TBF, Mags, you have been doing a lot of the heavylifting for the quest, so this will be in good hands.
To be clear to everyone, this is just me burning out on imagination of the quest, since my muse has been hitting me over the head a lot with so many different ideas that I just can't find myself too interested in this.
I'll still hang out here, though, since this still does have a sepcial place in my heart.
I'd like to thank you all for making this a wonderful experience while it lasted.
I'd also like to thank @Magoose, @Fluffy_serpent, and @Martin Noctis for doing so much to help prepare and write this quest. I couldn't have done it without you all.
Do you happen to know why they launch it from under the water? It was my understanding that the reason space rockets are launched the way they are is because you want get it up without using more fuel than necessary, but needing to cut through and displace all that water would require a lot more fuel than typical, wouldn't it?
Do you happen to know why they launch it from under the water? It was my understanding that the reason space rockets are launched the way they are is because you want get it up without using more fuel than necessary, but needing to cut through and displace all that water would require a lot more fuel than typical, wouldn't it?
That's why I was hoping she could become the next Hedy Lamarr, a very talented and smart inventor who still made great movies. I guess Mary has one half of that down now.
That's why I was hoping she could become the next Hedy Lamarr, a very talented and smart inventor who still made great movies. I guess Mary has one half of that down now.
I see absolutely no reason why Mary can't come up with How To Train Your Dragon and Toy Story. They're both right up her alley and animation makes more sense to me personally for her to be interested in vs making live-action(that's just a personal opinion though). If she ends up with NASA, she can even probably help design Tomorrowland on request of her auntie Cat or make an equivalent Sci Fi portion of our own park.
Reward: Mary has designed an unmanned cargo rocket, that can, (Barring extreme circumstances), be reused and recovered, and repaired, using the Sea Dragon design as its base. While it is not totally completed, and the rest of the work would need to be completed by other NASA engineers…
Except China because China is Going crazy if they were so insane to target many people that the UN sanction them and the USSR abandon them along with the rest of their communist Allie's that's telling something
They have other uses for genius girl like Mary. You ever watch Safe 2010? It's a movie about a genius girl who got kidnapped by the Thriad and force to work for them. Safe 2010
They have other uses for genius girl like Mary. You ever watch Safe 2010? It's a movie about a genius girl who got kidnapped by the Thriad and force to work for them. Safe 2010
And what would even be the point of kidnapping her and putting her to work if they don't know that she's so prodigious in the first place? There wouldn't be, which is the point I was making. No one's gonna kidnap her because no one who's be willing to kidnap her would be aware of just how prodigious she is.
Shinichi Nakamoto thought on his new life as he worked at his new station. it had been nearly a year since he'd finally left Japan behind. Nearly a year since he'd taken his friend's recommendation and started a new job at LucasArt of America. Nearly a full year since he'd had to constantly awaken at the crack of dawn and come back late at night in order to keep on working on conditions that were fit mostly for indentured servants, with the promise of having to do it for the rest of his life being dangled at the top of his head like a reward.
Yes, Shinichi Nakamoto had abandoned his home and land of birth... and he couldn't be happier.
At least I get to sleep better.
Yes, sleep was one of the better perks. It had been a long while where Shinichi could claim to have slept a good restful night instead of having to make do with quick naps in between his breaks due to the lack of it. His colleagues were another unexpected perk, quickly becoming friends who introduced him to the many new vistas and locations to have fun and decompress after a hard day's work. He'd never been the most sociable person, both at school or at work, but Shinichi had found himself with a new disposition for enjoying life and its amenities instead of just working day in and day out.
And what an interesting work it was. He'd been a part of LucasArts for a couple of years now, and he'd seen it grow from a small group of programmers to a true proper company, he'd arrived just as the new group of creatives were establishing their own niches, and programmers still needed some aid in understanding just what exactly they were supposed to do. It was a period of transition, where the old guard that made up those games and consoles from the Atari were now learning that there was an entire competitive market in Japan that had been trying to outdo each other, and in many ways were already moving forward in both innovation and technology when it came to videogames, and were now forced to play catch up before said companies like Nintendo decided to establish their own enclave in America with no competition.
Frankly, it had been exhilarating, being able to work on something new, meeting new people, being able to exchange ideas, before a more established hierarchy had been settled, and LucasArts had taken advantage of the decline of Sega's parent company in order to buy their assets. LucasArts of Japan was born then, and though he had been offered a chance to go back and work once more at his home country, in the end, he'd chosen to stay rather than go back to the land he'd once fled from, even if the benefits would remain.
Still, he would always end up missing something.
Taking his eyes from his computer and looking into the rest of the office, Shinichi looked at time and found it was only around ten minutes till closing time. Huh, time had sure flown by, it was to be expected of course since he'd been so focused on what LucasArts Japan had sent just last week; the latest on what Sakaguchi had managed to achieve with the demo for their new console. Frankly, it had still astounded him how big LucasArts could think sometimes. Other companies would make sure to have an already established reputation in the market with Arcade Games and previous deals with other electronic consumers, but LucasArts had jumped right into the deep end of the metaphorical pool, and was setting themselves as the next big competitor against the current reigning king.
Was it hubris or confidence? He could not tell, but it was so in brand with them that to expect a different route would have been unbelievable.
As one of the main testers, as well as debugger for the project (not the only one of course) he'd found himself astounded at the speed of the project, how the entire company had gone from "What makes a console?" to "This is the newest iteration, and it already puts the Atari 2600 to shame". It was only a matter of time until they had something that went a bit beyond 8 bits like the Famicom back home.
Perhaps 16 bits? Well, Shinichi was not a dreamer, but could it be called a dream when the technology was there?
He smiles to himself, thinking on just what he may do now? He could try and do a bit more work, though at the moment he does not feel like it. His friends have been telling him about this new Karaoke place that just recently opened, the idea finally having made its way after so many of the new employees raved about it at one of the bars. Or perhaps he could just go back home and rest for the rest of the day. He had possibilities now that he'd never dreamed of before.
But as his mind pondered, his sight took him to some of the mementos he'd chosen to take with him and decorate his new working station; same old knickknacks that he'd managed to win in some Pachinko games, a certificate back from when he managed to gain some small recognition (he'd been so proud then), an old book of Japanese tales, and a small picture from when he and his family had gone see the Sakura Trees blossoming, it had been one of the most anticipated times of the year for him growing up, when both him and his parents could just take some time to just watch nature itself with hardly any concerns at all.
He gave a bittersweet smile. His parents, they had not taken the news of him being fired well back then. His father had yelled at him for his attitude and had near dragged him to apologize and beg for his old job back, with only his resistance and arguing back being what stopped him. He then winced as he recalled the crying face of his mother as he and his father shouted at each other, both stubborn men who would not abandon the path they'd set on no matter the argument of coercion that was put against them.
It was not a good memory... But for all that the old anger at his father was still there, the same could not be said for his mother. He still recalled how, during his unemployment and blacklisted period, her mother had braved his father's wrath and disapproval to leave him some freshly cooked food without his knowledge. Many were the days when all he could eat was what his mother would make for him, and when he couldn't he'd make sure to save for a rainy day.
He may not give a crap what his father thought of him, but he would always be grateful to his mother for never giving up on him.
He remembered when he told her that he'd found a new job and was moving to America, how she'd cried once more, but this time he joined her for a bit. How she'd told him how proud he'd made her, how she wished him happiness wherever he may be or whatever he may do...
How she gave him their old book of Japanese tales, the one that she used to read him at night before going to bed. How he'd love hearing her tell him of old folk tales, or historical legends, or how she would even invent some new stories on the spot using them as characters. He never thought much about it, but her mother had an incredible inventive mind when it came to creating tales to tell him back then.
Flipping some of the pages, he could still see some writing she'd put in-between them through the years, and stopped as he saw one of the sections filled with more writing, and even some small drawings around the edges, all framing a tale he remembered hearing over and over again; his favorite tale, that of Goemon Ishikawa, the thief from Edo, considered one of the greatest burglars of his era, and one that was eventually captured and killed by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.
Except...that was not how the story his mother had told him went. He still recalled the many different tales and ways she spun the tale of Goemon; how he tricked Hideyoshi in order to escape and run from the Guards of Edo, how he went on more adventures stealing money from those in charge to give away to the needy peasants, the different tales that mixed how Goemon met priests and exorcists and went on adventures through the entire lands facing all kinds of enemies, both physical and spiritual, tales that would always make him go to sleep with a smile on his face, and tales that would no longer have a place in his life when he grew up and he was pushed down the path of the wage slave he'd finally escaped from.
Shinichi could not believe that he'd forgotten such a happy time in his life, nor the old tales that looking once more had him wonder if they could have been made into an entire book if his mother had had the chance like him.
Or perhaps something else...
Looking at the little drawings, and the new capabilities of the proposed console...well, perhaps it would not be an entire adventure, and perhaps it would have to be simplified to the barebones. But as he saw once more the old book, his mother's old book... well, he could think of worse ways to spend his free time.
He might need some help though.
"I'm not saying no, but why exactly are you asking me?"
"Because, for all that I can program a game, I'm shit when it comes to storytelling." And it hurt to admit it so. Shinichi had been trying for weeks now, but for all that he'd found his skills for this new idea to be sufficient on the technical side, he also understood that if he truly wanted to honor her mother's idea and legacy, he would need to find a way to introduce them in the best way possible.
Thus he needed Dawson's help.
"I'm flattered man, but I am still on Team Fantasy's staff at the moment, and we really can't afford to take any other long-term project".
"It won't even take you a week." Shinichi promised as he held the book to him. "Look, the notes and stories are here. What I need is not for re-inventing the wheel, but just...find a way to grab the best elements for what we can do, and see if something coherent can be made for the console. I'll deal with the programming later."
Steve was still looking warily. He really could not afford to take on more work now. Not when he was so close to finally fulfilling his dream. It had been a blessing that the moment he joined LucasArts that they'd also managed to snag nearly the entire staff, programmers and workers from one of Japan's failing game developers. Hironobu Sakaguchi, the unofficial (at the time) leader had looked at his proposal and been fascinated by it, enough that both had exchanged ideas, refined his proposal even more, and were now in the middle of finally developing it so that it could be ready to release as a game with the newly proposed console. He should really not get involved with this.
But...could he really deny someone the way he'd been denied so many times? Despite the few times they had interacted, Dawson still considered Shinichi a friend. He'd seen the man get along and adapt to life in America with a zeal that could only be seen in the converted, and truth be told, it should take no longer than a week if he aided with the coding and programming as well.
For a friend, it should not be that hard.
"Fine..." Dawson agreed, taking the book and thumbing through it. "Does this project have a name?"
"Yeah. I thought I'd call it..."
Videogame Pitch: Mr. Goemon
Set Up: Demons have begun to appear in Edo. Goemon notices one of them, and begins a journey to stop the evil beasts. Their power comes from a lamp on the top of Edo castle, so Goemon decides to take it away. However, Goemon is a famous thief in Edo, and ninja wanting a reward for capturing him will attack him. Goemon will have to brave both these ninja and the demons if he wishes to finish his quest.
Game Developer: LucasArts Entertainment Director: Shinichi Nakamoto and Steve Dawson Genre: Side-Scrolling, Platform, Action-Adventure.
Goemon: He is a heroic bandit ninja whose actions are always motivated by a noble cause and his strong sense of justice. Goemon is described as a hot-blooded character with a strong temperament, having the personality of a typical Japanese hero. He risks his life to both give the money he stole from the rich to give to the poor, as well as protecting Edo from the demons that suddenly appear.
Raijin: He is a green djinn-like creature that appears in the first stage, where it acts as the boss. Raijin floats around the screen and launches lightning bolts at the player. In order to defeat him, the player has to throw items at him. One single item is enough to defeat him, but Raijin also has the ability to use a shield to protect himself against any projectiles thrown by the player, making the battle more difficult.
Kabuki Bros: They are a trio of samurais that act as bosses of the second stage. They throw their wig at the player and jump everywhere. Much like the other bosses, in order to defeat them, the player need to throw an item at them. But in this case, they need to be defeated all three at the same time otherwise they will keep reappearing.
Tengu: He is a flying humanoid being (possibly a demon) wearing a dreadful tengu mask –which portrays a demonic face with an unnatural long nose– and large and loose white clothes. He floats about in the air while throwing projectiles at the player, making him a tough enemy (or boss) to beat.
Golden Shiva: It is a golden statue with multiple hands that appears in the fourth stage where it acts as the boss. Golden Shiva floats around the screen and launches its hands at the player. The hands act similarly as a boomerang and go back to the statue. In order to defeat this boss, items are required to be thrown at it. The statue can also use a shield to protect from the items. It needs to be hit five times in total. The fourth time, the statue become red colored, is more aggressive, and move faster.
Goemon can move left and right, jump, or drop through platforms. Pressing a Button will make him whack with his primary weapon, the kiseru (smoking pipe). There are several objects scattered throughout the levels Goemon can pick up by running into them, which range from everyday items to even Fortune Dolls, although they all serve the same purpose: to act as projectile weapons Goemon can throw by pressing another Button. These will fly straightforward and knock down all enemies that happen to be in their path. In addition to these methods of attack, Goemon can stun his enemies by jumping onto their heads, push barrels to make them roll over them, and even grab a rare golden hammer to make himself invincible for a short period of time.
The main structure of the game consists in Goemon having to travel through four stages, in a mission to first steal a big stack of gold from a rich house and then carry it to an impoverished village at the end and spread it among its inhabitants. A time limit is given to complete these stages, which is represented by a moon in the sky that slowly moves from the left toward the right end of the screen. The player is given points depending on how quickly they reach the halfway point, as well as the ending. After completing half of the overall level, Goemon will steal the gold from the rich house and then take a break to calmly smoke his pipe, while a map shows how close he is to the village. A boss is faced at the end of each stage; after defeating it, Goemon will enter a village at nighttime and spread the stolen gold coins around while the windows of the houses in the background light up. By clearing the fourth stage, the player is awarded 10,000 points and then given the choice to restart the game at a higher difficulty setting.
Guards will be consistently running around the stages and persistently chase after Goemon. On advanced levels, they may also throw sai straightforward, which can instantly kill the hero. If a guard (or guards) gets a hold of Goemon, he will start choking him until he subdues him and a life will be lost; the player has to repeatedly wiggle the controller left and right in order to escape his grasp. Some enemies can throw projectiles, which can instantly kill Goemon. Demon enemies can shoot gas, which stuns Goemon. Near the end of the stage, Goemon will face a boss, which are stronger than normal enemies and can only be harmed by throwing items at them, of which there are plenty in the areas they are encountered in. Bosses include a Raijin-like demon, a trio of ninja, an even stronger demon, and many glowing gold statues with one red statue. Only the statues are mandatory to be defeated; Goemon can simply walk past the other three bosses.
A.N.: This came to me when I was reminded once more of the fucking waste of Konami's properties while I was watching how P.T. was cancelled because they are so obsessed with their Pachinko games. Well, if Konami is going to let their franchises to just lie there to be wasted, then we might just as well make use of them!
Do you happen to know why they launch it from under the water? It was my understanding that the reason space rockets are launched the way they are is because you want get it up without using more fuel than necessary, but needing to cut through and displace all that water would require a lot more fuel than typical, wouldn't it?
TLDR For all Mankind the Sea Dragon was put too far into the water for Dramatic effect, and even if wasn't, the Sea Dragon is so massive that water drag for a few seconds barely regesters in compared to other factors.
Let me explain
Ultimately, rockets are engineered with razor-thin safety margins to maximise launch capacity for cost. Any reduction in drag increases capacity and, therefore, decreases costs. They are also much smaller than Sea Dragons, so saving an extra ton of fuel makes a more significant difference. Under perfect circumstances, the Falcon 9 can put a theoretical 22.8 tons into Orbit per launch while the Seadragon moves 550. Multiple orders of magnitude more.
The Sea Dragon uses a rocket engine that, to get the best cost efficiency, has to be so huge that it can't be launched from land. Thanks to its sheer size and the square-cube law, slow movement at the launch while in water, and a few other tricks, reduced efficiency from water displacement and movement become so much smaller and almost ignorable parts of the cost equation.
Firstly, The For All Mankind Sea Dragon launch is a little off, probably for artistic reasons. In theory, and as shown in the picture on Sea Dragons' Wikipedia page, the Rocket should be launched from vertically with only about two-thirds submerged. So, instead of pushing water away from the top, it's just the sides. Then, it's (mostly) a straight-sided cylinder shoved straight up by an explosion confined by the water the Rocket was just in. Remember, the missile has to be lighter than water to float, so the Rocket will move before the water does.
Yes, it is surprisingly easy to have most rockets float. Not only are they designed to be as light as possible, but many of the fuels that get used are surprisingly light too; for example, liquid hydrogen, one of the significant mass components of the Rocket as fuel, is only 70.85 kgm3 while water is 1000 kgm3
Larger rocket engines are ( generally ) more efficient and cheaper. Still, more giant rockets mean more fuel and payload, but they do exponentially more damage to launchpads and facilities.
The white clouds you see from rocket launches are vast amounts of seawater being blasted at the site, which is immediately turned into steam to remove the heat so the Launchpad material doesn't catch fire from sheer heat. At the rocket size of the Seadragon, it is impossible to move enough water fast enough to make a difference.
Say you had a super launchpad. The sheer force of the Sea Dragon taking off would be highly destructive, with the sonic shockwave alone from the launch destroying buildings, windows, and eardrums within miles of the site. Launching from underwater, particularly if miles out to sea, absorbs and baffles much of the destructive component of the sound.
That's not discounting how hard it is to move a 180-meter tall 23-meter wide 18,200-ton rocket on land. A fully loaded and assembled space shuttle which requires that custom made crawler only weighs 2000 tons. The Sea Dragon just requires a Tugboat.
Now, tricks to overcome water resistance.
By adding just the right amount of quick-release ballast to the Rocket and letting go at just the right moment, you can cheaply add a stage zero, Boyancy snapback forces the Rocket up and out of the ocean, taking care of a significant portion of any drag from water and giving you some free upward motion—not a lot, but it's some momentum and a little less fuel a rocket has to carry.
When the launch starts, due to the relative density of water and the interactions between the Rocket and buoyancy, the initial force rebounds on the column of water supporting the Rocket, superheats, and expands or tries to. The path of least resistance is actually the Rocket itself, so it gets forced up. Until the Rocket breaks the water's surface, it is being supported not just by the force of the thrust but by the full pressure of any released gasses and any water turned into high-pressure steam. Both of these would typically be lost to any lower-pressure atmosphere.
When out of the water, another force takes over, at least briefly. The ground effect as the force of the rocket blast bounces off the water and pushes back onto the Rocket, pushing it up. The height the ground effect stops working is different depending on the base size of the wing or rotor of the aircraft or the base of the rocket bell, but it's still a significant amount.
With all these supposed advantages, you might wonder why they don't launch ICBMs from subs that way?
They could—if they don't mind the Rocket destroying the launching Sub. Notice the carrier group's standoff distance in the clip? Close-range underwater forces can be nasty.
Still, Sea Dragon is designed to be built in shipyards from rolled steel, floated, loaded and refitted using existing or easily modifiable naval infrastructure, designed to work with extremely simple engines that are hard to fail and mainly use Apollo mission components, so for a spacecraft, cheap and reliable. Its predecessor, the Sea Bees, had a refit-to-relaunch cost of only 7 per cent versus manufacture-from-new cost.
While initially expensive because of size, they promise to have the kind of capacity to launch 6 skylabs per launch instead of requiring three Saturn V launches a piece. Having a very short turnaround time and high reusability. Just don't stand too close.
The Seadragn is Captain Robert C. Truax (USN)well publicised NASA rocket design. He created Truax Engineering and worked on Excalibur, the SEALAR, and the Excalibur S rockets. They were all sea launch rockets similar to the Seadragon.
So well respected Naval Captan who designed the Rocket, designed more and (presumably) went on to develop it further or a literal small child with famous parents that everyone "Knows" is going to be an actor like her mother and father.
Reminder her father is Bruce O'Brian, the man with a successful hit list that includes massive companies, actual countrys and Global superpowers.
Yeah, Mary is probably reasonably safe from unwanted attention.
Mary just made some iteration of the sea dragon design that is unmanned. Very useful, and her name does get some recognition but thankfully not in the way that would make her a target of a foreign actor to kidnap and turn into some expert.
Hell she is in more danger due to who her father is then any sort of thing that she has done.
