[OOC][PLOT] Planning for Arc 2 - Crisis on Infinite Earths

[robkelk]

Something for early in Arc 2.

I did some digging for numbers... The Port of Montreal can dock a 300 meter long vessel in 12.9 meters of water (on average over the last 12 months), and that's as shallow as the St. Lawrence River gets from Montreal to the Atlantic Ocean. A Majestic-class aircraft carrier is 215 meters long at the flight deck and has a draught of 7.5 meters.

So it isn't unreasonable to assume the Academy Ship Ooarai could find itself suddenly sailing into port ... and Terry calling for help because docking a ship that size isn't cheap.

Any of the other Girls und Panzer Academy Ships would have to sail into deep-water ports, such as Halifax, Vancouver, New York, or Los Angeles. (Or maybe San Antonio - is that a deep-water port?)

PFFFT!

The Port of Texas City, on the other hand, sees all kinds of industrial traffic and is considered one of the busiest ports (ranked number 14 in the US) by tonnage shipped (47.7+ million metric tons annually).  ...

Not Texas City - Corpus Christi. "Either I'm seeing double, or we've got two flattops tied up where we only had one yesterday." Have Saunders appear moored across from the USS Lexington.

And as long as I'm suggesting who ends up where...

Anzio shows up just off Venice Beach because they got the wrong Venice, too. ("Who let Pepperoni chart our course?") They're ordered to make for the Port of Los Angeles - if I'm reading the aerial photos on Google Maps correctly, it would probably take them half a day to get there, avoiding the shoals near the coast. And then, instead of doing so, they beg for permission to anchor offshore, because they can't afford the docking fees of a real port. Ferry service between Anzio and Kaleido Stage, maybe? Gondola ferry service to Anzio for extra-special occasions, maybe, if somebody would be foolish enough to take a gondola out onto the lagoon. (looks at Akari)

Halifax Harbour can take a battleship. As for climate... well, better have Pravda be the displaced ship to show up in the Bedford Basin.

Looks like the docks at Sandy Hook Bay are the closest large-craft facilities to New Brunswick. But I suspect something as big as Saunders, St. Gloriana, Kuromorimine. or Pravda would have to dock at Governors Island or the Erie Basin, so it's more likely that one of the smaller school ships ends up in NJ.

One of the smaller school ships might get through the Welland Canal... but there's a reason that Great Lakes shipping is transferred to ocean-going vessels in either Montreal or Quebec City. And there's not a hope of a ship that large sailing up the Ottawa River. No school ships for Windsor/Detroit or Ottawa.

Okay, who did I miss for displacee cities and on-screen ships? (looks through the list) Dublin and Philadelphia, and St. Gloriana and Kuromorimine, respectively. Bad combinations, either way. Maybe the manga-only pseudo-French school ships (Maginot or BC Freedom) for Dublin and Philadelphia (flip a coin as to who gets which). St. Gloriana could end up in London... but for fits and giggles, I'd rather put it at Victoria, BC because they have a reputation of being more British than the British, too. Kuromorimine... maybe Honolulu? Give Stitch some place new to "terrorize".

And as for any of them going "home" to Japan... "Well, you could, but it would involve a trip through the Panama Canal and then either a trip around the Ring of Fire or an open-water voyage across the Pacific - either way, you're using up whatever supplies you're carrying. Do you think you could make it?" (Okay, Anzio, St. Gloriana, and Kuromorimine are already in the correct ocean.) Yes, I know that at least Ooarai has aquaculture and other farming below-decks, but Ooarai also has regular supply shipments that Yukari takes advantage of to go spy on other schools' teams, indicating the smaller school ships aren't self-sufficient.