LucByard
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Posts posted by LucByard
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My character avatar seems to have gone blank in my widget: Here's a fresh one if it's easier to just replace it or something.
Thanks.
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"Is that... A challenge?...
: D Your whole post made me smile: A challenge? But of course, We can't let Octan go around making such bold claims can we?
See you in the ring.
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The judges awarded you 6 points.
'punches air' : D
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Welcome Craggy, a Galaxy of friendly deceit, comical seriousness and some guy in his pants awaits you. Always nice to have new builders in the mix, especially fellow Blacktron fans.
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Great landing pad, I like the hexagonal shape and the huge B letter in the middle!
Thank you (it's octagonal though ; )
When I do a formal photo shoot with it, I'll take out the centre section so you can see how the design was done.
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Original post updated with the rest of the photos now.
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I assumed they have to fit in with any fingers extended as that's how they are in BigSal's example. I'm not a judge, of course, but if you allow fingers folded in, what about wrists, and then arms? And so on.
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... IN THE GREEN CORNER!
While 'some' corporations feel that top-heavy, spindly-legged mechs somehow gives then an unfair advantage ; ), others believe that those legs are going to get kicked out from under them when they face the brute-force, mecha-muscle approach of new M.A.N.T.I.S. entry... TIPTOE!
Special move: Bunneeeeee!
Tiptoe undergoes pre-match scrutineering:
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Location: C04 - Aeristus
Tags: Military, Spaceship.
Previously on Andromeda's Gates: The mark, Uplink, Pay dirt. Departure, The Gyrocube.
Chapter 6: Darksight.
Where have those eyes been? Haven’t seen them in a long time. Yseult looked at her reflection in the mirror, stared, as if sizing herself up. She felt like she was looking at someone she used to know. I lost you… She snapped herself back. I can’t be that person, it cost me everything. There was no denying how the test flights had made her feel. The freedom of flight hit her somewhere deep down, in her core. She’d missed that feeling but she had to be someone else now. She straightened herself up and adjusted the new flight suit: it felt uncomfortable but not as much as the first time she put it on. I’ll get used to it… eventually, she thought as she re-adjusted the waist clip for what felt like the hundredth time. She picked her helmet up, the time for contemplation was past… It’s mission day: time to fly.
She walked down the corridor towards the hangar receiving nods or casual salutes from the other pilots she passed along the way. After the gyrocube, she’d become quite popular. A way to mock me she’d originally thought, trying not to dwell on the vomiting heap on the floor she became after crashing into a planet. It turned out that Briskett wasn’t that well liked and after the test, they all shared some sense of poetic justice had been had. The outcome of the simulation was not assessed by a Human, algorithms analysed every piece of data from the simulation: how long it took the pilot to react to every change and variation, what they decided and how effective it was. In his petty determination to make Yseult fail, he’d tasked her with a sequence of events so difficult that crashing was inevitable, but against what she had to contend with, the algorithms had scored her above the ninetieth centile. The other pilots, she was learning, respected grit, ability and being able to show up Briskett and in her, they saw all three.
Yseult entered what seemed like an unusually quiet hangar. A single clank echoing from the other side of the lone craft within it was the only indication that anyone else was there. She approached and inspected the vessel, a one-man reconnaissance craft built for speed in both atmospheric flight and in vacuo. It was unarmed: weapons affected weight, speed, maneuverability and range, all of which weren't for compromise. She'd flown this ship before in tests but it wasn't supposed to be operational yet. In fact, Yseult wasn't planned to fly any missions in it but orders had come down from executives, the mission was brought forward and Yseult was the only one with experience flying it. That put her in the pilot seat for the real deal.
At the back of the ship, a ladder shook as a body climbed down it, the source of the earlier clank, no doubt. The body moved to the nearside landing gear, ducking under the body, then kneeling up into the opening where the gear would retract to, their attention now upon something inside the rear of the ship. Yseult approached, curious. It was unusual to find only one tech in a hangar and she was naturally suspicious. She only got so far before a tool fell from the undercarriage emitting another loud clank as it hit the floor. The body bent down to pick it up, immediately noticing Yseult standing nearby. It belonged to a young woman with blonde hair, tied back into a short pony tail, save for a couple of loose strands dangling down one side of her face. Greasy dirt down one cheek belied what was otherwise a remarkably clean appearance considering.
The woman picked up the tool and came out from under the ship towards Yseult. "Hi", she said with a warm smile. "You must be my pilot" she continued, extending a hand. Yseult reciprocated. "Brenneux" she replied. Her native Aquitaine accent came through strong when she said her own name, even though in normal conversation it had lessened somewhat from a life working in space. "And you are?" she asked back. The blonde woman was trying not to hold back a grin, like she was playing some game. "Seyka" she said, then waited. Yseult wondered why she might know the name. Then it came, written down on the type-rating documents she'd been sent for the ship to use during the tests. 'M.A.N.T.I.S. TOP SECRET - Project Darksight. Project lead: FltEng Elliana Seyka'. I'm talking to the boss. She tried not to be surprised that the spritely girl of a woman in front of her was high enough up the chain to lead a project like this but Seyka seemed to be waiting for it. "You can call me Ellie" she said to break any emerging uneasiness. She gestured back to the undercarriage "You can come and help while you're here. She can't go out until the payload is secure". Yseult followed her back to the large hole for the landing gear. "Where is the ground crew?" she asked. The payload would normally be handled by a crew that would do all of the pre-flight prep and maintenance. It was unusual for the project lead to have to be so 'hands-on'. "There isn't one." Ellie replied. "Once the space frame was finished, everyone on the project got reassigned. There's only me, Big Sal, you and the original mission pilot know about this… Executive orders." Ellie shoved a mag-wrench in Yseult's hands and gestured to some large bolts. "These four here. Check the polarity of the bolt or the wrench will go flying out of your hands". She carried a wry ‘Which is what just happened to me ‘ smile and while Yseult got on with the bolts, Ellie disappeared round to the other landing gear bay, presumably to do the other side. The mag-wrench was programmed to assist tightening until a determined torque level was reached, flashing green when the appropriate amount had been applied. Once they were finished, Yseult began disconnecting the cables and lines that fed the ship while it slept and before too long, it was time to get going.
Over the comm, Ellie guided her through the start-up procedure. Yseult had read the manual and knew what to do but she wasn’t going to ruin the moment; this was Ellie’s baby and she wasn’t going to take anything away from her. The engines whirred into life and settled to idle speed, the electronics performed system checks and lit all the indicators green in turn. When Ellie gave her clearance, she activated the hover and increased the power gently. As the ship elevated off the hangar floor, Yseult felt the drift and gently eased the flight-stick to counter, gauging the sensitivity. “Stable hover” She informed Ellie. “Copy that” Ellie responded, “Traffic has been diverted along your climb, you’re clear to depart… Good luck… And look after my bird.” The afterthought made Yseult smile, she understood that feeling all too well. I’ll do my best she thought but she didn’t say it. She didn’t want to make any promises. “Acknowledged.” She responded as she increased the drive-engine power. With a surge, the ship powered out of the hangar and began to climb. Once clear of obstructions, Yseult increased the power to full and finally, the full force of Darksight’s engines came to fruition and within what felt like barely a minute, finally after so many years, Yseult Brenneux was back in space.
Landing gear down
Landing gear up
Equipment bay opens acting as arm for super secret sensor payload:
Cockpit design incorporates MANTIS emblem:
Plan view:
Technical - Angled cockpit and 'pop-up' intakes for experimental engine.
Technical - Arches used to match canopy for fully enclosed design:
I think that's about it, thanks for looking.
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Love those hands.
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Very effective use of the aircraft windscreen piece, you've made it fit in to the spaceship design really well and it doesn't look out of context. Well done.
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Ok, I lied. Mine does have a cute tail.
Tail? That is but a rump sir.
And you, Mr Sal: 16x16... Tis cruelty to impose such a limitation upon us many fair and capable technical builders. We thank Bob for those extra four studs, that our mechs might actually have knees and elbows.
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I really like this design, from the wider concept and structure right down to the fine details, It's got everything it needs, everywhere it needs it. Great job.
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Even without a pilot, that 20x20 is pretty tight, especially if you want full articulation. I was downsizing everything to get it in.
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Welcome MikroBricks and Echo Fox to the mysterious, sinister, covert and occasionally slightly bizarre world of MANTIS.
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Nice build and I like particulary the step technique.
Thanks. The design came after a good hour of faffing around with fences and such so I'm glad it was worth persisting with.
I love your stories! Great work!
Once again you deliver a detailed and clean build! Absolutely everything is flawless. Great work.
~Insectoid Aristocrat
Thanks Danny. I certainly pursue an aesthetic quality in my work. I'm super pleased you like the story as I'm enjoying writing it and learning a lot as I go. I'm more than happy to read feedback, comments and speculation on my narrative as well as my build.
Luc.
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I can't criticise a long post
Happily read the whole thing and enjoyed how you've seeded where your story may be going.Love the integration of the trans light blue; it doesn't interfere with the MANTIS undertones.
Looking forward to more.
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Location: C04 - Aeristus
Tags: Military, Building.
Previously on Andromeda's Gates: The mark, Uplink, Pay dirt. Departure.
Chapter 5: The Gyrocube.
Gedron Briskett rapped the fingers of one hand irregularly on the table while he scanned the details on the digi-page he held in the other. Yseult sat, arms folded, opposite him getting increasingly impatient. Being in M.A.N.T.I.S., she thought to herself, seems to involve a lot of sitting at tables waiting for people to think of something to say to me. She shifted her position in her seat, as loudly and obviously as she was able to. Briskett briefly looked up from the digi-page, then promptly ignored her and went back to looking over whatever report they’d compiled on her for his benefit.
“The Brawling Beauty.” He finally said with a half-raised eyebrow. Yseult tensed at the name. The Beauty was something she thought about almost every day, but talked about… never, and she didn’t like to – especially not with some ‘full of himself’ desk pilot she’s never met before. “You’re a freight pilot then?” he continued, laying the digi-page on the table in front of him. “who got caught pulling short cons on that swamp-infested mudhole…” he paused for a moment in clear belief that he was about to say something clever, “…without a ship”.
He tried to let the irony hang for a moment but her ability to look unimpressed got to him before his increasingly annoying personality got to her. “Box Runners are ten-a-credit.” He continued, “What does that mad scientist think we need the likes of you for?” ‘Box Runner’ was a slang term for small independent freight operators. Hearing it brought back memories, the briefest moment of nostalgia. Don’t go back there, it was a different time, you were a different person. “How should I know?” she responded, dismissively. “You made a deal, I got you the credits back, you owed me a new bike… Now I just stick around until you give a reason to leave.” She knew that prospect would please him. “Fine.” he said, as if trying to out-scheme her, “We’ll put you though our usual pilot assessment and see where it spits you out.” A cocky smile had developed upon his face.
The gyrocube was a full-rotation simulator designed to test a pilot’s ability to separate visual, auditory and gravitational sensory inputs and decide which to trust and how to react. The program’s scenarios mostly involved being in a spacecraft that was wildly out of control and dangerously close to hitting a planet, or something to that effect. Yseult sat in the pod at the centre of the device, intense concentration on her face. She’d flown through the ‘principles of spaceflight’, ‘astro-navigation’ and ‘Gate dynamics’ tests, that was expected, but freighters weren’t known for their manoeuvrability and rarely got into unstable high-G situations. This is where they expect me to fail, she thought as she felt the grips of the controls in her hands… But they never flew with me.
Dragging the rear of the simulated ship round and down, the imitation ‘gravitational anomaly’ put her in a flat yaw spin with an edge of pitch climb. Her feet had countered the spin a little, reacting immediately with rudder thrust but it would never have been enough. It feels like roll but it isn’t, don’t fall for it. She countered intuitively, using the rudder and bursts of opposing roll control in time with the rate of rotation to halt the spin. Now she was cartwheeling down a rapidly decaying orbit.
Briskett stood beside the operator in the control booth, a look of annoyance already on his face. “She’s arresting the decay.” The operator announced. “She’ll maintain orbit at this rate.” “I can see that!” Briskett retorted. He thought for a moment. “Blow the starboard nose thrusters.” He ordered. The operator hesitated. “Those are the one’s she’s using to stop the spin” he informed. “I know.” Briskett snapped back. “Blow them”.
With the ship gently rolling on its axis, Yseult had to wait to be facing the right way every time she used a thruster or it would only make things worse. With the flat spin almost under control, she made one final burst… The simulated explosion set off every alarm and for the briefest moment, she lost track of which way she was facing. Red warnings lit up on her displays. The entire nose thruster assembly was inoperable. She checked the flight gyro. Now she was spinning in every direction. She tried to counter it but with so little control now, nothing seemed to work. A new alarm sounded “RE-ENTRY, RE-ENTRY.” the verbal warning announced. Air. Something I can work with. She reversed the controls and stopped trying to recover the spin. She put the engines into full reverse and opened the aerobrakes on one side at the ship’s rear; as they caught the increasingly dense atmosphere, the additional resistance encouraged the ship out of the tumble. With less air resistance than the rear of the ship, the nose stayed pointing down and the ship slid into a whirlpool-like spin. Opening the aerobrakes on the other side and increasing the roll, the ship soon became a spinning top of reverse thrust. Inside the pod, Yseult was trying hard not to throw up, or pass out. She watched the flight gyro as the rotation steadily settled into a rolling nose-dive. Just a little longer. She was still descending way too fast but arresting the roll, she finally began to pull up.
In the control room, a small crowd of pilots and techs had gathered behind Briskett, watching the unknown pilot handle the ridiculous sequence of events she’d been handed and were responding far too positively for his liking. “Fail engine one.” Silence fell. He didn’t wait for the operator to hesitate this time. “Fail it”. Yseult felt the drop at the rear immediately but in an already desperate situation, using every Newton of thrust to halt her descent, it slipped away so quickly… There’s only so much you can do, but I won’t give up this time. She fought it to the end, every metre.
The gyrocube came to a gentle rest and a tech helped the disoriented pilot out of the pod. She felt them holding her under an arm as she fumbled down some steps. She felt someone remove her helmet to see a fuzzy image of a man with a sickeningly wavy smirk stood before her. He said something but she didn’t hear it, she was busy convulsing as her body wrenched free of the tech and she fell to her hands and knees, vomiting when she hit the floor. She noticed some boots, splattered with sick, turn and walk away… Then she wretched and threw up again.
Additional images:
Environment.
Closer view of backdrop.
Control booth.
Removable fold-down steps.
Thank you for reading.
Luc.
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Welcome to the Galaxy AV-Bossk. When I joined, MANTIS looked the underdog so you never know, a new builder here and there and the Dark Red 'K' could be back on top... I'd better get building.
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If you have hard wood floors with gaps like I used to, you end up crawling up and down the separations looking for the bits you know are still missing : (
In the end, I got the Dyson out and tried intentionally hoovering them up... That was a rough day in my LEGO life.
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Here's a 'road' version, the 400CR Skyblade.
I've also produced instructions for it. You can download them from my website here. It's my first attempt at instructions like this so any feedback is welcome. The bricklist at the end is a problem, I'm still trying to figure out how best to do that.
Thanks.
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Thanks for the positive feedback everyone. In honour of my achievement, here's my new signature.
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Wonderfully symbolic arrangement of both words and flame-pieces. I didn't see the shape in the middle at first, then after reading the whole passage, it was instantly recognisable. Did you create the glow using any special lighting or just camera flash?
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Location: B05 - Marphacia
Tags: Military, Building, Civil, Land vehicle
Buried deep within the pyramid structure of Uplink, where the roadway from the main gate split off into side tunnels, which each had their own side tunnels and so on and so on, where the myriad finally ends beneath the catacomb-like arches of the lowest level and the omni-spectral daylighting is accented by the yellowish-green glow of a plasma conduit, a lone figure worked in her allocated bay on the only thing that had kept her going, kept her sane in this weird world of the megacorporation, its spies and secrets, tactics and treacheries. Here, at least, in the depths, it was just her and her bike. Working the walk-lifts had been dull be steady work and over the previous weeks she’d been able to acquire all the parts she needed to rebuild the sorry looking wreck Big Sal had left her with on her arrival.
Yseult was known about the base, she’d figured that out from her conversation with Riddaeon out on the balcony. She hadn’t really socialised much since she arrived though. While most of the base’s staff spent their down time in the commercial block or on the rec-floors, she’d mostly spent her time down here, working on her ‘promise’. She bolted the final piece of cowling into place with a mag-wrench and took a step back. Raising the arm she help the wrench in, she wiped the sweat from her brow; could this really be it? Her ticket out of this black tomb was a bright azure modified 400CR Skyblade. It rested in stark contrast to all the mandatory black and green around it… Her old bike had been green, this one was never going to be. She’d stripped what she’d been given back to the bare frame and virtually started anew, replaced the anti-matter repulsors, rebuilt and retuned the generator and replaced the drive exhausts. The bodywork, she had had to spend the most on, the wide front cowling covered additional micro side-mounted repulsors that worked as control surface to drastically increase manoeuvrability and aero braking,. She thought back to the crash, what little she remembered from before it; some details had come back to her, in time: the missile, the moment, almost like slow-motion as she saw it would hit her and the feeling of being in control, yet having none. Waking up on the ground, smoke billowing from the wreckage of a mangled piece of bike. Try that again she proposed silently.
She heard footsteps behind her. Turning, she saw a shadowed figured resolve into the man she’d spoken to on the balcony. “Far too pretty for a place like this” Riddaeon said as he reached her. Yseult didn’t like the way the comment purported to be about the bike, yet his eyes had never left her. One more thing I’ll be glad to leave behind. “Didn’t think you’d finish it so soon.” He continued. To that, Yseult had an answer: “I work hard” she said. Riddaeon inspected the hovercycle, it’s polished awesomnium fibre shell reflecting glints of light and colour from obscure origins. “That you do” He replied, half in contemplation. He’s weaving a web, she thought, and I’m the prey. “Shame” he continued. “With everything that’s happened. Everything that’s about to happen.” Now he addressed her directly. “People who will do… whatever it takes… are hard to find”. She looked him in the eyes, searching for a clue. “You must have wondered” he said. “How we caught you. How we knew what you were doing, where you were going”. Yseult didn’t want to show she was actually intrigued. She did want to know, and badly. She just didn’t like admitting it. Rather than let him gloat, she took a guess. “You knew the part was fake”. A wry smile grew on Riddaeon’s face. “Making sure you couldn’t supply a real one… That was the tricky part. You’re quite resourceful”. He said gesturing towards the bike. “And we need people we can trust… Or more to the point. We need people we can’t trust”. Yseult had had enough. “Poetic.” She replied. “But I kept my side of the deal, and now…” She walked over to the bike. “I have kept your side too. Non?” She was getting annoyed, her South-Western French accent asserted itself when she did and hints of her native language broke through the English she was used to speaking.
She mounted the bike which detected her presence and automatically started up, then started a system test and watched in satisfaction as every section on the light blue holo-dash indicated ‘O.K’ in succession. The generator and repulsors began to glow as the stream of charged antimatter started flowing through the system, curving space-time outwards as it circulated faster around the repulsor discs until the natural gravity of the planet acting near the centre of the bike was negated and a gentle push was achieved. Yseult took her crash helmet from the handlebars and put it on. Finally she thought. I’m really going back. That thought hung in her mind for a moment. Going back… back to what? So the mad scientist had wanted her in M.A.N.T.I.S., so what? If they really knew me, they’d have known not to try. She felt the vibration through her arms as the drive engine spooled up. She looked back at Riddaeon. For a moment he did nothing, then gestured towards the route that would eventually lead to the exit. “Hope you find what you’re looking for.” He said. “After all… What’s a pilot without a ship?” The question stuck: What’s a pilot without a ship?. She lowered her visor and tried to steel her nerves. “Me.” She said quietly to herself. She thought of her life outside the gates of M.A.N.T.I.S., all her efforts to get back what she’d lost… How far had she gotten? They left me to die, and all I do now is survive. She’d always presumed they’d come back, that this is where she needed to be. How will I ever find her if I leave? But how can I win her back if I stay? In the murky swamps of Marphacia, Yseult had learned how to survive… the hard way. She’d survived this long by holding on to one thing; could she really just let it go. She had let herself worry about the small things in M.A.N.T.I.S., but a roof, a bed, a meal… She suddenly realised how long it had been since she worried about those things… Can I put that behind me so easily?
The glow of the repulsors dimmed and the hovercycle gently lowered until it rested on the floor. Yseult dismounted and removed her helmet. She looked at Riddaeon and hated that he was about to be right. She wasn’t about to have a conversation about it though. “Let’s get to work then.” She announced as she strode off.
Notes:
On reflection, I felt Uplink was probably a military building, of which I have built an interior here and the bike is civil, of course, hence both tags.
The bike from chapter 1 is a heavily altered version of this design but there are common elements to the design.
And in case anyone fancies a go:
Here's an empty room to show the wall detail.
Here's the rear showing the bracket structure to achieve the variations in relief.
[M - C04] Darksight
in AG1 Archive
Posted
Thanks. I'm really happy that you enjoyed them. There's plenty of story to tell for Yseult so I'm looking forward to telling it.