I don't think we can make them smaller while keeping this in the realms of deconstruction. For schools of their size? Geared towards teaching vocational trades and seamanship? Yeah, a town of 30,000 - the students, workers, teachers, crew, and their families - sounds about right. The only way you could get away with is is if you made the student body A LOT smaller.
And reading about the history of these ships? Shit's pretty absurd. Apparently this has been a thing since the Roman Empire. Though that would explain why it's so damn normal for these people - they're used to the idea of floating cities that are practically political entities on the same level as provincial governments.
At any rate, I just see this as a challenge for us, as writers, to rise to: a realistic response to gargantuan ships that have actual, living, breathing towns on them, showing up in bays around the world.
If I may make a suggestion? Have them be the very first thing that shows up during the events of the Academy City Job. These ships arriving would be the very first sign that the Maleable Causality System has gone into complete and irrecoverable failure mode after Dr. Doofenshmirtz's Unreal Estate became the straw that broke the camel's back. This way, the mundanes reaction will be something along the lines of, "WTF!? We got entire cities taking off for orbit, and now giant carriers with freaking TOWNS of their own? God's sake, let them anchor out - we got bigger things to worry about!"
This would make for a great Season 2 Opener. Rather than the Babylon Stations story (I still want it to happen, and early on at that) this would be a much lower-key story. The basic premise would be the various apartment managers are each assigned a ship, and it's their job to get the ship's command staff, civilian government, school administration, and student government read in on the whole situation. From there, a demon will be assigned to each ship to keep tabs on the situation and handle the actual politics. But it will be the Apartment Manager's job to make formal introductions between the demon and the important people, and make sure they're up to speed on what's going on.
Possible side story: even though there's a moratorium on this kind of thing, one demon figures he or she is slick enough to corrupt some of these young girls without any of the higher ups noticing. Long story short, someone does notice, and Hild winds up spending some time meting out disciplinary measures.
"Oh, don't misunderstand me. Few things would give me greater pleasure than corrupting those cute little girls. Oh, the things they would do, especially with those hormones running rampant~. The pleasures of the flesh and the vices they inspire are such an alluring call to adolescents~. But this is not the time for that. This universe is threatening to tear itself to pieces, and if we want to profit from this universe, then we must take any and all measures to ensure it survives its own birth! And that means that with the exception of contracting wishes with our Apartment Managers and select Displacees, our regular operations are suspended until further notice.
"But you thought you were special. You thought you could get a leg up on the competition by disregarding orders. However, the fact of the matter is that you're nothing special at all. You were caught. By my own daughter, at that! And everyone knows just how hard I've been working at getting Urd to acknowledge me as her mother. But your actions have further soured my relations with her! And that is why I'm afraid that I will have to make an example out of you~. Don't worry - you'll survive~. But you will certain wish that you didn't~. Prepare yourself~."
And reading about the history of these ships? Shit's pretty absurd. Apparently this has been a thing since the Roman Empire. Though that would explain why it's so damn normal for these people - they're used to the idea of floating cities that are practically political entities on the same level as provincial governments.
At any rate, I just see this as a challenge for us, as writers, to rise to: a realistic response to gargantuan ships that have actual, living, breathing towns on them, showing up in bays around the world.
If I may make a suggestion? Have them be the very first thing that shows up during the events of the Academy City Job. These ships arriving would be the very first sign that the Maleable Causality System has gone into complete and irrecoverable failure mode after Dr. Doofenshmirtz's Unreal Estate became the straw that broke the camel's back. This way, the mundanes reaction will be something along the lines of, "WTF!? We got entire cities taking off for orbit, and now giant carriers with freaking TOWNS of their own? God's sake, let them anchor out - we got bigger things to worry about!"
This would make for a great Season 2 Opener. Rather than the Babylon Stations story (I still want it to happen, and early on at that) this would be a much lower-key story. The basic premise would be the various apartment managers are each assigned a ship, and it's their job to get the ship's command staff, civilian government, school administration, and student government read in on the whole situation. From there, a demon will be assigned to each ship to keep tabs on the situation and handle the actual politics. But it will be the Apartment Manager's job to make formal introductions between the demon and the important people, and make sure they're up to speed on what's going on.
Possible side story: even though there's a moratorium on this kind of thing, one demon figures he or she is slick enough to corrupt some of these young girls without any of the higher ups noticing. Long story short, someone does notice, and Hild winds up spending some time meting out disciplinary measures.
"Oh, don't misunderstand me. Few things would give me greater pleasure than corrupting those cute little girls. Oh, the things they would do, especially with those hormones running rampant~. The pleasures of the flesh and the vices they inspire are such an alluring call to adolescents~. But this is not the time for that. This universe is threatening to tear itself to pieces, and if we want to profit from this universe, then we must take any and all measures to ensure it survives its own birth! And that means that with the exception of contracting wishes with our Apartment Managers and select Displacees, our regular operations are suspended until further notice.
"But you thought you were special. You thought you could get a leg up on the competition by disregarding orders. However, the fact of the matter is that you're nothing special at all. You were caught. By my own daughter, at that! And everyone knows just how hard I've been working at getting Urd to acknowledge me as her mother. But your actions have further soured my relations with her! And that is why I'm afraid that I will have to make an example out of you~. Don't worry - you'll survive~. But you will certain wish that you didn't~. Prepare yourself~."