Monetistan
24-06-2005, 22:56
The object was massive.
Actually, 'massive' was an undersattement. It was... Ludicrously huge.
Which was, of course, exactly what Admiral Bab had wanted. Granted, over the course of the thirty years the ship had been built, Admiral Bob had died, with his son, Admiral Bob Jr. taking over, but that was only a minor problem.
Admiral Bob's dream had been fulfilled.
The shipyard was excessive, stretching kilomnetres in every direction. A small city had been build nearby, to house the countless workers and engineers, logistics oficers and secondary or tertiary involveds that aprticipated or profited from the project. By now, it was actually a fairly respectable city, with gardens, parks, a few cinemas (Admittedly, it did lack skyscrapers).
Nearby, a few hundred scrapyard companies had their teams present. Hours after the ship would leave the shipyard, the shipyard would be gone, consumed them them. Nobody would ever build a second ship with it. It was too expensive (Indeed, Admiral Bob's Naval Defence was in serious financial trouble simply due to this particular project).
So they would scrap it.
Still, the result of decades of work was fairly impressive.
A 'Dezimaran' as Bob Jr. had called it. A 'Decamaran' as the engineers preferred to call it (Possibly due to some weird affinity to organic chemistry. But nobody knew for certain).
The name didn't actually matter. What mattered were the eighteen hulls, ranging between 1- 9 kilometres in length, between 111 & 1000 metres in width.
Giant engines were powering the ship, a ship that was, for all intends and purposes, a moving island. Still, it wasn't particularly fast... In fact, it was rather slow, annoyingly, managing no more... Well, one had planned with above 20 kts. Unfortunately, this plan had been proven to be impossible, much to the frustration of half a dozen lead engineers..
Well, Admiral Bob Jr. would deal with it. And speed was a secondary issue, anyway.
And the planes it could carry! It didn't need to move fast, it could attack, anyway, 9 km long runways allowing for a fair bit of long-range attack craft.
And a lot of phallic jokes the thousands of workers tended to make all the time. Many of them were openly wondering how Admiral Bob had actually managed to have a son...
But then, Bob Jr. didn't look like his father to begin with.
The ship moved, slowly. It didn't sink, but accelerated, slowly heading for the open sea.
It was finished, its crew, essentially the population of a medium-sized city, celebrating (Or napping).
The Exacarrier Continental Plate. In the age of Super- and Megacarriers (And dreadnaughts), Admiral Bob's Naval Defence had simply decided to jump ahead of the development of the giga-, tera- and petacarrier, instead going for the exacarrier, instantly, thus ensuring naval dominance for centuries to come (Assuming regular refits with up-to-date electronics, planes and the likes, that is).
Now it was done, and a giant object, easily mistaken for an island, moved into the open ocean, proudly waving its flag in the wind.
There was no other vessel like it. It was alone. And casually disregarding instant- maintenance problems reducing its max speed to about half of what had been expected, and a lack of aircraft (Only half the available space was actually filled, and filled with planes whole concepts had been drawn up 30 years ago, thus being not entirely up to date), it was, or at the very least felt mighty.
It traveled the ocean with 9 kts, its sheer, magnificient scale screaming 'YOU'RE MINE!' as it moved like a turtle, slowly, but (Supposedly) invincible.
An awe-inspiring insanity cut through the waves, turnign slowly.
They had forgotten about Bob Jr. who was standing there, at the coast, with tears in his eyes and ready to fire the captain that had forgotten him.
Behind him, the shipyard was already in the process of being turned into scrap.
Actually, 'massive' was an undersattement. It was... Ludicrously huge.
Which was, of course, exactly what Admiral Bab had wanted. Granted, over the course of the thirty years the ship had been built, Admiral Bob had died, with his son, Admiral Bob Jr. taking over, but that was only a minor problem.
Admiral Bob's dream had been fulfilled.
The shipyard was excessive, stretching kilomnetres in every direction. A small city had been build nearby, to house the countless workers and engineers, logistics oficers and secondary or tertiary involveds that aprticipated or profited from the project. By now, it was actually a fairly respectable city, with gardens, parks, a few cinemas (Admittedly, it did lack skyscrapers).
Nearby, a few hundred scrapyard companies had their teams present. Hours after the ship would leave the shipyard, the shipyard would be gone, consumed them them. Nobody would ever build a second ship with it. It was too expensive (Indeed, Admiral Bob's Naval Defence was in serious financial trouble simply due to this particular project).
So they would scrap it.
Still, the result of decades of work was fairly impressive.
A 'Dezimaran' as Bob Jr. had called it. A 'Decamaran' as the engineers preferred to call it (Possibly due to some weird affinity to organic chemistry. But nobody knew for certain).
The name didn't actually matter. What mattered were the eighteen hulls, ranging between 1- 9 kilometres in length, between 111 & 1000 metres in width.
Giant engines were powering the ship, a ship that was, for all intends and purposes, a moving island. Still, it wasn't particularly fast... In fact, it was rather slow, annoyingly, managing no more... Well, one had planned with above 20 kts. Unfortunately, this plan had been proven to be impossible, much to the frustration of half a dozen lead engineers..
Well, Admiral Bob Jr. would deal with it. And speed was a secondary issue, anyway.
And the planes it could carry! It didn't need to move fast, it could attack, anyway, 9 km long runways allowing for a fair bit of long-range attack craft.
And a lot of phallic jokes the thousands of workers tended to make all the time. Many of them were openly wondering how Admiral Bob had actually managed to have a son...
But then, Bob Jr. didn't look like his father to begin with.
The ship moved, slowly. It didn't sink, but accelerated, slowly heading for the open sea.
It was finished, its crew, essentially the population of a medium-sized city, celebrating (Or napping).
The Exacarrier Continental Plate. In the age of Super- and Megacarriers (And dreadnaughts), Admiral Bob's Naval Defence had simply decided to jump ahead of the development of the giga-, tera- and petacarrier, instead going for the exacarrier, instantly, thus ensuring naval dominance for centuries to come (Assuming regular refits with up-to-date electronics, planes and the likes, that is).
Now it was done, and a giant object, easily mistaken for an island, moved into the open ocean, proudly waving its flag in the wind.
There was no other vessel like it. It was alone. And casually disregarding instant- maintenance problems reducing its max speed to about half of what had been expected, and a lack of aircraft (Only half the available space was actually filled, and filled with planes whole concepts had been drawn up 30 years ago, thus being not entirely up to date), it was, or at the very least felt mighty.
It traveled the ocean with 9 kts, its sheer, magnificient scale screaming 'YOU'RE MINE!' as it moved like a turtle, slowly, but (Supposedly) invincible.
An awe-inspiring insanity cut through the waves, turnign slowly.
They had forgotten about Bob Jr. who was standing there, at the coast, with tears in his eyes and ready to fire the captain that had forgotten him.
Behind him, the shipyard was already in the process of being turned into scrap.