Difference between revisions of "Gnarlycurl"

Revision as of 23:18, 25 January 2010

The Most Indestructible Object in Known Space

Created by: ClassicDrogn

Known Vehicle Quirks

• Helluvatough!: You know that layer of handwavium paint that makes your average carmod vacuum tight and bulletproof? Now make it ten feet thick. That's the thinnest part of the hull... Boskone ramships splattered against it like rotten eggs the few times an attempt was made on it, and even high-yield explosives only rattled the crew and fixtures without so much as pitting the surface. The Stellvians doubt that even kaboomite could make a dent in the hull, not that they'd want to try.
• Helluvaslow!: Due to its fantastic mass, Gnarlycurl is one of the pokiest mobile assets in Fenspace, able to be outrun by anything except things like The Island and Grover's Corners which have stationkeeping ability but don't generally move as such.
• Surf's up, Dude!: The main engine can produce internal gravity but does not even hit the break-even power generation point unless surf rock is playing at least in the engine room, and is limited to half of its already unimpressive speed unless it's on all other decks as well, except the hotel bedrooms.
• Welcome to the Machine: Unattended readouts have a tendency to reset to an odd, blocky pictograph-based language that no one has entirely figured out yet, and embossed 'circuitry' patterns gradually flow over permanently mounted items. They are similar to the angular ornamental designs favored by the Mayans as well, so it doesn't break the theme. Despite this and the ever-increasing systems integration of sliding doors, light switches, etc., none of the ship's computers have shown any sign of awakening as AIs.

History & Internal Layout

After their dramatic escape from Earth and the somewhat cramped journey to The Island and Starbase 1, Wave Convoy, Shuko, and Micheal decided they really needed a bigger ship, as well as some sort of paying work. What they ended up arranging was a contract with Rockhounds that provided their engineering and machinist skills, and Convoy's giant-size physique, in return for leaving a stepped-pyramid hull behind will turning one of their rocks into a habitat shell. On completion of both ends of the deal they finished off the interior and set up a business; at first around fenship repair and occasional construction, then as a hotel and general store to provide more services to clients while their ship/homes were in the shop. Once Operation Great Justice began, a small medical staff was added as well to fix up wounded fen as well as their craft, expanded to a full surgical hospital unit after the fall of Crystal Osaka.

Also as part of this emergency services role, a pair of large "atmosphere tents" was created from 'waved heavy fabric, tubes 100ft in diameter and 150ft long that could be folded around the high-pressure air tank to inflate them into a bundle small enough to haul both at once on the tail of Wave Conovy's truck form, then unfurled, zipped up, and inflated to provide emergency atmosphere containment and a basic area to work in around even middle-sized SS-class ships.

A four-stepped pyramid carved in one piece, the Gnarlycurl is one of the larger active ships in Fenspace at 226ft tall, with a 525ft square base. The bottom of the hull is 30ft thick, the outer walls 20ft, and the top and floors between the four decks "only" 10ft, all treated with Seibertron handwavium, giving it a good claim to being damn near indestructible. The penalty of course is weight; despite having fully a quarter of the bottom deck devoted to the engine room at a nominal loaded weight of 5.5 million tons (5 million metric tons), it can barely keep up with bulk carriers three times its keel length.

The top of the pyramid is equipped with a variety of "airlockvators" in sizes ranging from "single human" to "Wave Convoy and a couple friends" clustered in the center, where the shaft used to hollow out the interior was cut, and a 100ft wide ramp (with man-scale stairs on either side for when the gravity is shut off) leads down each of the outer faces to allow access on those occasions the Gnarlycurl lands on a planetary body.^[2] The ramps maintain gravity perpendicular to their surfaces in space, greatly increasing the landing area available, to the point that even SS class vehicles can make a hard docking as long as they're equipped to land on a solid surface, though atmospheric containment cannot generally be provided at such scales.

Technically the ability to internally dock multiple SC-class craft makes the Gnarlycurl a Space Platform rather than Space Vessel, but as it was already flying before the designation was brought into use and is much more mobile than the 'platform' designation suggests it retains the SV moniker.^[3]

The decks are labeled A through D from top to bottom, with sublevels or major compartments given numerical additions as necessary. The first internal deck is 120ft square and entirely open space, configured as a garage where Shuko fixes SC-class vehicles damaged beyond the owner's ability^[4] to repair unassisted, or simply rents tools and hangar space to those who can handle the work but want atmosphere and gravity to do it. A number of new, scratch-built vehicles have been constructed there as well. Like most of the rest of the ship, it has a 40ft ceiling.

B-deck is 200ft square and is set up as a warehouse style store, with areas for consumables, raw materials like roll and sheet plastic, sheet metal, insulation, and bar stock, machine parts, electronic components and devices, and an area for culturing various kinds of handwavium, including the Seibertron type exclusive to Wave Convoy and the Gnarlycurl. This would be excessive for just the regular crew, but most of it is to support the repair and construction business, as well as anyone staying as a guest while their ship is worked on.

C-Deck is the living area, equipped with quarters and a rec room sized to Wave Convoy (including a remote control big enough to crush a strong man's pride for the entertainment center functions of the computer running a theater-size projected screen monitor) along with less prodigious accommodations for human crew and guests. Human-size quarters are stacked vertically four levels high and given a supplementary number such as C.1, C.2, etc. with C.1 being the lowest level with the permanent crew's living and common areas. The top sublevel contains the Montezuma and Quetzalcoatl Suites, where the mildly Aztec/Mayan themed decor is taken to the ultimate extremes. The main rec room also doubles as a bridge with its large monitor, when it's actually necessary to have a real bridge instead of using whatever computer terminal is handy to log in and do what's required. C-deck overall is 290ft square.

Post Crystal Osaka, C.3-deck is converted into a fully equipped hospital ward with a surgical theater and a small neonatal area, to go with the expanded role of the ship in the intensified OGJ operations.

About a quarter of the D-deck (a long strip down the middle, D.2) is devoted to the engine room, an area longer than a football field with a massive horizontal 'Wave Motion Engine that hums and glows and hisses little spurts of steam. The starboard side, D.3, of this deck is environmental engineering and a beach and swimming pool that doubles as bulk water storage, while D.1 on the port side has a park/garden area, the walls painted with landscape murals and a mobile track light mounted in the ceiling. Whatever combination of 'wave batch and genre influence enhanced the Fateful Lightning's Garden skipped over D.1, in fact a fair number of plant varieties have been treated with Seibertron handwavium and have a metallic/mechanical appearance, though those who fear not getting a cyber or techno-organic biomod, or who already have one have found that most remain as edible as ever, and often have new and interesting flavors. The Blued Steel Roses are one of the more popular items in the Gnarlycurl's shop inventory.

By a stroke of good luck the ship was in Mars orbit already when the SOS-dan Convention was called, setting down on the surface of Phobos and making arrangements with Phobos Control to have their own approach queue for attendees who wanted to either rent a room aboard or just needed parking space, with shuttle service provided to and from the habitable areas of the colony.

Stories

Gnarlycurl is featured in the following stories:

• Surfing With the Alien
• SOS-Con: The Story Begins (I think so anyway...)
• (tbc)

Hard numbers

one board foot of steel = 12x12x1 inches = ~41 pounds
12x41= 492 lb./cu.ft.

ramp foot 80x100
ramp top 20x100
ramp height 226

80-20=60
20x100x226= 452,000
60x100x226/2= 678,000

k=1000

452k+678k= 1130k
1130k*4= 4520k

base (chambers normalized)
495x495x30 = 7350750

C/D floor/ceiling
400x400x10 = 1600k

D walls
4x40x20x380 = 1216k

B/C floor
312x312x10 = 973,440

C walls
4x40x20x282 = 1,222,400

A/B floor
234x234x10 = 547,560

B walls
4x40x20x214 = 684,800

A ceiling
156x156x10 = 243,360

A walls
3200x136 = 435,200

total: 21,624,260 cubic feet of hull metal

10,639,135,920 pounds

5,319,567.96 tons

4,835,970.873 metric tons

Engine (internal): 20x30x310 = 186,000

2.25 gal/cu.ft.x186k = 418,500gal

water is 7lb/gal, the slightly thicker wavegoo is 11lb/gal

4,603,500 lbs wavegoo

2301.75 tons wavegoo

2092.5 metric tons wavegoo

Nominal loaded weight is 5.5M tons, 5M metric tons

Notes

1. ↑ translates as Chief Engineer and Enviro plant mechanic
2. ↑ The reactions the first time they came in on Mars were particularly amusing.
3. ↑ Besides which, it's on all the stationery.
4. ↑ or willingness, when there's someone else to do the work for a modest fee and deep, claw-foot iron bathtubs calling out to take a long relaxing soak in

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