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

[Black Aeronaut]

Did a bit of research on the Girls und Panzer school ships today. (Okay, I watched the GnP OAVs.)

Things that we know about Ooarai, as revealed in OAV 3: "School Ship War!"

• Grade school students attend classes on land; Hana assumes that this is because they're too young to be away from their families. The implication is that middle-school students attend classes aboard the school ships. And that means my earlier estimates as to how many students are present in the fleet were off by a factor of 1 - we have to double my estimate of three-quarters of a million to include the middle-school students. (The fact that the high school Student Council runs things implies that Ooarai doesn't have a university... but IRL the city of Ooarai doesn't have its own university, either.)
  

Wait.  I thought we already were including middle school students.  ??

• Ooarai offers eight course streams at the high-school level: General, Ship (presumably "ship operation"). Intelligence, Tailoring, Nutrition, Engineering, Fisheries, and Agriculture. (Miho mentions an "Armored Forces Course", but goes on to say that Ooarai isn't Kuromorimine, implying that Kuromorimine has a cadet/ROTC program if we don't assume Miho was joking.)
  

Honestly, it would not surprise me if at least some of the school ships had certain specialty tracks.  The Nishizumi House being what it is?  I'd be shocked if Kuromorimine didn't have a Military Cadet track.

Also, apparently whoever did the translation didn't know the right word.  What they wanted for "Ship" should be "Seamanship", as the entry level position on most ships is "Able-Bodied Seaman".

• One of the students in the Ship course and seen on the flying bridge was Mako's classmate in middle school. This implies that students either do not specialize in middle school or can change from the general course to a specialized course when entering high school.
  

This is actually how things are done in Japan.  You're expected to pick your track, usually in your second-year of middle school.  And once you do make that choice, you're stuck with it.  No pressure, huh? 

But generally speaking, there's usually only two tracks to choose from: either Humanities, or Academics.  (Thing is, they cram just about everything that a high school graduate here in the Americas has into their heads by the end of middle school.  This is why HS in Japan is NOT compulsory.  Just like in ye olden days, it's considered to be more like college prep.)

Apparently in GuP, they decided that there's room to expand given the nature of the school ships.

• Students in the Ship and Engineering courses do not pay tuition, but do serve an eight-hour shift keeping the ship ''Ooarai'' functional in addition to taking classes... which doesn't leave the Ship or Engineering students time to play sensha-do. However, Miho and Yukari both mention that other ships do things differently.
  

Unsurprising.  Oorai strikes me as the lower-middle-class sort of school of underdogs where they're reliant on the students to keep the ship running, and the families of said students can't afford the tuition rates of other school ships.  At any rate, I'll need to go and revise a couple of lines in A Night at Callahan's in light of this information.

• Students in the Ship course have individual quarters, about the size of a frigate captain's quarters IRL.
  

Again, no surprise to me.  Just like in the USN, Able-Bodied Seamen have long hours.  But since they're civies, their crews are nowhere nearly as large - weapon systems and high-power radars need a lot of upkeep, and modern merchant ships have a lot of power-equipment and automation to do the work of many men.  So they got room enough to give their bottom-rung people living conditions that are palatial compared to naval sailors.

• Agriculture and Fisheries are both carried out below decks. Fish are farmed in large tanks. Crops are grown in soil, under grow lamps; no hydroponics were shown.
  

Huh.  So everything on the weather deck is just there for the sake of recreation?

• Water purification is also below-decks, and is shown to use the same large ponds/vats that cities on land use.
  

Once again, no surprise here.

• Ships are modular, built from 300x300m blocks of various types. There is little coordination done regarding transit between blocks below decks; it is sometimes necessary to go topside to get from one block to the block next to it.
  

I'm going to assume that this is how they contain a hull breech should one ever occur.  As deep as the drafts on these ships are, the force of the water coming in through a breech can kill a person.  So standard operating procedure would probably be to evacuate the module, let it fill up, and then repair the breech.  Once that is taken care of, they can dewater the module, but I can imagine it'd be one hell of a clean up afterwards - and probably regarded as being similar to a natural disaster.

• Ooarai has a museum devoted to the history of the ship and the school. One of the exhibits is a 1/1000 scale model of the ship.
  
• Miho describes Ooarai as old, but well cared for.
  

And once again, no surprise here.  Given that the ship Oorai resides on is modeled after a WWII Japanese aircraft carrier, then this ship's history would date back to a similar time period.

RE: Chikyū-no-Mau....  I can't find anything that gives Luna and Artemis any surnames.  Got a source?  Otherwise... Chikyū seems to be used in Japanese to refer to Earth as a proper noun, and not a generalized noun like "planet" would be.  At least, I haven't seen it used that way before.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

No source, which is why I fell back on "Mau of Earth" (and, for Diana, "Mao of the Moon of Earth") t distinguish them from Mau of other star systems.

Okay, that's what I thought.  It's just that it gets to be a real mouthful and that kinda bugs me.

Perhaps if we could do something about Mau being a dead world?

Maybe we can convince the Federation to dust off Project Genesis with the aim to revive planets rendered lifeless by Galaxia?  I mean, we do have Hotaru, but she'll need a few years to grow up all over again after each shot. 

"As much as I'd like to re-create the terraforming magic that made all of the terrestrial planets in the inner Solar system habitable, there simply isn't enough raw magic available to cast all of the spells we'd need."

Sakura Matou raised her hand. "I have access to a lot of power. If I draw on the Grail fragments that my stepfather forced into my body, my minimum draw is about the same as the output of one thousand Divine Busters."

(Hayate leaned over to Fate, and whispered, "Remind me to never get her upset with me.")

Which still won't be enough - Sakura Matou might have "effectively limitless" magic for normal use, but megaprojects on the scale of making entire worlds habitable would still drain her reserves... and she doesn't have any way to replenish those reserves in a normal human lifetime.And then there's the nature and cost of magic in any TYPE/MOON setting...

Maybe let Sakura test her ideas on a smaller solar system body first, say Ceres or Vesta.

"Hey!"

Oops... Sorry, Cere-Cere and Ves-Ves. Maybe let Sakura test her ideas on a much smaller solar system body without a Star Seed first.

Sheesh.  Magic doesn't have to be the answer to everything.  Like I said before, The United Federation of Planets has the perfect solution: Project Genesis.

Granted, that sucker is buried under so many levels of confidentiality that even high-ranking Admirals will have issues getting at it.  But I think that with some sweet talking, plus a friendly reminder that we now have much scarier things than Genesis to worry about (Oh, hello there Mister Deathstar!) they'll come around on the idea, and allow Genesis to be used on a very limited basis.

And, in order to sooth ruffled feathers because of how easy it is to use Genesis as a weapon, probably have it operated solely under the auspices of a multi-national operation that will include all the big players: Federation, Romulans, Klingons, Abh, Moon Empire, Jyurai...  Just to name a few.