 March 26, 2020 - 11:16am | Working from home four days a week for the next while. I have been pondering a new character to go along with Jurak Hangna. As some may know Jurak Hangna is loosely based on Jack Hanna and Dwain is loosly based on Steve Irwin. I'm thinking of doing a Jacques Cousteau based character who is a dralasite. The theme is strongly enfluenced in my imagination by the ship RV Calypso. However, this works in real life because he has the oceans and lots of wildlife to explore under the water. To turn this to space and the frontier, if our Captain Cousteau was be taking his ship Calypso all over the frontier and making planet fall all the time it would detract from the visions of sailing the seven seas that I have from watching Jacques Cousteau on TV as a child. I want to keep this character of Cousteau in space with his ship Calypso near by. So, the ship is as much a part of the character our dralasite Cousteau. What would our Calypso be voayaging the frontier to see and discover? What is our Captain Cousteau's cause he is trying to champion? -iggy |
 March 26, 2020 - 1:37pm | He is an explorer first and foremost. Same a D. Ballard- exploration drives them. Re: dralasite- they never need a life jacket as they are their own life jacket. If maybe that your Cousteau character works for an institute of higher learning and and he travels the Frontier by freighter bringing his small fleet of drone submersibles and a high tech mini sub. once on planet they just charter an appropriate boat. He'll need a roboticist NPC side kick to manage & maintain the drones. Gran Quivera, Timeon, Clarion, Faire- all planets he would be interested in. maybe Volturnus to study the Sea-Mor species Question: since its illegal to own or trade in sathar technology are submerdged sathar starship wrecks off limits? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 27, 2020 - 1:12am | Given that liquid water oceans/seas might be quite common on the Frontier, I think he would have plenty of places to visit. Possibly he can also visit worlds that have oceas/seas but these are either not water-based or are underground, below ice, etc. For example, I have an idea that Outer Reach has a water system that's underground and fed by thermal vents from the planet's volcanic activity and the ice on the surface. Cousteau wouldn't be able to go there, but it's just an idea about the various places that potentially have 'interesting liquids'. |
March 27, 2020 - 7:11pm | You guys are gravitating to the water and ocean part of Cousteau than I was. I'm gravitating to the owns a ship and explores with it part more. Interesting. Also, dralasites and water don't mix well. They tend to drown and are not too boyant being filled with fluinds and not sporting much in the way of lungs but rather breating through their skins. Kind of like their lungs are inverted and on their outsides. This makes me wonder if he should have this guy have a water landing shuttle. Maybe it is even submersible. I wasn't thinking about exploring oceans too much because then I am just wrinting more creature articles. I'm thinking places. This guy looks at whole ecosystems and the wonders of the frontier. He is just as happy looking at the Ebony Eyes as he is riding the waves on Faire. Just thinking out loud, he looses his Cousteau-ness if he doesn't have ocean spray in his face. Yet, I want him to have a ship he can take around the frontier. I keep thinking of his Calypso as a space fareing vessel, but it needs to get wet. Maybe his Calypso is the ocean based shuttle and the starship is what gets him around. Growing on this thought out loud: What would Cousyeau be like if he ws still alive and had access to the stars? What would he name his starship if he could have the luxery of having Calypso and a starship? Why would he be seaking to sail the oceans os so many worlds? I'll answer this one and let you guys answer too. He sees the oceans as the life blood of living worlds. Worlds without oceans are not fully alive. If you want to know a living world you know its oceans first. If you want to know how healthy a world is you look at its oceans. How can he afford to spend his life traveling the stars and worlds? I keep singing John Denver's Calypso song when I think of this. That song is a big part of the inspiration and motivation in my heart to do this. What does this song say about our character? -iggy |
March 27, 2020 - 7:15pm | Wow, just reead my starting post. I was realy distracted by working at home. Tones of grammer errors. I have two laptops at my work from home desk. My personal fun laptop (Shhh! Don't tell my boss) and my work laptop. I was flipping between the two and in a team meeting for part of the time. -iggy |
March 28, 2020 - 1:01am | If he's more of a general explorer/naturalist then perhaps he made some money somewhere or other, and that's what funds his travels. He funds future trips through sales of holovids and books. A ship+shuttle combo sounds good, and the ship doesn't necessarily have to be big. Maybe it's not even new - some sort of old freighter repurposed and refitted for his needs. Possibly instead of being like Cousteau he's more like David Attenborough. |
March 28, 2020 - 6:27am | True dralasites will drown in water but Dralasites do not float naturally. They can swim, but if knocked unconscious they will drown. A Dralasite can float if it spends 5 minutes forming an air pocket in its body before entering water. So they will drown only if unconscious. They will float if they have 5 minutes prep but what if they have no prep and suddenly find themselves in water? How long for them to build up an air pocket while treading water? EDIT so its not so much that he is an oceanagrapher but an ecologist? I do remember J.C. doing a documentary on Haiti that considered the deforestation effects of of the charcoal industry that caused all the top soil to erode off the mountains, he described the mountains as "showing their bones" this had consequences on local waters surrounding the island which then had other consequences it was a very interesting study in ecological collapse. Also this character might find itself in conflict with GODco. as per GODco's description in Zebs. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 28, 2020 - 6:34am | Not so sure about rockets that land on water. perhaps he has a ship that has a shuttle bay and he can land water assets by shuttle? could it be that he owns one of the 4-5 ag ships in the frontier and uses the domes for study of specimens? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 28, 2020 - 2:08pm | @Jedion, I like this comment, "Also this character might find itself in conflict with GODco. as per GODco's description in Zebs." I'm pnodering the ag ship thing. Might be a little much for Cousteau. Maybe an associate has an ag ship. -iggy |
March 28, 2020 - 2:12pm | I think that we should take some old surplus ship from the Clarion fleet to be our Calypso. See the history of Cousteau's Calypso here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RV_Calypso -iggy |
March 28, 2020 - 2:49pm | Odyssey is the name of the TV series Cousteau did. Maybe that is the name of the vessel that ferries Calypso about the frontier to visit the many oceans. Then Odyssey could also visit uninhabitable worlds and space phenomenon to investigate them too. -iggy |
March 29, 2020 - 2:45pm | Odyssey is a good name. I want to say its been used in sci fi for a ship's name but I cant really name a property as an example. Even so its a good name. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 29, 2020 - 4:26pm | Odyssey is a good name. I want to say its been used in sci fi for a ship's name but I cant really name a property as an example. Even so its a good name. In Oblivion- the ship sent to investigate the Tet was the Odyssey. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 30, 2020 - 9:29am | IIRC, Odyssey is also the name of the ship from the 'Ulysses 31' cartoon. |
March 30, 2020 - 6:25pm | Odyssey was also the command module of the Apollo 13 mission. -iggy |
