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Spaceship shapes

>From: Jo Jaquinta <jaymin>
>Subject: cherryhlist: What does The Pride of Chanur look like?
>Date: Wed, 2 Dec 92 9:37:28 GMT

Has anyone tried to draw The Pride of Chanur? I have a good mental image of the ship (sort of like a finned, cigar shaped ship out of "golden-age" SF) but I can't rationalise this with the internal descriptions given.
Of the three decks the bridge deck is always considered to be "up". At dock this would imply that this is the part that is "nose to dock". Yet the dock access is on the third deck. Also, when they are inertial and under spin the gravity is the same. I've played around with sketches and things and can't seem to come up with a decent combination that doesn't involved big swinging booms, or articulated rings or cylinders. If that's the best I can do Pyanfar is right, ships are piss-ugly. Anyone else ever played with ideas?
The ECS Norway, on the other hand, does have a outline given. We aren't given as detailed a description of its internals though. I have a GIF picture of the cover of The Company War boardgame. It shows the Norway breaking dock from Pell. It isn't very good but if anyone is interested...

			Jo Grant

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>From: Lesley Grant <lgrant>
>Subject: cherryhlist
>Date: Wed, 2 Dec 92 9:48:58 GMT

> >From: Jo Jaquinta <jaymin>
> >Subject: cherryhlist: What does The Pride of Chanur look like?

> 	Has anyone tried to draw The Pride of Chanur? I have a good
> mental image of the ship (sort of like a finned, cigar shaped ship
> out of "golden-age" SF) but I can't rationalise this with the internal
> descriptions given.
> 	The ECS Norway, on the other hand, does have a outline given.

Shouldn't the _Pride_ (and most other Compact ships) resemble the _Norway_ in most respects? After all, if Cherryh's ships are mainly big cans with jump vanes attached, there are only so many variants of the shape. The picture on the _Company War_ box could do well as a 'standard' ship design. And, yes, it's not pretty. None of the ships with vanes are. Do people think the Knnn ships are built on the same pattern? Nothing is ever said to indicate they're not, but they do seem to act outside the limitations of other Compact ships.

				Lesley

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>Date: Wed, 2 Dec 92 12:11:49 +0100
>From: mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at (Markus Stumptner)
>Subject: cherryhlist: What does The Pride of Chanur look like?

I did get the impression that direction of gravity was not necessarily the same when spinning and docked. Note that the design of Norway has the same problem, the ship (i.e., crew area) spins around its longitudinal axis, but this can't work when she's docked and the ship as a whole spins with the station. So, the way I imagine the Pride looks like this:

			  _______
	1st deck	 /       \   | Dock Wall
	2nd 		|         |  |   
	3rd deck	|_________|==| Docking chute
			 _|_____|_   |
			/         \  
			|         |  
			|         |  
			|         |  
cargo bay		|         |  
(doesn't spin)		|         |  
			\_________/  
			  /     \
Drive			  |     |
(whatever that looks	  \_____/
like, doesn't		    |_|
spin either)

So while the ship may actually be fastened to the dock by the nose and any other structure intended, the exit is on the side. The drive was stuck to the end of the ship (note that the new drive for the Pride was much larger than the old one).

	Markus