I tend to keep Birth off to one side of my mind at all times. To some extent the entire project suffers from feature creep, but rather than the usual addition of more and more features, instead it’s constant addition of depth to already planned features. A fair amount of this is just that I had never completely decided on the granularity of the simulation to begin with.

So for the last few hours, I’ve been whiling away the time reading about ion thrusters, and trying to decide on some sort of formal design for the engine of the space ship. Since no engines exist that exhibit the capabilities needed for our theoretical ship, this means a strange walk into “who the fuck knows” land, as I try and guess what parts a non-existent engine could possibly need. Some portion of this is obvious, there must be some form of reaction and some form of exhaust. Whether they are separated parts as they are in a car engine, or contained in the same space as they are in an ion engine is a bit of a hard debate. In large part, it works best if the only segment of the engine exposed to space is a single metal part much like the body of the craft. That way the functional segments of the engine are all available for on-site maintenance and repairs.

But significant questions must remain, does the engine produce the electricity or does it run off electricity? Does it require coolant? Is the reaction explosive in nature, corrosive, or expansive? An explosion would be more like a traditional rocket, it would require large amounts of fuel and also oxygen. Engine based off the basic Ion engine design tend to be highly corrosive to their parts, but require no oxygen and therefore can be very hot but will never explode. Expansive on the other hand gains force from the rapid expansion of a gas in a contained space with release in only the intended direction of force, which can be a pretty low maintenance but fuel expensive method. Technically the first and third methods are almost exactly the same, since an explosion is simply the hot and violent expansion of a source fuel. Perhaps a super high pressure containment unit which leaks a small amount of high explosive material into a blasting chamber would be the ideal form of those two.

The underlying model of the Ion engine on the other hand is high maintenance, ultra low (compared to rocketry) thrust, but super fuel efficient which allows for greater top speeds since it can run significantly longer. Most importantly though, although the engine itself is fuel efficient in terms of momentum/L, it requires an outside source of electricity in order to run. This brings a whole new barrel of monkeys to the field, should it be supplied by batteries, a motor, or a miniature power plant? It would be very understandable for larger ships to feature nuclear reactors, but what are the limitations to that? Should all big ships have nuclear reactors or only military ships? Could this mean a bunch of ships with really big standard ICEs?

Of course, if I was purely interested in making a narrative based game based entirely around piloting this would hardly matter. But since the beginning birth was intended to be largely simulation. Partly because without these levels of simulation it would be impossible to ever play the part of an engineer like Kaylee for instance. Perhaps I’m very strange, but I think it would be fun to see how long and how well you could keep a ship running on a shoe string budget.

Lately, I’ve found myself very torn. I’ve held two great dreams in life for a long time now, two things that I always wanted to accomplish. The first is to be a game designer, the second is to be an artist, preferably within the games industry. The two have had me torn at odds for a long time now, Game Design I value more, but I have a harder time completing anything in it, even simple projects. Art on the other hand, I’ve been building a huge amount of work experience with, but still remain hugely limited, like I’m always struggling just to catch up with the coat tails of the artists around me.

The greatest problem though, is that recently a third dream has emerged, and without my even realizing it has completely overshadowed both of those dreams. This one though, is probably the hardest of all to accomplish.

My dream is to build a school, of sorts. I’m sure that most people who know me, and my opinions of the education system, would be very surprised by that. Of course, I hardly plan on becoming a teacher or a professor at a present institution, since the teaching itself is not my dream.

Ever since I was young, I knew I was in the top ten percent of my classes, of my school, possibly even my city. You have to understand I’m not saying that to boast, most of my readers will have probably done as well or better. I was born in a lower middle class family, my father had training in nuclear school while in the Navy, but nobody in my immediate family had, or has yet gotten, a college diploma. I primarily blame this on us all being rebellious fucks, but each of us had… other factors as well.

There have been a number of major roadblocks in my life, my father pushing me out of the school system, and then into college too early, my depression, the simple fact that my family has always been too poor to really afford college, but not poor enough to qualify for any sort of aid. Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m a rebellious fuck as well. ~.^ (I’m also mortally afraid of my own shadow, which doesn’t help.) My thought is… is this really all that uncommon a story? How many gifted losers are there, out there, right this minute. People who, like me, had the smarts to succeed, but not the tools, not the support system, not the environment.

The school in my mind is not a school as the current education system would consider it. It would be open to high school age on up. The curricula would be solid, I actually strongly believe in the importance of basic education, but it wouldn’t be the focus. The focus of the school would be a place for the individual to heal, to be with people like them, to challenge their own personal roadblocks, and to face the world again with a set of tools to support their own unique brands of genius. There would be no regular grading, I’m completely against it. My current thought is tests, though not necessarily the standard variation of test we have now. It’s important to me the atmosphere be non-judgmental, it’s not about when a student completes their courses, or how well. The point is for the student to develop their own wings, capable of carrying them through the rest of their life.

I’m sure there are some who will think my dream is too kind. But having observed first hand the results of wings broken by life, I find the current system too cruel for my taste. Still, I face a significant challenge, how can I form this particular dream into a reality. As it stands… I have no idea.

In response to Ysh’s Meme tagging me.

I present you EVE screenshot number 6.

This is my Celestis, my first cruiser. I used it to hop around the higher end of low sec, clearing drone bases for loot and glory. For a while I even tried some exploring with it… didn’t work out for me for some reason.

Other than that…

I had the initial glimmer of an idea for this on Monday… truth is I haven’t got much of an idea what to do with it. The core concept was a cross between a motorcycle and a snowboard, basically allowing urban snowboarding… though possibly even higher speeds. Maybe I’ll work on something resembling a skate clone to put it into, I’ve also wanted to work on a project involving high speed movement.

My personal computer (the Beast) has, with the help of a power supply aptly named “Beast Power”, recrossed the river styx and is currently running just fine.

What does this mean for me? All of my installed games are back. All of my project data is back. I once again have access to professional level photomanipulation and 3d modeling tools. My entire music library once again at the tips of my fingers (sadly I’m not sure it’ll ever recover from the hdd wipe of last year though.) Reference Material!

What does this mean for you… don’t actually know yet, I’ll get back to you on that.

“Listen, Ms. Glaswel-” He began in a calm reassuring tone.

“That’s Mrs. Glaswel. It took four years hard fucking to earn that title, so I’ll thank you not to forget it.” Her manner was anything but reassuring. She shifted ever so slightly in her seat, but it gave the distinct impression of a snake coiling before a strike.

“Yes, well, Mrs. Glaswel… I’m afraid the company is undergoing some, restructuring.”

It had been quiet on that particular floor of that particular building until just then. A sort of cloying silence had hung in the air, bringing with it a distinct sense of foreboding. That was changed in an instant.

“I’m FIRED!?” A few more moments of indistinct shouting and even less distinct middle management run around speak passed before the door flew open. “Yeah well you can take your ‘inappropriate conduct’ complaints and shove them up the nearest…”

Later that night

“So how was work today?” Her wife was leaning back further than her chair was designed to go, the foot she wrapped around the leg of her desk providing only a tenuous amount of support. The drawings scattered around her desktop ranged from barely started to almost complete, without any one really seeming to be the focus of the desk space.

“I… was.” She started but couldn’t bring herself to finish.

“Oh, you was. Sounds fascinating, care to elaborate?” The twinkle of mischief in her wife’s eye set her on edge even more.

“I was fired, okay!” she snapped, glaring off into some unknown space to avoid having to look into her lover’s eyes. The chair came crashing to the ground, spilling the young brunette artist out at her feet. She looked down incredulously as the laughing started, but then found herself joining in despite the tears she could feel forming in her eyes.

It was a short drop down to the ground where laughed together for a while. Finally the tears took over and all she could do was sob while the young brunette held her close. “We can’t help it now,” the artist mused, “might as well just relax tonight. We can worry about what to do about this tomorrow. So… what do you want for dinner?”

“Chinese.” She half sobbed.

“Chinese it is then.”

* * *

Hmm… I don’t feel like this one has a proper ending. Oh well, I just wanted to get something written for now, maybe I’ll come back and make some changes later.