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Author--
DizzasterJuice
22nd Jun 2017, 12:52 AM
The design of the Magellan's gunship (or planetary exploration vehicle) was inspired by the AH-64 Apache. The pilot is seated above and behind the gunner as in the Apache but the gunner's seat is lower and windows added on the bottom to get a better ground view. I replaced the Apache's 30mm auto cannon with a smaller, lighter, but more powerful 12.7mm (.50) dual rail gun and added a 2nd turret and 2nd gunner/navigator seat on the top in place of the main rotor. The P.E.V. does have hard points for missile launchers but they weren't loaded for their current mission. I guess if they knew there were crazy A.I. mechs running around on the planet they might have loaded them.
I put up an older incentive page for those who haven't seen them all yet.
Users--
xpacetrue
22nd Jun 2017, 1:55 AM
Nice page. And this is something of a surprise. But...
For most of the comic, I assumed that Liam was the main protagonist, since the story was mostly told from his point of view.
Yes, earlier, he's had a few opportunities to be heroic. But, even with all the action and fighting we're seeing now, he's hardly had a chance to be the big dam hero.
Maybe he'll still get his day to shine before this is all over?
DizzasterJuice
22nd Jun 2017, 6:28 AM
Liam isn't a conventional main protagonist, but more of a hub character that the other stories rotate around. He's somewhere between a Frodo Baggins where all the other stories rotate around him to help him accomplish his task while never having to fight anyone, and Game of Thrones where there is absolutely no main protagonist and pure mayhem.
Liam finds that he fails out of his element more than he can accept and if someone would just give him a friggin rifle he would win the whole war by himself.
In the last scene he was not running away and using Unity and Carri for cover. He sincerely believed he could somehow stop Tyranos before they got to the shuttle. Failure again.
Is he tired of it yet? Hell yeah. Time to change tactics. Time for Liam to get some training from a true master. (Liam has been hinting for a few chapters now that he's reaching his frustration boiling point)
xpacetrue
22nd Jun 2017, 1:59 AM
Also, I'm surprised that the Mag Leung haven't at least looked around to see what is making all that noise. Granted, the ship was cloaked and invisible. But... lots and lots of noise overhead?
DizzasterJuice
22nd Jun 2017, 7:18 AM
Conventional jet engines would make a lot of noise, but this isn't conventional. Any craft like this that can make multiple trips to and from a planets gravity probably needs to be based on anti-gravity.
My favorite fictional engine type is the torus drive engine first described by Edgar Fouche who claimed to be involved in reverse engineering UFO(s) at Area 51. The way it works is that it has a dual torus system that spin in opposite directions, each with windings on the outside to create a magnetic field to rotate a mercury based plasma inside the torus at 50,000 rpm. The charged particles moving around the ring act as a current that in turn sets up a magnetic field around the ring. It is a well-known fact that electrons (or ions) tend to move in a helical fashion around magnetic field lines. So the electrons that are also moving in a helix are moving at a much faster speed then the general flow of mercury that is moving at 50k rpm. It creates a double toroidal vortex that interrupts gravity at its center.
Fouche claimed that it reduced mass by 89% so a pilot could pull 40 g's and it would feel like 4.4 g's. A craft equipped with this type of engine could easily leave a planets gravity. But the problem for me is the design would have to be either a flying disc or a triangle because the pilot and most of the craft's mass must be inside the field. The supposed Aurora project was a triangle because it had 3 thrusters in addition to the main engine. The thrusters have to be placed outside of the field or their thrust would also be decreased by 89%. My problem is that discs and triangles aren't sci-fiction looking, Battlestar-Galactica-launch-all-vipers looking stuff like I want.
So I placed the thrusters at the bottom and gave them the blue flame of an ion thruster.
To sum it up, Fouche claimed that the engine was completely silent at 30 yards.
DizzasterJuice
22nd Jun 2017, 7:31 AM
PS. I did call it fiction because I believe that is what it is. But it's some great sci-fi if you ask me.
DizzasterJuice
22nd Jun 2017, 1:22 PM
Well in this case he claimed it has already been invented.
I'm not doing DC, I was only helping out by doing a few pages of fan fiction.
Dragonrider
22nd Jun 2017, 10:36 AM
Would you mind providing backstory. Who the hell is this, which side are they on, and where the bell did they come from?
DizzasterJuice
23rd Jun 2017, 3:36 PM
Noemi is pretty smart so maybe possible. You might be on to something with that 2nd part because it was a complete mystery why she joined.
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