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1. Clarissa the Dogcow :moof: (clarusplusplus@argon.city)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 01:35:16 JST Clarissa the Dogcow :moof:

   trying to figure out how believable a world would be where helicopters have been invented but airplanes never were, and all trans-ocean travel is by ocean liner

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 01:35:13 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @ClarusPlusPlus I can imagine that happening if there's no world wars. Without a bunch of military money dumped into planes, they never take off (no pun intended) other then some short range gimmicks. (Either that or the wars they did have were naval focused)
     That'd be reinforced if your setting has a bunch of islands rather than big continents, so everywhere has ocean access.

   • Clarissa the Dogcow :moof: (clarusplusplus@argon.city)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 01:35:14 JST Clarissa the Dogcow :moof:

     in reply to

     Maybe it's not a technological question, but a cultural one. Planes are a thing, but using them for passenger service just never caught on because people just prefer the comfort and slower pace of ocean travel.

     Maybe some people like to fly, but the demand was never high enough to push the technology to evolve from prop planes to jets

   • Clarissa the Dogcow :moof: (clarusplusplus@argon.city)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 01:35:15 JST Clarissa the Dogcow :moof:

     in reply to

     i don't like planes. i like ships

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 01:37:30 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @ClarusPlusPlus if you want a "natural" explanation I'd go with something like "the air currents are more chaotic at altitude". Helicopters are fine for maneuvering down low, but a passenger plane would never work because it gets way too turbulent up there. Every time anyone tries it, the passengers end up puking their guts out, so it's a commercial failure even if technically possible

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 01:40:15 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @ClarusPlusPlus you could also do something like "the atmosphere is more strongly charged". Small planes and helicopters are still viable, but the charge across a big plane is too much and they end up electrically damaged. So we never built big bombers or passenger jets, just some little planes and then helicopters.
     Passenger travel is possible, but not economically viable for anything but rich charter flights and emergency medicine deliveries, because the biggest plane is a 4 seater

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 01:43:21 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @ClarusPlusPlus a fun alternative might be to suggest there's nothing different with the sky, planes work the same as everywhere... But there's something different about the ocean.
     Like maybe in this world there's some algae that is ubiquitous in the ocean, and they figured out how to easily convert it to fuel.
     So you can build a big boat and run the engine off processed seawater, so you don't need to carry fuel.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 01:45:34 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @ClarusPlusPlus so planes are still possible, but can't compete against boats because boats don't need to bring fuel along with them. It's like 50$ to cross the Atlantic, who would ever want to fly across?

     You could even say that the algae processing equipment is big, requiring titanic-sized liners, because smaller boats would still have to carry fuel. So the setting selects for big ships

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 02:30:14 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @ClarusPlusPlus one of my settings does the opposite: they live on an ocean world but never really developed boat travel beyond very short range stuff because the ocean is full of mana, essentially. And if you go stir it up with a big boat, it starts getting weird fast and you will have a very bad time.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 02:39:24 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @ClarusPlusPlus at best you'll sink or set fire to your boat. But like the old urban legend about not being sure the first nuclear detonation wouldn't set the atmosphere on fire, the local wizards have never been able to conclusively prove you couldn't accidentally set up a self-powered chain reaction. Best case scenario there is that you set the whole ocean on fire and use up all the oxygen on the planet.
     Worse case... The whole planet casts a spell.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 02:41:05 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @ClarusPlusPlus and that's in a setting where a couple gallons of liquid mana lets you teleport to other planets, and once a about a hundred wizards got together to blow up a star.

     They don't know what you could do with an entire ocean's worth of mana and they really hope they never find out.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 03:17:36 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • niche witch with a 🐝

     @clairely_undaunted @ClarusPlusPlus the worst problem: too much oil!

   • niche witch with a 🐝 (clairely_undaunted@mastodon.triggerphra.se)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 03:17:37 JST niche witch with a 🐝

     in reply to

     • Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     @foone @ClarusPlusPlus now writing James Bond spec script on evil shipping genius seeding Earth's oceans with petrol-creating algae

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 03:27:53 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • niche witch with a 🐝

     @clairely_undaunted @ClarusPlusPlus I wonder if any scifi has done the story of aliens transmitting a way to get free oil from algae to a mid-20th-century level civilization... But it's a scheme to get them to global warming their biosphere to death so the aliens won't have to bother conquering them when they finally show up to colonize it

   • niche witch with a 🐝 (clairely_undaunted@mastodon.triggerphra.se)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 03:27:55 JST niche witch with a 🐝

     in reply to

     • Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     @foone @ClarusPlusPlus but, free shipping!

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 05:47:35 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • niche witch with a 🐝

     @clairely_undaunted @ClarusPlusPlus maybe venus was the goal planet but they didn't want neighbors with spaceships and nukes

   • niche witch with a 🐝 (clairely_undaunted@mastodon.triggerphra.se)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 05:47:36 JST niche witch with a 🐝

     in reply to

     • Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     @foone @ClarusPlusPlus i mean we are nowhere near as attactive as Venus… hey aliens go one more over

   • niche witch with a 🐝 (clairely_undaunted@mastodon.triggerphra.se)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2023 05:47:37 JST niche witch with a 🐝

     in reply to

     • Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     @foone @ClarusPlusPlus co2 loving aliens looking for resource planets