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mysticstarlightduck · 5 months ago

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Supernova Initiative - WIP Intro/WIP Someday Tag

I wasn't tagged for this recently, but I wanted to make a WIP Intro/WIP Someday post for this story in the style of my previous post for Song of Thorns (here). So here we go😅! Feel free to make your own version of this Tag for one of your WIPs, if you'd like!

By the way, if you like this, please reblog, it helps a lot 💕

And tell me if you'd like to be added to any future taglists of this WIP!

Rules: Pick a WIP. Post something about it. On a Wednesday. Or whenever! It can be literally anything! (:

WIP INTRO - Supernova Initiative

Title: Supernova Initiative

Genre: Science Fiction/Space Opera/Adventure & Mystery/Whump

Tags: #wip supernova initiative #supernova initiative

Synopsis/What Is It About?

Jack Tithus, a young and charming intergalactic thief, along with his crew - Vesper Foxx, a feared cyborg assassin; Cassiopeia Tithus, his younger sister who is also a genius engineer; Aleks Keldora, a master in the art of temporary identity theft; and Artemis Zreeth, their edgy new recruit - are the most wanted criminals in this quadrant of the galaxy. Never once caught, the team defies their galaxy's oppressive government by using their combined talents to steal from the government as their own act of rebellion.

However, their luck takes an unexpected turn for the worst when they find themselves set up and arrested after a botched heist. Taken to the most secure facility in the whole Junction, the group expects nothing but problems in the coming future - instead, they are offered a strange deal: if they agree to work for the Junction and retrieve some highly classified files that were lost in a hostile planetary system, they will be spared from execution. With few other options, the group begrudgingly accepts to carry out this heist for the government they spent their lives trying to undermine.

Meanwhile, Jack finds himself trapped in a horrifying web of unethical experiments and illegal bioengineering when, while still having to carry out the heist along with his crew, he is secretly forced to become a test subject to the fearsome Director, head of the Junction's division of sciences, unbeknownst to his crew.

The team will need to count on the help of old allies-turned-rivals such as the cold-blooded mercenary and sniper Deimos Soll, their former crewmate, and the secret agent assigned to oversee their mission, an uptight and by-the-book young man called Noctus - if they wish to complete the most dangerous heist of their lives, and get their freedoms back.

Tropes and Nice Stuff! (Or, a.k.a. What you can expect in this book!)

Found Family/Team as Family!

Space adventure, exploration of unique, uncanny, beautiful, and outlandish alien planets, all the good science fiction stuff!

Robots, cyborgs, and sarcastically friendly AI!

A terrifyingly strict aspiring utopian regime that promises progress and freedom but is actually an unethical dystopia in disguise, with many bloodied skeletons in the closet, if you will.

Intergalactic politics, multiple alien cultures, and a bubbling interplanetary conflict about to explode between vastly different civilizations, each seeking either revenge or power.

Sibling bonds! A lot of this story centers around the siblings Jack and Cassiopeia Tithus, and the struggles they go through to keep each other safe and live another day, among some other notable siblings throughout the book.

Laboratory whump - A LOT OF IT. Also expect a crazy, unethical scientist/politician as a villain who is willing to do absolutely horrid things in the name of progress, even if it means human experimentation.

A suspicious, morally grey antihero with a reputation for being a cold-blooded killer, whom you'd expect is going to betray the group sooner or later, but is actually one of their most loyal allies and HAS A REDEMPTION ARC aaaaaa

Heists! Heists! Heists! And all the good stuff that comes along with this trope!

An edgy rogue-type character who is super impulsive and does not always make the best decisions, who only recently joined the group but would defend them with his life.

Traumatized - and hot - cyborg assassin lady on the path to have revenge on the people who destroyed her life in the past, and who is going to get said revenge in ✨style✨

A conformist secret agent who has always been "the perfect soldier" and follows rules like his life depends on it has an existential crisis and learns that his government has lied to him

A subplot that follows a young cadet from the Junction's Void Program, who discovers a dark secret about their government and starts investigating, but who needs to escape (and ends up meeting the MCs) after the government makes an attempt on his life + his war hero (adoptive) older brother who is a fighter pilot and really just needs a break and was tasked by their parents with trying to keep Pax from getting into even more trouble, but fails successfully.

Outcasts and society's "rejects" decide to make a better future together and it is great

Angst, team dynamics, and a lot of action-packed fight scenes!

And more! ✨

Meet The Main Cast! (The good guys)

Jack Tithus

A charming and rebellious intergalactic thief, Jack always sought a better life for himself and his younger sister, Cassiopeia, his only family - and he finally got his chance many years ago by joining a famous space pirate crew and leaving the dusty mining settlement moon he grew up in behind. After that, he took on a solo career - along with his sister and a few friends they had made along the way - and became the most wanted thief in the galaxy. He only steals from the government and seeks to help people who are oppressed or neglected by the system. He has a kind heart and a free spirit, and despite being a thief has a stronger moral compass than most, believing in breaking the rules to do what is truly right.

Cassiopeia Tithus

Cassiopeia - or Cassie, as she is usually called - is a brilliant robot engineer and inventor, able to build even the most complex machines from little more than scraps. She built her first robot when she was a child and has had a passion for mechanics ever since. A part of her older brother's outlaw team, Cassie uses her tech to aid in the heists and allow them to be mostly undetected. Most times. A lively young girl with a fiery personality, Cassiopeia has a lot of passion for what she does and is the glue that keeps their little team of misfits together.

Aleks Keldora

Raised by his two mothers on a struggling planet on the edge of the system, Aleks always wanted to help his family financially and give his mothers the life they deserved. However, struggling with self-esteem issues and often feeling discarded by society, Aleks knew what it meant to be invisible in the eyes of the world around him - with his family being the only ones who ever saw him for who he was. Tired of feeling left out by the world, and wanting to help his mothers - whose business was about to go bankrupt - Aleks decided to take a stand after winning a high-tech device in an underworld completion, a mask that allowed him to shapeshift into anyone he'd like. With the help of this mask and his other talents, Aleks completed his first heist in secret and was able to use the funds to help keep his family's business afloat, though they never knew the truth about how he got the money. After that, finally able to use his feeling of being invisible to his advantage, Aleks became more and more bold, eventually leaving his home planet in search of better heists to be able to continue to support his family.

Vesper Foxx

Traumatized by the day her home planet was raided by a ruthless group of mercenaries - who were hired by the neighboring galaxy's government to establish a Junction colony in Khosmonian territory - Vesper was kidnapped by the soldiers along with her oldest brother, Atheris, after their mother was killed in the raids. After witnessing him be tortured and killed, which scarred for life, Vesper was able to flee in an escape pod, being reunited with her little sister, Lysia, and their cousin, Deya, with whom she left their destroyed homeland behind. Despite settling down in another planetary system with the family she had left, the girl was never able to let go of the past, yearning for justice and revenge. Eventually, she left behind her sister and her cousin to pursue the deaths of the mercenaries who destroyed her life, using cyborg implants and upgrades to turn herself into the deadliest assassin in either galaxy.

Artemis Zreeth

The son of a renowned bounty hunter, Artemis never thought he would ever join their galaxy's criminal underworld, but after his father was betrayed by the crew he trusted the most, Artemis was left to fend for himself. Feeling betrayed by the system he trusted and lacking a purpose in life, Artemis survived by doing some gigs as a mercenary and pirate, a gun for hire in the criminal underworld. After winning a race and accidentally meeting the main cast, Artemis joins the group thinking this would just be another job to pay the bills, but as they spend more and more time together, the teenager finds that this group of outcasts might be the closest thing he's had to a family in a long while.

Pax Stellaryn

A genius young cadet, on his way to becoming the youngest cadet to ever graduate from the Junction's Void Program, Pax always wanted to make his beloved adoptive family proud, feeling oftentimes like a fish out of the water. After discovering a terrifying government intrigue by accident, Pax finds a chance to prove that he too can be a hero, and sets off to investigate more about this and seek a way to prevent the Junction's wretched plan from coming to fruition, after realizing his life too is in danger. However, he may have overestimated his ability to get out of this mess alone.

Deimos Soll

A cold-blooded and practical sniper, Deimos was Jack and Cassie's childhood best friend and their first crewmate. The trio split ways years ago due to conflicting beliefs and a few bad misunderstandings and ended up becoming rivals and competition when it comes to stealing from the Junction. Years later, however, after a harrowing encounter with a cruel and sadistic woman who sought to enslave him in order to force him to join her army, Deimos ends up fleeing to the only people he ever trusted - which unfortunately means having to confront his past and face Jack and Cassie again, who is very confused about his return to the crew - while being hunted down by the insane general he seeks to escape from.

Noctus

Though his full name is classified and unknown to the cast, his reputation precedes him. He is the single most successful special forces secret agent currently in the employ of the Junction - he has never failed a mission, never missed a target. And he always follows orders, always obeys the rules. However, is everything about him what it seems? A forgotten and suppressed part of his memory may prove that the system he fought so dearly to uphold may have actually made him into their perfect living weapon, and there may be many other lies yet to be uncovered

Ethean Mirannir

Pax's adoptive older brother, Ethean is a fighter pilot who has made a name for himself as a war hero and has always been the perfect soldier. Unexpectedly, he finds himself having to choose between his duty to the government and keeping his family safe when Pax discovers a secret that even he had no idea existed.

A few Plot Points, chaotically described🙃 (A.k.a - Badly Summarized WIP Tag but different)

Celebrating a successful heist on a space diner with the homies

I don't know why but I have a feeling this is going suspiciously well for our standards... Are we being set up? Hmm. Nah, I must be thinking too much into it-

Yep. Yes, we were being set up.

🎶Hell to the no, to the no, no, no🎶 WHAT IN THE DYSTOPIAN BULLCRAP EVEN IS THIS PLACE?

"Making shady deals with psycho government officers and bargaining for our freedom - with a bonus of Trauma✨"

THIS JUST-IN: 20-something agent totally done with everything must babysit this group of reckless space pirates that refuse to obey the rules

Cue the most uncomfy space travel in the whole galaxy~

"Hey guys, so yeah, this wasn't my plan either -" Promptly passes out, and everyone has more questions than answers.

Preparing to steal important files lost✨IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE✨ with a plan with came up with at 2AM with three bottles of energy drinks and a dash of improv

Operation "Let's Try Not To Die In Less than 20 Mins" begins and goes about as well as you'd expect

Losing communications with any backup we might have had and having a bit of group therapy because why not~

Things get Oh, so much worse, Special Edition - a.k.a - a not-so-nice crash landing on the worst possible planet ever

Let's improvise again Pt.2

Questionable problem-solving and emergency hot chocolate bottles

Cyborg Girl and Sniper Dude absolutely do not get along for a whole week and make it everyone else's problem

This is nice! Finally, something goes according to plan in this mess. I'm honestly surprised we got this far. Bravo to us!

(POV Shift) "Hi, yes, you're probably wondering how I even got into this mess. Let's start from the beginning."

This isn't a regular doctor's appointment, is it? What is that needle?! What are you doing -

Political drama, espionage, and manipulative teachers

And The Whump Begins

Well, well, well if it isn't the Consequences of my actions striking back at last. I probably should've mentioned this teeny tiny major problem sooner though. Yeah, my bad...

This is either the single most adorable little alien or the most concerningly ugly thing I've ever seen and now I'm confused

Cue existential crisis - "So no one was gonna tell me my whole life was a lie? Cool. Cool. Just checking... WTF"

HEIST! BADASSERY! BAD LIFE CHOICES!

Two tired older brothers try to keep their respective gremlin younger siblings from encouraging chaos and fail miserably

Insane Femme Fatale makes everyone hate her in less than 2 seconds and is so proud of it

Midnight Talks and Crispy Snacks

Things just got serious, Oh No.

How To Keep Two Rival Civilizations from Destroying Each Other 101 - We're still trying to figure it out

Hm. This plan wasn't half bad. Except it was. It was oh, so bad, OMG

To be Continued...

Playlist

Antigravity - Runaground

Superhero - Simon Curtis

Die For You - Valorant

Notorious - NEONI

Fighter - The Score

Glitter and Gold - Barns Courtney

Tagging (gently): @sleepy-night-child, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @smol-feralgremlin, @oh-no-another-idea, @littleladymab,

@winterandwords, @cowboybrunch, @eccaiia, @sarahlizziewrites, @illarian-rambling

@agirlandherquill, @anoelleart

@leave-her-a-tome, @writernopal, @anyablackwood, @unstablewifiaccess, @forthesanityofstorytellers

@i-can-even-burn-salad, @cakeinthevoid

@lassiesandiego, @thepeculiarbird, @clairelsonao3, @memento-morri-writes, @starlit-hopes-and-dreams

@the-golden-comet, @urnumber1star, @ominous-feychild, @anyablackwood, @amaiguri, @lyutenw @finickyfelix @elshells

@thecomfywriter

And OPEN TAG

#wip intro #wip introduction #wip supernova initiative #supernova initiative #writerblr #writers on tumblr #my wips #character writing #writing #writers #writeblr #my writing #my characters

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cryptidcalling · 1 year ago

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Just a running list of ESR ranks from highest to lowest lol Yes these are a jumbled mass of military ranks that I've placed in order of how powerful they sound to me personally. Sue me lol. There are lots of smaller ranks within these ranks. Example: Officers are split into junior, core, and senior officers. There are also different titles and branches based on what program people will join. Peacekeeping, search and rescue, natural disaster relief, robotic disturbances, space core, etc. I'll include a little space core list of ranks as well since that's the one Vesper did for a while. Emperor Grand General Lieutenant General Corporal Captain Commander/commanding officer Officer Cadet* *Specialists (Engineers, ambassadors, medics, and other specific routes will have their own ranks, but everyone must finish basic cadet training)

Space Core ranks. Emperor, Grand General, and Lieutenant General are still the highest ranks over all. Fleet Commander Ship Captain (Usually just called "Captain") Pilot Combat pilot Flight engineer Mission Specialist** Science officer** Specialized units** (Spacecraft engineers, medics, botanists, etc) Astronaut **Ranks marked with these are of about equal importance and are both very important for the crew! Their place in this list is more based on how much authority they have than how important their job is.

#Vesper tag #This is all subject to change but I'm feeling pretty cool about it #In b4 ppl ask; This isn't very researched and mostly it's just to make me happy. I control the world and I assure u things are cool #I'm ACAB all the way. These guys are in space and also socialists and also the government actually holds them accountable

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airmanisr · 4 years ago

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flickr

109th Airlift Wing crew completes another mission by Robert Sullivan Via Flickr: ANTARCTICA--This LC-130 “Skibird” crew landed at the South Pole Station with minimum visibility and maximum crosswinds, and then were forced to make an emergency weather divert to Terra Nova Bay when extreme weather made it unsafe to land at McMurdo Station on Nov. 9, 2017. The crew (from left): 1st Lt. Brian Alexander, co-pilot; Airman 1st Class Ryan Rhoads, loadmaster; Lt. Col. Ronald Ankabrandt, navigator; Senior Master Sgt. Michael Messineo, flight engineer; Senior Master Sgt. David Vesper, loadmaster; and Capt. Brandon Caldwell, pilot. The 139th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron crew and LC-130 are deployed to Antarctica in support of Operation Deep Freeze from the New York Air National Guard’s 109th Airlift Wing in Scotia, New York. This is the 30th season the 109th AW is providing ODF support. ODF is the Department of Defense’s logistical support to the National Science Foundation’s U.S. Antarctic Program.

#C-130 #aircraft

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clan-of-reaching-stars · 7 years ago

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@jadedragons @clan-lunstrae-fr

Okay, the Cliff notes version of my Clan’s Lore. And by Cliff Notes I mean this took an hour to write but hey, it’s all written now.

Vale and Orithya are mentioned in Generation Eleven.

Generation One

Iskal and Shalestone found the Clan, picking up Pan, Viridiana and Lethe. The three are fighters, but Lethe retires to be the Clan Hatchling Keeper after Shalestone and Iskal’s kids are born. Iskal and Shalestone share leadership duties, with Pan and Viridiana taking over defense.

Generation Two

Lethe about dies of happiness due to having to look after eight kids. Three of Iskal and Shalestone’s daughters stay (Cerise, Merean, and Likan) one is exchanged with a Nature Clan to foster relationships, who send their son Andric. A baby Imperial, Tazenia is found, and then a baby nocturne, Talin. The Clan takes in a sickly Coatl, Jecto. A rather absent minded Tundra child is taken in, his name is Tayio.

Later, when they’re all the equivilant of teenagers, two others join, Lace and Sykion.

Jecto will always be sickly but the Clan adores him, and does their best to help him. Merean became head huntress, with her sisters help. Andric becomes a scout, and patrols borders and checks out new territories. Tayio likes digging so he takes over expanding the lair, Tazenia is big and good at settling disagreements so she handles the BeastClan familiars and allies. Talin asists her for some time. Lace is the Clan Jester, and Sykion hunts bugs for the Clan.

Some adults join the Clan as well.

They pick up an adult fae, Inez. She takes care of keeping track of the Clan’s hoard.

From the same Nature Clan as Andric comes the Guardian Nora. Her mate Sulor also joins the Clan, joining the guard as trainers.

Most of these two generations will form the Council.

Generation Three

At this point the Clan is Twenty dragons so they start breeding.

Lace, Sykion, and Likan become a polyamorous relationship. Likan and Sykion are the biolgical parents of Deryn and Nela. Nela went to serve the Arcanist, while Deryn is still finding her place in the Clan.

Andric and Merean become a thing and have Orisa and Tyrath. Tyrath becomes a scout like his father, Orisa takes after her grandmother’s diplomatic nature and becomes a merchant/ambassador for the Trading Post.

Pan is aromantic but wants kids, and Viridiana does as well so they have a son Dmitri. He joins Tayio in expanding the Clan’s lair, and his parents just want to see him happy.

Nora and Sulor have three children. Only two remain with the Clan, Gale and Imerial. They and Nora’s half-sister Azzura form a battalion in Pan’s army/guard.

Two teens join the Clan, Tigress and Ariella. They are lesbians and join the lair expansion crew.

A mirror named Duskwind joins the Clan as well. He does finances for Orisa.

Yuniver, the Clan messenger also joins.

This Generation is one of the closest knit, second only to Generation Seven.

Generation Four

Generation four is a mess.

Jecto adopts a daughter, Nebula. She becomes mages and study arcane magic.

Oz, a librarian joins the Clan.

Frostaithan, a very sick guardian is found by the Clan and nursed back to health. He becomes an assistant diplomat to Shalestone.

Sykion and Lace have kids, Birch and Felar. Those two often leaving the Clan for long periods of time.

An extremely foul tempered guardian named Shadowclaw joins the Clan and trains as a fighter.

Nora and Sulor have a nest around this time, but none of the clutch stays with the Clan. This is common for them and this one is only noted because Colrath is one of the dragons. He joins Clan Aegis, a Clan Shalestone hopes to form an alliance with.

Generation Five

Beacon, the grandson of Iskal and Shalestone joins the Clan, Deryn, missing her three siblings and looking a lot like her cousin, adopts him as her little brother. Beacon will later be named heir to Iskal and Shalestone.

Pan and Viridiana have a second child, Ariadne. She joins the Lair expansion group like her brother, becoming the group’s main architect. The Lair expansion look much nicer now.

Orisa and Duskwind have two kids, Tobai and Iblis. Tobai becomes the Clan alchemist. Iblis struggles to find her place for awhile.

Generation Six

After a brief stasis period where the Clan expanded its territory and settled, a few new dragons join the Clan.

Arawn is born, a nocturne with such a poor sense of direction he got lost and turned into a forest spirit.

Vesper is a Shadow Egg and hailed as a blessing from the Shadowbringer. When on his birthday the next year he’s turned into a Nocturne he has a few choice opinions on his deity but accepts his place

Phyllis joins as a healer, focusing mostly on herbal remedies.

Kellan also joins, the first male Imperial of the Clan and the first Lair guard. The second is Rowan, a fae who joins a few days later. The two become inseparable.

Aegean is next to join, the Clan’s main provider of seafood, the coatls rejoice.

Generation Seven

This generation was incredibly close knit and is practically a lair on it’s own.

Gaila is born, the first of the new colors. She trains under Shadowclaw, the two of them fight constantly but seem to be incredibly close as well.

Molan is one of the biggest in the Clan, earning the nickname Thunderhead. He’s the Clan inventor and also a pacifist. He’s blessed by the Stormcaller.

His charge is Nightstar, a nocturne that usually hangs off his horns and assists him.

Valoran joins the Clan. The Grandson of Treesnek he serves as fortune teller and most hated dragon in the lair. He’s actually not a bad guy if you get to know him. And ignore that one kidnapping thing no one knows about. He and Gaila are sworn enemies. That is to say Gaila swears every time she sees him and he loves annoying her.

Myra the bard joins, full of songs and a love of performing.

Faolan is next, a diplomat who briefly enters a dating sim before he and Gaila become a thing.

Iva, a dragon known for her luck joins the Clan as well.

Bracken, the poison master, joins as well. He is the half brother of Phyllis and the two of them bond and quickly begin working together on a garden for their various needs.

Generation Eight

Treesnek and gays

Valoran “finds” a strange spiral named Elita and raises her. Remember that kidnapping thing no one knows about? She’s also his cousin. Elita masters shadow magic like her guardian (lowercase g).

Sylva joins the Clan, and is visited by Treesnek as a child freaking everyone out.

Abiliene, a gardener blessed by the Gladekeeper joins the Clan.

Mask joins the Clan, and becomes the butler, ensure the lair doesn’t fall apart. (Thank the Arcanist we have someone on that.)

Three friends join the Clan, Eclipse, Dawn and Victor.

Victor is a necromancer. Well he prefers scientist. He and Tobai dance around each other for a while before Tobai asks him out. Their science husbands now.

Dawn is a scribe and quickly become entranced by Myra’s story. And Myra herself. They’re wives.

Eclipse joins Iblis in the library and together they discover a new technique for enhancing weapons and items. This spell goes haywire and enhances them. They now have the ability to enhance objects using the runs on their bodies. Eclipse also ends up in a time paradox that messes with his mind and thus why he always has a pocket watch on him.

Zenith joins the Clan at this time, half starved. The Clan nurses him back to health and he joins the Lair guards.

Dominick and Belemus, the twin blacksmiths, join the Clan.

Not part of the Clan but!

Outside of the Clan a highwayman is cursed into a horrifying form and branded with runes detailing his crimes. This backfires horribly as Lune loves his new form.

Generation Nine

At this point Colrath re-enters the story. Barely recognizable, he tells the story of how Clan Aegis fell to a Plague Clan. The Clan is horrified by this, and by Colrath’s single minded determination for revenge. Shadowclaw is put on his guard duty to make sure he doesn’t do something violent or rash.

Colrath’s charge hatches, to his utter horror it is a plague dragon. He names her Panacea (Cea for short). Shortly after, Shadowclaw finds a water egg, which hatches into a guardian Larimar. The two are raised as siblings and are incredibly close. Also yes their two dads are a thing now.

Hollow is brought into the Clan to be spymaster, trained by Imeriel and Valoran.

Volo, an old wind dragon blessed by Windsinger joins the Clan.

Generation Ten

The Clan moves into a new home and discovers it haunted by a dragon named Asteria.

Nita hatches and is adopted as Victor and Tobai’s daughter.

Inverna, a fire mage joins the Clan.

Shadowclaw and Colrath get a third kid, Alina.

During the fight for Starwind bay, a tundra hatches and joins the Clan. Starwind took her name from the bay and grows up to run a pirate crew. This is where Lumen, Absi, Ekhi, Noctis, Lux, Poe, Hadrian, Solstice and Caerwyn end up.

Generation Eleven

The current generation finally.

Vale joins the Clan and the Lair guard. He becomes known for his distant nature and cold behavior.

A short time later, his sister Orithyia joins the Clan as well, fleeing their mother. The siblings do not get along well, Orithyia thinks Vale is cruel and cold, Vale thinks Orithyia is cowardly and weak. Orithyia is determined to save Frostaithan from Treesnek, who seems to have possessed him.

#clan lore #Lore #Okay that is the entire Clan lore in cliff notes version #Leaving out stories #But hey now I have tags for each group because they hang out by generation #Also! Now we have Context for everything #That was a lot of work

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albinohare · 5 years ago

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Back to basics: Offshore sailing by celestial navigation alone

Navigating by sun and star in the electronic age is a big challenge. Andy Schell describes a voyage of discovery

Star sights need a visible horizon, which you only get at dawn and dusk. Photo: 59 North

I have tattoos of a rooster and a pig on my feet. They’re meant to protect me from sinking. I have a nautical star on my forearm, so I can always find my way home. I wear red pants at boat shows and lectures. I have a passion for the traditions of the sea.

Celestial navigation tops them, with its blend of romantic art and practical science. Since I first read Bernard Moitessier’s book The Long Way, long before ever going offshore myself, I’ve wanted to cross an ocean using only sun and stars as my guide.

In the spring of 2017, sailing north from the BVIs to Bermuda with the ARC Europe fleet, we raised the stakes – we’d sail the route on our Swan 48 Isbjörn navigating entirely by celestial means. We wanted to see if we could do it.

Isbjörn carries electronic equipment, but the crew revelled in navigating by the stars. Photo: 59 North

I first learned celestial navigation ten years ago from John Kretschmer at a workshop he hosted at his home in Fort Lauderdale. John is the reason I pursued a career on the ocean. He’s well known to most sailors in America and made history in 1984 when he sailed a Contessa 32 called Gigi from New York to San Francisco the ‘wrong way’ round Cape Horn, an adventure that is immortalised in his book Cape Horn to Starboard. The very day that Gigi rounded the Horn, 25 January 1984, was the day I was born.

During the weekend workshop I got to practise taking morning sun sights on the beach with the old Freiberger sextant that John had used to navigate around the Horn on that famous voyage.

John described celestial navigation in romantic terms, explaining it in a way that made it as inspiring as it was understandable. Here was someone who spoke my language, the language of the great sailing romantics like Moitessier and Sterling Hayden. John made celestial bigger than just navigating for, after all, the likelihood of a modern day sailor actually needing celestial is effectively nil.

Article continues below…

‘Did you sail that thing here?’ – solo across the Atlantic in a Folkboat

It’s a funny thing, the further I sailed away from northern Europe, the more attention my boat attracted in marinas…

Life-changing voyage: Sailing solo across the Atlantic in a 22ft sloop

On a cloudy midsummer afternoon, my best friend, Harry Scott, and I waved goodbye to our worried mothers and sailed…

Time is everything

“Has the boat motion really settled down a lot or am I just feeling better?” Tom, one of our crew, asked on the second morning of the passage north from Tortola.

He and Cheryl had the watch and were at the helm while the crew was gathered in the cockpit for the day’s noon sight. I led the process while eating a bag of corn chips in an effort to stave off the early-passage mal de mer. Thane had the sextant and Mike was note-taker and timekeeper.

“Is it the 8th? What’s today?” asked Cheryl. “It’s the 7th today, isn’t it? Or no, it is the 8th,” I replied, not so confidently.

Isbjörn is a particularly well-travelled S&S Swan 48. Photo: Tim Wright

Normally on an ocean passage the days really don’t matter. Not so when you’re using celestial navigation. A four-second error on the time you took the sight equates to a one-mile mistake in determining the sun’s geographic position. Time is everything.

Isbjörn had departed Tortola with the ARC Europe fleet and we’d initially sailed west down Sir Francis Drake channel, rounding Jost van Dyke to starboard and pointing the bow for Bermuda. The boat galloped north at first, carrying the easterly trades on a rhythmic swell under hazy skies. Our dead-reckoning plot was easy to keep track of as Isbjörn beam-reached up the rhumb line, full sail flying, at eight knots.

At just shy of 1,000 miles, the passage to Bermuda is long enough to find your sea legs, but short enough to forego that 5 o’clock cocktail without regret. The Gosling’s Family Reserve in Bermuda is worth waiting for anyway.

Photo: Isbjörn Sailing

But the Trades faltered sooner than we all wanted them to. Through the winter in the Caribbean, Mia and I had got so accustomed to sailing in 20 knots of breeze with small sails that it felt rather odd when we first sailed into an area off the coast of northern Florida more affected by continental weather than the tradewinds and lost the breeze for the first time in months. A weak cold front passed overhead and suddenly Isbjörn was on port tack.

Secret GPS positions

We had to eliminate the nearly-impossible-to-avoid GPS inputs while still maintaining some semblance of safety. The old Garmin chartplotter’s GPS antenna had given up the ghost, so we didn’t have to worry about that, or the VHF, which was integrated to it.

We had an AIS app on the iPad that allowed us to see targets around us and their CPAs, streamed wirelessly from the built-in Vesper XB8000 transceiver, but that would hide our own position. We had a paper passage chart, bound copies of the Nautical Almanac and the Sight Reduction Tables for Air Navigation.

Mia would keep a secret GPS record in a separate logbook in case of emergency. Ironically, friends and family following the rally from afar would know our position more accurately than we would through our YB tracker.

Thane had signed up for the passage in spite of the celestial navigation part of it, not because of it. He was an experienced offshore sailor, having sailed across the Atlantic westabout, double-handed with his wife, Brenda, on their Bavaria 37.

“Holy smokes, this is so cool!” he exclaimed the first time he managed to grab an evening twilight star sight.

Getting a reliable sight from the sun is tricky when it’s hazy or overcast. Photo: 59 North

The sun had only just sunk beneath the horizon to port. The western sky was painted an array of pinks, yellows and oranges, while overhead blue faded to black as night approached to starboard. If you looked hard enough, you could just make out the evening’s first stars. We were in that ethereal slice in time photographers call the magic hour and navigators call civil twilight.

Thane had used the ‘no scope, two eyes open’ approach on that first star sight that Moitessier had used on Joshua. ‘I felt that I was becoming an expert in taking star sights since I discovered that it can be done without the telescope, keeping both eyes open,’ Bernard Moitessier wrote in his book Cape Horn: The Logical Route.

‘In this way, a star can be brought down to the horizon because the latter can be seen quite clearly with both eyes open. It is impossible to do this properly while looking through the telescope where the horizon always looks hopelessly blurred. In my innocence, I thought I was the first to discover this method…’

During our one-day crash course in Tortola, I’d described to the crew this method in theory. With one sight that evening, on the rolling deck of a boat at sea where the accuracy of his sight had real-life consequences, Thane had instantly and enthusiastically bridged the gap to celestial in practice, experiencing the same joy of discovery that Moitessier had uncovered and written about some 50 years earlier. ‘Even the best navigators are not quite sure where they’re going until they get there, and then they’re still not sure!’

Sextant sights provide the raw data – you then have to try to work out where you are. Photo: 59 North

Breadcrumbs in the wood

Traditionally, navigation was about keeping a detailed record of where you’d been in order to plot a course to where you’d like to go. Hansel and Gretel knew how to navigate – the breadcrumbs-in-the-forest trick was the fairytale version of dead reckoning.

Navigation was rooted in superstition. Never did a sailor tempt fate by arrogantly declaring they were sailing ‘to’ a faraway port; it was always ‘towards’. This thinking contained equal doses of humility and flexibility that the modern navigator ignores at their peril.

Teaching celestial navigation in a modern context, then, involves filtering fundamental concepts through a particular lens. Take latitude, for example. It’s derived by taking a north-south cross-section of the earth and extending lines from the centre outwards, like spokes on a bicycle wheel.

AIS app on an iPad provides information on other vessels. Photo: 59 North

Where those spokes intersect the surface of the earth creates a given line of latitude, which is drawn on the earth’s surface around the world horizontally. The degrees between lines of latitude on the surface are actually the angle between those bicycle spokes.

Nautical miles on the surface of the earth, then, correspond to those angles. Everyone knows that one minute of latitude is equal to one nautical mile, and that 60 of these make one degree of latitude. But have you ever stopped to think how far a nautical mile is on the moon? Or on Jupiter?

A nautical mile on another planet is still derived in exactly the same way, but it’s the body’s circumference that determines the actual geographic distance of it on the surface of that body. A statute, or land mile, is contrived. A nautical mile is an elegant expression of geometry.

Dive a little deeper. The distance on the surface of the earth from 0° to 231⁄2° North, for example, is 60×23.5 or 1,410 nautical miles. It’s also 1,410 nautical miles from the moon’s equator to 231⁄2° north on the moon, but the distance as measured in feet or metres is much shorter because the moon isn’t nearly as big.

That 23 1⁄2° North, by the way, is the Tropic of Cancer. The Tropic of Capricorn, conversely, lies at 23 1⁄2° South. Those aren’t just made-up boundaries: the geographic tropics are de fined naturally by the limits of the movement north and south of the sun’s declination throughout the year as it traces a sine curve from season to season, due to the tilt of the earth.

The other half of the sun’s geographic position (GP) – longitude, or Greenwich Hour Angle (GHA) in celestial parlance – is directly convertible with time and changes by the second. The sun’s GP travels westabout through 360°, right around the earth, in 24 hours, or 15° per hour.

Logically, then, I can predict the sun’s GHA in my head if I know the time in Greenwich, 1400 UT, for example, would put the sun about 030°. GHA, unlike longitude, is measured through 360°; the sun can never travel east, after all.

In simplified terms, when we take a sextant altitude of the sun we’re creating a right angle triangle between it, the earth’s surface at the GP, and ourselves. Grade school geometry tells us that the two angles in a right-angled triangle must equal 90°.

Celestial navigation is very much a team effort – one crew member takes a noonsight while another notes the figures

So, the complement to the altitude projects an angle from the sun onto the surface of the earth which, just like in the latitude example above, can be converted to nautical miles. After accounting for the sun’s declination north or south, depending on the season, this is precisely how we get our latitude from a noon sight.

A single sextant sight produces a giant circle of position, with the complement to our sextant altitude describing the radius of the circle, the GP at its centre. If we had a large enough chart, and an accurate way to take a compass bearing towards the GP, you could plot this using the simplest of fixes, bearing and range, to pinpoint a position on that circle. Alas, we have neither.

So, in a nutshell, modern celestial using the Sight Reduction Tables for Air Navigation (Pub. 249 in the US), allows us to compare the sextant reading from our unknown location at a known moment in time, with a sextant reading from a known location that’s somewhere in our neck of the woods, called the ‘assumed position’, and plot the difference on a chart, producing a single line of position that just so happens to be a tangent to that larger circle of position… Deep breath!

In reality, none of this is important to the modern GPS navigator. But – and here’s why I love teaching celestial navigation so much – these Eureka moments about geography and geometry and the basic understanding the fundamentals of celestial makes everyone a better navigator, whether you actually ever pickup a sextant or not.

The ocean felt deserted. There were no other boats to be seen, and no more flying fish. No dolphins. Nothing but the routine.

I don’t stand a watch on our Isbjörn passages, instead maintaining a more traditional captain’s role, overseeing the big picture and forever on-call should the crew need me on deck. Again, I’m modelling Moitessier.

He wrote once that when the weather is nice and things are going well, the captain can sleep for 36 hours if he wants. On the other hand, when the weather is bad, and stress high, the captain must remain at the helm indefinitely.

When things are good, I’ll often take half of Mia’s nighttime watch. There’s something about being alone in the cockpit at night. It’s precisely why I go ocean sailing.

Sunrise and moonset

I relieved Mia pre-dawn at 0400 and settled in for my two hours outside while the crew slept. Firmly into the mid-latitudes, and after another clearing frontal passage, the sky had lost all its Caribbean moisture and haze, replaced by a clarity in the air rarely seen ashore.

The glimmer in the east came early that morning. In opposition, the full moon casually and simultaneously sank lower on the horizon. I couldn’t decide where to focus my attention; I wanted to witness that first glimpse of the sun piercing the eastern horizon, but didn’t want to miss Mr Moon dipping ever lower in the west.

Isbjörn sailed on a northerly zephyr and an oily sea, forcing me to concentrate on the helm in order to maintain her momentum, but distracting me from that beautiful sunrise and moonset. It was very fine light-air sailing, but there were troubles with celestial. Where were we?

We’d forgotten to account for the apparent altitude when taking the noon sight the day before, a correction to the sextant angle that’s applied to account for the refraction of the sun’s ray’s in the atmosphere. The log read 581 miles sailed since leaving Tortola when I wrote in the logbook on the morning of 10 May, our fourth day at sea. It had been overcast the day before, so difficult to take any sun sights, and the ones we did get were off.

Photo: Isbjörn Sailing

To boot, we’d gone 12 hours overnight, sailing well east of the rhumb line, close-hauled on a light northerly, which didn’t allow us to lay the course.

Non-sailors assume celestial is about navigating by the stars, at night. It’s not, of course – star sights do the job, but you need a visible horizon, which only happens at dusk and dawn. So it’s down to Mr Sun, who guides you most of the way, and on cloudy days Mr Sun is hard to find. You’re always sailing blind at night.

No matter. At 0300 on the morning of 12 May, just before the dawn of our sixth day at sea, Gibb’s Hill Light on the south-west corner of Bermuda hove into view right where we expected it to. The log read 838 miles sailed.

Accurate enough

Celestial navigation had gotten Isbjörn to Bermuda, legitimately, and with a crew of amateur sailors, two of whom had only just learned the methods literally the day before departure. I’d always wondered if we could do it, and now I know.

It’s certainly not a practical, efficient means, by anyone’s reckoning. They say that ‘close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades’. And in celestial navigation.

Andy’s tattoos reflect his love of nautical tradition

The interesting part is that, without a GPS, we never really knew how accurate our sights were, and we still don’t. In the end Gibb’s Hill Light appeared where we expected it to. Our sextant sights, DR plots and LOP reductions were accurate enough to get us there successfully.

Nobody cared whether our individual LOPs throughout the trip were within two miles of our GPS position or ten, and the crew enjoyed stargazing at night, quickly forgetting the chartplotter gazing we’re all so used to.

Not unlike Heisenberg’s famous principle, perhaps the most profound irony of modern navigation is that the closer we get to perfect GPS accuracy, the farther we get from ever knowing where we truly are.

About the author

Andy Schell and his wife, Mia Karlsson, sail 10,000 miles per year on their S&S Swan 48 Isbjörn, taking paying crew on ocean passages in the Atlantic, Arctic and worldwide. Andy also hosts the On the Wind sailing podcast on his website (59-north.com) featuring interviews with well-known sailors from around the world.

The post Back to basics: Offshore sailing by celestial navigation alone appeared first on Yachting World.

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blackseafoam · 3 months ago

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VESSEL VESPER

A Star Wars Story

The rise of the empire is a difficult time to find funding for environmental research at the University of Rudrig. The Vesper Science Crew is in a unique standing to be able to conduct their research with “generous” government grants. Professor Munnin and her intern, Fern Vulez, spend their field season collecting important data on the ecological effects of a relentless galaxy-crossing war. While the small team are a good match of skills, their frequent personality conflicts put a heavy strain on morale.

CW: nothing outside of Star Wars canon-standard peril.

WC: 1297

Chapter 1: STUNNED

The relentless canyon wind flew by at a blistering pace. Frantic like a creature pursued by a predator. The gusts battering the ears of two figures standing at the southern rim. Below, the crevasse yawned out, widening to the West. What would have been a mighty river below, was reduced to a fine silver trickle bordered by mud and rock.

“Looks sticky down there.” Fern lowered his binoculars and pulled his hood tight over his ears, burning with cold. His dark eyes shifted nervously at the landscape below, trying to map a safe place to conduct their sampling. His black hair whipped across his cheekbones with ferocity.

His boss still had her eye to the scope of her rifle. The Fosh’s voluminous head of black feathers flashed green iridescence as the wind battered them. A sigh escaped her long beak. “Doesn’t look like there is a single solid place to land the ship down there.”

Fern braced himself for what that meant.

“You’ll have to climb down there, scout out a place where our setup isn’t going to sink.” Professor Munnin lowered the scope and replaced her round glasses on her beak.

Fern opened his mouth to protest.

Motti cut him off “I know I’m lighter than you and would do better on the mud, but I’m also a better shot than you and would be more useful covering you from up here.”

“With all due respect, Professor. The basin looks deserted, what do you need to cover me from?”

Motti hesitated, then raised her scope again, letting it push up her spectacles.

“Glass up degrees 148, -42.”

Fern did so, raising his binoculars once again, and took a second for his eyes to adjust to what he was supposed to be looking at. Huge short toed tracks on the far bank. Sinking FAR into the mud. Something very heavy.

He groaned, “Fine, but you owe me.”

Fern was relieved to find that the canyon walls were sandstone, extremely grippy and easy to climb down. The wind was much more tolerable now that he was between two shoulders of rock. He had always been light footed, enjoying some casual freerunning and climbing in his free time (of which he had very little of since he started working for the Professor). His flexible leather boots made his footsteps nearly silent, though the wind masked his audible presence well enough.

Motti regained visual on her intern. Switching from her scope to her naked eye every now again, studiously surveying the entire basin. She raised her comm “Made it down okay?”

“Aww, you do care!” Fern remarked sarcastically.

“Yeah, well, imagine all the paperwork I’d have to do if I sent you to your death.”

“HA. Well the climb was the easy part, this mud is VERY soft.” Fern was already knee deep in the stuff. Progress suddenly became painfully slow.

Once he had made it farther out into the open, the mud was not quite as bad. He brought out his datapad to more carefully analyze the ground density around him.

“Is it possible to set up in the water? Doesn’t look to be that deep, and there’s no mud there. Just rocks.” Fern cupped his hand around his comm as he spoke and looked up at the little dot of a figure on the rim, shielding his eyes from the sun. L

“We can try it. Do you think we could land the Vesper there?”

“Let me get closer.” Fern continued on, one mud sucking footstep at a time, until he made it to the water’s edge.

“It’s only about, I don’t know, a half meter deep here? It’s a nice flat riffle, gets a little deeper downstream.”

“It might be a tight squeeze… let me get the rangefinder. I’ll be right back.” Motti pocketed her comm and swung her rifle over her thin feathered shoulder. She hopped up on her clawed feet and trotted back toward the ship.

Fern took a moment to take in the nature around him. Mud aside, it was a nice little spot. Tall seeding grasses dotted the shoreline, short stubby trees lined a perimeter parallel to the river, following some perfect vein of suitable soil invisible to him.

Rainbow-winged insects flitted on the surface of the water, and several aquatic creatures he couldn’t make out sipped them out of the sky for a tasty treat. He kicked a bit at the water, letting the current clean his legs now caked with dry mud.

Splash, splash. The water around him changed to brown and his boots instantly looked like new. Splash splash. More splashing noises, but he had stopped moving. He raised his gaze upstream.

SPLASH SPLASH SPLASH. From behind a boulder, a dark furred shape came in to view one mammoth step at a time.

Fern froze with fear, the sheer immensity of the beast turning his whole body into fight or flight mode. Regardless if this creature was friendly or not, its imposing stature was enough to send his heart racing and hands shaking.

It didn’t seem to notice him yet, but that was no consolation. There was absolutely nowhere for Fern to go, besides downriver. Getting stuck in the mud with this thing about seemed like a sure way to get trampled.

“BZZZT…. He– –ern did you…” Fern’s heart dropped at the sound of his comm. He reached for it as quickly as he could to turn it off. “... put t– —---gefinder in the aft s—---ge compartment again?” Motti’s voice came in choppy as she was out of line of sight. Fern got the comm off and looked up. The beast’s head was high, its single horn above its nose pointed straight in the air. Beady eyes surveying, gaping nostrils flaring. No way that thing could get a scent with that backwind, but that didn’t make him any less trapped.

No reply on the comm. Nothing is ever put back where it belongs on this ship. Motti muttered to herself. Knowing full well that she was probably the one to misplace the rangefinder. She rounded to the exterior storage door when her comm started pinging red, emergency mode. Of course she can’t leave her intern at the bottom of a canyon for FIVE MINUTES without him getting into trouble.

When Motti skidded to a stop at the canyon rim she scanned for movement below. Right away she noticed the hulking furred shape standing in the water, a mudhorn. Not native to this planet, where had it come from? This was going to be a significant data point in her Intraplanetary Watershed Species Composition Matrix. Her thoughts snapped out of analysis mode when she noticed a much smaller figure facing the Mudhorn. Fern.

She raised her rifle scope to her beady golden eye. Don’t move, please don’t move fern… She begged internally.

Taking out this beast was the right thing to do, for ecology’s sake, and for saving Fern’s life of course. She leveled her crosshairs toward the beast’s cranium, internally referencing her studies on mammalian skulls to picture the exact spot where the Mudhorn’s tiny brain rested within it’s enormous head. Her scaly finger began to squeeze the trigger when the beast jolted forward, and was out of her sight.

NO! Fern was running, and the beast gave chase. The foolish human would never outrun the beast. There was only one thing Motti could do from her high perch, and she had to get it perfect. Her fingers worked quickly, setting the rifle to “stun”. She set the crosshairs now on the frantic intern, bounding his way down the shallow river, his data pad bouncing along behind him on its bungee cord. He was covering a surprising amount of ground, but still not enough to outrun a Mudhorn.

She squeezed the trigger.

Taglist: @stars-n-spice

Authors notes:

AAA I started writing this so long ago it feels great to put it out there! This is going to lead in to Ulvi and Flinch’s story soon. I have big arcs planned for each character, so there isn’t really a central main. They’re all going to be more or less equally featured. Sort of like a D&D campaign type of pacing.

Honestly I have @stars-n-spice to thank for having so much enthusiasm for my OCs when we first interacted! It absolutely led me to post this :)

Happy to put anyone on the Taglist just lmk. Cautiously optimistic that I’ll keep working on this for a long time!

Also Motti is voiced by Sigourney Weaver that’s my canon 😆

#vessel vesper #vesper science crew #my OCs #my writing #star wars fanfiction #star wars #motti Munnin #fern vulez

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stars-n-spice · 3 months ago

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STOP RAAAAH I LOVE THIS!!

I'd forgotten I'd asked you to tag me once you started writing and I'm so so glad you remembered!!

Omg I love the art that goes with it and what you have is so wonderful! Gaahh I wish we had more stuff in Star Wars like this!! Like what?? Research team getting up to shenanigans?? Hello??

Also I'm such a sucker for "character leaves for a few minutes and comes back to other character in peril" - fucking loved it, I was cackling omg

I can't wait to see where this goes!!