Felarya Naval Vehicles

Solar sailers: Think of it as a cross between the design of a sailing ship from the late 1700 mixed with the tech and mobility of a modern day warship. they run on solar energy absorbed by solar sails.

Skull Submarines: Submarines used by pirates on the high seas, named for the skull design on the front. the front opens up like a pair of jaws to grab on to a ship or tear pieces off of it.

A "repellent" used by sailors is a sonic hammer, a device that project sound waves that will stun or drive away any aquatic creature in reach. however, many humanoid hybrids are either resistant or immune to the blast (anko for one)

Solar sails... I'm not seeing that working for anything other than skiffs and really small, single man boats.

Sonic hammer is a pretty good idea, it'd be pretty effective too. I don't see how anko would be immune to it though.

the reason I said predatures like anko are immune was that i didnt want to make the hammer device seem too powerful. the hammer neds work anyway

the solar sails was an idea i picked up from Treasure Planet some odd years ago, wanted to give it a test on the forum before using it.

Well, yes, its good to not make things too powerful but you need to give a reason for it.

As for the Skull submarine, that seems more like a customized submarine than an entire class of vehicles.

The solar sails would be, unless highly advanced, ineffective at night... And how exactly do those boats work? I mean, if its a sailing ship it uses wind power and if its not it should use something else.

you are right about the submarine... been thinking of a band of pirates for felarya and thought the sub might make a good touch.

with the solar ships, they would use engines and propellers, and the sails can keep energy in reserve. advanced sails... well that might be the case, the idea was neve rperfected to begin with

The sonic hammer would just seriously disorientate giants, like a really nasty flashbang without the flash. (Sound moves faster underwater so the bang would be more severe).
That idea actually lets larger ships exist in Felarya, before it was kind od hard to imagine how anything short of a warship would survive in Felaryan seas.

Well, I figure that experienced Felaryan sailors might have different styles of ship.

One thing I can see not being very popular is open decks. I actually figure most Felaryan ships would have limited submersible capabilities, for those times when a mermaid tries to drag it under to pry it open or just to play with it.

That's why I think sailing ships would be unpopular, even solar sails, as there's too great a risk of one predator attack ruining all of the sails and rigging.

If this 'sonic hammer' thing is another way of saying SONAR, it'll do more than 'disorient' a giant.

Studies have been conducted with the sensitivity of whales and the like with active sonar, but in those tests they don't use a submarine's sphere array at close range. At a distance, they cause disorientation with some of the more sensitive whales, and avoidance behaviors in the lesser sensitive ones. Divers in the water of ports where submarines are occasionally get pinged, and if they do you can guarantee the diver will not be staying in the water for long. Generally speaking with divers in the water ports will fly particular flags to prevent the use of active sonar arrays, and there are also precautions taken on the ship's themselves to prevent sonar use. That being said it does of course still happen, and depending on how close the divers are people do get injured.

At close range (ie chlaena right before climbing onto a ship or a mermaid coming up from underneath one to break the keel) the sonar would go from 'disorienting' to 'dangerous'. If we're talking smaller creatures (ie less than 50ft long) it could even be 'deadly'. An active ping from a sonar sphere of a modern warship would cause severe tissue damage at such close ranges, even in a big creature.

Another item not necessarily related to the above discussion but still related to naval vessels and predators would be radar masts and harpies. People are not allowed to go aloft when the electronics arrays of a warship are active. You will microwave yourself in very short order if you tried. A harpy attempting to attack a modern naval ship with active electronics suites aloft would be severely injured or killed in the attempt depending on their size and the particularities of said suite.



Fortunately for the preds, most of Felarya isn't at our level of technology. I highly doubt a majority of the seagoing vessels of Felarya even have electronics suites, especially advanced radar/lidar. The point I would however note to you is that a sound weapon is much easier to make and much more easily employed in an aquatic environment, so depending on the size/amplification of this weapon you propose it might indeed be capable of far more than currently implied. More thought needs to go into the construction and application of such a device to properly ascertain the damage it could do.

Hell, you could even take it a step farther and make sound-based weaponry a taboo for the more advanced sea-cultures. If you've ever read Timothy Zahn's Conqueror's Series, the war starts because humans light up their ships with various communications bands where some are dangerous/deadly to their elder society causing the aliens to mistake the comms attempt as a motif of war. Something similiar could have happened in the past between humans and the organized underwater-cities, shaping the current status quo of seagoing vessels in Felarya.

[quote="aethernavale"]If this 'sonic hammer' thing is another way of saying SONAR, it'll do more than 'disorient' a giant.


you could say the Sonic hammer is a weapon, but its not sonar. Its just a repellent tuned to certain frequencies. Im well aware of the effects of sonar, so the science lesson wasnt exactly nessacary. This idea is a simple way to get larger vessels into the waters of felarya.

Humans are allowed to have weapons Axel. I don't see any reason why things couldn't be like Aether described them. The sonic hammer couldn't really be used as an offensive weapon, the effective damage range is too short.

Hmm, reflecting on what's been said, and my own thoughts, here's an idea.

VMV-Torkudas

The "Torkudas" is the current Vishmital and Negavian naval vehicles of choice. Certain members of the Vishmitals were eager to explore Felarya, believing the ocean might provide an easier method than land. After the first few mermaid encounters, they were forced to scrap these plans - however, Vishmital naval engineers began working on a ship modified for Felarya. The "Torkudas" was the result, named for the local fauna.

The Torkudas has a long, oval hull, made of very hard alloys. There is not much deck room, most of the upper parts of the ship being enclosed. The ship was designed mainly to survive predator attacks. Firstly, the tough, smooth hull is difficult for a predator to either puncture or grip. If a predator were massive enough to somehow drag the Torkudas under, they would find no way to break into it and the Torkudas can actually operate totally submerged for a period of time. However, this hopefully never happens. While original tests tried to make engines capable of running silently to avoid detection, the design team suddenly hit upon another idea. The engines of the Torkudas are very noisy, designed to make a frequency while running that is highly irritating to the ears of underwater predators - only the most desperate would approach it and they can easily be driven off by devastating sonic charges. The Torkudas also carries a small armament of light autocannons, to fight off pirates or harpies.

The small fleet of Negavian "Torkudas" have been a success. It was with these that Negav first opened contact and trade with Shillapo and Threnos Islands and even made limited contact with Ryzelm'oire.

Hmm, I like the concept. Im still partial to the hammer and solar ships, but your idea looks promising if its transporting people of importance like a member of the council.

Why just important people? You know, people like to try and stay alive.

Jætte_Troll wrote:

Why just important people? You know, people like to try and stay alive.

Yeah, that would be a really dick move on the council's part. Of course, political corruption wouldn't be out of the question....:/

Zillachary wrote:

Jætte_Troll wrote:

Why just important people? You know, people like to try and stay alive.

Yeah, that would be a really dick move on the council's part. Of course, political corruption wouldn't be out of the question....:/

I'm not sure how corruption would affect it. Important people wouldn't probably want to travel overseas anyways. But they would want to ensure any trading or exploration operations were successful.

Naval vehicles? why not nuclear Submarines and aircraft carriers?

luke112 wrote:

Naval vehicles? why not nuclear Submarines and aircraft carriers?

Well, despite your convictions to the contrary, Felarya is not Cold War Earth.

Jætte_Troll wrote:

Zillachary wrote:

Jætte_Troll wrote:

Why just important people? You know, people like to try and stay alive.

Yeah, that would be a really dick move on the council's part. Of course, political corruption wouldn't be out of the question....:/

I'm not sure how corruption would affect it. Important people wouldn't probably want to travel overseas anyways. But they would want to ensure any trading or exploration operations were successful.

Yeah, true. Honestly, I'm kinda' wishy-washy on Felarya's government and all that, I just recently got back into the fandom, and I haven't really felt like looking at walls of text on the Wiki, lol.

I'd also imagine that there's a lack of seaports large enough to support things like aircraft carriers.

...or really any ports in general. I noticed there really isn't any sort of port town where ships can be sent off to the sea on Felarya's main continent. That said, I can't really picture how larger ships can be built and sent off unless they can be transported somehow from Negav.

AisuKaiko wrote:

I'd also imagine that there's a lack of seaports large enough to support things like aircraft carriers.

...or really any ports in general. I noticed there really isn't any sort of port town where ships can be sent off to the sea on Felarya's main continent. That said, I can't really picture how larger ships can be built and sent off unless they can be transported somehow from Negav.

Precisely. Any ship Negav sends out needs to be able to traverse the Motamo River.

I dont know why, but the idea is starting to seem too powerful (an indestructable ship) and it seems so.... primitive, not very graceful.

the reason i proposed ships like the solar sailers was the graceful look i had envisioned of them, a ship that looked like a 1700's sailing vessel, yet with the metal and function of a modern day ship.

the Torkuda is still a great idea, dont get me wrong I like it. it just dosent feel right.

Axel Hunter wrote:

I dont know why, but the idea is starting to seem too powerful (an indestructable ship) and it seems so.... primitive, not very graceful.

the reason i proposed ships like the solar sailers was the graceful look i had envisioned of them, a ship that looked like a 1700's sailing vessel, yet with the metal and function of a modern day ship.

the Torkuda is still a great idea, dont get me wrong I like it. it just dosent feel right.

So you're saying that being graceful is more important than being powerful in shipbuilding?

Well, hope you enjoy that mermaid stomach you're going to be in.

The Torkudas fits with the stylings of the Vishmitals. If the Magiocrats designed a ship, then yes, it may look closer to the solar sailer.

sORRY, I get rather clingy to ideas I like.

As I said, The t- ship is still a good ida, im just not partial to the indistrucable sound to it. everything has to have a weakness somewhere.

now that you mention it perhaps the solar sailers are used as a luxury item instead of a major staple in the naval world of felarya (im partial to sailing ships)

Axel Hunter wrote:

sORRY, I get rather clingy to ideas I like.

As I said, The t- ship is still a good ida, im just not partial to the indistrucable sound to it. everything has to have a weakness somewhere.

now that you mention it perhaps the solar sailers are used as a luxury item instead of a major staple in the naval world of felarya (im partial to sailing ships)

Nothing is indestructible. But people aren't going to be dumb and build a ship that's not equipped to the environment. Would you go on a ship or airplane with a glaring weakness? The Torkudas is just a ship designed specifically to be protected from giant aquatic predator attacks.

Minor off-topic, but while we're on Negavian naval vehicles, how about we try to come up with other vehicles and public transport for it?