Antarctic Space Nazis Across the Multiverse

[johndallman]

It's just that such scholars are generally neither influential in ASN society, nor necessarily very good scientists, for all their learning, as the kind of people who'll simultaneously devote their lives to scholarly understanding of a culture and work within a structure dedicated to the absolute destruction of that culture and any people who share it - well, might not be quite sane.

'We prefer to call it "alternative reasoning."'

the Lords of the Last Waste.

. . . this is a mission of the highest importance to the Ahnenerbe, though strangely it seems that very few powerful runecasters or other occultists are all that willing to volunteer and the personnel allowed to know anything about this world are kept to the minimum practical.

enlarging it to temporarily allow Amfortas through was astonishingly easy.

Well, beside noting that it's effectively in the mostly abandoned city of Kadath, I hadn't really decided.

I hope the PCs figure out what's really going on faster than I did, and that they don't tell the ASN when they do.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

How high does the airship mooring mast have to be?

They do have that strange black stone pillar, which even has sort of steps on one side of it and could easily support external structures that could be used as more comfortable stairs.

The mooring mast is going to be quite large. For a 160-meter airship, docking in a city, I reckon its top needs to be about 80 metres above the next highest thing for a kilometre in every direction. This allows you to dock the airship whatever the wind direction, with a substantial allowance for wind gusts blowing you downwards. On flat ground with steady and predictable winds, those allowances can be reduced.

The mast also needs to be strong enough to hold the airship in much worse winds than are ever encountered at the site (again, because of gusts).

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rupert

It's not well suited. FWIW the old roads the Myceneans cut into the mountain sides for their chariots can still be followed, and some of the stone bridges and simple culverts they made are still there. These obviously took quite a bit of work to make - they were cut into the rock in many places.

I'm reasonably sure that the Myceneans had chariots because "that's what everyone does", and the numbers I recall from the citadel records show they were for the elite and were not going to support massed chariot armies in the style of Asia Minor. IMO their armies would've looked more like a medieval one, but with chariots instead of knights on heavy horses - a fairly small 'cavalry' arm of nobles and near-nobles, and a much bigger body of foot that would've been more important than in an Egyptian, etc. army.

In 'dark ages' Greece they become 'battle taxis' for the nobles and heroes - see Homer.

Cool, thanks.

So not likely to be very relevant to any but the largest and most successful tribes, if even that?

Originally Posted by Rupert

It occurs to me that not only will old artefact that weren't magical be held in high esteem because so many surviving ones were magical, but surviving for centuries in a magical environment make cause an item to absorb mana and become magical even if it wasn't to start with. Aside from anything else, it's clearly lucky.

Nice thought! Yeah, that's likely.

And the area of 'Greece' in this world even seems to have been especially magical, at least at some point. The locals around it all tell stories about the demons and monsters who come from these lands (meaning, apparently, much of the Central to Eastern Mediterranean).

An ASN expedition ran into a tribe of savage 8' tall warriors without any technology of their own, who were more than usually ugly, in the mountains of what ought to be Epirus. There are also reports from native merchants, allies and scouts that there are still monsters in this part of the world, including numerous man-eating creatures that sound more fearsome than lions and tigers and bears.

Originally Posted by Rupert

Sounds like these guys are the 'invaders' once assumed to have been the cause of Mycenean Greece's 'fall'.

Well, one of the things Ahnenerbe archaeologists, historians and other scholars of the Ancient World have been trying to find out by sending expeditions to this savage backwater is whether there were ever any Mycenaeans to fall.

They've found no conclusive evidence that any of the civilizations that occupied this part of the world before a 'Fall' of some sort were recognizably 'Myceanaean'. That some of modern people speak languages related to Hellenic languages, yes, but there has as yet not been any hard evidence of specifically 'Myceanean' art or building styles. Then again, the ASNs have not exactly managed to send many expeditions there and are mostly relying on natives that they send to trade with neighboring towns and city-states (mostly very hostile to the ASNs).

If there was a Myceanaean culture in the past, it was so thoroughly destroyed that it left much less in the way of traces than several Cycladian and Anatolian cultures, where there are still some ruins, but society has clearly been rebuilt in many thriving small communities and even some city-states.

Indeed, there are plenty of TL2 and TL2+1 societies in what ought to be the Greek world and some of them even speak languages that seem related to Hellenic ones, but it is just that the culture of these peoples are so very far from anything recognizable from Homer or Classical Greek sources that the ASNs refuse to consider them any kind of Ancient Greeks.

The ASNs view those who are speakers of Hellenic languages and live in areas where there ought to be Greeks instead as 'Orientalized' Hellenic peoples, no more akin to Homer's Achaeans than Scythians or Medes would be. This might be due to their, to the ASNs, unsavory religions, or the political importance of an elite religious caste of apparently foreign origin, probably Minoan or Pelasgian (in the opinion, again, of the ASNs).

Originally Posted by Rupert

Yes, though if you're using random bit of bronze the resulting alloy is unlikely to be well suited to swords, or to fine tools. It should be okay for helmets, and it'd be fine for axes.

Excellent. These guys aren't supposed to make their own fine swords, anyway, those are always loot or scavenged from tombs. Home-made weapons are pretty much in the class that my Nordic and Viking ancestors made themselves in their early Iron Age, i.e. axes and spears and if you have a sword, it's brought from abroad.

Originally Posted by Rupert

You can forge bronze in a similar way to iron, you just don't heat-treat it the same (no quenching, not that quenching, etc. works on iron and low-carbon steel).

Great, thanks.

So these barbarians can then be associated with an eclectic collection of scavenged or crudely forged bronze, iron and steel weapons, as well as the occasional ancient item of power. So the ASNs cannot clearly state that they are 'Iron Age' peoples, as they work both scavenged bronze and iron. This makes it even harder to figure out what the true history for this region might be.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The mooring mast is going to be quite large. For a 160-meter airship, docking in a city, I reckon its top needs to be about 80 metres above the next highest thing for a kilometre in every direction. This allows you to dock the airship whatever the wind direction, with a substantial allowance for wind gusts blowing you downwards. On flat ground with steady and predictable winds, those allowances can be reduced.

The mast also needs to be strong enough to hold the airship in much worse winds than are ever encountered at the site (again, because of gusts).

Then they could try to use the black stone pillar as the basis for a higher mooring mast, as the 100' tall pillar is already the highest thing in about a 200 meter radius and as it is located on an elevated plateau, only the various towers of Kadath are higher, and those tend to be clustered in other areas of the city.

So if they just add 50-60 meters to the pillar, they'll be fine. An added bonus is that the pillar is stronger than any construction material known to TL7 men and no amount of material they could have brought is going to seriously affect its ability to support the weight, so in terms of the weight that the pillar could support, at least, even a 50 meter mast would be no problem.

I imagine that getting the mast to support itself is a rather more salient problem. There are some buildings within 100 meters that could be used as additional anchors, though.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Then they could try to use the black stone pillar as the basis for a higher mooring mast, as the 100' tall pillar is already the highest thing in about a 200 meter radius . . .

Isn't the mast going to block the gate?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Isn't the mast going to block the gate?

Sure, from anything the size of Amfortas going through. But it won't. Amfortas isn't leaving this world until some unspecified time in the future, at which point the ASNs assume that some more permanent structure around the gate will have been built, perhaps a huge hangar or something.

In fact, I think the cargo airships that travel the World Tree really dislike having to go through gates anywhere there isn't a purpose-built docking area and like to be loaded and off-loaded on the other side of the gate when supplying outposts without such amenities, using a range of clever gadgets and, generally, plenty of strong workers whereever they bring cargo. So, in this case, by Mi-gö and maybe some Kadavergehorsam slaves that aren't stormtroopers.

Then the ASNs have to get all supplies down from the gate somehow, which calls for construction around the pillar anyway. Even if the ASNs wanted to bring the airships over, the World Tree sailing airships are fragile (it's never windy there) and rely on a crew walking along keeping them from branches. Also, if they came through every week, the people working on them would see Kadath Base and the Dreamlands, instead of just being told that they are supplying a classified location and should concentrate on delivering their cargo to the porters.

And even if the mast is 'blocking' the gate, that still leaves plenty of gate to either side of it for porters to go through, unless the mast is going to be more than 30' in diameter where it starts from the pillar.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

And even if the mast is 'blocking' the gate, that still leaves plenty of gate to either side of it for porters to go through, unless the mast is going to be more than 30' in diameter where it starts from the pillar.

It's probably going to look something like a miniature Eifel Tower, but it should be easy enough to leave passages through it for porters. Can the ASN sink bolts into the pillar to anchor the mast?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

It's probably going to look something like a miniature Eifel Tower, but it should be easy enough to leave passages through it for porters. Can the ASN sink bolts into the pillar to anchor the mast?

I imagine that sinking bolts into the unnameable black stone is hard enough to do that it would be easier to build a superstructure to serve as anchor. Something that encircles the pillar at the top and includes easy passages downward in the forms of multiple stairs.

I don't know what such a structure would weight, but I imagine it's awfully heavy. At 100+ tons of imported construction materials just for the mast and supports, though, I'd start to look for some easier method, though I find some 30-50 tons of steel and other materials having been imported at the start very reasonable. Any required weights for ballast can be locally sourced, I should think, either just ice or maybe rocks from the mountains around that aren't unnameable.

It's amazing what maybe a hundred Mi-gö can do when they're in tune with the essential nature of the universe, and incidentally devoid of any inconvenient initiative, desire for freedom or, indeed, biological processes. An average ST 30 or so, once they've been properly indoctrinated. And as long as they have an Elemental Furnace or three to creepily stand around and watch while they aren't working, they ought to manage full exertion for 20 hours a day or so.

Mind you, 'beast of burden' about describes the level of their abilities to perform any complex work. Ordinary Mi-gö are far more bestial and primitive than the apparently related beast-men of the Third Root Race, putting the Mi-gö solidly at TL0, and it must be admitted that no one is improved as a technical worker by the attentions of the Cold Ones. IQ 6, TL0 and Bestial is about it, though they'll do exactly what their controller commands, if they can comprehend it.

Uh, minus any kind of railway other than needed to stabilize, what do we think of the German methods of mooring:

the Germans, originally for ease of transport and for economy, developed a system using much lower masts. The nose of the ship was tethered as before to the mast head, which was only a little higher than the semi-diameter of the ship's hull. The lower fin at the stern was then fixed to a heavy carriage running on a circular railway track around the mast, and this carriage was powered so as to be able to move around the track to keep the ship head on to the wind. In the most sophisticated form, used by the Hindenburg, the rail system was linked to rails running from the mast straight into the airship shed, and the mast was powered so that the ship could be moved mechanically into the shed, complete with mast and stern carriage.

Here are some details on mooring masts and the general problems with mooring a rigid airship.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I imagine that sinking bolts into the unnameable black stone is hard enough to do that it would be easier to build a superstructure to serve as anchor. Something that encircles the pillar at the top and includes easy passages downward in the forms of multiple stairs.

I don't know what such a structure would weight, but I imagine it's awfully heavy. At 100+ tons of imported construction materials just for the mast and supports, though, I'd start to look for some easier method, though I find some 30-50 tons of steel and other materials having been imported at the start very reasonable. Any required weights for ballast can be locally sourced, I should think, either just ice or maybe rocks from the mountains around that aren't unnameable.

Rather than weights, cables run down from the lower reaches of the tower to anchor rod driven into the ground around the stone tower should do. Like tent ropes, or the anchoring points of a suspension bridge.

And as johndallman said, a tower like the Eifel Tower or a high tension power transmission tower would do the trick.
Here's a nice simple one: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...e0/BSTROM1.jpg

Take the horizontal arms off and it should work nicely, I think.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Rather than weights, cables run down from the lower reaches of the tower to anchor rod driven into the ground around the stone tower should do. Like tent ropes, or the anchoring points of a suspension bridge.

And as johndallman said, a tower like the Eifel Tower or a high tension power transmission tower would do the trick.
Here's a nice simple one: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...e0/BSTROM1.jpg

Take the horizontal arms off and it should work nicely, I think.

For a 160 meter long rigid airship with a volume of 30,000 cubic meters or so, how much weight of metal and other construction materials are we talking for the structure?

And how high does it go?

Assuming that we'll use the standard German method which requires much lower mooring masts than the British one and use Elemental Furnace powered engines on rails (power plant and drive train at 0.06 kW/kg, I expect we could transport a five ton or more device over in parts), as well as the muscle-power of ca 100 Mi-gö (BL 180 each, equivalent to 900 ordinary men who can exert full force for hours without tiring) to replace the internal combustion powered railed tractors that were used on Earth.