Deeper and deeper the rabbit hole goes.

Looking forward to more; deeper thoughts to follow once I've done approximately everything required to prepare tomorrow's dinner.

>"Transbelvia," Gryphon said. "It's a principality in the Carpathians, part of >Dacia. They use the same alphabet as the Orussians."

It's... the Dacia Sandero's oddly-advanced and much beleagured cousin.

Ok, so not gun kata -- that's ok, it's not needed (and I expected to be wrong :), this works much better

as always, you guys spin an amazing story.

LAST EDITED ON Apr-04-15 AT 06:05 PM (EDT)
 
Things are getting interesting just about sums it up. Anyone else have odds on the Blev being "not from around here"?

Please, it started on the first try (admittedly with a little fiddling). It's obviously from Out Of Town.

...that or the native variant of the Belv is more robust in the Strike Witches universe.

Well, in fairness, they did replace almost half the engine's parts before trying it.

True, true. But they replaced it with parts crafted to the original specs, as it were - as close to authentic as they could.

Their chances of success (especially with sixty percent of the original engine still in residence) shouldn't have been very high, is what I'm sayin'. :)

...then again I actually know next to nothing about automobiles period, so. Salt grain about the size of a beagle goes here.

>True, true. But they replaced it with parts crafted to the original
>specs, as it were - as close to authentic as they could.

That's part of the joke about the Belv, actually - Gryphon's discovery that the design was really quite good, and what let down previous examples of the type he's experienced was a combination of substandard materials and shoddy build quality. He and Shirley are, more or less by accident, essentially hand-building the car the Belv's designer intended, rather than the one Transbelvian Automobile Industrial Works managed to come up with.

>...then again I actually know next to nothing about automobiles
>period, so. Salt grain about the size of a beagle goes here.

"Ewww, what is this?!" Lucchini demanded, pulling an epic face and backing away from the salt lick. "Where's Wolfgang?"

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I see, sayeth the blind man. :)

Someone has clearly used their powers for Evil, and must be punished.

...probably not in the name of any celestial bodies, though.

> He and Shirley are, more or less
>by accident, essentially hand-building the car the Belv's designer
>intended, rather than the one Transbelvian Automobile Industrial Works
>managed to come up with.
>

Now I'm wondering if this is the production-model Belv of this universe, or the prototype-built-in-a-barn that would have been reduced to the tiny tin box with a two-stroke motor of the WL universe if it had been put into mass production.

Peter Eng
--
"This isn't the design I gave you!"
"We can mass-produce this at a price people will pay."

>Now I'm wondering if this is the production-model Belv of this
>universe, or the prototype-built-in-a-barn that would have been
>reduced to the tiny tin box with a two-stroke motor of the WL universe
>if it had been put into mass production.

It was the discovery of it in a barn, before it was revealed as a Belv, that made me wonder if Lucchini had stumbled across a prototype 2CV.

That would have been interesting, too, but not nearly as funny.

(If we really wanted to bend things? Imagine if they'd found a Citroen DS!)

>(If we really wanted to bend things? Imagine if they'd found a
>Citroen DS!)

I was going to suggest a Trabant, but then I discovered that a) they weren't produced until '57 and b) they were produced by a country that didn't exist in our world in 1946 and isn't likely to exist in the Strike Witches 'verse at all. Which would make the discovery certainly very interesting, but might result in Gryphon trying to get the Trabant up to 88 mph and sending 1.21 gigawatts through it. Which would likely do something to the poor car, but it probably wouldn't be the desired effect. (Assuming a Trabant could actually reach 88mph without a tailwind and downhill slope.)

Ebony the Black Dragon

"Life is like an anole. Sometimes it's green. Sometimes it's brown. But it's always a small Caribbean lizard."

My own thought? Original Mini Cooper. Which, in fairness, could actually be derived from this universe's Belv. The Mini Belv. I... I want one.

In British Racing Green.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

>The Mini Belv. I... I want one.
>
>In British Racing Green.

Sure you wouldn't prefer one in red, one in white, and one in blue...?

--
Unable to save the day: File is read-only.

They're for the spares I'll (somewhat inevitably) need later.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

"Neuroi-chan, you're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"

>(If we really wanted to bend things? Imagine if they'd found a
>Citroen DS!)

D'you know, I've always rather wanted a DS. When I was a tiny, tiny child, the people in the apartment across the hall had one. I had no idea what it was or why it was special, of course - I was, I think, four when we moved out of that apartment - but I distinctly recall being strangely fascinated by it. Many years later, when I knew what a DS was, I saw it in an old photo my parents took of their own car (which was parked next to it), and had one of those holy-crap-that-was-real? moments. (This is also why Coraline Jones has one in UF - it appears briefly in Welcome to the BPRD.)

Anyway, the great thing about the image above is that the DS was startlingly futuristic in 1955. In 1946, in a world where nobody had been making new cars in Gallia since 1939, it would be downright mind-blowing...

... although I've just seen one source claiming that the actual Citroën development project that eventually resulted in the DS began in 1937. Hmm...

--G.
Who knows what desperate Gallians may have stashed in the catacombs during the frenzy of the Fall of Paris?
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>D'you know, I've always rather wanted a DS. When I was a tiny, tiny
>child, the people in the apartment across the hall had one. I had no
>idea what it was or why it was special, of course - I was, I think,
>four when we moved out of that apartment - but I distinctly
>recall being strangely fascinated by it.

Oh yeah. Someone living along the route I walked to elementary school on owned one, and I would pass it every morning (from behind, so I saw those roof-mounted lights first every time), and I always marveled at just how freaking different it was.

>Anyway, the great thing about the image above is that the DS was
>startlingly futuristic in 1955.

I never thought of it as futuristic myself, just fascinatingly weird. Or maybe weirdly fascinating. I can't be sure now, forty years later...

-- Bob
-------------------
My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.

>Please, it started on the first try (admittedly with a little
>fiddling). It's obviously from Out Of Town.
>
>...that or the native variant of the Belv is more robust in the Strike
>Witches universe.

I would attribute said success more to Shirley & UF-G's mad motor skillzz than either of the two options mentioned so far.

I actually love the way Wilma sort of backed into her breakthrough; and we do have the possibility that UF-G was referring to something other than having detected Wilma's burgeoning connection to the force.

Ah, yes, let us not forget the arrival of documents classified enough as to require hand delivery over and above whatever other protocols are required. And all the way from Los Angeles. This had me pondering until I remembered that it is where the Hughes Aircraft Company was founded, and was still based, especially their R&D department.

>Ah, yes, let us not forget the arrival of documents classified enough
>as to require hand delivery over and above whatever other protocols
>are required. And all the way from Los Angeles.

Not Los Angeles. Los Alamos.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>>Ah, yes, let us not forget the arrival of documents classified enough
>>as to require hand delivery over and above whatever other protocols
>>are required. And all the way from Los Angeles.
>
>Not Los Angeles.
>Los Alamos.
>
Oh. Yes, pretty much any documentation from THERE would qualify, wouldnt it?

And that is even more disturbing than who's documentation I thought he was requesting.

>Not Los Angeles.
>Los Alamos.

And here I was just about to ask the other day if the mention of classified materials in the previous chapter might have something to do with the Allied boffins and a certain "gadget."

>This had me
>pondering until I remembered that it is where the Hughes Aircraft
>Company was founded, and was still based, especially their R&D
>department.

I know this was based on a mis-reading, but it does lead me to wonder what the Strike Witches equivalent of the Spruce Goose would be. Carrier-sized waterskis?

LAST EDITED ON Apr-05-15 AT 01:09 AM (EDT)
 
Well well! I figured that maybe UF-Gryph was working on SOME kind of evolution (maybe even a revolution?) of the Jedi philosophy while working with the witches, but what it might ultimately become is yet to be seen. I mean, I've always thought of the his ryū as an evolutionary off-shoot of the Jedi ways - given its origins - but this is promising to be an even further departure from that.

In the broadest term I currently like to think of it as a new order of Force Warriors, though with less emphasis on melee combat and more on energy manipulation; more Jedi Consular, perhaps, than Jedi Guardian (to use SWTOR terminology).

Also, as an aside - anyone ELSE here, when you started to twigg to what UF-G was doing, get this picture of some kinda WWII-era-looking lightsabre? I did, so maybe its just me...?

Nice little parallel between Trude's reaction to seeing Neuroi-chan and Erica in action, and UF-Gryphon's OWN reaction to first seeing the 501st in action too. :)

I was thinking Jedi Consular as soon as I realized Gryphon wasn't about to try to teach them kenjutsu. Kind of ironic, though, that the Jedi who focus on Force manipulation over the lightsaber are named after their diplomatic functions, yet the witches going that route are still warriors.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu

>I was thinking Jedi Consular as soon as I realized Gryphon wasn't
>about to try to teach them kenjutsu. Kind of ironic, though, that the
>Jedi who focus on Force manipulation over the lightsaber are named
>after their diplomatic functions, yet the witches going that route are
>still warriors.

Well, one ought to keep in mind that "Jedi Guardian" and "Jedi Consular" are only the class names because the designers of Star Wars D20 knew people would spot it sooner if they called them "Jedi Fighter" and "Jedi Magic-User".

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Nice little parallel between Trude's reaction to seeing Neuroi-chan
>and Erica in action, and UF-Gryphon's OWN reaction to first seeing the
>501st in action too. :)

Where it's due etc., that is in both cases a Doctor Who reference. Both the 10th and 11th Doctors occasionally did that when confronted with a situation they found momentarily incomprehensible (e.g., 10th in the scene where the Titanic rammed the TARDIS - no, really, that happened - and 11th when he realized that the towering inferno in the Sexy Constable costume was in fact little Amelia Pond).

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>Also, as an aside - anyone ELSE here, when you started to twigg to
>what UF-G was doing, get this picture of some kinda WWII-era-looking
>lightsabre? I did, so maybe its just me...?

Well, Ursula did make that micro-Strike engine that could fit into a hilt cylinder....

LAST EDITED ON Apr-06-15 AT 02:30 PM (EDT)
 
>>Also, as an aside - anyone ELSE here, when you started to twigg to
>>what UF-G was doing, get this picture of some kinda WWII-era-looking
>>lightsabre? I did, so maybe its just me...?
>
>Well, Ursula did make that micro-Strike engine that could fit
>into a hilt cylinder....

Y'know, I think I like where that line of thought is going! Now to brainstorm the other components...

I mean if they COULD make it work it'd be awesome; I imagine you'd have to be a witch and/or tapping the Force to create the blade, thus making the weapon useless if a non-witch tried to use it against them. Kinda like the mystical equivalent of bio-metric weapon safeguard.

It'd be easier to combine it all into a collapsible unit with sleeves and so forth - reducing the cast to wearing their Service Maillots, alas - and go full Mega Man. With added Briefcase Iron Man Suit.

Actually, y'know what I said about this being simple? Scratch that. Scratch that completely. =]

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

I was just going to say, use it as a maneuvering jet for the rocket pack, but, whatever, dude.

Yeah, but that's, like, remotely sensible and useful. This way you can get Striker Units on your hands. Combine with heavy armour and you have a massive potential for the kind of Ramming Always Works tactics that are, let's be honest, kind of hilarious.

Insert Magic Missile joke here. =]

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

Given that UF-Gryphon has seen the Jei blades used by the twins over in SotS (and presumably handled one for himself), I don't see why he couldn't attempt to create something similar here if he really had to.

However, I also don't see why he'd go about putting extremely dangerous weapons into the hands of those who AREN'T trained to use them, which is most witches. (Mio could probably handle one, but not, say, Minna.)

This would also technically require UF-G to teach a form of Force-use / swordsmanship that he has no training in, which would also be a pretty impressive trick. :)

>This would also technically require UF-G to teach a form of Force-use
>/ swordsmanship that he has no training in, which would also be a
>pretty impressive trick. :)

if he could puzzle out the theory of "make an energy blade from a wooden stick" then he could probably adapt the lightsaber forms to suit.... of course this is like saying that Egyptian is easy once you learn the vowels, or that Tiger Soup is easy once you've caught the tiger...

-Z

---
Remember kids: guns make you stupid, duct tape makes you smart.

I was going to liken it to "Well, I've watched an F1 race before, so let me have a crack at building a McLaren engine!" :)

Mind you that I'm operating on the assumption that he's handled one before, not just seen them. :) But yes, it does seem a bit of a stretch.

>if he could puzzle out the theory of "make an energy blade from a
>wooden stick"

Huh? I thought G had someone who taught him, and that he was teaching priss. Hmm. Research required, methinks. Trying to remember which exile story this first comes up in, anyone have a hint?

>>if he could puzzle out the theory of "make an energy blade from a
>>wooden stick"
>
>Huh? I thought G had someone who taught him, and that he was teaching
>priss. Hmm. Research required, methinks. Trying to remember which
>exile story this first comes up in, anyone have a hint?

I think you guys might have a wire or two crossed. Gryphon doesn't know the Jyuraian Jei technique, which involves using an object (normally a carved piece of wood) as a focus for manifesting and controlling a blade composed entirely of the wielder's own concentrated spirit energy. That's a trick that very few, if any, people outside the Jyuraian royal family can do, and it isn't in his repertoire.

You made be conflating it with the shinseina tamashiken, Katsujinkenryš's trademark "Inviolate Soul Blade" technique, in which a normal weapon is reinforced with the wielder's ki to make it abnormally resistant to inconveniences like breakage and being cut in half by someone with a lightsaber. Both methods can be used to fight a high-level esper battle with a stick, but the implementations are a bit different. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.