Member
Question -
What kind of passengers would we be having? People who hired our services?
Typically they're people who cannot afford to usually travel overseas by boat. Many times, the aetherships are often used to transport people who need to get from one destination to the next. Since the invention of the Aethership and its subsequent use for giving access to immigrants, it is illegal to transport travelers who don't possess a passport or a form of legal immigrant documentation should they choose to go down that path. The only exception are of course those who are apart of a crew, the same goes for us. So yes, technically they happen to be people hiring our services. Think of it as a semi-illegitimate AirBnB/Lyft type service. If this story had garnered more attention, it would have certainly been open to those interest as well but either way the spots are typically intended to be occupied by NPCs, some of which are part the plot of our story. Most of them, however, have little (if nothing at all) to do with anything illegal and just happen to be simple travelers.
How does our aestership look like? Also how exactly is working with an aestership's maintenance be like?
Also, not done yet! ^^" link: Rebecca
Good question. I'm not an artist, so I will probably write a section describing the Strativella and a few other typical examples of Aetherships like it under 'Technology'. Specifically, our ship is a Modella Titan 1914 Type B which is perhaps one of the best of its kind with added improvements from its earlier models and but failed to meet quotas and were eventually discontinued. They were very efficient but were out-competed by Bellator Cielo's Jupiter 1913 and Himmelskuppel's Donar 1914. The very one we own in a used one, but certainly does its job in an efficient manner.
Our ship is practically like every other Aethership:
Think of the ship being around the roughly smaller than the size of the Final Fantasy 7 airship, Highwind, except having a more Victorian theme. What keeps such aircraft afloat is course the Aetherium which at the presence of heat, produce a maglev effect and elevates the platforms of the ship. Conductors are therefore built into the ship in order maintain the vessel and keep it aloft which are easily maintained without a mechanic - without them, the ship cannot sustain fight. What keeps the aircraft mobile however is obviously the engine which unlike the conductors require a person with knowledge and skill in order to maintain. They are essentially like larger airplane engines and have their own room to be maintained by our mechanic. Aetherships cannot travel as quickly as Airplanes, but can still achieve a relatively high speed. Our model the Modella Titan 1914 Type B for instance can travel at reach speeds of 75 mph (or 120.7 kmh) but with more cargo means more weight which inevitably slows the vessel down.
Modella is perhaps one of the most prominent Aethership companies in the entire world. Centered around in Florence Italy, its founder and now CEO Benito Doccello was at the beginning of his career, a lowly Aerospace Engineer before inventing his own specially designed Aetherships which ended up marketing a success in the industry. There are five other large Aethership companies (there are others, but they're not as popular): Aria (If you read the timeline which happens to be the first company built by Vincenzo Buscemi and Ferdinand von Zeppelin), Bellator del Cielo (Italy), Niño del Cielo (A Spanish company), Himmelskuppel (based in Germany), and the growing American company Johnathon-Stratton. Aetherships such as the one we are in can facilitate a crew of about seven and hold five extra rooms used to house any passengers. It is essentially a cargo holding ship like most Aetherships, and are used to transport items and passengers from one desired location to the next.
With prohibition and the violent social uprisings on the rise, the transportation of illegal cargo is also quite common among those taking such employment. It is due to this that therefore caused an International Police Brigade to form and take care of such matters; they essentially have jurisdiction all over the world (but mostly from approved nations) and can stop Aetherships at any time though require a warrant of search by a court in the country they are conducting their search in. Men hired for international police service also require an insignia of approval of their own nation on top of a letter of recognition from the League of Nations in order for their service to be considered valid.
I'll probably write a bit more in detail about the Aetherships and the International Police Brigade, but I hope this is somewhat sufficient for now.