• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

The End and Afterwards

Shuttles:

The Endeavour carries three classes of shuttles: Type-C, Type-K, and Type-S. All three types are

Type-C shuttles are rated for 30 passengers or 15 tonnes to Low Earth Orbit; or carrying 20 tonnes down to the surface. Dimensions are 27m in length, 20 m in wingspan, and 10 m in height. It's not far off the dimensions of a Gulfstream G500, but with a wider body and rather different wings. I'm not an artist, so I've stolen a Skylon SSTO picture (it uses similar concepts) and hammered it hugely to fit:
View attachment 62

The Endeavour has 10 Type-C shuttles, of which 3 have VTOL capability (originally 12, but it donated two, one VTOL one, to Endurance). Two of these are in the forward shuttle bay and the remaining 8in the rear shuttle bay.

Type-K shuttles can carry sixty passengers (nominally) or 45 tonnes, or a combination of the two. They have a similar wingspan to the Type-Cs, but are longer and higher: 35m long, 25m wingspan, 15m height. Think of an elongated version of the Type-Cs, and more similar in size to the old Space Shuttle Orbiter. Endeavour has eight of these; 6 in the forward shuttle bay and the remaining 2 in the rear shuttle bay.

View attachment 63


Type-S shuttles are the big beasts - not far off a Boeing 737 in dimensions. They carry 150 passengers, or 70 tonnes up to orbit, or can carry 100 tonnes down from orbit to landing. Again, based on the overall bodyplan above, but with a body about twice as wide and nearly twice as long: dimensions are 50m length, 35m wingspan, 15m height. All four of Endeavour's Type-S shuttles are in the forward shuttle bay.

View attachment 64
Before you said where you got the image from, I was thinking that it looked very like Skylon.
 
Okay,

A topic I have considered a lot.

The Rules of Wom

Now, what do we know about wom? Wom has a special bat that could be 3d printed. Wom is a game designed to torture younger siblings with. Wom takes a lot of energy. Wom can be played in a fair sized garden. Wom can be played three player.

All this leads me to surmise the following.

1. Wom has two teams, they take it in turns to bat and bowl.
2. Wom has one batter, who stands in the centre, the goal of Wom is to pass the ball over them, or hit a post that they have to defend. If the batter hits their womstick, they lose points. If bowlers hit the pole, they gain points.
3. There can be up to four bowlers - they can pass the ball between them or aim it at the womstick. Each bowler has their own womstick, if the ball hits these, the batter gains a point.
4. The ball can therefore be thrown between bowlers, forcing the batter to spin quite a lot. If they fall down, they lose points.
5. Teams are usually three batters and three bowlers. Each batter has 15 minutes.
6. Wombats are round but they have a catcher's mitt bit in the centre. If a batter managers to catch a ball in this (which is very rare) they gain five points.

Wom is an ancient Earth game and the database on the game indicates in was invented in renaissance times. However archaeological surveys of Earth are yet to uncover a single wombat. The origin of the game therefore remains shrouded in mystery
 
Very good - just a couple of corrections and expansions:

- The bit in the centre of the wombat (that's just very fractionally larger than the ball) is the pouch, and it is indeed worth five points to catch the womball in it (in slang, the womball is sometimes referred to as "Uncle Bulgaria" for no apparent reason).
- When played properly, there are five players per side, but you can play it socially by just taking turns to bat. Three-a-side, as you correctly say, is a variant played when you have fewer players.
- There are four nets (each about two feet high and wide) erected at the cardinal directions, eight metres from the womstick. These are the burrows, and the batter aims to score points by getting the ball into any one burrow (one point a time). It is possible to buy smaller versions for the three-a-side game, one foot wide and high, placed five metres from the womstick.
- There's actually only a single womstick, but any of the five members of the fielding side may bowl, as you correctly say. There's a circle five metres from the womstick (three metres, in the 3-a-side game); bowlers cannot bowl from within this circle. Bowlers may only pass the ball around up to five times before bowling.
- You get out by being caught (fielders may not stand between the burrows and the wombatter), or by a bowler striking the womstick.
 
Last edited:
Music to an author's ears :)

And, as well as the ebook being available already, I know that the paperback will be available very soon as well.

The e-book is on my kindle ready for reading. I drew a cover for "The End, and Afterwards", and you are able to see it on Deviantart. The Artist is Warg of Anthropocene.
 
I started the e-book. I feel impatient for "The End" to happen. The events that lead to "The End" just had to come in conjunction, something that could easily have been avoided. Knowing what will happen, we feel frustration with Mr. Anders campaigning to have the funding for the star-ships cut down, knowing that Sapiens needs more star-ships. Oh, it will be a great irony for him.
 
Back
Top