[OOC][PLOT] The Seventh Thread of Planning for Arc 1 - Arrivals

[robkelk]

I'd say shepherd is the same as pastor, it's just a translation.  I've definitely got a mainline protestant feel out of Book, though.  And Saber, well... actually Arturia probably predates the era where monarchs had a special role in the church.  Caster may well be a priestess of Hecate, if that counts?

We do have the SIs, though.  I'm a cantor, and have assisted a pastor in conducting church services.  I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say that Ben is a deacon.

Oh right, I brought in Black Lagoon! We have the Rip-Off Church, which includes a priest named Rico.  If you don't mind your church services with an extra dose of ultraviolence, that is.

Considering why I'm asking whether we have a priest, ecumenicalism might be in order.

On another topic, maybe we need an images thread just for us.  Make it easier to find our reference material.

we have a wiki, you know...

[Dartz]

Considering why I'm asking whether we have a priest, ecumenicalism might be in order.

Speaking of ecumenical matters, I may have a line on some priests

[Black Aeronaut]

Considering why I'm asking whether we have a priest, ecumenicalism might be in order.

Speaking of ecumenical matters, I may have a line on some priests

D’oh gawd, Father Ted...

I’m sold.

[Labster]

I'm actually considered a priest.  LDS starts us off pretty early.  We're Deacons at age 12, Priests at 16, and then Elders at age 19 when we take off on our missions, and then high priests by...  35, I think?  The reason for this is that we're steeped so much in Gospel Doctrine and Book of Mormon History from so early on, we pretty much know all the major details by the time we're ten.  We pretty much get thrown into the deep end as soon as we're out of the Nursery and into Primary (Sunday school for children).

I guess that's one of the other reasons why I'm not so active anymore.  (Note: I never went on a mission and was never ordained as an Elder.)  The fixation for the gospel to occupy every aspect of your life is just plain smothering, and as we've seen so far, I am so much more multifaceted than that.

Companions the creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and believers. Fellow creators the creator seeks--those who write new values on new tablets. Companions the creator seeks, and fellow harvesters; for everything about him is ripe for the harvest.

[robkelk]

I need a location confirmation, please: Where is Yuuno Scrya? Philly or San Antonio?

[robkelk]

I was going through old posts while populating the wiki's map with location markers, and I re-discovered these two from the very first Planning for Arc 1 thread:

As for governments... well, part of the issue we have here in America is how the people that make up the upper echelons of our government are seemingly more and more disconnected with the citizens each election cycle. Not that I don't think there's decent people working in the bureaucracy - I know there's plenty. The issue comes in that these people have a framework they have to work within, and it doesn't really have much wiggle room.

I have the odd idea of something happening very much like in the Coneheads movie - someone at just the right level knows that something is up, they won't simply let this rest - it offends their sensibility that something out there does not fit their world-view and it must be brought into line, one way or another! (I love that the agent wants to deport them, never mind that they don't have the means to send them back home!)

And so it would go... At least, until this agent's incessant pushing comes to the attention of someone even higher up - someone who still remembers that his paychecks come out of the earnings of hard working types and works to do his job fairly and justly. They're not illegal immigrants, he decides. This! This is a refugee crisis! And these good Americans represent American values at their finest by taking care of these displaced people as best as they can.

A new agent is placed on the case, the old one is given a new posting. (Not Alaska. The higher-up isn't evil like that. Hawaii, though, will probably get this fellow to relax a bit while still providing him appropriate targets.) This new agent will make their credentials legitimate and act as a liaison between them and the rest of the government. In other words, this agent is someone who's done legitimately good work and has had experience working with other agencies such as Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

And then the old Agent runs into Lilo and Stitch 8P

Okay.

So, where in Hawai'i do I put the marker?

The island is an agrarian society, where the economy has been driven primarily by cattle ranching, pineapple production, and sugar cane production, and small-scale farms. Tourism comprises a small fraction of the island's economy, and much of the infrastructure related to tourism was closed and barricaded in the early 2000s as the primary landowner, Molokai Ranch, closed operations due to substantial revenue losses.

Hmmmmm... I can see Lord Phantomhive buying the residential parts of Molokai Ranch as long as he gets a government subsidy to do so. (does some quick research) No, wait, There might be a couple of smaller properties available (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

Hire Lilo's big sister Nani as the property manager, maybe?

Any objections to the displacees having a Hawaiian getaway location, relatively far from the usual tourist traps? (Maybe have July 4 celebrations in the tropics...)

[Black Aeronaut]

I need a location confirmation, please: Where is Yuuno Scrya? Philly or San Antonio?

Philly, with Lindsy, Chrono, and Amy.  Though he does show up in San Antonio from time to time to make sure they're on track with their education in Midchildan magic.

I was going through old posts while populating the wiki's map with location markers, and I re-discovered these two from the very first Planning for Arc 1 thread:

As for governments... well, part of the issue we have here in America is how the people that make up the upper echelons of our government are seemingly more and more disconnected with the citizens each election cycle. Not that I don't think there's decent people working in the bureaucracy - I know there's plenty. The issue comes in that these people have a framework they have to work within, and it doesn't really have much wiggle room.

I have the odd idea of something happening very much like in the Coneheads movie - someone at just the right level knows that something is up, they won't simply let this rest - it offends their sensibility that something out there does not fit their world-view and it must be brought into line, one way or another! (I love that the agent wants to deport them, never mind that they don't have the means to send them back home!)

And so it would go... At least, until this agent's incessant pushing comes to the attention of someone even higher up - someone who still remembers that his paychecks come out of the earnings of hard working types and works to do his job fairly and justly. They're not illegal immigrants, he decides. This! This is a refugee crisis! And these good Americans represent American values at their finest by taking care of these displaced people as best as they can.

A new agent is placed on the case, the old one is given a new posting. (Not Alaska. The higher-up isn't evil like that. Hawaii, though, will probably get this fellow to relax a bit while still providing him appropriate targets.) This new agent will make their credentials legitimate and act as a liaison between them and the rest of the government. In other words, this agent is someone who's done legitimately good work and has had experience working with other agencies such as Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

And then the old Agent runs into Lilo and Stitch 8P

Okay.

So, where in Hawai'i do I put the marker?

Well, I would have thought "The same island Lilo and Stitch reside on"... Or am I misreading the question here?

The island is an agrarian society, where the economy has been driven primarily by cattle ranching, pineapple production, and sugar cane production, and small-scale farms. Tourism comprises a small fraction of the island's economy, and much of the infrastructure related to tourism was closed and barricaded in the early 2000s as the primary landowner, Molokai Ranch, closed operations due to substantial revenue losses.

Hmmmmm... I can see Lord Phantomhive buying the residential parts of Molokai Ranch as long as he gets a government subsidy to do so. (does some quick research) No, wait, There might be a couple of smaller properties available (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

Good GRIEF.

In that case, the locals might actually welcome Ciel buying up the properties and reopening the resort.

Hire Lilo's big sister Nani as the property manager, maybe?

Any objections to the displacees having a Hawaiian getaway location, relatively far from the usual tourist traps? (Maybe have July 4 celebrations in the tropics...)

Oh, not at all!  After everything she's been through, Nani can definitely handle of the weirdness that's about to come her way. 

In fact, after Ben kiddifies himself, that might just be exactly what he and his rather odd, budding family needs...

[robkelk]

I need a location confirmation, please: Where is Yuuno Scrya? Philly or San Antonio?

Philly, with Lindsy, Chrono, and Amy.  Though he does show up in San Antonio from time to time to make sure they're on track with their education in Midchildan magic.

I was going through old posts while populating the wiki's map with location markers, and I re-discovered these two from the very first Planning for Arc 1 thread:

As for governments... well, part of the issue we have here in America is how the people that make up the upper echelons of our government are seemingly more and more disconnected with the citizens each election cycle. Not that I don't think there's decent people working in the bureaucracy - I know there's plenty. The issue comes in that these people have a framework they have to work within, and it doesn't really have much wiggle room.

I have the odd idea of something happening very much like in the Coneheads movie - someone at just the right level knows that something is up, they won't simply let this rest - it offends their sensibility that something out there does not fit their world-view and it must be brought into line, one way or another! (I love that the agent wants to deport them, never mind that they don't have the means to send them back home!)

And so it would go... At least, until this agent's incessant pushing comes to the attention of someone even higher up - someone who still remembers that his paychecks come out of the earnings of hard working types and works to do his job fairly and justly. They're not illegal immigrants, he decides. This! This is a refugee crisis! And these good Americans represent American values at their finest by taking care of these displaced people as best as they can.

A new agent is placed on the case, the old one is given a new posting. (Not Alaska. The higher-up isn't evil like that. Hawaii, though, will probably get this fellow to relax a bit while still providing him appropriate targets.) This new agent will make their credentials legitimate and act as a liaison between them and the rest of the government. In other words, this agent is someone who's done legitimately good work and has had experience working with other agencies such as Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

And then the old Agent runs into Lilo and Stitch 8P

Okay.

So, where in Hawai'i do I put the marker?

Well, I would have thought "The same island Lilo and Stitch reside on"... Or am I misreading the question here?

The island is an agrarian society, where the economy has been driven primarily by cattle ranching, pineapple production, and sugar cane production, and small-scale farms. Tourism comprises a small fraction of the island's economy, and much of the infrastructure related to tourism was closed and barricaded in the early 2000s as the primary landowner, Molokai Ranch, closed operations due to substantial revenue losses.

Hmmmmm... I can see Lord Phantomhive buying the residential parts of Molokai Ranch as long as he gets a government subsidy to do so. (does some quick research) No, wait, There might be a couple of smaller properties available (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

Good GRIEF.

In that case, the locals might actually welcome Ciel buying up the properties and reopening the resort.

Hire Lilo's big sister Nani as the property manager, maybe?

Any objections to the displacees having a Hawaiian getaway location, relatively far from the usual tourist traps? (Maybe have July 4 celebrations in the tropics...)

Oh, not at all!  After everything she's been through, Nani can definitely handle of the weirdness that's about to come her way. 

In fact, after Ben kiddifies himself, that might just be exactly what he and his rather odd, budding family needs...

The Kaluakoi Hotel it is, then (which IRL appears to have been re-opened just in time for the pandemic to hit, but let's not let that stand in the way of our story).

Pity that there aren't any deep-water ports on Molokai, though (confirmed by checking the current NOAA charts). I guess the local school ship will just have to anchor offshore when the GnP girls show up... and Stitch won't get to terrorize them quite so easily.

[Labster]

Have you considered just asking Pele to make you a port?

[Black Aeronaut]

Uhm... do we have any actual figures on how big these things are? Because iirc, Oorai is the smallest... and it has a small town with fields on its flat top. That’s gonna be way bigger than the biggest ship on the IRL record books.

[robkelk]

Apparently they're all based on real world flattops EDIT: but bigger.

[Black Aeronaut]

Apparently they're all based on real world flattops EDIT: but bigger.

“Bigger” does not do these monsters any justice at all...

Ooarai High School ships, Zuikaku, as mentioned by Yukari Akiyama, host about 30,000 people inside. They're not only students, but also staffs, convenience store clerks, and other people who worked as support system of Ooarai's floating city along with their families. Some student like Yukari Akiyama also have their families live in the ship (usually the ones who also worked there), while other students live in boarding and apartments facilities. Other school ships has number of occupants according to their size. Graf Zeppelin, Kuromorimine's school ships, as one of the largest school ships could host about 100,000 people inside.

To put this into perspective, a Nimitz-class super carrier had a crew of 4,000... and in cramped conditions.

You know what? Some has probably already done the figures. Let’s have a look...

https://infinitemirai.wordpress.com/2013...anzer/amp/

HOLY SHIT! That thing is bigger than the freakin’ UNSC Infinity!!!  AND THE REST OF THEM ARE EVEN BIGGER!?!?!?

Uhm. Guys? There isn’t a deep water pier in the world that’s gonna be big enough. These suckers are gonna have to all anchor out.

[Labster]

I had been wondering if this was a problem.  Let's use a couple images for scale...

   

Oh, hello, Suez Canal.  It doesn't even fit on this image.  Just imagine the Zuikaku was four times larger and also much wider than the canal, at least on deck.  Cool.  Now let's look at how things are in Venice...

   

Oh wow, this is going to have a hard time working.  The bay is big enough, and basically deep enough -- the source materials say Zuikaku goes 250m below the water line -- but haha that's huge.  The big cargo ships come by all the time, but this is much bigger and much closer.  Can you imagine the NIMBYs?  No, really.  They're going to be involved faster than you can say "the Coastal Commission".  The film industry might be upset too, but eh, you can fix it in post.  

We may want to make some adjustments here.  Either these ships get much smaller, or we might want to push it much later in the plot and somewhere else, like on Aqua.  Or on Umi no Akeboshi.

[Black Aeronaut]

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~."

[robkelk]

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.

Yeah, Oorai's going to have to show up in (EDIT: if it'll fit) the Gulf of St. Laurence, not the Port of Montreal. Who knows where Pravda's going to show up.

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.

For some reason, I thought we had already agreed to that...

Here's how I thought we were continuing and ending Arc 1:

1. Malleable Causality events continue to increase over 2017 - a larger fraction of displacees start showing up in places where nobody is ready to welcome them (e.g. Washington DC) and they have to fall back on their own resources... or get recruited by Cinder, AMALGAM, or some other nasty.
   
2. Displacees groups get larger and more noticeable over 2017, as well, going from a few people to a cabin in the woods with an evil-minion base under it to an entire top-secret government department with its own HQ
   
3. The Malleable Causality system is running at 110% capacity by October 2017, and the Celestials are swamped. ("Anybody who isn't completely inept at miracles is on shift. Even Troubador is manning a console!") Imps and "Relievers" (In Nomine term - essentially angels who haven't earned their wings yet) are dispatched to get the apartment managers involved in covering up displacee appearances. (Flashy-thing not included.)
   
4. From my working notes: "October 9, 2017: The 2017 Panda Game. Real-world final score: double-overtime, Carleton 33, Ottawa 30. Outside of pro hockey, this was the big game in Ottawa in 2017 - they played to a sold-out pro football stadium. Mii and Ami cheering at opposite ends of the field, everybody else preventing Cinder/Unselie/Leonard/Kyubey/etc. from spoiling it for the fans."
   
5. All the Arc 1 ideas for events caused by displacees that we haven't figured out how to flesh out get shown being prevented in a montage. Somebody goofs or doesn't take things seriously and lets an event take place. One can get through, but then a second one happens. And then a third. "What did you do, Ranma/Jayne/Meltdowner/Tomo/Bean/Vita/etc?"
   
6. October 10: Academy City shows up in toto and redlines the Malleable Causality system.
   
7. "Doc Doof" takes advantage of the distraction to launch his architecture-ships and accidentally overdoes it. Meanwhile, the other annoyances (Unseelie, Drosselmeyer, etc) kick in their own disruptions. The Malleable Causality system blows out an oscillation overthruster (or whatever), critically injuring Urd, Skuld, and Sebastian and forcing Belldandy and Hild to take personal charge of Yggdrasil and Niflheim.
   
8. Urd, Skuld, and Sebastian are dumped into the Metacontinuity in their emergency-life-sustaining modes in order to keep them alive.
   
9. While Westwoods and Blossom deal with the immediate threat that Academy City poses, Aria House, Douglass Gardens, and Henrettia Street have to tend to critically-injured Celestials.
   
10. Meanwhile, the "NPC" apartments deal with the fallout from the cities in flight, until somebody - anybody - else has time to take a look at what's happened to them.
    

Insert the school ships showing up at #5 - even if nobody goofs (which IMHO is highly unlikely), there's still something obvious happening.

[Norgarth]

Just as a side note/reminder, the Windsor Lofts has a large number of bedrooms available (80 total? maybe a few more), less than half of which assigned, just in case any of you have characters you want to make use of later, but don't have a place for currently

[robkelk]

Considering that at the end of The Academy City Job we'll have over nine thousand Misaka Sisters that we have to put somewhere for a few days, I expect those apartments will end up filled ...

[Inquisitive Raven]

This looks like the perfect excuse for me to discuss possible apartment buildings to be managing. I looked for apartment buildings in the University area of Philadelphia (near Drexel and UPenn).

I came up with a couple of possibilities. One, there's an apartment building that's apparently a re-purposed church called the Steeple,  with 63 units from studio to up to 3 bedrooms. Two, there are quite a few high-rise apartment buildings in the area. I could set up in one of those (I was thinking a minimum of ten stories tall), and call it "University Heights."  University Heights could easily have over a hundred units, so plenty of space to drop displacees who don't have anywhere else to go. 

Speaking of displacees, has there been any discussion of BTVS beyond my suggestion of Glory's attempted sacrifice of Dawn Summers being (one of) the incident(s) that precipitates the whole mess? Because if they end up in Philadelphia, I could easily see Giles getting a faculty position in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Pennsylvania. No matter where they end up, Willow would love the idea of a programming language for magic. I suspect she'd also love Mid-childan magic.

[robkelk]

I don't believe we've discussed the Buffy characters at all. As far as I'm concerned, they can show up at your doorstep.

[Black Aeronaut]

I'm just trying to come up with a good way to wedge it in there.  (No Ever Given/Suez Canal jokes, please.    )

The thing I have about the ships showing up as part of Step 5 is that they'd be a big enough deal that we'd be all too tied up to handle Academy City right away once it does show up, emergency or not.

For one thing, there's "Where to put them?"  Labster has already figured out that LA, San Diego, and even San Fran are a no-go because of the undersea geography.  Zuikaku is among the smallest of these ships, but even that has a phenomenally huge draft of 250 meters!

Our characters would probably be all right in the middle of getting the command staff, civilian government, school administration, and student body government on each ship read-in on the situation when Academy City shows up.

Now, we can go ahead and write it like that.  This is deconstruction, and so this will present the issue of "What now?" because you can't just hide these things because they're all as tall as sky scrapers.  Not even Maginot's Surcouf because, despite it being a submarine, the old listening nets are still out there, and they'd sure as hell hear that monster of a sub and the allied navies would all fucking shit themselves.

Our objectives would be thus:
1) Keep the school ships out of territorial waters - particularly those of countries that will take any intrusions poorly, like China.
2) Keep anyone from shooting at these things.
3) Make sure they got at least a temporary line on supplies so nobody winds up starving.

The only quick and reasonable solution that I can think of would be to get them into Washu's lab somehow, but that'd almost be cheating.

And then you have the solution that I thought of - have them show up as the first and most immediate result of the MCS going into failure mode, where most of the world's countries are a little too distracted to do anything immediate about ships the size of cities arriving because they just had actual cities take off for orbit.  It still makes for good reading, it doesn't really interfere with the chain of events we have already set up, and it gives our characters something light-duty to do in the wake of the Academy City Job.

It could also prove to be fortuitous in a ways, as having those ships, each one dedicated to an all-girls boarding academy, can provide a temporary residence for all the Misaka Clones.

Thoughts?

[Labster]

The challenges of ships this size are a little nuts, to be honest.  Basically, with 250m or 140 fathoms below the water line, it essentially means that school ships can't be on the continental shelf.  This isn't a huge challenge out in the Pacific with subduction zones all around.  You can stuff a ship fairly easily into Monterey Bay, because of Monterey Canyon.  You'd only need to be about a mile offshore from Point Dume in SoCal.  Molokai isn't too bad, but you can't get quite as close to a place without the tectonic action or erosive turbidity of a continental river, like in California.

But well, we can't get anywhere near San Diego because of the Coronado Rise.  The SF Bay shipping lanes are only swept out to 55 feet; the Golden Gate itself is deeper, but not deep enough.  But the challenge here is more that the Zuikaku's deck on which Oorai sits is twice as tall as the top of the Golden Gate Bridge.  The Strait of Juan de Fuca is not deep enough either.  And on the East Coast, you might need to be 100 miles offshore from New Jersey in Hudson Canyon.

I'm pretty sure what happened here is that the author of Girls und Panzer took existing aircraft carriers and scaled them up until the deck was big enough to host small cities.  But is that such a good idea?  This has the potential to mess with views ( at 10km away, the ship is 2.4° by up to 38° across ), and since it's so much larger than a breakwater, surfing.  And wildlife too.

At 250m below the surface, that means we have about 25 atmospheres of pressure on the lower decks.  Good thing we have an amazing carbon coating, right? The total interior space below the surface is 690m, which means we have roughly 160 storeys of space to fill -- and probably up to 200 on the bigger school ships.  This is a lot of space.  But hey, the average school ship is 10 times longer than the SDF-1 Macross, because that's what we need for education, right? 

BlackAeronaut has been assuring me that GnP isn't from a post-scarcity society, though.  I guess it's good that our lottery dollars are enough to pay for this, right?

Actually, let me look up tsunami wavelengths.... okay good, still an order of magnitude bigger.  Whew.

Source for all the depths - NOAA nautical charts

[Black Aeronaut]

In my defense, my definition of post-scarcity at the time was having access to matter conversion technology. Labster corrected me on that, saying it actually meant having supply chains that are not hampered by shortages of fuel and the like. Personally, I don’t think that’s actually a very good definition for the term post-scarcity because that implies that there are no materials that are scarce at all. Reality is, there are plenty of materials that would be scarce no matter how good your supply chains are.  Things such as gold, platinum, and pretty much any other precious metal. Not to mention rare earth elements.

Another possible way of explaining their technology could be really good Nanotech. It would certainly explain their degree of material sciences.

[nocarename]

As I understand it, rare earth elements aren't actually that rare. They are messy to extract and tend to pollute the landscape when you do, so most folks don't want it done in their backyards, but the US used to produce about a third of the world supply in the 90s.

[Labster]

It's the common things that are actually scarce: land, energy and fresh water.

Even Wikipedia has to make qualifications on what post-scarcity means:

Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely.[1][2] Post-scarcity does not mean that scarcity has been eliminated for all goods and services, but that all people can easily have their basic survival needs met along with some significant proportion of their desires for goods and services.[3] Writers on the topic often emphasize that some commodities will remain scarce in a post-scarcity society.

[Bob Schroeck]

Considering that at the end of The Academy City Job we'll have over nine thousand Misaka Sisters that we have to put somewhere for a few days, I expect those apartments will end up filled ...

Maybe this is one place the seiyuu community can help out -- there's not enough of them to take all the Misaka Sisters, but I could see at least some of them volunteering to take in a refugee or two.