Minna may have neglected to tell anyone that Hannelore was in on it. (Mostly because she wasn't actually expecting her to show up and report in person, although I'm sure she didn't mention it during the tour itself primarily because she found all the scrambling around rather entertaining.)

--G.
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It occurs to me that WDF Hannalore would be the person sent out to liason with other military forces a lot, because the Not Fun Officer sorts were all sure she was a serious military officer.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

I have a feeling she'd be a favorite of a certain type of officer--not even a martinet, necessarily (Her old dueling foe here seems to be one, and he loathes witches in general) but the officers who think the witches are far too informal and they have to be chivvied back into form every so often. A perfect example is in one of the early episodes (I've only started watching this) and Minna is reporting to two officers, one of whom was unhappy with Miyafuji joining and the other overrode the first, subtly pointing out the obvious--they're allowed to get away with slackness no other military personnel are because they're utterly indispensable to the war effort--the girls know full well the military needs them a thousand times more than they need the military. And as long as they put up the numbers -without- that military discipline, that dynamic won't change.

The only thing about this story that is making me wonder, though, is the patent -silliness- of Richtenberg (I know I am misspelling his name in SOME way, dangit) and this whole rocketpack idea. It makes perfect sense he wants to get the witches out of the military, partly because he's a misogynistic asshole and partly because he simply cannot -control- them. But there's more than one factor that makes the witches indispensable to the war effort, and the Miyafuji engine Striker is actually the lesser of the two. After all, they already have mundane aircraft. Which can mount the same weapons the witches use. The witches are effective not because they can fly, and not because they have guns...

It's because they have -shields-.

Mundane soldiers in mundane aircraft simply have no answer to the Neuroi plasma weapon. I'm assuming Richtenberg is not a dumbkopf, he has to have a plan in place to deal with that. I can't wait to see how lethal to his own soldiers it is.

--------

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'm not at home right now and so can't double-check this, but I believe you will find that that second personage is not an officer, he's Winston Churchill. Which puts a slightly different angle on his talking over Air Chief Marshal Dowding (IIRC). :)

>The only thing about this story that is making me wonder, though, is
>the patent -silliness- of Richtenberg (I know I am misspelling his
>name in SOME way, dangit)

A bit, yes. It's "Reichenberg". Technically it's von Reichenberg, but Hannelore is very subtly dissing him by omitting it throughout her remarks. A mentioned in the annotations, he's named not for a Historical Personage, but rather the manned suicide-missile version of the V-1 flying bomb, which was officially the Fieseler Fi 130 Reichenberg. (It's a town in Bavaria, IIRC. The name literally translates to something like "imperial mountain".)

>The witches are effective not because they can fly, and not
>because they have guns...
>
>It's because they have -shields-.
>
>Mundane soldiers in mundane aircraft simply have no answer to the
>Neuroi plasma weapon.

That is true, but on the other hand, a man with a rocket pack is a much smaller and (theoretically) more elusive target than a man in a Messerschmitt. (General von Reichenberg does not specifically know this, but Gryphon didn't have any equivalent to a witch's shield in 1943, and he survived. :)

<I'm assuming Richtenberg is not a dumbkopf, he
>has to have a plan in place to deal with that.

Well, the first part is not necessarily in evidence so far, but the second... oh yes. General von Reichenberg has many plans, and we will see one in the next episode. It may provide a bit of a hint as to the nature of that plan, to a certain stripe of WWII weird aviation buff, if I tell you that Episode 05 is entitled "Operation Grass-Snake" (in Karlsländisch, Natter-Einsatz).

--G.
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So Baron von Ridiculous is sending his raketenrucksackers up with a single serving tube of unguided rockets? I'm assuming the only reason they don't just cut out the middleman and make guided missiles with a saturation warhead on the front is because he wants the ego-trip of having men displace the Witches? (Well, that or they don't have the tech to make guided missiles, but I'm still betting on the ego-trip)

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

Well, maybe. But either way, it's worth pointing out that that's been working fine for Sanya. :)

--G.
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

It probably HAS a Scott Bernard mode, she's just smart enough not to use it.

--G.
"Don't touch that! That's Death Blossom. A weapon of last resort."
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Possibly with a side order of Not Desperate Enough.

Peter Eng
--
"Yeah, but you said..."
"This is an emergency!"

If we are to presume a similar tech level to RL Earth in 1946, they could probably build wire or radio guided missiles and possibly build primitive IR or semi-active radar seekers.

Ah yes, I think you've put your finger on one of the few actually-made-it-to-flight-testing Wunderwaffe projects that could match the Fi-103 for lack of fail-safe options for the pilot. (Although, to be fair, glide testing did show the Natter flew quite well. Just don't light up the rocket motor...)

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

Ah! Yes indeed, if that's the case it definitely explains why the first speaker shut the hell up. =)

>
>>The witches are effective not because they can fly, and not
>>because they have guns...
>>
>>It's because they have -shields-.
>>
>>Mundane soldiers in mundane aircraft simply have no answer to the
>>Neuroi plasma weapon.
>
>That is true, but on the other hand, a man with a rocket pack
>is a much smaller and (theoretically) more elusive target than a man
>in a Messerschmitt. (General von Reichenberg does not specifically
>know this, but Gryphon didn't have any equivalent to a witch's
>shield in 1943, and he survived. :)

Hm. Well, yes, the witches themselves dodge the beams on a regular basis, but they also have to fall back to the shields frequently when the Neuroi box them in. The beams don't come in ones and twos, after all. Though you're right, a Messerschmitt would have far less chance to dodge even one beam.

As for Gryphon's pack, the difference between the Miyafuji Striker and the new rocket pack is pretty obvious now--the speed and acceleration are pretty damn powerful, but there's nothing in the rocket pack that suggests superior maneuverability. We haven't actually seen how the rocketpack achieves maneuverability, but if it's just flight vanes or somesuch, the Striker will run rings around it. A rocket system really needs verniers to compete.

>
><I'm assuming Richtenberg is not a dumbkopf, he
>>has to have a plan in place to deal with that.
>
>Well, the first part is not necessarily in evidence so far, but the
>second... oh yes. General von Reichenberg has many plans, and
>we will see one in the next episode. It may provide a bit of a hint
>as to the nature of that plan, to a certain stripe of WWII weird
>aviation buff, if I tell you that Episode 05 is entitled "Operation
>Grass-Snake" (in Karlsländisch, Natter-Einsatz).

Wow. After looking -that- system up, I have to wonder if he plans to take down Neuroi by putting his own men in it, or witches by putting -them- in it. Either way, innovation in wartime is fine, but...yeah. Not for -ego-. I wonder how much it galls him he has to accept a witch is working on his project.

--------

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

OK, so I just got home and checked. The grey-haired gentleman seated on Minna's right is in fact Churchill (although he's not a terribly good likeness, and is a bit coyly credited simply as "Prime Minister of Britannia"), and the other chap is Dowding's replacement, Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory (or "Trevor Maloney" as the Strike Witches writers call him).

>>>The witches are effective not because they can fly, and not
>>>because they have guns...

Oh, I neglected to note this bit earlier. It may be worth noting that some of the supplementary materials imply that the witches' guns are not normal guns, or at least that they're using some form of enchanted ammunition. Whether that actually requires the person wielding them to be a magic-user is unclear (and there's at least one scene in the anime that argues against), but still, the implication is that their weapons are more powerful than a normal MG 42 or what have you. Which makes sense, really - one would hardly expect someone armed with a normal .30-'06 Browning Automatic Rifle, for instance, to be effective in aerial combat, particularly against airliner-sized UFOs with regenerative armor. :)

>Hm. Well, yes, the witches themselves dodge the beams on a regular
>basis, but they also have to fall back to the shields frequently when
>the Neuroi box them in.

Mostly, yes. Eila doesn't, but then, she can see a second or two into the future. (Later on there's a whole episode that's mostly about how she's shit at shields because she never has to use hers. :)

>As for Gryphon's pack, the difference between the Miyafuji Striker and
>the new rocket pack is pretty obvious now--the speed and acceleration
>are pretty damn powerful, but there's nothing in the rocket pack that
>suggests superior maneuverability.

That's always been the case in his experience - it comes up in the flight test scene in New Tricks, in fact, that whenever he and Mio dogfight, it's his acceleration and top end against her superior turning performance. Of course, he was handicapping himself a bit in that scene in that he'd turned off his X-20's advanced flight controls (inertia vectoring and so on). With that stuff turned on, a 25th-century jetpack can make lightcycle turns.

>We haven't actually seen how the
>rocketpack achieves maneuverability, but if it's just flight vanes or
>somesuch, the Striker will run rings around it. A rocket system really
>needs verniers to compete.

"It's really a jet" is going to be this show's "Frankenstein is the doctor," isn't it? :)

Anyway, yeah, one thing G is rapidly discovering on his impromptu test flight is that, left to its own devices, the He 162 doesn't handle so good in town. It appears that's the main reason why the longest test flight was 112 meters - because, as Shirley speculated, you can't steer it without some supernatural means or another. I would guess that Reichenberg assumed the "warlock" he heard rumors of in 1943 was steering with body English and/or a helmet rudder (as indeed Cliff Secord does in the original Rocketeer material), but, well, that doesn't actually work in our setting, as five Projekt Salamander test pilots discovered to their chagrin.

>I wonder how much it galls him he has to accept a witch
>is working on his project.

That might be his favorite part of the arrangement, actually. It keeps her from working on anything that might be of use to anyone else, and there's a certain pleasant irony in making a witch develop an anti-witch system. Particularly that irritating little slacker Hartmann's sister.

--G.
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Aaaaah. If this is the case, then...hm. Well, if anyone can use one then he'd be relegating witches to Rosie the Riveter duty, which is better than the kitchen, but still panders to his disgusting ego. And, yeah, I sort of assumed they were kinda handwaving the bullets-against-alien-armor thing. =)

>
>>Hm. Well, yes, the witches themselves dodge the beams on a regular
>>basis, but they also have to fall back to the shields frequently when
>>the Neuroi box them in.
>
>Mostly, yes. Eila doesn't, but then, she can see a second or two into
>the future. (Later on there's a whole episode that's mostly about how
>she's shit at shields because she never has to use hers. :)

Well, I was generalizing. Also, haven't gotten that far in yet but it sounds cool.

>>As for Gryphon's pack, the difference between the Miyafuji Striker and
>>the new rocket pack is pretty obvious now--the speed and acceleration
>>are pretty damn powerful, but there's nothing in the rocket pack that
>>suggests superior maneuverability.
>
>That's always been the case in his experience - it comes up in the
>flight test scene in New Tricks, in fact, that whenever he and
>Mio dogfight, it's his acceleration and top end against her superior
>turning performance. Of course, he was handicapping himself a bit in
>that scene in that he'd turned off his X-20's advanced flight controls
>(inertia vectoring and so on). With that stuff turned on, a
>25th-century jetpack can make lightcycle turns.

Imagine trying to explain a -gravitic- propulsion system to a 194X person. Hoo, boy. I'm kinda wondering when it will slip out that he's a hell of a lot older than even the 501 girls realize.

>
>>We haven't actually seen how the
>>rocketpack achieves maneuverability, but if it's just flight vanes or
>>somesuch, the Striker will run rings around it. A rocket system really
>>needs verniers to compete.
>
>"It's really a jet" is going to be this show's "Frankenstein is the
>doctor," isn't it? :)
>
>Anyway, yeah, one thing G is rapidly discovering on his impromptu test
>flight is that, left to its own devices, the He 162 doesn't handle so
>good in town. It appears that's the main reason why the
>longest test flight was 112 meters - because, as Shirley speculated,
>you can't steer it without some supernatural means or another.
>I would guess that Reichenberg assumed the "warlock" he heard rumors
>of in 1943 was steering with body English and/or a helmet rudder (as
>indeed Cliff Secord does in the original Rocketeer material),
>but, well, that doesn't actually work in our setting, as five
>Projekt Salamander test pilots discovered to their chagrin.

Now, this is interesting. Reichenberg might have assumed all kinds of things about the Warlock of 1943, but I'm not sure how that translates into him thinking his own invention is going to be able to duplicate that. The whole point of the exercise from his perspective is to eliminate the necessity of the witches, or at least that's what Ursula is assuming. And it's a very good assumption. Whether the Warlock did it or not, if he doesn't know how it was done, what makes him think he can duplicate it?

>
>>I wonder how much it galls him he has to accept a witch
>>is working on his project.
>
>That might be his favorite part of the arrangement, actually. It
>keeps her from working on anything that might be of use to anyone
>else, and there's a certain pleasant irony in making a witch
>develop an anti-witch system. Particularly that irritating little
>slacker Hartmann's sister.

Oh, dear. Do I detect a severe underestimation? I do believe so. I think Reichy is about to get hoist on his own petard.

--------

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, explaining what it does wouldn't be that hard. Explaining how it works, that would be... tricky. Bit like how people in primitive tribes react to radio. They get what it does just fine, and they're no less intelligent than modern urban people because we're all the same species, so they could learn electrical engineering given time and study, but you'd have to go back to pretty basic principles to make a start.

>I'm kinda wondering when it will slip out that he's
>a hell of a lot older than even the 501 girls realize.

They know he's from the 25th century, and they know his grandfather was born in 1930. That should suggest a few things, but it's possible none of them has ever sat down and actually done the math. :) (Also, they're aware that he's a time traveler, so they might have sort of tacitly assumed that he didn't get to the 25th century the long way round either.)

>Whether the Warlock did
>it or not, if he doesn't know how it was done, what makes him think he
>can duplicate it?

"What one man can do, another man can duplicate." (At least if you proceed from the assumption that the "warlock of '43" wasn't really a man who could use magic - which, in fairness to General Reichenberg, is a reasonable assumption, given that there has never ever been one in the whole of human history in that universe.)

>Oh, dear. Do I detect a severe underestimation? I do believe so. I
>think Reichy is about to get hoist on his own petard.

A lot of people assume, mostly because she's so much quieter and more reserved than Erica, that Ursula is... well, not an idiot-savant, but... not a person who is particularly engaged with the world beyond whatever she's working on, let us say.

(They also assume that she's harmless and incapable of aggression, which is a slightly daft thing to assume of a witch whose familiar is a badger. :)

--G.
-><-
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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Indeed. I suppose what I was getting at is it seems as so the girls haven't quite internalized how -much- experience he has. Mio, of course, knows him better now. She might have more of an idea, but would keep it to herself.

>
>>I'm kinda wondering when it will slip out that he's
>>a hell of a lot older than even the 501 girls realize.
>
>They know he's from the 25th century, and they know his grandfather
>was born in 1930. That should suggest a few things, but it's possible
>none of them has ever sat down and actually done the math. :) (Also,
>they're aware that he's a time traveler, so they might have sort of
>tacitly assumed that he didn't get to the 25th century the long way
>round either.)

Hm. Possible.

>
>>Whether the Warlock did
>>it or not, if he doesn't know how it was done, what makes him think he
>>can duplicate it?
>
>"What one man can do, another man can duplicate." (At least if you
>proceed from the assumption that the "warlock of '43" wasn't
>really a man who could use magic - which, in fairness to
>General Reichenberg, is a reasonable assumption, given that there has
>never ever been one in the whole of human history in that universe.)

Oh, of course. I think I was making a bad assumption, that Reichenberg knew the Warlock was from a parallel dimension. But of course that's ridiculous, very few people should know that. And certainly not him.

>
>>Oh, dear. Do I detect a severe underestimation? I do believe so. I
>>think Reichy is about to get hoist on his own petard.
>
>A lot of people assume, mostly because she's so much quieter and more
>reserved than Erica, that Ursula is... well, not an idiot-savant,
>but... not a person who is particularly engaged with the world beyond
>whatever she's working on, let us say.
>
>(They also assume that she's harmless and incapable of aggression,
>which is a slightly daft thing to assume of a witch whose familiar is
>a badger. :)

Precisely what I was thinking about. =) I remembered the discussion of her familiar in another thread. Then again, Reichenberg probably doesn't know that--he has access to the information I'm sure, but if there's anyone who might ignore witch-related details on principle...

--------

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

It might be interesting if someone were to ask him sometime, because when you get right down to it, he doesn't really know exactly how old he is any longer. He reckons his age against the anniversary of his birth on the timeline he's native to, so that, for instance (as we saw in Night of the Kissogram!), he marked his 438th birthday in June of 2411 - but given the cumulative effects of both time and dimensional travel, that's only remotely accurate.

For example, he spent longer in the Split Infinitive universe than he was gone for, and one expects he was not missing from his "regular" life for the better part of a year despite having spent that long in 1943. He's closer to 500 - probably quite a bit closer - but he himself has only a vague idea how much closer. If he sat down with a legal pad and a Sharpie for a little while he could probably work it out to within a month or so, but he could never be exact.

>Oh, of course. I think I was making a bad assumption, that Reichenberg
>knew the Warlock was from a parallel dimension. But of course that's
>ridiculous, very few people should know that. And certainly not him.

Indeed. Not many people outside the 501st even know he was real, let alone what the actual deal was. Eleanor, obviously. Possibly Wilma Bishop (G said he doesn't know her biblically to save Lynne's sensibilities and because as far as he knows it's true, but anyone who has read Volume 1 of One-Winged Witches will be able to make an educated guess as to why he cannot be 100% certain about that himself :), and mmmaaaaybe General Adolfine Galland (ranking Karlslandic witch in Europe at the time). But that's basically it. Wilhelm von Reichenberg would definitely have had no Need to Know, particularly since he wasn't even peripherally involved with witch operations in Britannia in 1943.

>>(They also assume that she's harmless and incapable of aggression,
>>which is a slightly daft thing to assume of a witch whose familiar is
>>a badger. :)
>
>Precisely what I was thinking about. =) I remembered the discussion of
>her familiar in another thread. Then again, Reichenberg probably
>doesn't know that--he has access to the information I'm sure, but if
>there's anyone who might ignore witch-related details on principle...

He probably knows - he'll have read her personnel file - but considers witch-familiar behavior-stereotype correlations spurious and folkloric. (Which, in fairness to him, they sometimes are. Her penchant for speed notwithstanding, for instance, Shirley Yeager is not very rabbit-like.)

--G.
-><-
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Hm. I knew there was a difference in relative dates between the UF universe and SI; I did -not- realize there was a difference in -rates- of time, too. Food for thought, but as you imply, the exact details are unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

>Indeed. Not many people outside the 501st even know he was
>real, let alone what the actual deal was. Eleanor, obviously.
>Possibly Wilma Bishop (G said he doesn't know her biblically to save
>Lynne's sensibilities and because as far as he knows it's true,
>but anyone who has read Volume 1 of One-Winged Witches will be
>able to make an educated guess as to why he cannot be 100% certain
>about that himself :), and mmmaaaaybe General Adolfine Galland
>(ranking Karlslandic witch in Europe at the time). But that's
>basically it. Wilhelm von Reichenberg would definitely have had no
>Need to Know, particularly since he wasn't even peripherally involved
>with witch operations in Britannia in 1943.

...Is there a whole story I missed? Or is this entire paragraph (minus the portions alluded to in OWaW4) a reference to a story in canon but not written in real life? Because I recognize Adolfine only from the bio profiles, Wilma from only this and I believe one other story (and I think she's a canon character?) and 'One-Winged Witches' not at all.

>
>>>(They also assume that she's harmless and incapable of aggression,
>>>which is a slightly daft thing to assume of a witch whose familiar is
>>>a badger. :)
>>
>>Precisely what I was thinking about. =) I remembered the discussion of
>>her familiar in another thread. Then again, Reichenberg probably
>>doesn't know that--he has access to the information I'm sure, but if
>>there's anyone who might ignore witch-related details on principle...
>
>He probably knows - he'll have read her personnel file - but considers
>witch-familiar behavior-stereotype correlations spurious and
>folkloric. (Which, in fairness to him, they sometimes are. Her
>penchant for speed notwithstanding, for instance, Shirley Yeager is
>not very rabbit-like.)

Sadly for him, tales of witches in general are spurious and folkloric. =) The military barely knows what the rules are and can't really account for exceptions very well.

--------

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

Yup. It's only come up a couple of times - once in Manhunt, when he finds out when it is when he gets back, and right at the beginning of Star-Crossed: Correspondence. It's possible that it isn't differing time rates so much as his cross-time travel was diagonal, as it were - impossible to know for certain without more detailed investigations than he's carried out. Either way, as he put it in an email to Tali in 2380, "[I] ended up in a parallel dimension, which is where I've spent the last 24 years your time, nearly 40 for me."

>...Is there a whole story I missed? Or is this entire paragraph (minus
>the portions alluded to in OWaW4) a reference to a story in canon but
>not written in real life?

Bit of both. Most of it is referring to G's original stint with the 501st, which is referenced in New Tricks and several times in OWaW so far, but hasn't actually been written. However, see below:

>Because I recognize Adolfine only from the
>bio profiles, Wilma from only this and I believe one other story (and
>I think she's a canon character?) and 'One-Winged Witches' not at all.

General Galland is mentioned a couple of times in the Strike Witches TV series, but never actually appears. She does appear in the prequel manga (Strike Witches Zero in Japan, Strike Witches: 1937 Fusō Sea Incident in the US), which is the appearance that's being alluded to when Hannelore says she has a message for Mio from Galland in OWaW 04 (Galland taught Mio how to use her witch eye in SW Zero).

As for One-Winged Witches, that's the manga series Wilma stars in. Set at around the same time as Strike Witches 1, it depicts Wilma (who is several years older than Lynne) winding up her career, serving in a rather less prestigious outfit stationed over on the Isle of Wight. As the title suggests, unlike the 501st, the Isle of Wight Detachment is kind of the Allied forces' Island of Misfit Toys - the witches assigned to it are all damaged goods or rejects of some description. (The series' tagline is "Not All Witches Are Aces".) Only half of it is out in English so far (the second volume comes out next month).

The joke about Wilma above comes from her appearance in 1WW, where it is established early on that she has an unusual sleep disorder. She calls it "a bad case of sleep-hugging," and appears sincerely to believe that that's all it amounts to; but it's fairly evident that she is in fact a sleep-groper, if not a full-on sexsomniac (somewhat to her roommate's dismay, particularly as they'd only just met).

Hence, I suspect, at least 30% of G's remark to Lynne that Wilma's "not the kind of person you forget easily." (The other 70% being just because she's a freaking force of nature. Unlike Lynne, who's a bit reserved and timid, Wilma... well, one wouldn't say suffers from, no indeed, but experiences a certain excess of bonhomie. :)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

So basically he's got the same problem as The Doctor, having spent so much time traveling through time and space that the best he can do is guesstimate his actual age.

"How old are you now?"
"Uh, I don't know, I lose track. Twelve hundred and something, I think, unless I'm lying. I can't remember if I'm lying about my age, that's how old I am."

--------------------------
CdrMike, Overwatch Reject

Reminds me of when I sat down, years ago, with all three BttF movies (which are timely - ha - again) and a notepad, wrote down all the arrivals and departures, and worked out that Marty McFly is about a month older by the end, with only a couple of days passing in 1985.

Well, Shirley does like to call him Buck, after all.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter

Heh, Geoff brought that to our attention in the studio just the other day. I remarked at the time that unfortunately, decorated T-shirts are markedly anachronistic for the setting, but one is a bit tempted to give Shirley one anyway, and not only because of what her topology would do for the typography.

--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.

My vote would be for delivering a crate of them to Project Salamander/whatever project heading spawned the Rocketenkorps as a friendly tip.

You mean with magic-powered ætherjets rather than conventional propulsion? It's a possibility.

>Obviously
>it would take some doing - particularly since the Miyafuji engine
>seems to require significant skin to surface contact - but it
>shouldn't be that hard, should it?

This is not necessarily the case; a couple of the 501st's witches customarily wear tights under their Strikers, and one canonical witch, Adolfine Galland, even wears actual trousers (they're skintight jeans that look to be made of leather, admittedly - Molly Millions pants - but they are pants). I think the limiting factor there is that they have to be able to fit very snugly, so you can't be wearing anything loose under them, and most witches just don't bother wearing anything at all on their legs to make it simpler.

>(This is of course assuming that Gryph's particular brand of mojo
>could even make the engine work, which... considering Mio's
>retraining, seems to be at least on the near side of possible.)

It actually will - I had plans for a second '43 flashback in New Tricks in which it transpired that he could get a Striker to turn over by putting his hand on it and concentrating, which would've gone into the scene where he and Mio were repairing her Shiden-kai, but it didn't flow very well and I ultimately left it out. He can energize a Miyafuji engine with the Force and get a machine connected to it to do things, though he's obviously never actually tried to operate an entire Striker Unit, because, as he put it, "They don't make them in my size and nobody wants to see that anyway." :)

So yeah, the possibility is there in principle. It would have advantages and drawbacks, like any powerplant technology decision. Principally, if he had a Miyafuji-engined ætherjetpack instead of a conventional one, he would no longer be dependent on externally sourced fuel, but he'd also run all the accompanying risks of powering something with a Miyafuji engine, and as Trude Barkhorn could tell you, those little ætherjet engines can bite you if you're not careful. Or even if you are...

--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.

That's the idea, yes.

>>Obviously it would take some doing...
>
>This is not necessarily the case...

Ah. I stand corrected. In my defense, I've only seen about the first eight episodes of season 1, so I've yet to knowingly see an aetherjet in action.

>>(This is of course assuming that Gryph's particular brand of mojo
>>could even make the engine work...
>
>It actually will... "They don't make them in my size and nobody wants to see that anyway." :)

Hence the backpack config, though I'm sure some of the 501st wouldn't mind seeing him try things the normal way.

>So yeah, the possibility is there in principle. It would have
>advantages and drawbacks, like any powerplant technology decision.
>Principally, if he had a Miyafuji-engined ætherjetpack instead
>of a conventional one, he would no longer be dependent on externally
>sourced fuel, but he'd also run all the accompanying risks of powering
>something with a Miyafuji engine, and as Trude Barkhorn could tell
>you, those little ætherjet engines can bite you if you're not
>careful. Or even if you are...

Well, to be fair, that's true of any engine that emits a cone of flame, whether real or aetheric. Again I point to my lack of complete canon awareness (a problem I will be rectifying this weekend), but it seems to me the aetherjets would be at least somewhat safer than, y'know... actual fire-based thrusters. Probably more maneuverable, too, and as you said before, the fuel problem goes away (and presumably his Detianism would counteract the burnout effect).

Anyway, this is all basically just random musing on my part. I love what you guys are doing with this, and as usual the 'Gimme MORE' is heavily implied. :)

EDIT: It now occurs to me that it wouldn't be too off the wall to incorporate jet boots into the system to really up his maneuverability. Not something that can give him enough thrust to remain in the air obviously (otherwise you're looking at a full conventional Striker unit, and avoiding that is... kind of the point of using the backpack to start with). Of course there are other options for extra fine control - Gryph could probably cadge something from that ruined armor suit, for example - that wouldn't be so clunky (or cliche), but... well, jet boots. :)

Well, the remarks about skin contact and whatnot apply to any Miyafuji Engine-equipped Striker; you will note, for instance, that several members of the 501st routinely wear tights (in Eila's case, they're practically trousers).

>>"They don't make them in my size and nobody wants to see that anyway." :)
>
>Hence the backpack config, though I'm sure some of the 501st wouldn't
>mind seeing him try things the normal way.

Instant image: Shirley, Mio, and (perhaps surprisingly) Sanya, all obviously blotto, clinking their beverage-of-choice bottles together and exhorting him to take it all off, while an incandescently blushing Lynne watches through her fingers and a red-faced Eila tries unsuccessfully to drag Sanya away by her free arm.

NOTE: THIS NEVER HAPPENED

>EDIT: It now occurs to me that it wouldn't be too off the wall to
>incorporate jet boots into the system to really up his
>maneuverability.

"Day 11, test 37, configuration 2.0. For lack of a better option, Lucchini is still on fire safety. If you douse me again and I'm not on fire, I'm donating you to a convent."

--G.
"Yeah... I can fly."
-><-
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.

Yet.

> "Day 11, test 37, configuration 2.0. For lack of a better option,
> Lucchini is still on fire safety. If you douse me again and I'm not
> on fire, I'm donating you to a convent."

> "Yeah... I can fly."

I would pay to see this whole thing play out, just sayin'. If they weren't in an active war zone (and trying to keep Gryph hidden), I could even see it being a viable part of the plot. Though now that the Kaiser has seen him I'm not at all sure whether that whole hiding thing is going to work too much longer.