LAST EDITED ON Aug-24-12 AT 09:07 PM (EDT)
 
Babylon Project Galactic Database
Text Data Extraction Search: Jane's Fighting Spacecraft
Précis Search Criterion: CSF-105
SEARCH COMPLETE: APRIL 14, 2413

CSF-105 Arrow Mk III

The story of the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow is one of the great lost legends of the galaxy's aerospace community. An atmospheric jet fighter under development on Earth in the 1950s, half a century before First Contact, the Arrow showed revolutionary promise by the standards of the local technology level of the time - and it was canceled for nebulous, probably political reasons before initial flight testing was even completed. For equally mysterious reasons, the prototypes and tooling were subsequently destroyed.

Conspiracy theories and widespread bitterness over these decisions still abounded in Earth's military aviation community at the time of Contact, and even today the Arrow remains a wistful dream of many aerospace antiquarians. It's been held up for centuries as an example of a promising road inexplicably not taken during Earth's critical early Jet Age.

Which made it all the more startling when starfighters obviously based on the Arrow, in the style of the Wedge Defense Force's RetroTech series, appeared in the skies over Earth Alliance-occupied Canada during the 2412 Battle of Earth. Broadcasting the outlawed IFF code of the Royal Canadian Air Force, four dozen Arrows launched from hidden sites in the hinterlands of central, western, and far-northern Canada, entering the fray on the side of the Galactic Alliance. With performance far superior to that of Earthforce's SA-23J Thunderbolt Starfury fighter, the Forty-Eight (as they have since entered aerospace folklore) punched well above their weight in the battle, cleaning up Canadian airspace, wiping out the rogue planetary defense satellites in their sector, and paving the way for Galactic Alliance ground troops to take Ottawa. At day's end, only five Canadian airframes had been destroyed and six damaged, with a loss of seven aircrew.

After the battle, IPO investigators learned that the Arrow had quietly been in development for several years before the Earth Alliance crackdown of 2406 outlawed the Dominion of Canada. The original intent seems to have been to create a homegrown equivalent to the RetroTech line while reviving a Canadian aviation icon for purposes of national morale. When the crackdown occurred, the Arrow team managed - with the connivance of certain RCAF personnel - to conceal the existence of the project from the Earthdome bureaucrats and inspectors who were sent in to take over the administration of the former country.

The project continued in desperate secrecy throughout the Earthdome occupation. Testing was conducted in the far frozen north, meticulously timed to avoid detection by the Dome's surveillance satellite network, and production was financed through a series of complicated budgetary cutouts and brilliant schemes dreamed up by the team's intrepid managers. By late 2411, 48 Arrow Mk IIIs and their crews stood ready at secret bases throughout the Canadian hinterland. All that was needed was an opportunity to strike that offered some hope, however slim, for success... and the Galactic Alliance invasion was precisely that.

Following the reorganization of Earth's sovereign nations in the wake of Earthdome's collapse, the renegade RCAF and the engineering team responsible for the Arrow's rebirth were both made legitimate enterprises again. Today the Arrow is in full and open production, and has been selected for service by not only the RCAF, but other forces around Earth and beyond - including the Royal Salusian Flying Corps and the WDF's aerospace strike/superiority subsidiary, the United States Air Force™.

Designation: CSF-105 Arrow Mk III
WDF Procurement Number: CSF-105C
Manufacturer: Avro Canada
Entered service: 2412

Power system: General Atomics JCR-49 power converter/fusion reactor
Propulsion system: 2x Orenda FPS.30 Haudenosaunee axial fusion turbines (rated at 300 KTU each)
Speed rating: 140 MGLT
Flight control system: Avro Canada 4K7C dynamic flight control system
Maneuver rating: 80 DPF
Navigation: Narmox Zr-400 computer system
FTL: Incom GBk-435F motivator drive unit (hyperdrive)
Drive rating: 1.2
Shields: Avro Canada CRC2 barrier shield system
Shield rating: 55 SBD
Armor: Composite-reinforced titanium/supraluminum alloy hull
Armor rating: 55 RU

Description: Fixed-configuration all-condition aerospace superiority fighter
Crew: 1 pilot, 1 weapons officer

Mass, fully loaded (standard armament): 68,000 lb.
Mass, empty: 49,000 lb.
Reaction mass capacity: 12,000 lb.

DIMENSIONS
Length: 77'9"
Wingspan: 50'
Height: 20'6"

ARMAMENTS
Fixed armaments: 2x General Atomics PF-32 rapid fire particle beam cannon
Expendable armaments: 8x Canadarms "Velvet Fist" medium-range air-to-air missile

ANALYSIS

The performance of the Arrow Mk III is as startling as was its first appearance on the galactic stage. Blisteringly fast and yet still highly maneuverable, armed with deadly weapons whose capabilities were largely unknown to the opposition when the fighter first appeared, and sturdily built with a considerable capacity for punishment, the first four dozen Arrows owned the skies over Canada.

However, this performance is not entirely without cost. The Arrow is expensive and tricky to produce thanks to its exotic alloy hull (which, coupled with the difficulties of secret production, is why there were only 48 of them in the original run), and its combination of speed and maneuverability makes it more than some pilots can handle. Extensive training and, ideally, prior starfighter experience are necessary to make a successful Arrow pilot, as well as a certain mindset that combines aggression with a lighter hand than is typical.

Because of the secretive and isolated way in which it was developed, the Arrow shares few common parts or systems with most other aerospacecraft, complicating maintenance and supply. (The principal exception to this is the fighter's FTL navigation and drive package, which is a fully compatible clone of the venerable systems fitted to such classic craft as the SF-14H Space Tomcat.)

FUTURE PLANS

The Arrow team are reportedly working on a new model. Details about the Mk IV's capabilities are thin on the ground, but it is rumored that it is largely to address the Mk III's systems incompatibility problems, adapting more widely used systems to the spaceframe. One perennial speculation is that the PF-32 particle cannons might be replaced with clusters of industry-standard Taim & Bak KX-series blasters, though many Arrow pilots insist that this would dilute the aircraft's distinctiveness unacceptably.

End of Text Data Extract
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Babylon Project Galactic Database

Well, well! Looks awesome--and we can but hope that the battle itself may be forthcoming. Looking forward to it!

--------

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

>Well, well! Looks awesome--and we can but hope that the battle itself
>may be forthcoming. Looking forward to it!

That battle already has the makings of another crowning moment of awesome for Eyrie, up there with the escape in Hunted Rose.

...No sir, I don't like it.

I mean, I don't like the whole retro-tech thing in general-"Let's build a super-fighter, in the shape of something that totally wasn't engineered for this job." Do you want to be murdered by engineers crushing you to death by dropping drafting tables on you? The result, by all logic, would be a tortured creation of 'modern' technology forced into ancient forms, like building a modern warship in the shape of one of Nelson's Ships of the Line. It would be either a cripple, a joke or a monstrous money pit.

But this one...The Avro Arrow is largely a myth, even today. In 400 years, what would they have to go on to reconstruct it besides a few photos? Why burn effort and time working on a centuries old design that you aren't even sure will match something a lot cheaper? Unless you could build a modern starfighter to look like literally anything, in which case the DIE-WING should be a much more successful design, and there ought to be something made out of force-fields, guns and engines strapped to a lawn chair out there that out-performs the TIE series.

And then there is the designated punching bag status of the villains, who can't notice the building of the factories, the shipments of ultra-rare alloy, or the building of the airbases when they are ostensibly in control of the area. That sticks in my craw as well. How can I take them seriously when they're idiots? And if I can't take them seriously, how am I supposed to care about what they do, or why the protagonists are fighting them?

The first problem, I'd simply go with 'future engineering works very well with making starfighters that look like actual aircraft'. It's an established fact of the setting ever since the VF-1 back in UF2, or the 1990s in-universe.

As for the second problem, who says the EA are idiots here? Rather, look at it from the angle that Canada knew what was coming, what the EA had become. They knew that sooner or later, something would happen that gave Clark and co the excuse to dispose of the little problems like member nations and democracy. The Arrow was likely one of many plans the less... enthusiastic members of the EA had in the works long before the Crackdown, and one of the ones that managed to be hidden by the people that were planning for everything going wrong.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

>The Arrow was likely one of many
>plans the less... enthusiastic members of the EA had in the works long
>before the Crackdown, and one of the ones that managed to be hidden by
>the people that were planning for everything going wrong.

Indeed.

Ironically, if I'd done this post about the giant robot created inside Mount Fuji by a team of maverick Japanese dissidents and sent out to do battle alongside the JSSDF and Gojira Nakajima on the Day of Reckoning, probably nobody would've batted an eye. :)

--G.
And don't even get me started about what they did in Australia.
-><-
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.

>And don't even get me started about what they did in
>Australia.

Drop Bears. Weaponised, militant, guerilla Drop Bears.

Crikey!

>Drop Bears. Weaponised, militant, guerilla Drop Bears.

As opposed the weaponized, militant, bare Drop Gorillas.

Because they were in Africa.

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

LAST EDITED ON Oct-24-12 AT 10:36 PM (EDT)
 
>>Drop Bears. Weaponised, militant, guerilla Drop Bears.
>
>As opposed the weaponized, militant, bare Drop Gorillas.
>
>Because they were in Africa.

A well regulated Beast Army being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and arm Bears shall not be infringed.

--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.

>>>Drop Bears. Weaponised, militant, guerilla Drop Bears.
>>
>>As opposed the weaponized, militant, bare Drop Gorillas.
>>
>>Because they were in Africa.
>
>A well regulated Beast Army being necessary to the security of a free
>State, the right of the people to keep and arm Bears shall not be
>infringed.

Y'now, there's probably a LOT of bears out there that I'd feel a lot safer about them having guns than some of the idiot humans who do...

Offsides

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>

>>A well regulated Beast Army being necessary to the security of a free
>>State, the right of the people to keep and arm Bears shall not be
>>infringed.
>
>Y'now, there's probably a LOT of bears out there that I'd feel a lot
>safer about them having guns than some of the idiot humans who do...

You figured this was coming...

-- Slider da Feral (NYAR!)

LAST EDITED ON Sep-02-12 AT 12:18 PM (EDT)
 
>I mean, I don't like the whole retro-tech thing in general-"Let's
>build a super-fighter, in the shape of something that totally wasn't
>engineered for this job."
(...)
>But this one...The Avro Arrow is largely a myth, even today. In 400
>years, what would they have to go on to reconstruct it besides a few
>photos?

Honestly? I think you may not fully grasp the spirit of the UF universe if you even have to ask that question. I mean, UF is obviously the kind of place where the persistent legends that they hid the first working production model away from the sinister conspirators who quashed the project in 1959 is actually true, and the rest follows naturally. :)

>And then there is the designated punching bag status of the villains,
>who can't notice the building of the factories, the shipments of
>ultra-rare alloy, or the building of the airbases when they are
>ostensibly in control of the area. That sticks in my craw as well.
>How can I take them seriously when they're idiots?

The idea was more that the Canadians were that good at subterfuge (and that northern Canada is that big and cold and empty) than that the Dome was that bad at noticing it, but hey. It's that much of a problem for you, that's fine. Pay the whole post no mind. It was a lighthearted parenthetical nod to one of the great white ghosts of aviation and a tip of the hat to my intrepid neighbors to the north, not the next big thing. It's not gonna leave a big hole in your personal UF universe if you pretend I didn't post it, and it's not going to hurt my feelings either. After the summer I've had, that's the least of my worries.

Lots of love,
--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 mean, I don't like the whole retro-tech thing in general-"Let's
>>build a super-fighter, in the shape of something that totally wasn't
>>engineered for this job."
>(...)

Don't give me that look man. I call them as I see them, and the operational regimes are as different as the CSS Virginia and the USS Nimitz. Both have been to Hampton Roads though! Maybe if we raised the hulk of the Virginia and installed missiles and railguns it would be the better ship.
:P

>>But this one...The Avro Arrow is largely a myth, even today. In 400
>>years, what would they have to go on to reconstruct it besides a few
>>photos?
>
>Honestly? I think you may not fully grasp the spirit of the UF
>universe if you even have to ask that question. I mean, UF is
>obviously the kind of place where the persistent legends that
>they hid the first working production model away from the sinister
>conspirators who quashed the project in 1959 is actually true,
>and the rest follows naturally. :)

I guess I don't! I mean, I would never believe that kind of rumor in the first place, let alone believe that this kind of stuff follows naturally from it.

>>And then there is the designated punching bag status of the villains,
>>who can't notice the building of the factories, the shipments of
>>ultra-rare alloy, or the building of the airbases when they are
>>ostensibly in control of the area. That sticks in my craw as well.
>>How can I take them seriously when they're idiots?
>
>The idea was more that the Canadians were that good at subterfuge (and
>that northern Canada is that big and cold and empty) than that the
>Dome was that bad at noticing it, but hey. It's that much of a
>problem for you, that's fine. Pay the whole post no mind. It was a
>lighthearted parenthetical nod to one of the great white ghosts of
>aviation and a tip of the hat to my intrepid neighbors to the north,
>not the next big thing. It's not gonna leave a big hole in your
>personal UF universe if you pretend I didn't post it, and it's not
>going to hurt my feelings either. After the summer I've had, that's
>the least of my worries.
>
>Lots of love,
>--G.
>-><-
To be frank G-man, I have a hard time taking any of your villains seriously as a threat. They are...frequently unimpressive, is I think what I would like to say. Bad guys, to be sure. But...not terribly threatening. I would think they could frequently be defeated by a couple of kids named Mabel and Dipper. Good kids, not actually bad in a fight, but even if they have a show on the Disney Channel... And as for regards the old ladies of the aviation world, I think I would rather let them go than cling to them like a life preserver. Or, if one was to write stories about them, do them as alt-historical fiction.

>To be frank G-man, I have a hard time taking any of your villains
>seriously as a threat. They are...frequently unimpressive, is I think
>what I would like to say. Bad guys, to be sure. But...not terribly
>threatening. I would think they could frequently be defeated by a
>couple of kids named Mabel and Dipper. Good kids, not actually bad in
>a fight, but even if they have a show on the Disney Channel... And as
>for regards the old ladies of the aviation world, I think I would
>rather let them go than cling to them like a life preserver. Or, if
>one was to write stories about them, do them as alt-historical
>fiction.

Gracious, such hostility! The compassionate thing to do at this point would be to try and find out what's really eating you, since I rather doubt all this is seriously flowing from a tongue-in-cheek metapost on a fanfic website.

But since I'm

- down a kidney
- rocking the full tower-of-power Flu-Like Symptoms, having resumed interferon therapy for my neurological issues after laying off a month for the surgery that cost me said kidney,
- still kind of getting my head around the fact that they killed me twice during that surgery and managed to get me back both times, and
- two days out of the start of a semester from which I should but, for convoluted reasons, cannot medically recuse myself,

I'm a little short on compassion tonight. So instead I'm just going to tell you, hey, if it all bothers you that much, you don't have to keep lookin' at it. Nobody's got a gun to your head, ese, and if you don't need the tsuris I don't either.

--G.
Seriously, the Avro Arrow generated this much drama? What the metaphorical fuck.
-><-
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.

>Seriously, the Avro Arrow generated this much drama?
>What the metaphorical fuck.

It's Vehrec. I can't explain it better than that. If you'd read some of his/her posts on other forums (pretty sure this is the same person), you wouldn't be surprised.

Mind you, he's far from the only person to take Someone is wrong on the Internet way to seriously. I think I'm guilty of that on occasion, though I hope I'm less of a dick about it.

“They planned their campaigns just as you might make a splendid piece of harness. It looks very well; and answers very well; until it gets broken; and then you are done for. Now I made my campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot; and went on.”
-- Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington

>The idea was more that the Canadians were that good at subterfuge

Well, we are the country that managed to keep anyone from noticing we had an intelligence agency for about three decades and march an army out west without the US realizing it<1>.

<1> We cleverly disguised it as a police force.

>I mean, I don't like the whole retro-tech thing in general...The result,
>by all logic, would be a tortured creation of 'modern' technology
>forced into ancient forms, like building a modern warship in the shape
>of one of Nelson's Ships of the Line. It would be either a cripple, a
>joke or a monstrous money pit.

Consider your typical fighters built by spacefaring races, accustomed to set-piece battles between fleets fought in the voids between worlds. They'd be highly optimized for fighting in a vacuum, with just enough atmospheric capability to usually avoid crashing when landing on a planet.

Then along come designs optimized, in the pressure cooker R&D environment of Earth's Cold War, for atmospheric combat. With appropriate tech upgrades, they can hold their own in vacuum--after all, in space nobody cares if you're a cube--but down in the soup, nothing built primarily for space can touch them.

An in-story parallel would be the steam technology of Ishiyama, where they've taken something largely abandoned on Earth by the late 20th century and advanced it to the point where it can power starships.

That's how I envision the whole "RetroTech" thing springing to life. "Y'know, those crazy Earthers did things with aerodynamics that nobody else thought to do, simply because nobody else thought it was important. Maybe we can, um, 'borrow' some of that work."

>Then along come designs optimized, in the pressure cooker R&D
>environment of Earth's Cold War, for atmospheric combat. With
>appropriate tech upgrades, they can hold their own in vacuum--after
>all, in space nobody cares if you're a cube--but down in the soup,
>nothing built primarily for space can touch them.

Exactly. In fact, I like to think that in UF, the Thunderbolt Starfury (with its supplementary airfoils and sitting-down cockpit) was developed at least partly because someone at the Dome realized that Earthforce's fighter wings might have to fight the likes of the WDF's SF-8Z Super Crusader in the air over Geneva someday.

--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 mean, I don't like the whole retro-tech thing in general...The result,
>>by all logic, would be a tortured creation of 'modern' technology
>>forced into ancient forms, like building a modern warship in the shape
>>of one of Nelson's Ships of the Line. It would be either a cripple, a
>>joke or a monstrous money pit.
>
>Consider your typical fighters built by spacefaring races, accustomed
>to set-piece battles between fleets fought in the voids between
>worlds. They'd be highly optimized for fighting in a vacuum, with just
>enough atmospheric capability to usually avoid crashing when landing
>on a planet.
>
>Then along come designs optimized, in the pressure cooker R&D
>environment of Earth's Cold War, for atmospheric combat. With
>appropriate tech upgrades, they can hold their own in vacuum--after
>all, in space nobody cares if you're a cube--but down in the soup,
>nothing built primarily for space can touch them.

What. What the hell is this idea, where does it come from. You have a gods damned starfighter, and it is riding a nuclear pulse thruster at minimum. You are project goddamn Pluto, you do not need to slow down to deal with these plebians, and measly forces like drag and lift scarcely matter at all in the face of the raw power that you can throw at them. If you can't SSTO at least twice without refueling in your starfighter, how exactly do you intend to get home from the most basic of attack packages? After all, every starfighter needs to leave it's mothership, accelerate to attack, then reverse acceleration and head home, before finally killing velocity relative to the mothership. Everyone says that the TIE has problems banking in atmosphere because of it's big cross section-nobody ever asks if it has the power to just muscle the air out of it's way in a supersonic fireball.

>An in-story parallel would be the steam technology of Ishiyama, where
>they've taken something largely abandoned on Earth by the late 20th
>century and advanced it to the point where it can power starships.

*twitch*
I'm going to permanently block this statement from my memory. I mean...no, I won't tear this concept the hole it deserves.

>That's how I envision the whole "RetroTech" thing springing to life.
>"Y'know, those crazy Earthers did things with aerodynamics that nobody
>else thought to do, simply because nobody else thought it was
>important. Maybe we can, um, 'borrow' some of that work."
the idea that you can't do better with six months of modern models and a couple thousand rented 3PO units slaved together like the supercomputers made of XBOXs, makes me sad. The dream of progress is dead. The design of anything that fights in the air or in space stopped for all intents in purposes in 1970.

>What. What the hell is this idea, where does it come from.

Dude. Calm down, or (administratively speaking) I will calm you down.

>The dream of progress is
>dead. The design of anything that fights in the air or in space
>stopped for all intents in purposes in 1970.

Oh, for heaven's sake, don't be a douche. It's fucking space opera. Cope.

--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.

>>What. What the hell is this idea, where does it come from.
>
>Dude. Calm down, or (administratively speaking) I will calm you down.

You, Gryphon, are being more charitable than I would have in your shoes. (And this is a reason I don't mod forums. I would use the Scalzi Mallet of Loving Correction rather often, with a follow up by BanHammer for repeat (read: 2 total) offenses.)

>>The dream of progress is
>>dead. The design of anything that fights in the air or in space
>>stopped for all intents in purposes in 1970.
>
>Oh, for heaven's sake, don't be a douche. It's fucking space opera.
>Cope.

Take Gryphon's advice, Vehrec. Walk... no, don't walk. Run. Away. This is not a fight you will win. And there are far, far, far more important fights to fight than this.

>>An in-story parallel would be the steam technology of Ishiyama, where
>>they've taken something largely abandoned on Earth by the late 20th
>>century and advanced it to the point where it can power starships.
>
>*twitch*
>I'm going to permanently block this statement from my memory. I
>mean...no, I won't tear this concept the hole it deserves.

And yet steam-powered starships are already a part of the UF universe, along with magical girls, lightsabers, Norse gods, and TARDISes. So why is the notion of "resto-rod" starfighters so especially abhorrent to you?

>I'm going to permanently block this statement from my memory. I
>mean...no, I won't tear this concept the hole it deserves.

Dude.

I speak from experience here when I say that there are far better things you can be doing with your time than not only worrying about some corner of a kitchen-sink fanfic universe where the most fundamental universal principle is the Rule of Cool, but posting long rants about said concerns when the primary architect is recently down a kidney, in the midst of other chronic health concerns.

Seriously, you're combining a pretty harsh lack of tact with this:

There's a far more substantial chunk of UF I can't even look at any more (i.e. Symphony of the Sword), but I'm long past the days where I'd have the gracelessness to come in and take a dump on the forums because of it. Instead, I figured out just what didn't work for me, and learned from it.

"Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis."
- Kenneth Boulding

>There's a far more substantial chunk of UF I can't even look at
>any more (i.e. Symphony of the Sword), but I'm long past the days
>where I'd have the gracelessness to come in and take a dump on the
>forums because of it.

... you know what, I can't even look directly at the irony in that.

--G.
But hey, thanks for sort of backhandedly piling on.
-><-
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.

>... you know what, I can't even look directly at the irony in
>that.

Well, I'm not going to pretend there's not parts of the larger EPU output I can't enjoy any more. (And I wish I did; there's a lot of the first Symphony I really enjoyed the first time through.) I'm just hoping that the poster above won't do what I did, then come back and look over the thread ten years later and regret that the Internet doesn't forget.

And, yet, even with a fairly big chunk of text I can't really enjoy at all, I'm still here, because there's also large parts I do enjoy, a lot. I mean, I can't stand to watch any of the CSI shows, because despite the reasonably solid writing and such, I can't suspend my disbelief about their portrayal of either forensics or police procedure. But, because CSI: New Avalon is set in a future where the tech they use is perfectly mundane, and they work for a police agency that clearly tend towards the unorthodox (by comparison to real-world police agencies), I don't have the same problem.

To the prior poster: take a deep breath. I'm sure you have many other hobbies. If you feel the burning urge to throw down some vitriol about a rather small bit of worldbuilding, step away, go read a book or watch a movie or play a video game or spend some time with your S.O. or something, and then come back, and figure out if it's really worth it.

It probably isn't.

"Mathematics brought rigor to economics. Unfortunately, it also brought mortis."
- Kenneth Boulding

>>There's a far more substantial chunk of UF I can't even look at
>>any more (i.e. Symphony of the Sword), but I'm long past the days
>>where I'd have the gracelessness to come in and take a dump on the
>>forums because of it.
>
>... you know what, I can't even look directly at the irony in
>that.
>
>--G.
>But hey, thanks for sort of backhandedly piling on.

Seriously though how cool are future versions of unproduced Canadian jetfighters fighting in a civil war against the bad guys from Babylon 5?

Super cool.

Have you stopped to consider for a moment that perhaps the Arrow was being used as a symbol? Yes, its design is based on an archaic airframe that didn't make it past the prototype phase, but it is ENTIRELY Canadian in origin. When you're aiming to kick the Oppressor in the balls, what better way to do so than to use something your people developed back before he was a twinkle in his momma's eye? Plus there's the moment of surprise and shock when the opposition tries to figure out just what the hell is shooting them full of holes. Every little bit counts in a war.

It has been established MANY times in canon that the setting is very friendly to anachronism. I mean, hell, nine tenths of the main cast are swordfighters. They don't even use lightsabers, just regular old swords. Hell, two of them use STICKS. The setting is too diverse to say 'No, this should not be. Change it now.' Especially not with the table-flipping rage you're got going here.

It's canon fact that the Arrow is neither the first nor the most famous retrotech starfighter out there. Using your own logic, what would be so difficult about retrofitting the old design for modern aerospace combat? It's not like it hasn't been done before (US Air Force, anyone?), they just needed to figure out where to put all the necessary bits. The computers available would make it a relatively simple task to work out the designs. There's probably a guide on the UF equivalent of eHow on how to do it, considering how often it crops up.

>Hell, two of them use STICKS.

Do not underestimate the staff.

S.

Especially not when that staff is made from the wood of Yggdrasil.

>I mean, I don't like the whole retro-tech thing in general-"Let's
>build a super-fighter, in the shape of something that totally wasn't
>engineered for this job." Do you want to be murdered by engineers
>crushing you to death by dropping drafting tables on you? The result,
>by all logic, would be a tortured creation of 'modern' technology
>forced into ancient forms, like building a modern warship in the shape
>of one of Nelson's Ships of the Line. It would be either a cripple, a
>joke or a monstrous money pit.

I'd lean towards joke, because even if one built a modern version of one of Nelson's warships, it would be a floating target for any warship built in the last century alone. But that is largely due to Ships of the Line being designed for a far different form of naval warfare.

Retrotech is, in many, much like rebuilding the Titanic with modern technology and construction rules. It can be done, there's been various proposals to do so, but the finished product would bear at best a superficial resemblance to its historical namesake. And that's what you go for with Retrotech, namely taking proven designs and wrapping them around "modern" technology.

>
>But this one...The Avro Arrow is largely a myth, even today. In 400
>years, what would they have to go on to reconstruct it besides a few
>photos? Why burn effort and time working on a centuries old design
>that you aren't even sure will match something a lot cheaper? Unless
>you could build a modern starfighter to look like literally anything,
>in which case the DIE-WING should be a much more successful design,
>and there ought to be something made out of force-fields, guns and
>engines strapped to a lawn chair out there that out-performs the TIE
>series.

Why burn effort and time? Because it's a proven airframe, which is what one would aim for during such a clandestine program. Starting from scratch means months, if not years, of simulation and prototyping. Part of success is not trying to reinvent the wheel.

>
>And then there is the designated punching bag status of the villains,
>who can't notice the building of the factories, the shipments of
>ultra-rare alloy, or the building of the airbases when they are
>ostensibly in control of the area. That sticks in my craw as well.
>How can I take them seriously when they're idiots? And if I can't
>take them seriously, how am I supposed to care about what they do, or
>why the protagonists are fighting them?

Bureaucracies, as almost a rule, are anything but absolute masters of all they command. The EA would have bigger fish to try, especially when Canada's idea of resistance to annexation is refusing to show up to work. Devoting manpower to continuous surveillance of Northern Canada would be wasteful, while automated systems could not adapt as humans could to active subterfuge.

And if you argue that somebody might catch a glimpse of something, what's more likely: A mid-level official looking at the unclear readings and deducing that Canada's secretly building an aerospace force composed of modernized versions of an ancient aircraft that never made it past prototype stage and devoting the resources to put a stop to it or deciding that the readings are in error and stamping the report "low priority" before moving onto more pressing matters like armed resistance in the larger countries?

Please be lyhink on zer couch, Herr Vehrec, und then please be tellink me about hyu muzzer...

---
"Yeah, I'm definitely going to hell/But I'll have all the best stories to tell" -- Frank Turner, The Ballad of Me and My Friends

Gryphon, thank you. This is awesome.

May the Arrow always fly somewhere.

Idle curiosity, chaps, but d'you reckon the Crown Colonies' version of RetroTech did anything with the TSR-2? Or has this already come up and it's just me being the usual cretin?

---
"Yeah, I'm definitely going to hell/But I'll have all the best stories to tell" -- Frank Turner, The Ballad of Me and My Friends

>Idle curiosity, chaps, but d'you reckon the Crown Colonies' version of
>RetroTech did anything with the TSR-2?

I'd say you might have something there, but I'd hate to provoke Vehrec further.

--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.

>>Idle curiosity, chaps, but d'you reckon the Crown Colonies' version of
>>RetroTech did anything with the TSR-2?
>
>I'd say you might have something there, but I'd hate to provoke Vehrec
>further.

Personally, I wouldn't give a rat's a$$, but that's just me. And the TSR-2 is yet another aircraft designed and flown before I was born, and which I wish I could have seen...

Offsides

#91;...#93; in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #pi;
#include <stdsig.h>

>>I'd say you might have something there, but I'd hate to provoke Vehrec
>>further.
>
>Personally, I wouldn't give a rat's a$$, but that's just me.

I'd take the opposite tack (piss him off some more), but that's because I have a definite amount of a&&hole in me.

LAST EDITED ON Sep-05-12 AT 07:10 PM (EDT)
 
>>>Idle curiosity, chaps, but d'you reckon the Crown Colonies' version of
>>>RetroTech did anything with the TSR-2?
>>
>>I'd say you might have something there, but I'd hate to provoke Vehrec
>>further.
>
>Personally, I wouldn't give a rat's a$$, but that's just me.

Well, yeah, that was sarcasm. I really just can't be arsed to write it up. Y'all are perfectly welcome to believe such a thing does exist. :)

--G.
"Yeah, I dare ya, ragequit. C'mon, make us both happy."
-><-
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.

Personally, I see the whole RetroTech thing like this:

If it's good enough for the Decepticon Seekers and the Aerialbots, then it's good enough for us squishy humans.

--- Philip

	Philip J. Moyer Contributing Writer, Editor and Artist (and Moderator) -- Eyrie Productions, Unlimited CEO of MTS, High Poobah Of Artwork, and High Priest Of the Church Of Aerianne -- Magnetic Terrapin Studios "Insert Pithy Comment Here"

>Personally, I see the whole RetroTech thing like this:
>
>If it's good enough for the Decepticon Seekers and the Aerialbots,
>then it's good enough for us squishy humans.

There have been many good points. I think this one is my favorite. :)

--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.

>Personally, I see the whole RetroTech thing like this:
>
>If it's good enough for the Decepticon Seekers and the Aerialbots,
>then it's good enough for us squishy humans.
>
There does seem to be something about the F-15 that just screams "PERFECTION" to the Decepticon mind.

Willard

>There does seem to be something about the F-15 that just screams
>"PERFECTION" to the Decepticon mind.

It's the intakes. Nothing turns a chickbot on like big, slanted rectangular intakes.

--G.
F-14s and VF-1s also considered hawt on those grounds
-><-
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.

LAST EDITED ON Sep-11-12 AT 05:51 PM (EDT) by Gryphon (admin)
 
[Just getting rid of all those flaky non-Unicode characters in the pasted bit. --G.]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/will-legendary-avro-arrow-make-lazarus-like-return/article4530724/

"The federal government is being urged to reach back in history for a made-in-Canada solution to its fighter jet woes by resurrecting the legendary but aborted Avro Arrow interceptor to serve as this country's next war plane.

It may seem a far-fetched idea but backers - including retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie - insist that a revised version of the 1950s jet, with an upgraded engine, would outperform Ottawa's preferred choice on several important counts."

...

"It's hard to imagine a 53-year-old plane could outperform Lockheed Martin's costly new F-35 fighter-bomber, but those behind a new CF-105 say their jet would pack a 21st-century punch.

Mr. MacKenzie said the proposal he's put before the Harper government is for a made-in-Canada plane that could fly twice as fast as the F-35 and up to 20,000 feet higher. It would feature an updated Mark III engine and its range would be two to three times that of the F-35."

Gryph, I can't help but feel you're somehow responsible for this on some cosmic level.

>"The federal government is being urged to reach back in history for a
>made-in-Canada solution to its fighter jet woes by resurrecting the
>legendary but aborted Avro Arrow interceptor to serve as this
>country's next war plane."

Hell yeah!

They'll never do it, but hell yeah!

--G.
To be fair, anything that pisses in the JSF's coffee is gonna get a hell yeah from me
-><-
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.

>To be fair, anything that pisses in the JSF's coffee is
>gonna get a hell yeah from me

Errr... Just out of curiosity, why the hate on the JSF? Sure, it ain't all that pretty or fast... but neither was the A/V-8B Harrier.

Black Aeronaut Technologies Creative aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer "Murphy never sleeps, but that's no reason to poke him with a sharp stick."

>>To be fair, anything that pisses in the JSF's coffee is
>>gonna get a hell yeah from me
>
>Errr... Just out of curiosity, why the hate on the JSF?

Well, it's kind of a long and involved story that's been developing for a number of years, but basically it has to do with how they've piled mismatching requirements onto the spec until, if and when it actually works at all, it will be no things to all people. Billions of dollars and jillions* of man-hours expended, and other platforms rushed to end-of-life prematurely, to support an all-out effort at producing one airplane that's so incredibly versatile... it can do a kinda disappointing job at just about anything.

Clap. Clap. Clap. God bless America.

--G.
* yeah, that's right, jillions
-><-
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. So the aerospace equivalent of a camel. Only without the ability to survive a harsh desert climate.

And hey, it's not just America... after all, Britain and a number of other countries are in on it, too. And everyone wants a god damned miracle machine just because we're footing the bill (for the most part).

Black Aeronaut Technologies Creative aerospace solutions for the discerning spacer "Murphy never sleeps, but that's no reason to poke him with a sharp stick."

Yeah, Australia's shelling out for a few as well. Presumably we'll be using them to win war games and pretend we'd be safe if China went mental and invaded.

>>>To be fair, anything that pisses in the JSF's coffee is
>>>gonna get a hell yeah from me
>>
>>Errr... Just out of curiosity, why the hate on the JSF?
>
>Well, it's kind of a long and involved story that's been developing
>for a number of years, but basically it has to do with how they've
>piled mismatching requirements onto the spec until, if and when it
>actually works at all, it will be no things to all people. Billions
>of dollars and jillions* of man-hours expended, and other platforms
>rushed to end-of-life prematurely, to support an all-out effort at
>producing one airplane that's so incredibly versatile... it can do a
>kinda disappointing job at just about anything.
>
You would have thought that they learned their lesson with the F-111, but noooo...

Offsides
The F-111 - nine of all trades, master of none (it doesn't rank high enough to be a jack of all trades, or a ten for that matter...)

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>

>You would have thought that they learned their lesson with the F-111,
>but noooo...
>
>Offsides
>The F-111 - nine of all trades, master of none (it doesn't rank
>high enough to be a jack of all trades, or a ten for that
>matter...)

I've come to think of the F-35 as the "Aardvark II" or "McNamara's Revenge." Just like last time around, the Air Force was the biggest buyer and thus got the bird it wanted, while the Marines and Navy are stuck trying to make excuses for why they're buying a plane they don't want.

>You would have thought that they learned their lesson with the F-111,
>but noooo...
>
>Offsides
>The F-111 - nine of all trades, master of none (it doesn't rank
>high enough to be a jack of all trades, or a ten for that
>matter...)
>
Fraid so, Offsides. In fact, they are trying to crossbreed the 111 with a harrier. Without understanding that what works for one makes it useless for the other.

*rolls eyes*

>>You would have thought that they learned their lesson with the F-111,
>>but noooo...
>>
>>Offsides
>>The F-111 - nine of all trades, master of none (it doesn't rank
>>high enough to be a jack of all trades, or a ten for that
>>matter...)
>>
>Fraid so, Offsides. In fact, they are trying to crossbreed the 111
>with a harrier. Without understanding that what works for one makes
>it useless for the other.

But... you get babies with nine heads when you do that! Or at least hemophilia.

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."

>>You would have thought that they learned their lesson with the F-111,
>>but noooo...
>>
>>Offsides
>>The F-111 - nine of all trades, master of none (it doesn't rank
>>high enough to be a jack of all trades, or a ten for that
>>matter...)
>>
>Fraid so, Offsides. In fact, they are trying to crossbreed the 111
>with a harrier. Without understanding that what works for one makes
>it useless for the other.
>
>*rolls eyes*

Believe me, I know. My wife works for Lockheed-Martin, albeit on the Navy side of things, and I've been following the program since its inception...

The one good thing that's come out of the F-35 program is this: When last year's Lockheed annual report came, it had a picture of the F-35 on the cover. My daughter (~18-20 months at the time IIRC) picked it up and excitedly shouted "Airplane!" - and then proceeded to shake the report "book" and get very disappointed when the airplane didn't fall out. We were laughing about it for a good 10 minutes before we all managed to recover :)

Offsides

[...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #π
#include <stdsig.h>

>You would have thought that they learned their lesson with the F-111,
>but noooo...

Because it's seen as cheaper to develop a single "one size fits all" solution by those who DON'T FLY THE THINGS FOR A LIVING.

As an aside, this is why I still have separate digital camera, cellular phone, and MP3 player. Can I get away with one single device? Yes. Will it perform all functions equally well? NEVER, or if it does, all of them equally BADLY. The digital camera video functions and MP3 player will sap the phone's battery like nobody's business (making it useless in an emergency, because you can never anticipate when those will occur), the camera will always be compromised, even if it's simply the style of lens they use with it (fixed .0625" distance lenses are inferior even to the extending lenses of cheap p&s cameras), the MP3 player will have to be controlled by either touch screen, or a set of buttons I can barely tell what does what by touch because it's a phone keypad (so forget doing it quickly when I need to kill the music)...

OK, yeah, I feel pretty strongly about combined devices of disparate uses.

The literal only way they could make it worse would be to try to make it a fighter plane for all roles, and a VERY LONG RANGE HEAVY BOMBER THAT DOESN'T NEED AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER TO DO THE JOB.

To come back to an earlier point, I also reserve particular ire for the F-111. Not just because it's (to my mind, YMMV) a pig ugly heap. Not just because it was mediocre. But because it killed off the TSR-2, which was not (according to the few remaining images) any of those things. I've only recently got into aerospace nerdery, and you know what they say about preachers and recent converts, but... gah. It just hurts to see things like that sometimes.

---
"Yeah, I'm definitely going to hell/But I'll have all the best stories to tell" -- Frank Turner, The Ballad of Me and My Friends

>To come back to an earlier point, I also reserve particular ire for
>the F-111. Not just because it's (to my mind, YMMV) a pig ugly heap.
>Not just because it was mediocre. But because it killed off the TSR-2,
>which was not (according to the few remaining images) any of those
>things. I've only recently got into aerospace nerdery, and you know
>what they say about preachers and recent converts, but... gah. It just
>hurts to see things like that sometimes.
>
>---
>"Yeah, I'm definitely going to hell/But I'll have all the best stories
>to tell" -- Frank Turner, The Ballad of Me and My Friends

Well, maybe Gryphon or one of the others will feel like doing a RetroTech of the TSR-2, one day. IMHO, it qualifies as cool enough.

“They planned their campaigns just as you might make a splendid piece of harness. It looks very well; and answers very well; until it gets broken; and then you are done for. Now I made my campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot; and went on.”
-- Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington

By Jove, I've got it!

If I had to describe Zeta Cygni in general and Gryphon's circle in particular with one word, it would be "nostalgic". Everything is built to look like something older, or is something older, from the architecture to the airships to the cars to the space fighters (and especially the music). Both times we've seen a character recently been trained to fly in space, they've gotten virtual reality "back in my day" tours.

Now, of course this nostalgia isn't crippling, or they wouldn't be living in a Dyson Sphere and building spaceships in the first place. And they certainly are on the cutting edge of technology. But the general belief that everything was better "back in the day" persists. I suspect half the reason the EA has the Starfury, besides the fact that it had it in Babylon 5, is that it doesn't look like a "proper" space fighter.

Of course, this is pretty much what space opera is about. It may not be correct to make a spaceworthy Arrow, but it certainly is right.

>Both times we've seen a character recently
>been trained to fly in space, they've gotten virtual reality "back in
>my day" tours.

On a point of order: Neither 1969 nor 1947 was technically back in Corwin's day. :)

--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.