Technological Marvel No. 7: The Grand Aery at Pembroke
Excerpt from the Ontario-Orion Cross-Atlantic Lighter-Than-Air Cruiser Company Summer Brochure
"… and you can wake up to the watch the dramatic coastlines and rolling hills of the Emerald Isle passing gently beneath you, then take breakfast in the forward bistro as we finally approach the isle of Great Britain itself.
You'll marvel as the morning sun glints majestically off the structure of the Great Aery at Pembroke, in St Brides Fields, our final port of call. This magnificent piece of architecture stands 1,067 feet tall, 4 feet taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and is the tallest structure in the world. Yet, because of its advanced manufacture, due to the ingenuity of Britain's own Lydia Florence Watford and her theories of
floating compression, the Grand Aery uses but half of the material! Alternating tensile and compressive components, the Grand Aery mimics how the human body is held together with bone and sinew, and thus appears to float up out of the ground like spun gossamer.* Functional as well as regally graceful, the Grand Aery can dock up to 20 incoming and departing airships per day.**
The Grand Aery features a cathedral-sized ballroom with a reinforced glass dance floor, suspended 500 feet above ground, for waiting passengers to while their time away before their departure. Otherwise, the two bars, four cafes or fine-dining restaurant might take their fancy.
And of course, busy passengers arriving who are in a rush to board for London may take advantage of the speedy and convenient pneumatic monorail connection from St Brides terminus to Pembroke Station, where express trains depart every hour.
And thus completes your three-day journey from Ottawa Hill to Great Britain, in style, comfort and class, for the highly affordable price of…"
* something like
this
** boarding from a ring deck through the airship's nose, similar to
this
----
Question 42
Lord Buggsbury strolls into his office tossing a croquet mallet between his hands. Sir Adrian follows with a bundle of files under his arm, and starts placing them on His Lordship's bureau. Buggsbury ignores this and gazes out the bay window at a vista of the Thames.
"I was just at a round of croquet with the Marquesa, you know."
"Yes, m'lord. Did she enjoy the dill?"
"The what, Sir Adrian?"
"The
dill, m'lord, on the cucumber sandwiches."
"How in blazes would I know, Sir Adrian. What a ludicrous question. Now, pay attention."
"Yes, m'lord."
"The Marquesa had a very
pertinent question, Sir Adrian, about guns. If we were to send our boys off to battle, to take care of one of these
hot spots, what do they carry? Do we have
enough of them? Are our guns
good enough? She was quite concerned."
"I would imagine so, m'lord."
"And what of the Germans? Do
they have
good guns? So! To appease her concern, Sir Adrian, and my own, send a boy to the Chancellor of War. Enquire of him what guns we have, and
if they are
good enough."
"Sending a boy shan't be necessary, m'lord. You can correspond directly with His Lordship's office via the
pneumaphone, m'lord."
"Excuse your French, Sir Adrian!"
"The
pneumaphone, m'lord, the apparatus on the stand in the corner."
Buggsbury leers querously at the sleek, brass and teak contraption with pipes emitting from it to a fitting in the wall, as Sir Adrian continues.
"They are installed throughout the ministry. Just engage the valve, m'lord, to build up steam pressure, then you may speak."
"My man, I
indeed wish to speak with His Lordship, not
parboil him!"
"It is perfectly sound, m'lord, and poses no danger at all. The pressurised steam merely serves to transmit m'lord's acoustic signals as modes of vibration."
"What a ludicrous notion. Send a boy."
"Yes, m'lord."
IOW: What types of weaponry are commonly available for various country's troops? And what advanced options are there? Who has the superior armaments?