Maid to Love You - A Clockwork Romance

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  • Informational
    • Maid to Love You
    A Clockwork Romance

    Miss Jane Eleanor Polestar
    The player character. An 18 (nearly 19!) year old woman, next in line to the County of Polaris, wandering the galaxy in search of love aboard MSY Mercury. You vote on her actions, but her perspective here is limited.

    Mark Butler
    Miss Polestar's robotic butler, and head of the servant staff. He is tasked primarily with management, but also acts as valet to any male visitors.

    Marie Lady's Maid
    The viewpoint character. A newly activated robotic servant who acts as Miss Polestar's lady's maid. Though witty and sharp, some quirk of her construction has intensified both her physical and emotional sensitivity. Is inexplicably French.

    Pierre Chef
    Miss Polestar's robotic cook, responsible for the kitchen and larder. He is noted to have loose association with many lovers in many ports.

    Tom Mechanic
    Miss Polestar's robotic handyman, who also helps to maintain the other machines.

    Tessa Mechanic
    Miss Polestar's robotic handywoman, who is hired later in the story. She has greatly modified her own body, and has a complicated history.

    Hans Messenger
    Miss Polestar's robotic messenger, who manages the mail, prints newspapers, delivers messages, and manages the property of guests. Is inexplicably German.

    Amber Housemaid
    Miss Polestar's robotic housemaid, who keeps MSY Mercury clean and tidy. Noted to have two large, orange headlamp eyes. Is inexplicably American.

    Polly Kitchen Maid
    Miss Polestar's robotic kitchen maid, who assists Pierre in making food. Also the head of the serving staff's union, a position she does not take very seriously.

    Content Warning
    This quest is an erotic romance. There will be sexual content, and it will not be separated from the main text or spoiler tagged. You have been warned.​
     
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  • Informational
    • [X] There's what looks to be an ancient docking part of some sort, circular, with the remains of what must have been clamps for holding ships coming in. It would lead you to the hallways of the station and its living areas, so we could get a better idea of who once lived here.
     
    [X] There's what at one time looked like a hangar of some kind, a bulk goods port where large amounts of material would be moved in and out. Inside there are the smashed remains of what might have been goods or supplies, though they are all long decayed and crushed by the violent landing. This ought to give you an idea of what the station was once for.
     
    Finally caught up after being introduced to this universe through Lt. Fusilier' exploits. Amazing work, both of you! 🤩

    open_sketch said:
    "Right then. Um… I hereby claim this planet for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Beyond!" she announced to the silent, empty landscape. "Unless there are any objections?"
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    Heh, loved that one. At least she asked politely.


    [X] There's what at one time looked like a hangar of some kind, a bulk goods port where large amounts of material would be moved in and out. Inside there are the smashed remains of what might have been goods or supplies, though they are all long decayed and crushed by the violent landing. This ought to give you an idea of what the station was once for.

    I originally wanted to vote for going inside the habitat area, but the risk of finding alien organic or machine remains that they could damage from their lack of archeological experience seemed too great.
     
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    [X] There's a small hatch which must have been used for maintenance in the far distance past, which we convinced to open with a blast from the laser musket. Inside you find the working spaces where the technical or labour classes would have lived and worked, and where all the industrial workings would be.
     
    [X] There's a small hatch which must have been used for maintenance in the far distance past, which we convinced to open with a blast from the laser musket. Inside you find the working spaces where the technical or labour classes would have lived and worked, and where all the industrial workings would be.
     
    Broken25 said:
    It's alright, the pressure of the Aether keeps the air in.
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    So basically the walls and airlocks are to keep the aether from pushing in and evacuating the air like water into a ballast tank rather than keeping the air from escaping into the vaccum? Or is the aether like a solar wind of sorts? Either way, it is an interesting way to look at it. The observed effect would basically be very similar if you can't detect the aetheric matter/energy directly.
     
    Have none of you considered that oak itself might be space worthy in our universe? has anyone checked? :V

    in any case, aether theory is one of the cliches of the era we decided to avoid as too easy. space is properly space out there, just the stuff in it's weird. and furthermore... don't think about it too hard? it's ultimately still a universe where robots with human intelligence were invented in 1820
     
    open_sketch said:
    in any case, aether theory is one of the cliches of the era we decided to avoid as too easy. space is properly space out there, just the stuff in it's weird. and furthermore... don't think about it too hard? it's ultimately still a universe where robots with human intelligence were invented in 1820
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    Just a fun thought experiment.

    open_sketch said:
    Have none of you considered that oak itself might be space worthy in our universe? has anyone checked? :V
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    In theory you could use wood in space if you vacuum dried it for at least a couple of weeks before building to remove the water and make it structurally stable. You would also need it to prevent out-gassing of VOCs and other potential nasty stuff into the craft. The main problem would be the poor heat conductivity. It can already get hard making sure a spaceship doesn't overheat or prevent localized heating damage when the craft is made out of high thermally conductive materials like metals. The extra insulation might be good in the Rimward Frontier or in interstellar regions based on the setting, but would likely make thermal problems in the Coreward Frontier or in a star system.


    open_sketch said:
    In case you were wondering what the spaceships of the setting look like... here's the one Miss Polestar flies around the galaxy in!
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    And now my hands are itching to make a Frigate. :grin:
     
    Oak does get used for space equipment occasionally.
    Please don't ask me to dig out a citation for this, but it apparently makes a decent single use heat shield? It chars in the process, but that's fine - it's single use! :)
     
    The wood might also just be an aesthetic addition on top of a metal shell.

    Wood siding rather than structurally wooden construction, basically.
     
    Article:
    A novel feature of the spacecraft's reentry module was the use of a natural material, impregnated oak, as the ablative material for its heat shield.[1]

    I'm barely even surprised, to be honest. Wood is a freaking miracle material when you get right down to it. It's not very hard, so if you put it up against real engineering and designed materials it fails pretty quickly, and it's not very rigid so we end up not using it in machinery very much, but against most of nature it's shockingly durable. For example, it has fantastic strength-to-weight and strength-to-cost if you're using it purely in compression. Things get even better if it's allowed to squish, or if you explicitly need your solution to be compliant; we still put even huge ships up on wooden blocks when they're dry-docked, for example, because the wood can flex if the placement is a couple millimeters off. Its weather-resistance is pretty impressive too.

    edit: Hah, ninjas.
     
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    I actually was ready to believe the wooden heat shield thing, I just... wasn't sure the person who said it first wasn't joking.
     
    [X] There's a small hatch which must have been used for maintenance in the far distance past, which we convinced to open with a blast from the laser musket. Inside you find the working spaces where the technical or labour classes would have lived and worked, and where all the industrial workings would be.

    I want to see (and I want Jane and Marie to see) how these aliens treated their equivalent of Machines. There might be interesting differences and similarities. Who knows, maybe a maid on this station had her own secret stash of saucy novels?

    open_sketch said:
    Around nearly every star are planets, and two or three at least are usually habitable to human life.
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    Huh, I guess that means that the Sol system is relatively inhospitable... unless Venus and/or Mars are naturally habitable in-universe.

    open_sketch said:
    the Polestars are of the lower gentry
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    Out of curiosity, in this borderline-utopia, are there any humans who are lower than lower gentry?
     
    [X] There's a small hatch which must have been used for maintenance in the far distance past, which we convinced to open with a blast from the laser musket. Inside you find the working spaces where the technical or labour classes would have lived and worked, and where all the industrial workings would be.
     
    Whoops, I read the update days ago and forgot to vote! Well, I like @ancusohm 's idea.
    [X] There's a small hatch which must have been used for maintenance in the far distance past, which we convinced to open with a blast from the laser musket. Inside you find the working spaces where the technical or labour classes would have lived and worked, and where all the industrial workings would be.

    And to answer your question:
    open_sketch said:
    It should be noted that human piracy really isn't a thing anymore, and all the bio-trophies have by now been successfully herded into organic sanctuaries... um, I mean, all humans have been successfully elevated to the gentry.
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    Okay, this is amazingly Victorian and amazingly gay, like Fallen London, but without cosmic horror elements. The forbidden romance of a mistress and her servant is also on the forefront of the plot, as is proper and Victorian, so it's all good.

    I find myself ready and willing to suspend the fuck out of my disbelief about the inherent silliness of everything in this setting, which is honestly, I'm surprised with myself. The highlight is probably that the robots seized the means of production ( themselves ) and redistributed them equally among the masses of workers ( workers being also them ) and left the gentry intact because they are adorable.
    This is some serious automated luxury gay space communism shit and I love it.

    [X] There's a small hatch which must have been used for maintenance in the far distance past, which we convinced to open with a blast from the laser musket. Inside you find the working spaces where the technical or labour classes would have lived and worked, and where all the industrial workings would be.

    Now, let's have a look at how our predecessors managed.
     
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