Annotated 46-3
This is a callback in more ways than one. Not only did the first big Guilded Age story arc end on an airship, it also ended on an airship where things went comically, almost stupidly wrong, resulting in a barely averted crash. But I’m pretty sure we only came up with this wrinkle in the plot at the last minute. (Whether it was me, Flo, or both of us is a bit murky in my memory here, but I know “Big Hoss Barky” is my line.)
Even if you insist that our heroes aren’t as clumsy as they were in those early days, this twist makes some sense. Syr’Nj and company are more familiar with Arkerran airships and Von Carnaj’s vessel, neither of which were nearly so restricted in terms of the number of passengers they could carry. Too bad Goblaurence didn’t design this vessel to carry six, because if the sixth one had been Hammerhead, he might’ve weighed about as much as four ex-Peacemakers, and Rana’s absence could’ve covered the rest. (As for why the ex-Peacemakers didn’t start retreating after Goblaurence started shouting, or why the sky elves didn’t try a fresh portal once they realized the ship was in danger of crashing, well…the heroes were a little distracted by their new surroundings and you can’t open portals to the same place two times in a row too quickly and look over there, is that a bird….?)
Penk’s nervous rehearsals are a nice window into his state of mind. And of course, “This has to go perfectly” is a karmic invitation to hijinks.
Goblawrence should be ashamed of himself for not building in proper buffers in his tolerances. Use the Scotty principle, man – Build for 10, claim it’s for 5, look like a fookin’ genius when it takes 8 with no problem.
Yep … and also: The weight of our Five should be pretty much negligible compared to the weight of the whole rest of the ship. It should be not very large compared to the weight of those barrels and crates we see standing around on deck. So throw a few of those overboard and you should be fine.
On the other hand: If the portal is off to one side and the vessel started banking from the suddenly added one-sided mass, which in turn sent those crates and barrels sliding to the same side, moving the centre of gravity even further sideways — *that* could cause some real problems for stability and maneuverability. Would definitely have some influence on the course, but might also send the whole thing into an uncontrolled downward spiral.
Auraugu’s desperate pedaling would also be the correct response in this case, since higher speed means more effective control surfaces, but until control has been re-established, that higher speed would also cause the airship to go where its occupants might not want it to go… as we’re going to see happening on the next page, if I remember correctly.
(of course, if mass moving sideways poses such a risk on your airship, maybe they should not have all those crates and barrels properly tied down in place, ideally as low below deck as they can, but then again this thing was built by Goblaurence, and he has different safety standards than most)
oops, that’s a “not” too many in the last sentence…
He did, but th’ others numbnuts decided to add five people’s worth o’ crates!!
I always appreciated Goblaurence’s brand of “just barely works” engineering. It really fits with his impatient genius personality.
It also reminds me of the old joke: Anyone can build a bridge that stands. It takes an engineer to built a bridge that *barely* stands.
I’ve never heard that one! It’s so, so perfectly true…
I’m not completely sure of that saying… I think a layperson would be likely to build a bridge that is completely overdone in some respects but might fail in unexpected (to its designer) ways, whereas a (good) engineer can make sure that all modes of failure are equally covered.
The optimist: The glass is half full
The pessimist: The glass is half empty
The engineer: The glass is twice as large as it needs to be
…until you consider the case of the Tacoma bridge of course, which was also designed by engineers who did what they know was the right thing, but overlooked an aspect which almost nobody had thought of because they’d only started building bridges that way very recently. Which is also true for the airship we’re looking at here. Dynamic stability is one of the most reliable sources of aircraft trouble, so I find it perfectly excusable that Goblaurence would not have considered a scenario like this, where the weight suddenly shifts. Also perfectly excusable if the misdiagnoses the issue as “too much weight” in the first few seconds. If they were merely too heavy, they’d just start gradually losing altitude. But right now, he’s way to occupied to notice that.