Deus ex Machina (Part I)
Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2022 10:02 pm
1st Ash, 122
Stefan Dornkirk adjusted the set of spectacles that had several levels of possible magnification to one higher than he had been using. His eye sight was still good, but when dealing with small parts, it helped not to have to squint or lean in.
The adjustments required were minor, but doing the work himself, working on a project that was just his own, was relaxing for him. With all else that was on his plate he had thought others might consider it selfish of him, but, considering how helpful the machines he was working on had proven, and how adamantly everyone who cared about him had insisted that he spend at least some part of his time doing something that helped relieve his stress, he gave in and indulged.
So here he was, tweaking a joint in a machine roughly the shape of a human being, if several times the size of one, letting his mind spool out the day's cares while his hands worked.
The idea had first come to him more than a year ago, when he'd been listening to Brenner, tipsy, telling the tale of one of his flights of daring with the Individual Flight Apparatise Stefan had designed for him. Jumping from ship to ship, attacking enemies only to shoot up into the air and appear somewhere else moments later. The stories always filled Stefan with a combination of brotherly pride and terror that, one day, Brenner would land wrong, or get clipped by a passing bird and not be able to adjust his trajectory in time to save himself from colliding with... anything bigger than him.
Out of both feelings he had begun to put together spun-sugar images of some sort of suit of armor, like knights of old had worn (though, in truth, such things were still worn in more primitive cultures). Such a suit would not protect Brenner from falling or slamming into something while at flight velocity, or even a modern bullet, but the idea had stuck around and, he had found himself making little sketches at odd moments, or beginning bits of calculations only to abandon them with a wry smile when he realized what he was doing.
The idea had stuck around though, niggling him off and on until, during the Expedition, when he found himself at loose ends with nothing specific to do during the long days of hiking and the nights when he wasn't on watch, he'd started to actually try to work on something that might protect a single person in flight. His notebook from the journey was filled with notes about the Warrens, and later, about the magical parasite that they had found, but, in a section in the very back was a set of notes about the suit. It increased in details as it went, starting with just a few sketches but progressing into real calculations and even the beginnings of schematics on how it might be produced.
The idea had started simply, something that allowed a man to fly by himself. An answer to the wretched Avialae powers of flight that would take away their unnatural advantage. It had led to the creation of the prototype that Brenner used to such great effect but, due to its dangers and costs involved the Navy had not taken the option to outfit any units with the Individual Flight Apparatise. Stefan had thought that if he could reduce the danger, perhaps they might look at it again. So the ideas he'd written down in his notes centered around three things: Safety, Usefulness, and Viability.
Encasing a man in steal, even reinforced by wards or shards would render him basically useless on a battlefield or sky except as a human shield. So the wearer needed to be able to use his full body, manipulate things with his hands, use weapons, see clearly, and communicate.
The close fitting suit of armor became a much larger suit, several times the size of the men who would wear them, controlled by the wearer as though it were his own body. The idea was beautiful, but it extended the level of engineering and complication involved to such an extent that Stefan wasn't sure it was possible. Even so, after he returned from the Expedition, his mind kept chipping away at it, working on each piece as a separate problem.
Communication could be handled by creating a mini version of a comm that could be connected to a central hub on an airship. Each suit assigned to the ship would be in the network and communicate only with each other and the hub. This would allow them to receive orders and send back intelligence gathered. He spent a month designing how the pilots would operate the little comms, activating them with a special button in one of the gauntlets and then using their dominate finger to send the little dashes and dots. The pilots would all have to be trained in the coded language, but they would need special training for the suits as it was.
Weapons systems hadn't been too tricky, a large gun attached to each arm and a retracting blade on the dominant hand. He had supposed the pilots would all have to be right handed, and then laughed at himself because, if the suits were ever built, they would be done so one at a time, for specific people. There was no possibility they would ever be manufactured. Even airships, which were stream lined in much of their construction, required a specially trained, highly educated engineer to build the engines. Stefan was one of less than fifty men who knew the secrets of how to build a Zaicaheri airship, which was why, despite his rank in both Government and the Windworks he was still allowed to get into the machines himself.
By the time Delia had announced her pregnancy the plans had progressed to the point when he was considering having the parts for a prototype made in the Windworks. Just for him to play with, just to experiment with. It had been such tinkering that had led to his discovering of the Verborgenheit Engine, and, he was a married man of means, there was no reason he couldn't work on a personal project. In fact, when he considered it, there wasn't even anyone who would object, tell him 'no'. He was running the Windworks now. So he did, he sent the plans to his metallurgists, who sent them on to the gear makers, blacksmiths and mold casters. The metal, dragonshards and other assortment of parts he had paid for from his personal funds. He would have felt wrong allocating business funds to the project. If it ever came to anything that could be used by the company he could be reimbursed or paid for his time or some such.
It had been quite expensive, but, as he wasn't a gambling man, kept no mistresses, and had no expensive hobbies or vices to his name, he spent less of his income than most men of his rank did on their indulgences.
When Delia found him pouring over sketches or pacing back and forth murmuring to himself about heat exchange or how to re-balance oneself mid-air in the evenings she would only smile, kiss his mouth and remind him not to be late for dinner. If Eitan occasionally asked after his 'little project' it was more out of teasing than anything and he would shake his head and insist his brother-in-law join him for a drink if Stefan tried to explain the minutia of whatever bit he was currently wrestling with. Oddly, Luca seemed to understand more than either his wife or her husband. She neither teased him about it nor asked questions but he did occasionally find her in his home office looking over his schematics. When he walked in on it she would arch an eyebrow at him and flounce away as though she had caught him snooping.
In the months that had followed, 'the calm before the storm', as he came to think of the time after the Expedition but before the trip to Kalzasi, he'd started to put the pieces together, both literally and figuratively. His office at the Windworks wasn't nearly big enough for construction, but the private workshop he'd set up to work on the Nachtherr was more than. He didn't let anyone help him, except when he needed to lift some of the larger metal plates into place, and even then he used laborers who spent their days in heavy lifting without thought involved. For whatever reason, he didn't want anyone the wiser until, or rather if, anything useful came of the experiment. The wiser parts of his mind suggested that it probably had something to due with his fear of failure, public ridicule, and how his parents had punished him for 'playing' with projects as a child.
Whatever the deep, psychological reasons, he kept it as much under his hat as he could surrounded in his home life by a suddenly close-knit and loving family. Dienerin knew he was working on something, of course, and likely knew far more about it than he let on, but they had an unspoken agreement about 'Master Dornkirk's' private projects; the manservant would never breathe a word to anyone.
Stefan Dornkirk adjusted the set of spectacles that had several levels of possible magnification to one higher than he had been using. His eye sight was still good, but when dealing with small parts, it helped not to have to squint or lean in.
The adjustments required were minor, but doing the work himself, working on a project that was just his own, was relaxing for him. With all else that was on his plate he had thought others might consider it selfish of him, but, considering how helpful the machines he was working on had proven, and how adamantly everyone who cared about him had insisted that he spend at least some part of his time doing something that helped relieve his stress, he gave in and indulged.
So here he was, tweaking a joint in a machine roughly the shape of a human being, if several times the size of one, letting his mind spool out the day's cares while his hands worked.
The idea had first come to him more than a year ago, when he'd been listening to Brenner, tipsy, telling the tale of one of his flights of daring with the Individual Flight Apparatise Stefan had designed for him. Jumping from ship to ship, attacking enemies only to shoot up into the air and appear somewhere else moments later. The stories always filled Stefan with a combination of brotherly pride and terror that, one day, Brenner would land wrong, or get clipped by a passing bird and not be able to adjust his trajectory in time to save himself from colliding with... anything bigger than him.
Out of both feelings he had begun to put together spun-sugar images of some sort of suit of armor, like knights of old had worn (though, in truth, such things were still worn in more primitive cultures). Such a suit would not protect Brenner from falling or slamming into something while at flight velocity, or even a modern bullet, but the idea had stuck around and, he had found himself making little sketches at odd moments, or beginning bits of calculations only to abandon them with a wry smile when he realized what he was doing.
The idea had stuck around though, niggling him off and on until, during the Expedition, when he found himself at loose ends with nothing specific to do during the long days of hiking and the nights when he wasn't on watch, he'd started to actually try to work on something that might protect a single person in flight. His notebook from the journey was filled with notes about the Warrens, and later, about the magical parasite that they had found, but, in a section in the very back was a set of notes about the suit. It increased in details as it went, starting with just a few sketches but progressing into real calculations and even the beginnings of schematics on how it might be produced.
The idea had started simply, something that allowed a man to fly by himself. An answer to the wretched Avialae powers of flight that would take away their unnatural advantage. It had led to the creation of the prototype that Brenner used to such great effect but, due to its dangers and costs involved the Navy had not taken the option to outfit any units with the Individual Flight Apparatise. Stefan had thought that if he could reduce the danger, perhaps they might look at it again. So the ideas he'd written down in his notes centered around three things: Safety, Usefulness, and Viability.
Encasing a man in steal, even reinforced by wards or shards would render him basically useless on a battlefield or sky except as a human shield. So the wearer needed to be able to use his full body, manipulate things with his hands, use weapons, see clearly, and communicate.
The close fitting suit of armor became a much larger suit, several times the size of the men who would wear them, controlled by the wearer as though it were his own body. The idea was beautiful, but it extended the level of engineering and complication involved to such an extent that Stefan wasn't sure it was possible. Even so, after he returned from the Expedition, his mind kept chipping away at it, working on each piece as a separate problem.
Communication could be handled by creating a mini version of a comm that could be connected to a central hub on an airship. Each suit assigned to the ship would be in the network and communicate only with each other and the hub. This would allow them to receive orders and send back intelligence gathered. He spent a month designing how the pilots would operate the little comms, activating them with a special button in one of the gauntlets and then using their dominate finger to send the little dashes and dots. The pilots would all have to be trained in the coded language, but they would need special training for the suits as it was.
Weapons systems hadn't been too tricky, a large gun attached to each arm and a retracting blade on the dominant hand. He had supposed the pilots would all have to be right handed, and then laughed at himself because, if the suits were ever built, they would be done so one at a time, for specific people. There was no possibility they would ever be manufactured. Even airships, which were stream lined in much of their construction, required a specially trained, highly educated engineer to build the engines. Stefan was one of less than fifty men who knew the secrets of how to build a Zaicaheri airship, which was why, despite his rank in both Government and the Windworks he was still allowed to get into the machines himself.
By the time Delia had announced her pregnancy the plans had progressed to the point when he was considering having the parts for a prototype made in the Windworks. Just for him to play with, just to experiment with. It had been such tinkering that had led to his discovering of the Verborgenheit Engine, and, he was a married man of means, there was no reason he couldn't work on a personal project. In fact, when he considered it, there wasn't even anyone who would object, tell him 'no'. He was running the Windworks now. So he did, he sent the plans to his metallurgists, who sent them on to the gear makers, blacksmiths and mold casters. The metal, dragonshards and other assortment of parts he had paid for from his personal funds. He would have felt wrong allocating business funds to the project. If it ever came to anything that could be used by the company he could be reimbursed or paid for his time or some such.
It had been quite expensive, but, as he wasn't a gambling man, kept no mistresses, and had no expensive hobbies or vices to his name, he spent less of his income than most men of his rank did on their indulgences.
When Delia found him pouring over sketches or pacing back and forth murmuring to himself about heat exchange or how to re-balance oneself mid-air in the evenings she would only smile, kiss his mouth and remind him not to be late for dinner. If Eitan occasionally asked after his 'little project' it was more out of teasing than anything and he would shake his head and insist his brother-in-law join him for a drink if Stefan tried to explain the minutia of whatever bit he was currently wrestling with. Oddly, Luca seemed to understand more than either his wife or her husband. She neither teased him about it nor asked questions but he did occasionally find her in his home office looking over his schematics. When he walked in on it she would arch an eyebrow at him and flounce away as though she had caught him snooping.
In the months that had followed, 'the calm before the storm', as he came to think of the time after the Expedition but before the trip to Kalzasi, he'd started to put the pieces together, both literally and figuratively. His office at the Windworks wasn't nearly big enough for construction, but the private workshop he'd set up to work on the Nachtherr was more than. He didn't let anyone help him, except when he needed to lift some of the larger metal plates into place, and even then he used laborers who spent their days in heavy lifting without thought involved. For whatever reason, he didn't want anyone the wiser until, or rather if, anything useful came of the experiment. The wiser parts of his mind suggested that it probably had something to due with his fear of failure, public ridicule, and how his parents had punished him for 'playing' with projects as a child.
Whatever the deep, psychological reasons, he kept it as much under his hat as he could surrounded in his home life by a suddenly close-knit and loving family. Dienerin knew he was working on something, of course, and likely knew far more about it than he let on, but they had an unspoken agreement about 'Master Dornkirk's' private projects; the manservant would never breathe a word to anyone.