through diffenrt struggles and honestly. I think woukd be fair to say that Orion wouldn't know the struggles of lower level bots that don't even have proper names..

Like D-16. The mech whis become Megatron.

Both Optimus and Megatron i think wnates to see a change , but how they both went about it i what added the conflict.

These two are basically your average everyday people. Megatron was an average everyday person. He wasn't born into the pits, net a warrior. A worker.

I think with alot of cartoon "villains" to we get older and started to see from a adult perspective. "Oh wait they are making sense." And how MESSED up the situation even was to drive these characters to this point.

Its no longer good vs evil, it is two ideals fighting aginst each other. What was once a fight for what these two sides believes in, turned into warfare and blood shed. To the mentality of Megatron being

"I can't trust anyone to right thing, besides me. I am the only one who can fix this, I can lead us."

You know what I could also see Optimus having the SAME mentality when comes to fighting megatron and restoring Cybertron. They are very much two sides of the same coin. I think that's what adds to the conflict between them. Optimus could be one bad day away from becoming Megatron onnthe sense of wanting to control the situation despite what costs just to not se Megatron when.

And you know he HAS done this. Yeeting the allspark for one to not let Megatron have ir but at the cost of Cybteron and its occupance. It was a loose loose situation regardless.

When it comes to alt-modist mentality, this high class vs low class, and the corruption of Cybertron. It is no wonder why so many people believes in the Decpeticon causes.

The reason why I clung so hard to Transformers Earthspark Megatron is because this was a break out from his character. To later learn it definitely took inspo from IDW who explored this character further sealed my admiration for him.

No one in the tf universe is less or more guilty. Both sides have done HORRIBLE things. Experimentation, brutality, killing innocence and their own soldiers just to get the won up. The autobots are not without their own blood shed. Only SOME of the autobots have a bit more regard for life and the planet they sit on. It doenst mean all of them do, and it doenst mean people within the groups around Optimus like it. But because they are painted as good guys we exapect them to.

Its when Decpeticons seem to take an interest in life do I find it way more compelling because it is out of their characteristics. They are the "bad guys"

Knockout being interested in Human cinema

Thundercracker being into writing and making movies

They are still PEOPLE. With interests and hobbies, internal conflicts and hesitations.

To see a Megatron not only fight aginst his own army , but take a human, a HUMAN as a friend that he TRUSTS?! That he gave up his Cybertronian already mode UP FOR?! Thats a bug FUCKING deal.

Just the contrast to TFW Megs to say TFP. Tfp depsite it beingbbetter for camouflage NEVER changes his alt mode. He is never willing to acutally change, he is so deeply rooted in what he is, who he is. What he is doing. That he is unwilling to change to the surroundings. No the surrounding will change BECAUSE of him.

While TFE realized a change was needed to fix things, to work together, to show I AM CHANGING, I WANT TO DO THE RIGHT THING.

This is not a Slander Optimus rant or a WOW Megatron is such a great guy essay.

Was mostly me rambling.

[aut2imagineart]

I've really become obsessed with the Orion Drive spacecraft concept and continue to develop different ideas for it. This one is envisioned as a more personal spacecraft for a character for my Centauri universe which in my mind is evolving into an anthology of sorts. I call it the Wabash Cannonball as I imagine it traveling through space like a powerful 19th century train.

Along with being relatively smaller than the other Orion Drive ships I designed, I gave this ship three unique features. The first is that it uses a system called "dusty plasma radiators" for heat regulation. It works using conductive plasma manipulated by magnetic fields to heat up dust particles and cycle them out of the ship and back in. This adds to the steam engine vibe I was going for this ship. The second is it's equipped with a diffracting solar sail that's a mile in diameter for initial movement to a safe distance (aided by powerful laser arrays on planetary surfaces) before retracting and letting the Orion drive take over. Is is also unfurled to capture sunlight of an approaching star during it's deceleration procedure. The third is that habitable module at the front of the craft is detachable and equipped with fusion rockets in case of emergencies.

Other features are two space planes for planetary entry, RCS thrusters for maneuvering, several onboard maintenance drones for making repairs inside and outside the ship, and 16 turrets with projectile and laser weapon system for self defense.

I'm going to try to depict the character I imagine piloting this ship next as I already finished my Thanksgiving piece (just waiting for Thanksgiving day).

As always, comments and critiques are welcome.

[whirligig-girl]

Guzcomic 7: Oh No.

Next Page: (Link)

Previous Page: (Link)

First part: (Link)

More of Eaurp Guz: (Link)

Transcript below the cut:

Page 1: Tendi is eating pasta with pesto sauce with her mouth open. She makes "om nom nom" and smacking sounds as she eats. Tendi (muffled): Are you okay? Guz is sitting still, looking into the distance, apparently dissociating. Chattering and talking and chewing noises surround her head. Tendi reaches out to hold one of Guz's two split left hands. At this, she begins to zip her arms back together. Tendi: "Guz?" Guz's arm recombines as a fist which slams down onto the table, making a thud sound. Rutherford (out of frame): So this is when you got overstimulated? Guz (narrating out of frame): yes. But it gets worse. The thud sound had shaken the model orion spacecraft, which makes rumbling sounds and a CLUNK-CLUNK! noise. We see Tendi and Guz's eyes up close. Tendi looks at the model suspiciously. Guz looks at the model in horror, with beads of melty skin acting like beads of sweat. Page 2: The model spacecraft blasts off in a blast of blinding white light. The pistons and pusher-plate are retracted now, absorbing the shock of the blast. Everything on the table--unfinished pieces of the model, a razer/scalpel, and Tendi's food, goes flying. Tendi's food hits her torso. Tendi and Guz shut their eyes. Tendi's arms are in front of her face, but Guz' arm has been blown away by the blast and her hair is being blown away too. The lighting is extremely harsh, with the entire room appearing dark except for the surfaces and objects and bodies which are directly lit by the explosion.

[bookloverturnedfangirl]

ok real question which Secret Shanghai character would safely drive me to my intended destination??

[greenerteacups]

I’m not sure if you’ve specifically answered this before, but how long did it take you to outline, research, and prepare the foundational meat of Lionheart since it’s such a sprawling saga with threads for so many characters? Did you have it all mapped out before you started writing? What about shorter pieces like The Climb and the latest, delightful The Death Eater Diaries?

The series outline for Lionheart I wrote on one bleary, rabbit-hole of a day in the summer of 2022 when I was definitely supposed to be doing something else, and after that, each book took me between 3 days and 2 weeks to outline completely. The later books have taken longer because of their length and the number of threads — the series has a way of getting wider as well as longer, and for the last two books, I sometimes got a bit grumbly about how many characters pop up in every novel. As for research, most of that will happen before or during the outlining process; I'll have a copy of the book on-hand to check plot details, but for the most part I try to work without flipping back to the text, to avoid copying beats or stylistic choices unless I have a thematic reason to. I also use HP Lexicon and fanwikis while I'm editing for content, though when I'm drafting I make a real effort not to switch out of the tab for any reason, because it breaks flow. I'm sure I have missed some details despite my references, but c'est la vie; JKR had to do continuity edits in subsequent edition releases for several books, so at least I'm not alone.

For The Climb, I wrote the first chapter in the raw, then went through and blocked out the second two in an outline at the bottom of the document. Very very broad strokes there — TC is different from Lionheart because it's a slice-of-life tone piece, so there's not as much plot to be done. It's a novella conceived for the sole purpose of exploring one particular relationship, so the plot came secondary to the things I wanted to highlight about how that dynamic worked. It's a character-forward piece, to borrow culinary terminology, and outlining for character is a lot easier than outlining for plot. (For me.)

The Death Eater Diaries emerged almost fully-formed from a Tumblr post I made joking about the sort of ludicrously awful decade Narcissa experiences. The hardest part of outlining was nailing down canonical dates. Stuff like how old Andromeda was when she got pregnant, when Bellatrix got married, when the members of the previous generation died, all that's unspecified — but it's also all functionally constrained to a narrow window of time, if you take in where the characters are at certain other parts of the story, so you can't just say anything. It was very fun to write, though. Doing so also stressed how hilariously short the timeline on the Black family collapse actually is. Between 1971 and 1981, they go from a two-branch family with an heir, a spare, and three healthy daughters -> completely extinct in the male line, two of its descendants disinherited, two imprisoned, one missing, presumed dead, and Draco Malfoy's mom.

[no-1-rosalind-lang-apologist]