Sketch: Haven at Kaldus

Roselight broke over a different world.

Her warmth across the glassy horizon preceded her. Sheets of ice, jagged boulders and crooked floes, lost their edge, softening, pulling apart from one another, slumping into the sea as amber tones crept across the deep dark sky. As she emerged in the following hours, rosy highlights bloomed along the first tenuous clouds to reappear; the wind came steady, breathing life into the sea. The mirrored surface stirred and rippled and broke, scattering embers of Rosa in miniature.

Kaldus cast a long veil upon the water, its angular cliffsides fluorescing against the gradient sky. City lights still twinkled on its shadowed face, tracing their winding constellations up the island’s cobbled pavements. A few aerostats droned about its serrated peaks.

Sheltered in the rocky coast, Northbay was already metabolizing as Roselight shimmered across the waves. Champions of the night lumbered into the harbor, steel mountains to rival Kaldus itself, escorted by a clergy of pilot balloons; their fortress walls gleamed as they settled in their thrones, attended at once by their skeletal harems.

Haven was a ship, its wings glistening, unused, in the feeble dawn. It crept cautiously amidst the drifting floes, making its measured way into port, holding time and again in deference to Ark titans. Its motor chugged wearily, its blades idly chopping through the crisp morning chill.

Noira watched the ground crews scatter across the dockside, tossing their mooring line and deploying their gantries. In the still air she could hear their calls, orders she’d memorized, rehearsed and practiced so often before, the routine of what was once her life. Her eyes came to rest on the empty pier upon which no workman trod; its monarch lost, its attendants dismissed. She watched gentle waves lap at the berth, the sea unburdened.

She thought about Kori, who had spoken of her wife and children; of the men from the catwalk, cards in hand, laughing to each other under the starlight; of the boy in the lifeboat, the helpless sorrow in his eyes that mirrored her own. What had it been for? Why had the threads of their fate been severed in that hour, and she herself left behind?

The cool breeze sent chills up her neck, her hair tossed about carelessly in the light wind. It seemed so arbitrary, in hindsight. She thought of the hours she’d spent mapping the labyrinth corridors of Ark Royal, the care she’d put into every hour of her shifts, the precision of her labor which had earned her stability in the field for the past few years. Every face she’d seen aboard, the temp crews and the long-haulers, had charted their own journeys, had made their own way. What could any of them have done that night?

It was something she couldn’t understand, and she felt she would never make peace with the question. She looked up, to the aerostats milling about overhead, and thought of the aircourt in Eterna, of her siblings on the platform, so small beside their mother, waving up to her from far below.

“Next in queue! Deck hands to mooring stations!”

Behind her, from Haven’s forecastle, came the Captain’s cry, shattering the tranquility. At once the crew scampered to their posts about the bulwarks, lashing lines over cleats and calling across the deck to one another. Captain Dorian surveyed his ship for a moment, scanning the workers intently from his high vantage; Noira ducked to avoid his gaze. Apparently satisfied with their pace, he descended back into the bridge cabin.

“Look alive, girl!”

Rapid footfalls on the damp metal alerted Noira to a pair of workers bounding towards her. She leapt back abruptly from the rail as they skidded into their places, jointly swinging a lancelike docking pole over the ledge. One of them tossed a pointed look at Noira, glaring up through her close-cropped hair, before turning her attention to the dockside. Noira pulled her coat tighter and turned to walk aft along the deck, resolving to find a more secluded spot along the ledge.

Haven lurched in the water as its motor spluttered into action, a muted, whispering thrum emanating from its props. The sea carved around its bow, parting to Haven’s moderate authority, and the small ship began its approach into port.

Silence drew its haunting veil across the deck. Slowly, tentatively, the crew at their stations turned their eyes upwards. Noira followed suit, clutching the cold railing.

Kaldus stood over them all, monolithic, cold; it looked down upon them from beyond the sky. The droning airships were its eyes, scrutinizing the foreign vessel as the great mountain deliberated its approval.

From all sides, vast Ark vessels fixed their gaze upon Haven, the weight of their judgement a lead blanket upon the deck hands. A few shifted nervously, though none dared avert their eyes.

Cold waves lapped at the hull, apprehensive tones resonating from deep within.

The air was still.

Kaldus relented.

Haven sailed across the threshold.

The sounds of the harbor rose into Noira’s ears. The moment had passed, and she felt her shoulders relax as the crew began to chatter amongst themselves once more.

Footsteps came quietly behind her, pausing as they drew near.

“Noira.”

She turned to see Marion. He stood as upright and composed as ever, but there was a softness in his voice. The sight of him summoned the pain and tragedy of the night back to the forefront of her mind. Unable to meet his eyes, she turned back to the rail, guilt and shame at her own helplessness bubbling up from within her.

He came to the rail next to her. For a moment, they stood together, quietly watching the dockside approach.

“I wanted to apologize. I was curt with you that night, and there’s been much to address in the wake of the accident. I never properly offered you my condolences. I realize you’ve lost much more than an occupation.” He looked over at her, as tears ran silently down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Noira.”

She could say nothing in response, lest she risk losing her composure in front of him again. She managed only to nod to indicate her appreciation. Again they stood in silence, the chatter of the workers filling the space.

Marion produced a document from his coat, seeming to review its contents before he spoke again. “I’ve been in communication with the Company over the past round. I’ll be returning to Tanura full-time.”

Noira clutched the rail tighter. She tried to fight off the thought, but Marion was the only survivor of Ark Royal she’d known. With him gone she would be truly alone.

“However…” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “I’ve perceived an opening for an additional role in my department. Excavation Devices. There’s new ground to be broken, so to speak, and we — I could use a young trainee to help with hardware development.”

Finally she turned to look up at him. In her eyes was a new light, a feeling she hadn’t known since long before that fateful voyage.

“I’m offering you a position, Noira. The Company has agreed to provide whatever accommodations are necessary for your relocation and housing. I’m aware this is somewhat beyond your area of expertise, but…it could be helpful for you.”

Hope. It had been absent from her life on Orus for so long she had forgotten to miss it. The rounds since the accident had made her feel as though it might have left her for good. Now, unexpectedly, it stood in front of her, offered plainly; the promise that things could still change for the better. It was overwhelming in a way she didn’t remember how to manage; she was crying again, her heart overflowing.

“Now, this isn’t time-sensitive, so you may take whatever time you need—”

“I’ll take it,” she managed. “Please.”

The slightest hint of a smile softened his face, in spite of his poise. “Very well. I’ll work on making arrangements once we’re ashore. My flight for Tanura is in about thirty degrees. I’ll make sure there's an additional seat for you.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Thank you so much.”

With a jolt, Haven sidled up against the berth. At once, the crew were tossing mooring lines across the deck and leaping ashore. Overhead, the sky was warm, the soaring clouds shining brilliantly in the Roselit dawn.

~     ~     ~

Feeling a bit down lately, so I wanted to follow up the latest plot update with some relevant, hopefully more uplifting prose I wrote a while ago. I'm proud of how this one came out; it's a really important moment that I wanted to capture. It also makes for a nice segue into things to come :)

Roselight Outline: Part 5

The passengers of the lifeboat are stranded, sitting apart in defeated silence, for several hours. Ark Royal was able to get a distress signal out during the attack, but the nearest emergency vessel, Haven, still took some time to fly in. Haven is a small, fast, ground-effect ship equipped for rescues just like this, and is able to recover the crew members quickly once it finally arrives.

Aboard Haven, Noira’s worst fears are realized. Theirs was the only lifeboat recovered intact, and only about 10-12 of Ark Royal’s original crew of 40 survived. Marion is drawn away immediately to report to ASMC and AM about the incident, focused on lost assets and damage control; Noira is painfully alone during the flight back home. Her physical injuries are major, but will heal; her arms and hands are treated and bandaged by the medical staff aboard Haven.

When Haven arrives back at Ark Royal’s home port, Marion approaches Noira during the slow docking process. He apologizes for his blunt treatment towards her during the attack and for his absence during the voyage home. He informs her that he’ll be ending his part-time work aboard Arcturus Meridian’s various support vessels and return to working full-time as a lead engineer for ASMC. Noira is distraught by this, but he makes her an offer: he can open an apprentice engineering position in his department for her. She would come with him to Orus’ capital city (on a separate island/continent from where she’d been working), and receive generous compensation from the company for her losses. Tearfully, she accepts, and begins to look again to the future.

~ ~ ~

Author's note: this is a bit of a shorter one, but this is a good stopping point for now. I have a lot of plot stuff that I need to develop and flesh out some more - there's a lot already written up after this point, but a lot of details need to be worked out in the middle, so I'm going to try and take some time during this winter break to do some brainstorming and worldbuilding and get some of it more developed. Stay tuned!

Concept art: The attack on Ark Royal

 Since the latest plot outline detailed the destruction of Ark Royal, I figured I'd collect some sketches and such that I've done of the scene. This pivotal event is one of the oldest scenes I've had in mind for this story, so it's had a lot of different treatments.

Here's an early look at Ark Royal from about a year ago. The design of the vehicle has evolved over time, but the gist is still intact: this is a large ground-effect aircraft, envisioned as a flying cargo ship. There are still four engines at the leading edge and two on the tail, although they've mostly ditched the impression of being jet turbines. They might be something like a turboprop/propfan; the Roselight universe is only recently redeveloping lost jet turbine tech, and since Ark Royal is an older model, it relies mainly on props for power.

Here's some more sketches trying to approximate the form of the vehicle. The main body is taken up by an enormous cargo bay, which would (in Ark Royal's case) be filled with bulk cargo through a split bay door on the dorsal face.

This is one of the first drawings of Noira I made! She's depicted in her cargo overalls and some work boots, sitting on an external balcony attached to the vehicle. Ark Royal wasn't well fleshed-out at this point, so the vehicle behind her is notional.

Here we have some early images of the raider aircraft. Their key features are a pair of shoulder-mounted turbofan type engines, with wings that sweep forward to save space when landed. Notice a bulkier, more angular version of Ark Royal above, with a sketch of the raiders attacking the ship in the upper-right corner.

The raider aircraft have since evolved into this concept, along with the type name of Interdictor. The folding wings and shoulder engines are retained; they now have some floats to allow them to operate as seaplanes.

This is an ominous concept for one of the interior passages of Ark Royal that Noira is attempting to navigate during the attack. These halls would be punctuated by big, heavy, nautical doors.

This is another older sketch, an impression of Noira encountering an unfamiliar face. Things would not be actively burning around her at this point, but...vibes...

This one is much more recent. Noira has just been dragged off the ladder to the burning crew quarters, after badly burning her arms and hands in a vain attempt to reach her belongings.

If you were wondering how lifeboats work on a flying ship, so was I 😅 This is the concept I've been working on, a parachute-arrested enclosed lifeboat that might even be something of a lifting body to try and minimize impact with the surface. Although the chute pulls them clear from the ship, the lifeboat retains a significant forward speed as it plows nose-first into the water. The rail deployment and impact would probably be comparable to freefall lifeboats in use today.

Here we have a more detailed drawing of the lifeboat. There's some steampunk influence in the brass detailing and those round portholes. My idea with these is that they'd be equipped to sustain themselves for potentially up to several weeks, with a simple steam or internal combustion engine for moderate propulsion.

And to close this one off, a pretty simple but hopefully effective rendering of Ark Royal's end.

Roselight Outline: Part 4

(Author's note: buckle up, this one's a bit of a doozy.)

Noira is finishing a maintenance shift near the leading edge of Ark Royal’s enormous wing, where she tends to hydraulic systems that keep the vast control surfaces running smoothly. As she completes her work, she is relieved by a telegraph-like pattern of sounds that emits from a device on the wall – the tone means SHIFT CHANGE, and accordingly she packs up her things and heads up towards the door. On her way out of the maintenance room, she passes Kori, her new friend from the previous round, and they exchange brief pleasantries. Kori goes on to take up her shift, and Noira starts down the long corridors of the ship.

Meanwhile, Marion is out on a balcony near the tail of the great ship, taking in a bit of fresh air after his own management shift has ended. He gazes idly out over the horizon, almost dozing – until a glint of light over the dark sea catches his eye. At the same time he notices it, he hears crews behind him – from the defensive platform near the bow – scrambling and calling urgently to each other. Ark Royal’s two deck-mounted turrets begin to mobilize, and as he looks back out to see, Marion has a sudden realization – something is very wrong. He turns and runs inside.

Noira is only a third of the way through the ship when she is stopped in her tracks by a new tone from the telegraph – AIR RAID. Briefly immobilized by panic, when the tone sounds again she sets off bolting down the hall.

A trio of light, nimble aircraft are bearing down on Ark Royal, holding a tight formation. While the deck cannons are still seeking their targets, the raider aircraft are already firing, bullets skittering across the top deck. The turrets finally find their mark, downing one of the raiders with ease – but they regroup immediately, firing with greater precision and destroying the offending turret. As they close on Ark Royal, the remaining turret can’t track them both quickly enough, firing futile shots into the sky. A concerted effort from the raiders brings an end to the second turret, leaving no impediment to their arrival. Matching Ark Royal’s airspeed, they alight upon the deck and sweep their wings forward; large panel doors slide back on both aircraft, and their occupants – the raiders – drop down onto the surface, bundled in thick cold-weather clothing and armed with malicious-looking weaponry.

Noira continues through the ship’s passages, struggling to open its heavy nautical bulkhead doors fast enough – she’s nearly to the crew quarters when she opens a door and runs straight into one of the raiders. She stumbles back, cornered in fear; the raider follows but doesn’t seem interested in killing her. When he speaks, it’s almost taunting – that she doesn’t understand what’s really happening here, that she doesn’t see what she’s really a part of. She’s still struggling to understand these confusing words when Marion arrives, taking the raider by surprise and dispatching him in short order. Noira is happy to see him, and he’s obviously concerned for her safety. He urges her to follow him to the lifeboats in case the ship falls, but she’s adamant about retrieving more of her belongings, just a few doors and decks away. He acquiesces, telling her to hurry, and she’s off again down the halls.

Noira finally reaches the ladder up to the crew quarters, and is already partway up when an enormous explosion rocks the vessel, knocking her down from the ladder, incidentally saving her from a jet of flame that bursts from the deck overhead. She stares in disbelief for a moment before irrationality sets in; fire and smoke actively pours from the deck above but she desperately tries to climb again, burning her arms and hands on the metal, her face and clothing singed. Abruptly she’s pulled away – Marion followed the explosion and is now forcefully pulling her off the ladder, away from the inhospitable upper deck. She kicks and screams and cries, inconsolable; he sternly reprimands her enough for her to come to her senses, and she reluctantly follows him towards the lifeboat bay, the ship shuddering and straining around them.

Only a handful of other crew members have made it to the lifeboat bay when Marion and Noira arrive; Kori is not among them. The remaining crew board one of the vehicles, strapping into their seats. Marion sets off the deployment sequence – the lifeboat slides backwards out of Ark Royal on rails, firing a parachute behind it to arrest its airspeed. The lifeboat half-glides, half-plummets into the sea, plowing to a stop in the icy water as Ark Royal sails on ahead. Jumping up from her seat, Noira reaches the window in time to watch the raiders depart. Her home rolls leisurely to one side, catching on the jagged sea ice before tumbling into the waves. The waves finally quenching her fires, Ark Royal slips silently into the sea.

Tenian

The E-series comprises some of the largest vehicles produced by Grand Ark Aeromarine, the E608 being a late entry in the family. Though nascent jet power has only recently been reestablished, GAA has leaned heavily into the cutting edge for this vehicle. Powerful embedded liftjets haul its bulk into the ground effect, where it cruises at high speed under its four sustainers. An enormous flatbed upper deck allows all but the most unwieldy cargo to be rapidly delivered far and wide across Orus' turbulent seas.

As is standard for the Arcturus Meridian fleet, Tenian has had several deck-mounted guns installed, but this vehicle has also been outfitted with an unusually comprehensive security complement. As ASMC perceives increasing threats to its operations, defensive capability has been held paramount....

Quick blog status update

Hello to my 2.7 blogulus consumers;

I promise this blog is not dead, guaranteed simply because this project is not at all dead! I have been working on it pretty consistently in my free time, especially as my other major project (the soundtrack for the wonderful story Proxima: A Human Exploration of Mars) winds to a close. I've been consistently generating more ideas, some sketches, and even music for the story, I've just been increasingly busy as the end of the semester rolls around. How on earth do I have less than two full weeks of classes left??

I'd been hoping to smash the October cadence out of the water and we were certainly on track to meet that in the first few weeks of November, but I've definitely fallen behind mainly due to an overwhelming preoccupation with all of everything.

I've also backed myself into something of a corner with regards to plot - I've been trying to structure the blog such that the main plot posts come out fairly regularly, and accompanying content only arrives once the relevant plot segment has already been posted. However, the few of you who are reading this have likely already heard some of my assorted rambles explaining the general story anyway, so it's not really a matter of spoilers if I post somewhat asynchronously. I do want to work through my plot backlog so I can get into a more organic live-posting mode again, but since the main purpose of this blog is to share assorted content and archive the process, I'm going to throw chronology out the window a little bit.

Now, I'm currently out of town visiting family for Thanksgiving, and I need to be physically back on campus for a meeting in less than twelve hours.... I do actually have a quick art sketch and accompanying plot info in the chamber ready to go, but beyond that I have two quizzes, a report, and an exam all due in the same class this upcoming week, plus two design review final presentations. Suffice to say the business isn't going away.

What I may do is try and operate the blog on a schedule - posting once every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday would make for a pretty solid cadence, and would probably be healthy in general as an exercise in time management and making room for the stuff that matters (which is a skill I would do well to internalize for other important things in my life).

I'm very sleepy now, so I'll go ahead and set that as an operational target. Keep your peepers peeled for updates!

Sketch: Streets

Hopefully I can get to more regular updates soon - until then, here's an older bit of prose I've written in which Noira makes a friend...

~         ~         ~

The long nights still troubled Noira. Her own thoughts would bind her as the workshift came to a close, her feet pulled down along the circuitous halls, her eyes following the tangled, blooming patterns in the carpet, weaving through each other like so many gilded vines. Ornate chandeliers dangled overhead, saturating the corridors with warm auburn hues. She would circle back to rooms she’d seen before, under the pretense of exploration, or a fancy for any one office in particular; she would fascinate herself with the homogenous styling of the building, repelled by the stairwells that would take her down to the lobby, down and out the front doors, onto the cold stone streets, the streets which wound down and down and down towards her apartment, nestled among lush, towering residences, glittering in the streetlights like empty glassware.

Eventually the chronometer in the foyer below would chime, sometimes an hour since she’d clocked out, and she would force herself to collect her things, draping her thick petra about her shoulders, clutching her satchel tightly as she followed the dreadful stairs to the ground floor. She would bid farewell to the receptionist, clinging to precious seconds of conversation before the biting cold would beckon from beyond the threshold, and she would turn to brave the journey home.

As the chronometer marked an hour and a half since her shift had ended, regret gnawed in her stomach. This was the latest she’d ever stayed, pretending to be engrossed in some older technical documents in one of the records rooms, so captivating as to require a little extra delay — then a little more, and more, until finally the churning knot in her chest, not the chronim, compelled her to return to her desk, possessed by that awful quiet panic that bubbled through her veins. Hurriedly she stuffed her notes and tools into her pack, pushing her arms through the coat and slinging the load over her shoulder as her feet carried her down the hall.

Arriving at the bottom of the stairs, the icy grip on her heart tightened; the receptionist was gone. His shift had ended, or he was on break, or he was receiving at the telegraph; in any case, nothing remained to keep her from tumbling out the magnificent wooden doors, nearly sprinting into the night.

It had been an eternity since Rosa had dipped beneath the horizon; in some part of her mind, Noira knew this was the fourth or fifth round of the night. The midnight air was the icy sea; jagged floes cutting at her ankles and wrists and her cheeks as she stumbled down the street, willing her petra to swallow her whole. Alleys gaped in her peripheral vision, dark maws like the mine, or cast in amber light from streetlamps, flickering like the corridors of Ark Royal, frozen wind howling like the sea rushing beneath her, the crashing of waves against the lifeboat, her footfalls ringing in her ears like cannonfire.

The core of her mind knew what was happening, but those clearer thoughts drowned in the turbulent smoke of panic. A streetlamp filled her vision, and it was not orange like the flame, or red like the blood, or gold like the klaxon; it was white: brilliant, blinding white, the eyes of the Founder piercing her soul, stripping flesh down to bone until she stood bare before it, her heart beating in the open, glowing as the waves closed around her, washing the soot from her skin and freezing her solid.

She sobbed into her gloves, the petra coarsening as it grew damp. Her heart still pounded in her chest as she sat against the icy stone, taking in shuddering breaths as the episode gradually passed, doing her best to quench the fires still singeing her nerves.

“Hey?”

Noira startled, her head jolting up as her eyes swept the alley.

“Oh! Hey, I’m sorry — are you alright? I wasn’t trying to scare you!”

A woman stood hesitantly at the mouth of the alley, peeking around the corner of the tall, stone building. Noira could see long, dark hair, and deep, dark eyes, reflecting the soft light from the street. At once she was aware of her own appearance: curled into a dark street corner, very lost and, until recently, entirely inconsolable. She raised her voice in reply, projecting a poor impression of composure.

“Oh, hi,” she managed, rubbing freezing tears from her cheeks. “I’m okay, I’m just…I’m a bit lost, I think. I…” She searched for words. “I didn’t mean to come down this way.” Her voice still trembled, and she could see the concern in the woman’s eyes.

“Okay, well,” the woman paused, taking in Noira’s condition. “If you want, I can try and help you get back? I don’t know where you live, of course, but…” There was a light, playful melody to her voice, and Noira perceived a hint of laughter in the last few words. She sat upright, idly checking that she still had her bag as she responded.

“I don’t...think I want to go home right now, actually.” She held her satchel near her chest. “Is anything open right now? Maybe a library, or somewhere I could stay for a little while?”

The woman’s eyes lit up. Noira saw, as her eyes adjusted, that she couldn’t have been much older than herself. “I could take you to Mr. Bavari’s shop! I was just leaving, but he keeps it open through most rounds of the night. I can get you something to drink, too, if you want.”

Noira took a deep breath. “Sure,” she managed. “Yeah, that sounds good. You said it’s nearby?”

“Yeah, I just came from there — it’s just a couple of blocks back up the road.”

“Okay.” She rose unsteadily to her feet, the midnight chill once again permeating her clothing. “Thank you, I appreciate it.” She glanced behind her, down the dark alley, before turning back to her new acquaintance. “I’m sorry if I worried you, I…I get anxious at night, sometimes.”

“It’s alright! I just wanted to be sure you weren’t hurt or anything. I bet you'll like Bavari’s place; I’ve always liked spending the night rounds there.”

Noira pulled her coat closer to her body, stepping out of the shadows of the alley to meet the woman in the street. She could see her much better now; she had a long, narrow face, with dark features; her eyes were bold, but had the same playful light as her voice. Long, black hair was tucked away into an ornate shawl that sat in bundles on her shoulders; beneath that, a stylish petra overcoat which seemed much warmer than her own. They studied each other for a moment, before the woman abruptly remembered something.

“Oh! I haven’t even introduced myself — I’m Maliyah.” She held out a gloved hand.

“Noira,” she replied, taking Maliyah’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Same to you!” She cracked a broad smile, glowing in the amber light.

 

Art: Dance!

 It's been a little while on account of me being busy with school stuff, and a general subsidence of creative energies, but I've recently been working on some artwork to go along with the story.

This one was motivated by a desire to be nice to my characters....my current understanding of the plot involves them going through quite a bit of hardship, so I figured I'd take some time to depict them happy and having a good time. This is also the first time I've depicted them all together like this!

From left to right: Noira Isabel, Maliyah Toran, Clare Prescot

Full-size Imgur link!

Skyhooks and spacecraft

I've got a couple of new doodles today, mainly of two spacecraft as well as the rotovator I alluded to in some earlier posts. Let's look at the two spacecraft up close first!

These are two different vehicles drawn notionally to scale with each other, though they have a lot in common. Above we have the passenger tender, a smaller vehicle designed to ferry people to and from those big artificial gravity spaceliners. Below is a cargo freighter, with a much larger volume for shipping between worlds in the Rosa system.

Both of these spacecraft are powered by chemical rocket engines mounted in the back, with propellant stored fore and aft of a centrally located payload bay. In addition to some reaction control thrusters, both are equipped with some kind of metallic heat shield for atmospheric entry. Both reenter skydive-style, pancaking into the atmosphere, stabilized by four drag flaps (two of which are fixed). Finally, to accommodate the unique terrain and infrastructure available in the Rosa system, both vehicles deploy large inflatable lifting gas envelopes from dorsal compartments, arresting their descent until they become inert aerostats that can be manipulated by other vehicles.

Critically, these weirdos are both air-launched, in a way, although here we see some major operational differences. The passenger tender is air-launched "conventionally" as we might think of it today: carried beneath an aircraft (albeit a large airship rather than a fixed-wing aerodyne), dropped, and powered into space by its own propulsion. The tender must accelerate all the way up to escape velocity during this burn, which is made easier by the relatively small mass of the worlds in this system. As previously described, the tender can then rendezvous and dock with the spaceliners, which will hold them in transit before releasing them to perform atmospheric entry.

The freighters are a bit weirder, being integrated with the skyhook system; I've already talked about this, but due to generally lower g-limits for cargo compared to crew, freighters are well-suited to getting yoinked into space by the enormous sky pinwheel. Doing some preliminary math implies this could easily put them on interworld trajectories, so they could potentially use even more of their volume for cargo, with very little dedicated to propulsion at all - cool! That said, the scaled-up tender version with its vast fuel tanks and engines is still used quite a bit since the skyhook/rotavator/spintowininator (note to self: name it properly) is only available when travelling from Orus to another destination.

Here's some more sketches of these dudes:

Notice the much wider planform of the freighter and its beefier engine section (only present on some models!). At bottom-center is a depiction of the freighter exchange process: three hybrid cargo carrier airships have aligned in formation, each carrying three freighters in a line down its back. Arriving in sync with a rotovator endpoint, all 9 spacecraft are lifted off the decks and begin the long climb to escape...at lower left is an exaggerated depiction of the multi-armed rotovator concept I've been thinking about, with six separate endpoints. At the top of their arc the spacecraft all separate at once, firing RCS in an enormous plume to disperse from each other, the grid formation uniformly expanding as the tether curves away beneath them.

Finally, here's a dramatic angle of the rotovator hub as it orbits languidly above Orus. The center is probably a command station home to a team of traffic controllers, working overtime to keep this mega-infrastructure (infra-megastructure?) running smoothly.

One of these days I want to model both spacecraft, perhaps in Solidworks so I can try for pretty accurate geometry. But that's a project for another time. That's all for today!

The Founder-Processor

 

As described in the recent plot outline post, the Founder-Processor is a horrible monstrously large machine that smelts and refines raw ores and rubble into slightly more useful end products. It lies in the bottom of the pit, laboring like an enormous bloated dying animal, smoke billowing from its internal furnace as it vomits forth processed material onto its conveyor.

The Founder-Processors are only mobile to allow them to adjust as the mine grows ever wider and deeper. They are largely constructed on site, and either deconstructed or abandoned to die when a mine's resources are thoroughly exhausted. After encountering one on her first night voyage aboard Ark Royal, Noira is haunted by nightmares of these great beasts lumbering over the landscape, laying waste to the worlds...

Roselight Outline: Part 3

 Ark Royal begins its journey, stopping at a number of small logistics centers on its way out to sea, many hours passing as Rosa’s light fades from the empty sky. The most exciting part of their mission is still to come: a visit to one of the most productive open-cast mines still in operation. We learn that the largest and least resource-rich islands on Orus were settled, leaving the innumerable smaller mountains as the prime targets for extraction; however, many of these are beginning to shut down as their resources are exhausted, leaving ASMC in search of new sources and new extraction methods. This particular voyage is carrying tech demos for some of these methods, intended to qualify their use prior to deployment.

Dozens of hours later, as the sky darkens and home grows distant, Noira and the rest of the crew gather on the balconies atop Ark Royal to see the spotlights of the mine appear on the horizon, casting their cold beams into the night air. The anticipation is palpable as Ark Royal approaches, pulling up to the dockside at a servicing platform anchored to the island's steep rocky walls. An enormous chute descends from over the rim of the crater, snaking down the dark mountainside as crews align it with Ark Royal's bulk cargo bays.

While this happens, Noira and other members of the crew not directly associated with mining operations take a service pathway up the mountainside, winding alongside the cargo chute - maybe a light vehicle to make the drive. They're all anxious to get a glimpse inside this historic mine, to see with their own eyes what's only been poorly reproduced in images. Drawing nearer, they can hear the sounds of machinery from within, mingling with a noise Noira can't quite place. As they arrive at the top, they all flock to an overlook platform to see inside...

Robert W. Smith's Inferno is a good representation of what Noira sees.

The mine is an enormous pit - staggeringly high, a vast column bored far below the waterline. The spiralling steps along its walls are themselves vastly high, dwarfing the still-massive mining vehicles trundling along their worn paths. At the floor of the mine lies a terrible colossus, the monstrously large Founder-Processor, breathing laboriously as it rests against the near wall. It's a machine larger than Noira can possibly wrap her head around, its groans and strains echoing nightmarishly up and out of the mine, lost within the dark void above. Those gargantuan mining vehicles are but ants at its feet, bringing their offerings to deposit at its conveyor entrance. Slowly, violently, and eternally, the Founder-Processor melts down and purifies the ores in its dark burning heart, belching waste material down into the sea. It struggles perpetually as it heaves thousands of tons of processed minerals and alloys up the impossibly high pit wall, finally vomiting them over the ridge and down the long chute into Ark Royal's bays. Noira finds herself petrified by the scale; what she sees is horrifying and alien to her.

The whole scene is illuminated by several clusters of spotlights overseeing the operation. Tipped off by one of the visiting officers, a nearby set rotates around to illuminate our crew members, turning night into day as its blinding gaze sweeps over them. Noira feels the spotlights, the eyes of the machine, piercing into her heart; they see into the depths of her soul, into parts of her she herself has not yet discovered. The experience haunts her.

The crew descend down the mountain at their leisure; Noira hurries back to the ship. Others continue to mill about as Ark Royal continues to take on bulk cargo; some old mining equipment and such is also transferred aboard. Noira encounters a few of the crew members she’s gotten familiar with, in particular a woman named Kori. They spend a moment in the night together, mostly making small talk about the voyage and the mine. Kori is looking forward to her return home, her wife and children waiting for her. Noira, by contrast, prefers her life on the ship; she has little at home to go back to. She pretends to relate all the same; Kori is friendly and Noira appreciates the company.

After some time, Ark Royal has taken on all it can from the mine, and its crew board once again for the return journey. They have a few more stops ahead of them, particularly to deploy the experimental equipment they carry, but the crew knows they’re in the home stretch of their voyage. Home is on the horizon, as they enter the deepest, darkest round of the night…

More on infrastructure

 With the wonderful suggestions of some friends, I've developed some additional ideas about interworld travel, with an emphasis on some infrastructure stuff. For context, we know the Rosa system features a number of large interworld spaceliners on cycler orbits, tethered by long cables to slag counterweights so they can be spun up to produce gravity. The size and mass of these liners (I'm imagining up to 500m in length, for the largest) suggests in-space construction - and I mean real in-space construction. Not modules being docked together, but rivets being driven by actual people in space. This further implies the existence of big orbital shipyards where this stuff can be built, as well as additional space infrastructure like tugs and such for moving cargo between orbits.

The big addition to the lore here is going to be a dedicated skyhook (or multiple!) in orbit of Orus. Since the vast majority of the system's heavy metal resources are mined and processed here, it's long been the focus of infrastructure (take a shot) for shipping and handling lots of cargo. The sustained need to hurl huge amounts of mass skyward will spur the construction of this as-of-yet unnamed megastructure.

As a quick recap, a skyhook is sort of like a partial space elevator. Instead of being affixed to the ground, such a structure is placed in a low orbit and only extends partially down into the upper atmosphere, and equally doesn't stretch too much higher - a total length on the order of hundreds of kilometers. The key is that the structure rotates - tumbling end-over-end much like the cyclers do. The idea is that the end swings backwards relative to its own orbit as it approaches the planet's surface, reducing the relative speed. So, you have a skyhook dangling from space and moving relatively slowly, which can be intercepted by a vehicle launched from the ground. As the tether rotates, payloads attached to the end get flung up and out of the atmosphere. Detaching at the highest point will send you into a still-higher elliptical orbit, since you're moving faster and higher than the CG of the tether.

The motion of the skyhook over a planet's surface would look something like this; rotating as it orbits, the endpoint comes nearly to a standstill as it approaches the ground:

Boeing studied a concept like this for Earth, and concluded that, unlike a space elevator,

We don't need magic materials like "Buckminster-fuller-carbon-nanotubes" […] Existing materials will do.

Their concept involved a tether that only skimmed the upper atmosphere and whose endpoint still traveled at Mach 10, but I think I can stretch this with a bit of handwaving.

For Orus, the skyhook(s) would extend nearly to the surface - maybe 10km or lower, accessible by non-rocket means. I would also prefer for their endpoints to move quite slowly at their lowest point, perhaps being able to hook payloads that are stationary (with the help of an intermediate trapeze, at least).

My vision for heavy cargo infrastructure on Orus looks like this: Cargo is loaded into a large spacecraft, similar to the passenger tenders we discussed earlier but substantially bigger. These spacecraft are then airlifted by huge hybrid airships: using bulk lifting gas for enormous lift capacity, but leveraging dynamic lift to extend their altitude range, flying at some significant airspeed to climb to their service ceiling. These carrier airships would likely be double-hulled like a catamaran, with a structural segment in the middle on which the cargo vehicles would be carried. Flying along the ground track of the tether, they'd hit their peak altitude while tracking to the endpoint hook, with a dynamic trapeze to bridge the final gap. Once secured to the tether, the airships would release their payload, and the cargo vehicles would be lifted up and out of the atmosphere. Once in their high transfer orbit, the cargo vehicles would use onboard propulsion to circularize, perform other orbital maneuvers, and even propel themselves on interworld trajectories. Finding no similar tethers at their destinations, they would be equipped to perform reentry and envelope-arrested descent much like the passenger tenders.

The tether(s) could also be used to return inbound interworld cargo to the surface, but this requires vehicles to perform part of the capture themselves - propulsively or aerodynamically - before they can interface with the tether at its highest point in space. Vehicles would also need to be cast off slightly ahead of the tether collecting new cargo at both extremes.

I think a tether like this would be made large enough to carry a significant batch of cargo at once - multiple vehicles in formation, perhaps. Or, it might be interesting to make the tether more of a multi-spoked wheel, With many cargo exchanges per rotation period. That could certainly lend itself to some cool imagery. Also, I figure the g-loading that cargo endures during the tether-flinging process probably amounts to significantly more than is considered suitable for passenger transport, so these vehicles are crewed only by trained personnel....normally.

This actually has some fun implications for plot ideas, which I'm already forming in my brain but would like to keep from publishing here until I've posted more of the plot overview. When we last left off, Noira was preparing for her first night voyage aboard Ark Royal, and we've a long way to go from there already! Continuing the plot overview will likely be one of the next posts here.

Quick art: Interworld Liner Revision

 Hey so! I colored the doodle of the artificial gravity liner and fleshed out some details, trying to keep a similar design language to the original version.

Important features to carry over were the smooth brown-colored body panels with dark grey accents, plus gilded art deco highlight pinstripes. Additionally, the gold/copper reflective window visors (inspired by astronaut helmets) were a must, especially for that big panoramic gallery amidships. I also wanted to include some truss elements, and I'm pretty proud of the placement along the backbone. That structure would be handling much of the compressive load on the vehicle.

Compare the original design:

Much more of a conventional spaceship, which admittedly lent more freedom; however, I think the new design being function-driven gives it the unique touch I was looking for, and I'm happy with the end result. I do miss that solar fan, though...

Interworld travel

 A key feature of the Roselight universe is that the compactness of the planetary system makes interplanetary travel relatively trivial. Although conventional spaceflight technologies are generally still required, the travel times are greatly reduced, making it far more practical for ordinary people to make the journey between worlds.

This ease of access leads naturally (or so I feel) to the construction of sustained (sustainable is another matter!) interworld infrastructure. The keystone of space travel in Roselight is a series of large space stations orbiting Rosa continuously amongst her children. These are cyclers - for the unfamiliar, a type of vehicle which follows an orbit that is resonant with the worlds it intends to connect. An Earth-Mars cycler, for example, follows a relatively quick arc between the two planets, then spends the rest of its orbit coasting while the planets come back into alignment to repeat the process. Although spacecraft visiting the cycler must expend similar ΔV to match its trajectory, the cycler must only be boosted up to speed once. Thus, the visiting spacecraft can be lightweight and spartan, while the cycler itself may grow arbitrarily large and luxurious - they are sometimes called "castles" for this reason.

For continuous service, you might operate many such vehicles on staggered routes such that windows are more frequently available. This is the case in the Rosa system, in which many of these vehicles operate like ocean liners, offering vast accommodations for thousands of passengers at a time, in a variety of comfort levels (depending, of course, on the passenger's socioeconomic class).

We see a lot of immigration happening between worlds - primarily poorer citizens seeking economic opportunities beyond their homeworld, or the more well-to-do seeking an idyllic life far from the lands they've known. Additionally people do, of course, just engage in interworld travel frequently to visit relatives, take vacations, and attend events; we first meet Noira when she is on leave from Arcturus Meridian to visit her family on pr'Sefone.

Noira can usually only afford to travel labor class, and even then pretty infrequently - the shipping lines continue to make enormous profits, justified by a rather dated notion of spaceflight as a luxury in itself. These conditions are densely-packed and poorly-furnished, with few amenities - though the voyages are only a few days long, which mitigates the unpleasant conditions somewhat. By comparison, cabin class is considerably more plush: fewer, larger cabins, with access to grand internal promenades and galleries - as well as casino-like amenities carefully tuned to maximize the financial value extracted from their patrons. Though ASMC won't pay for her travel independently (it comes out of her own pocket!), Noira earns considerably more in the engineering division, and so she's able to save up for a shared cabin for herself and her friends to visit the Worlds Fair.

The ultimate luxury offered by these liners is one yet unseen even in modern spaceflight: gravity. The liners themselves resemble the large Earth ocean liners of old, suspended from a network of kilometers-long cables tethered to heavy slag counterweights. By rotating the entire system end-over-end like a bolas, centrifugal forces simulate acceleration towards the floor of the inhabited section.

(Hmm, I may need to start using Imgur or something to host images, since blogger is pretty bad at it.)

Embarking & disembarking, meanwhile, is quite an adventure in itself. Reaching the cyclers, as mentioned, requires equivalent ΔV to making the interplanetary transfer alone. The most frequent architecture involves air-launched SSTO tenders that power their way up to escape velocity, running down the liners as they go sailing by. This is a relatively high-g maneuver, lasting somewhat longer than the usual uphill push into orbit, and culminating in a rendezvous of just a few hours at most. The nature of launch windows with available means several tenders will launch within a few seconds of each other, a hypersonic procession trailing the liners.

Since the stations can't afford a de-spin for boarding, the tenders approach along a tangent line, seeking to instantaneously match the velocity of the hull and interface with a long dynamic trapeze, like an exaggerated version of those used by airships to deploy and retrieve parasite fighters in the 1930s. These long mechanical arms hook onto dorsal load points and swing the tenders around, drawing them up into bays in the underside of the liners' hulls. Once berthed, crew and passengers alike transfer aboard the liner for their voyage.

Disembarkment is largely the reverse process. Since the tenders are designed for aerodynamic capture at their destinations, they need only to depart their host liners and adjust their trajectories to intercept the atmosphere. This act uniquely leverages the rotation of the liners: with their tangent lines aligned with the impulse required, the same trapeze can act to slingshot tenders towards their destination. The ΔV imparted in this way is relatively constant, so the departure time is the key parameter to adjust - though tenders by this point will retain residual propellant for fine-tuning their approach.

I have naught but a few sketches demonstrating this most recent iteration of the cycler design, though they offer a pleasant resemblance to classic Gilded Age ocean liners already. I do have some artwork of an older concept that lacked artificial gravity, giving it a more traditional spaceship appearance. Though function dictates the new design, I will strive to incorporate these aesthetics as I move forward!

We can see here that the trapeze for carrying tenders underneath was already present in an earlier design, as were another form of the large golden solar sails. The stepped decks and sloping walls are features I will seek definitely include, alongside the overall color scheme. It's honestly one of the best examples of the weird blend of steampunk, art deco, and sci/fantasy look I'm going for in this setting. Perhaps I'll redo that dramatic painting sometime!

Characters!

 So! I've developed a lot of the general story behind Roselight so far, and I promise more of the vague summary is coming soon!

But I wanted to take a moment to develop some of the character relationships that will become important in the rest of the story - and showcase these characters to begin with!

So here is the diagram I made for myself, which several sources report is illegible but pretty:

In fact, it's even less legible after the blogger compression, so don't even bother reading the tiny text - I'll just transcribe it below.

The four main characters we have so far are Maliyah, Clare, Noira, and Marion. Each arrow depicts one direction of a relationship between two characters, with a little associated text blurb to describe some of the main attributes of their dynamic. The text mostly describes how the starting point of the arrow feels/acts towards the endpoint of the arrow.

(Note that Marion only knows Noira, while the other three develop close friendship with each other.)

MARION -> NOIRA

Mentor

• Mostly professional, work-related
• Limited emotional support
• Wants the best for Noira; recognizes her potential and skill, but has a bit of a "vision" for her career
• Some inaccurate social views bleed over into a misguided protectiveness

NOIRA -> MARION

Student

• Looks up to Marion for guidance, primarily career-oriented
• Very impressionable, and tends to value his opinions on other matters more than is perhaps justified
• Perceives - mostly correctly - very high expectations, both as a professional and just in general as a person.
• Frets quite a bit about disappointing or letting him down, failing to meet his "vision"
• Will begin to pull pretty strongly from said vision as she learns more about who she is, culminating in The Big Revelation of Doom^TM

NOIRA -> CLARE

Confides

• Gets along very naturally despite very different overall demeanors
• Noira finds them very approachable & trusts them with more insecure feelings than Maliyah
• Admires their sociability/extrovertedness, tries to learn some self-confidence
• Somewhat envies their pretty clear sense of what they're doing in life - namely, having fun! Clare has ambitions, but doesn't depend on meeting external goals to enjoy the journey

CLARE -> NOIRA

Advises

• Clare is very good at helping people talk through their feelings, which Noira struggles with.
• Admires her apparent focus & interest in a particular niche, as they have difficulty finding specific interests
• Serves as a sort of grounding/reference point - am I being unreasonable? Clare will be honest with you.

CLARE -> MALIYAH

Assures

• Similar to relationship with Noira, but Clare knows Maliyah's tendencies much better by now & tends to know how she's feeling already
• Lots of friendly banter that stems from this mutual understanding
• Gently guides when she & Noira have trouble understanding each other

MALIYAH -> CLARE

Supports

• Maliyah's known Clare a long time, and they've both helped each other through rough times
• Provides a lot of just consistent support & company. Clare isn't specifically unhappy with their current job, but Maliyah visiting & hanging out often goes a long way
• Much like Noira, Maliyah often confides her insecurities to Clare, particularly when that barrier with Noira appears

MALIYAH -> NOIRA

Shares

• Wants to help make Noira feel at home, understood & supported
• Quietly knows Noira needs to see more of the reality of Orus, but is more than happy to explore with her...
• Sometimes has trouble relating to Noira's understanding of the world; occasionally inclined to dismiss views she perceives as naïve
• Still, ultimately comes to care strongly for her...

NOIRA -> MALIYAH

Learns

• Again, Noira is deeply impressionable, swept up in the excitement of discovery - exploring Orus and making new friends
• Really enjoys learning from & listening to Maliyah, even if much of her perspective is foreign
• Desperately wants to impress well on Maliyah, and to reciprocate the support that means so much to her...

Tech levels and other random stuff

A reminder that Roselight is sorta steampunk inspired! Probably set a little later as far as the genre goes, tech-wise probably more into the early 1900s – 40s is probably the latest any influences go.

In particular the Titanic (1912-1912) stands out as a good example of the sorta domestic-environment tech I want to have. Electric lighting and other basic features are definitely included, but most people won’t interact with much digital stuff at all.

Rosa’s frequent magnetic storms make the use of any electrical equipment difficult. Any long cables need to be shielded, adding additional cost to long-distance power and communications wires. Even still, they’re subject to outages or continuous interference, so quality is going to suck – transmission rates are probably slow like morse to combat noise (averaging out the small fluctuations over a longer tone?) and overall volume is low. Good excuse to have telegraph-like comms.

Radio transmissions can be used but are also susceptible to noise during storms. These are reserved primarily for high-priority applications – most individual ships, aircraft, and all spacecraft will have them, as they are used by traffic controllers. Major government/corporation/headquarters buildings use them, but not your everyday average citizens. They will generally have a single telecommunications line into their residence, or even just a single line shared by multiple residences (common in lower-income housing like Noira’s old tenement – the entire building had one line!).

Advanced microelectronics are also right out on account of radiation damage, especially in space. Flight computers are more akin to Apollo than this laptop, though we do retain lessons learned from thousands of years ago so we can probably make them more efficient even if the tech is forced to suck a bit. Spacecraft will each have their own simple flight computers that can do limited orbital mechanics – probably like patched conics, with hand-based tools used to calculate for other perturbations, like radiation pressure and n-body effects – much like the little hand-calculators used by pilots to account for crosswind and stuff. Aircraft might not have these systems at all, relying only on analogue sensors and readouts to give flight engineers info about the status of their aircraft. And individual consumers – sheesh. “Consumer electronics” is hardly even a thing, relegated to simple appliances – there are no “personal devices,” not a screen in sight, just people living in the moment.

Actually, that’s a good point; live image transmission is almost fully out of the question for now, although facsimile (wait THAT’s what fax means????) is a very real and prevalent technology. Can be used in news media to transmit images of important things (like exposé images, or faces of fugitive company employees), which could be printed on paper…

….Stone paper, probably, since regular paper is NOT in abundant supply. I’m sure there are forests and trees that can be used for wood products in Roselight, primarily in construction, but paper is probably not something that can be afforded when stone is RIGHT THERE. Indeed, most textiles come from a variety of different geologic sources – we’ve heard of petra already, one of the most common. pr’Sefone is a source of some plant-based fibers, similar to flax. 

Visions of irid'An

 I have made a small breakthrough in how I want to portray the capital world irid'An:

volmcano.

I've always conceptualized this planet as an archipelago world in my head, but I've struggled a little to give it its own unique flair. This is a small detail to add, but I think giving the islands these volcanic craters will really help flesh them out a little more. It also holds narrative meta-significance!

The majority of the Rosa system's population lives on irid'An, I think - a large number of tertiary economy, sorta upper-middle-class people that live generally well-off lives. Any big population center will have some lower-economy stuff like manufacturing, maybe some light farming - think the inner rings of human geography models. Obviously useful work is done here, but not much dirty work - aquaculture, produce/market gardening, "dairy" (still need to figure out what animals we have), etc. are the basest industries here. The lower parts of the economy, like ranching, field crops, mining, and heavy manufacturing, take place on pr'Sefone and Orus.

irid'An features big bustling marketplaces down in the crater floor where all the perishable goods are traded and sold; wholesale & retail happen as you move higher up the wall, with big business headquarters and stuff mostly in the uppermost city - again, tertiary sector of the economy.

A lot of technological development happens here, and much of the system's research is based on irid'An - a very utopian Tomorrowland kind of vibe here. New communications equipment (advances in radio transmission to allow more than just telegraph-type signals!! Wowie!!) is a big deal these days, and designing computer tech that can handle Rosa's intense radiation bursts is always a point of interest. Medicine and domestic tech is also developing well. However, some grittier research, like aircraft/spacecraft propulsion & heavier-than-aircraft design, takes place over on Orus, and of course that world famously houses ASMC, which has an entire division dedicated to mining tech.

Overall, despite the utility of the research done on irid'An, and the vaguely self-sufficient gardening and aquaculture and such, the population of this world is vey sheltered. Physically, they live in pretty little bowls with walls on all sides; narratively, they are shielded from the rest of the system and its social issues. pr'Sefone and Orus have distinctly dystopian attributes in plain sight - the destruction of those natural environments and poor labor conditions. irid'An's dystopia is more subtle: the people here are simply quite clueless about how bad things are outside, and the information is kept from them very efficiently.

ASMC's headquarters are based here, and Marion, Noira, and her friends will travel here for a special event: a Worlds Fair (no apostrophe!), showcasing new developments from around the Rosa system. It is here that Noira will start to gain unsettling inklings of the true nature of the work she's been doing...