More about the Ministry of Plenty within the Caliphate of Azithan ...
Plenty grows and distributes the Faithful Profit, organizes & innovates Lifeless. They protect the crops. They are the Naval power of the Caliphate. The headquarters is a fortress at sea, propelled without sails.
Their naval power grew over time; originally, they merely brought crops from the farms to the cities, often down a river or over an ocean. Faithless neighbors attacked, and the Caliphate realized it had to protect such cargo with force.
While Temple developed new faster sail & oar merchant ships, Plenty developed a means of harnessing Lifeless power as locomotion through the water. In combination with sail, this was truly terrifying.
Enter the Cutter.
Designed for speed, the Cutter could chase off attacks on vessels near the shore. Fifty feet long with a crew of five Faithful and five Lifeless, the Cutter became the means of defending the shoreline. A cutter's naval power is mostly in swords, lifeless, and ramming ability. Some few have a Wizard, able to summon lightning or fire.
The Plenty Cutter Marine Service was originally ten ships that defended the Capital Coast. The Minister of Plenty who created the Cutter Service is now a Most Ancient Elder, whose spirit lives on to advise the Living. Ham, they call the spirit.
As the Cutter Fleet grew, the Capital became safer. But, the Cutters were only good close to the shore; they didn't handle tall waves, and had no living quarters. This was a near-the-coast solution, protecting some but not all the cargo.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
And as the Cutter fleet grew, they also needed additional ships. A spring plus lifeless who don't need to breathe sounds like a submarine.
ReplyDeleteThe Headquarters Ship is a class all its own, and brings together everything that is important about Plenty; mobility, storage of food and other goods, and can probably do something nutty like launch submarines.
Headquarters: So big it has cranes on deck - when it wants to board a ship, it just leans one of those over you and enough Lifeless to cover your deck swing/drop over.
ReplyDeleteCranes are a ridiculously cool idea. I'm pretty sure the physics doesn't work, and I don't care.
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, the headquarters ship can also carry cargo. With the cranes, it can pick up cargo from damn near anywhere.
I'd adore to say the Caliphate has shipping containers, but I'm avoiding anything from the 20th century.
Yeah, to put cranes on a ship, you need outriggers or one of those two-hull-side-by-side deals with balancing things, or... Some other crazy setup. But it's one I haven't seen before on a "Monster ship", so I thought I'd throw it out there.
ReplyDeleteFrom wiki: "In medieval Europe, crane vessels which could be flexibly deployed in the whole port basin were introduced as early as the 14th century.[1]"
ReplyDeleteAh hah! Its still crazy, but you can do it with right-timed technology.
Sweeeeet.
ReplyDeleteAs for shipping containers, I think there's a clear way of doing it that pokes fun at governments.
ReplyDeleteThe Ministry of Plenty is really good at moving grain and flour. Focus on that flour for a second -- how much flour does a congregation of 100 need for a week? I've said 50 cups to show up once a week, so that's 5000 for a week.That's ~1.2 cubic meters. You can show up multiple times, so let's call that 2 M^3.
Two cubic meters of flour weighs approx 1,500 kilograms, or ~3,000 pounds. That's getting heavy. Ignore that for a moment.
The smallest shipping container is ~20 cubic meters, and that's half high. We're not dealing with steel, so stacking is a real issue. Personally, I want my shipping contains to be at least six feet tall as then they do double duty as emergency shelter.
Using the 20 cubic meter means (converting back to imperial, so i can think) approx 700 cubic feet. Call it 7 feet high, and you've got a 10 foot by 10 feet box.
And hey, play around a little and make it a 10 foot by 10 foot by 10 foot cube. That's kind of sexy, and is ~120,000 cups. That's enough flour for a congregation for 24 weeks. That sounds perfect.
So, the Ministry of Plenty has a few different sizes of box they are willing to ship. And the rule is: If it fits, it ships.
Standard: The 10 foot cube. Call the cost 10.
Small: Ten by Ten By five, exactly one half the cost of the standard. Cost: 8.
Tiny: five foot by five foot by five foot, exactly one eighth of the Standard. And costs 3.
Anything smaller should go by Post through the Noble Ministry.
There's assuredly a secondary market to combine Tiny containers into a Small, and Small contains into a Standard.
That's also, what, 45 thousand pounds? Twenty tons?
ReplyDelete...Dunno! Canadian! Metric! Bwahahahahaa!
ReplyDeleteIt is so frustrating that my brain thinks in this antiquated and bizarre measurement system
ReplyDeleteWithout steel, its not really reasonable to have shipping containers. Even pallets are 20th century technology. When you have lifeless labor, you really want somethign carryable by them, anyway.
ReplyDeleteThat's the Box: half meter by half meter by half meter, carryable (if cumbersome) by a person. That's 528 cups, or weekly ration for about 10 people. Pretty sure at some point I called that a unit of currency, so perfect.