Just in case you thought the scale disparities between the other Triple Changers' two altmodes were ridiculous (an F-15 and an M60 tank? a steam locomotive and an STS orbiter? a Mack truck and a KC-135?!), along came Broadside to show you that you hadn't seen anything yet.

>>So in this scenario, you figure they all just parked their ships
>>someplace unobtrusive and slipped into the general population,* and
>>have since been Wandering Among Us unnoticed? Hmm... interesting.
>
>I, um...well, yeah, that's pretty much precisely what I thought,
>modulo hammerspace and maybe a carryon bag. Is it a bad sign that I
>see that kind of thing enough that I didn't even consider more
>conventional logistics?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not making fun of the idea - I think it's kind of cool, actually. I was just making a joke about unwieldy baggage. The Fog showed no particular aptitude for things like the "hammerspace" trick when they were last seen, but then, they weren't cute girls with weird mannerisms at that time, either. :)

That said, I've seen official artworks in which the Mental Models are shown holding (what I presume are supposed to be) scale models of their own ship forms. Maybe they've actually got a Bottle City of Kandor thing going on there. :)

As an aside, I know they're just cute out-of-band images, but I kind of like the unspoken implications if they are scale models. It's like having an action figure of yourself. I like to picture Takao displaying a heretofore-unseen bent for carefully focused precision work: sitting at a desk, tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth, painstakingly assembling an Airfix kit of a Takao-class cruiser. :)

Come to think of it, there's a bit in the TV series where we see a bedroom in the Blue Steel team's sekrit base on Iwo Jima. I'm not sure whose room it is, but whoever it is collects models of Iona (so I'm assuming it's Hyūga's). There's at least one of the I-401 and two or three of her Mental Model in different outfits (making it seem pleasingly as if someone on the team collects Arpeggio of Blue Steel merch). It's often hard to tell what Iona is thinking, but I like to believe that she finds that room slightly creepy.

--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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