Above a shattered sky chap.2
Now you would think that living with an energy source as abundant as the sun, life would be easy for the Skyborn but life about the clouds poses its own unique problems.
Above the clouds there is no land, so anything built has to be able to remain airborne, now you've probably got images of great cities floating on anti-gravity engines in your minds. While you could do this, the anti-gravity engines would use up more energy than the solar panels could ever produce and adding more solar panels wouldn't help because it would be adding more weight and stress on the engines, meaning they need more power.
No, to solve this problem technology has had to take a step backwards with the cities being quite literately supported by balloons. Originally these balloons would have been airships and zeppelins which have been joined together by their crews to provide other vessels some sort of base of operations, as a place to moor, trade and perform repairs. Huge cities have grown out of these rather modest beginnings and these chaotic masses of balloons, solar panels and walkways provide homes to thousands.
The other problem of having no land was that you have no minerals, metal or just plain resources to build anything from, this problem was rather ingeniously solved by the idea of fishing for resources.
Airships lower and drag electrostatic nets through the clouds below them picking up particles of metals and other elements from the roiling dust clouds beneath them, the nets are then pulled back in and cleaned. The thick dust picked up by the nets are then stored in a cargo hold and when the vessel comes into dock at one of the cities, it drops the contents of its cargo hold of at one of the refineries. The dust is then processed and turned into useful metals that are then used by the factories.
The Ringman, the ship which Zephyr's family owns and operate from out of New London, the largest Sky city in Britannic Airspace. The ship has a crew of 6, carries a cargo of 10 tons and has armaments of 2 flak turrets mounted top and bottom. Even up here it is not safe as mankind faces its most dangerous enemy…. Itself.
The Skyborn are divided into 4 nations, the Britannic Empire, Liberty, Coalition and the Free Worlds alliance. These nations have not learned to work with one another, the cold war was brought back to life between the Russian Coalition and the American Liberty as these to countries developed the rather bizarre need to annihilate one another. This coupled with the fact that the Skyborn consider themselves the last survivors of the human race makes the selflessness of humanity seem all the more evident.
These nation engage in battles which involve aerial dogfights between solar powered propeller planes attempting to shoot one another down and huge airship and zeppelins all attempting to destroy one another or if not cripple it enough so that it can no longer stay airborne and falls below the clouds. As any Skyborn knows, anything that falls through those roiling EMP charged clouds is not going to come back up again.
But its not the rival nations that the Ringman has to watch out for because above the clouds there are those who would rather not work for a living and would much prefer to profit off of others hard work.
Pirates plague the skies and anything unprotected is an easy target for them, pirates often field ex-military aircraft carriers or Zeppelin frigates which along with their powered fighters use to carry out their attacks on individual ships or if they're feeling lucky convoys
It is this situation the Ringman finds itself in, heading towards New London as part of a trade convoy after a rather successful 'fishing' trip, it finds itself under heavy attack by a pirate zeppelin and 2 squadrons of pirate fighter craft. Finding itself outgunned the Ringman attempts to escape however things don't look good as the Ringman only has a pitiful top spead of 40 mph compared to the 200 mph speeds of the fighters and the 75 mph speed of the frigate gunning down on her.
Things don't look good as panic reigns supreme on the Ringman……
Authors Note: I'll leave it there for now, I'll try to update as soon as possible but remember if you like it, Review it as it greatly encourages me to write more
Now you would think that living with an energy source as abundant as the sun, life would be easy for the Skyborn but life about the clouds poses its own unique problems.
Above the clouds there is no land, so anything built has to be able to remain airborne, now you've probably got images of great cities floating on anti-gravity engines in your minds. While you could do this, the anti-gravity engines would use up more energy than the solar panels could ever produce and adding more solar panels wouldn't help because it would be adding more weight and stress on the engines, meaning they need more power.
No, to solve this problem technology has had to take a step backwards with the cities being quite literately supported by balloons. Originally these balloons would have been airships and zeppelins which have been joined together by their crews to provide other vessels some sort of base of operations, as a place to moor, trade and perform repairs. Huge cities have grown out of these rather modest beginnings and these chaotic masses of balloons, solar panels and walkways provide homes to thousands.
The other problem of having no land was that you have no minerals, metal or just plain resources to build anything from, this problem was rather ingeniously solved by the idea of fishing for resources.
Airships lower and drag electrostatic nets through the clouds below them picking up particles of metals and other elements from the roiling dust clouds beneath them, the nets are then pulled back in and cleaned. The thick dust picked up by the nets are then stored in a cargo hold and when the vessel comes into dock at one of the cities, it drops the contents of its cargo hold of at one of the refineries. The dust is then processed and turned into useful metals that are then used by the factories.
The Ringman, the ship which Zephyr's family owns and operate from out of New London, the largest Sky city in Britannic Airspace. The ship has a crew of 6, carries a cargo of 10 tons and has armaments of 2 flak turrets mounted top and bottom. Even up here it is not safe as mankind faces its most dangerous enemy…. Itself.
The Skyborn are divided into 4 nations, the Britannic Empire, Liberty, Coalition and the Free Worlds alliance. These nations have not learned to work with one another, the cold war was brought back to life between the Russian Coalition and the American Liberty as these to countries developed the rather bizarre need to annihilate one another. This coupled with the fact that the Skyborn consider themselves the last survivors of the human race makes the selflessness of humanity seem all the more evident.
These nation engage in battles which involve aerial dogfights between solar powered propeller planes attempting to shoot one another down and huge airship and zeppelins all attempting to destroy one another or if not cripple it enough so that it can no longer stay airborne and falls below the clouds. As any Skyborn knows, anything that falls through those roiling EMP charged clouds is not going to come back up again.
But its not the rival nations that the Ringman has to watch out for because above the clouds there are those who would rather not work for a living and would much prefer to profit off of others hard work.
Pirates plague the skies and anything unprotected is an easy target for them, pirates often field ex-military aircraft carriers or Zeppelin frigates which along with their powered fighters use to carry out their attacks on individual ships or if they're feeling lucky convoys
It is this situation the Ringman finds itself in, heading towards New London as part of a trade convoy after a rather successful 'fishing' trip, it finds itself under heavy attack by a pirate zeppelin and 2 squadrons of pirate fighter craft. Finding itself outgunned the Ringman attempts to escape however things don't look good as the Ringman only has a pitiful top spead of 40 mph compared to the 200 mph speeds of the fighters and the 75 mph speed of the frigate gunning down on her.
Things don't look good as panic reigns supreme on the Ringman……
Authors Note: I'll leave it there for now, I'll try to update as soon as possible but remember if you like it, Review it as it greatly encourages me to write more