December 8th, 2020
8 Dec 2020 · page 1039 of 1306
Nerd time.
Cast: Lei Feng, Verity Cunningham
Comments (50)
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Not just a ship with a dangerously ironic name, but a famous prototype with a dangerously ironic name.
Good times, ahoy!
So... "railway Impatience lines" means the train goes faster the more eager the passengers are to get to their destination?
In a similar vein, the engine of the S.S. Good Intentions may come to a standstill if someone with bad intentions comes aboard. cough*Verity*cough
No, it was mentioned (in "Piece of Cake"/this page: https://www.widdershinscomi... "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/july-8th-2013)") that the tracks themselves are imbued, not the engine).
It came up back in Sleight of Hand, too: [https://www.widdershinscomi...](https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/december-14th-2011 "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/december-14th-2011")
Yes! Even better! Thanks!
Ah hah! So those aren't power lines. Kate must have been laughing with the comments on the previous panels.
Nope, no chance of a storm (or vandal) breaking a cable. Nope, none.
Oh, but they ARE power lines. Just not electrical ones. ;)
Those lines must have been expensive to ley!
I'm wondering how they built the pylons to the sea bottom now. It took us decades to be able to do that!
Maybe they don't go all the way to the bottom? They could have (underwater) platforms with earth in them, too, with something like floating and stability circles on them.
Either that, or A Wizard Did It(TM). Set up some wards to keep the sea out, starting from the shallows and working your way out, and shift the boundaries when one pylon is done it's time to move to the next one. :D
The latter concept is like a magical version of caissons used in bridge-building--but at ocean depths, the bends would be an exponentially bigger problem! (Several people died from the bends while working in the Brooklyn Bridge caissons--at depths nowhere near those involved for these pylons!)
There wouldn't be any risk of bends if the water is kept magically away from the entire construction site - you're never under water, hence have no decompression issues to worry about.
I wonder if it actually does cross the sea. Verity and Lei traveled by steam ship from England to the States to get to this ship.
Kate, I'm begging you, please let there be Henry George Bohn on this ship. It fits so well.
They're going to be stowaways, aren't they?
Considering how they crossed the Atlantic, I'd say, "Yes."
Well, Vee is trying to educate Lei in ethics. Clearly, she should not avoid such a perfect chance to set an example.
...What.
The.
HECK?
(This is not a disapproving WTH.)
Oh, no, they're on the road to Hell.
Also: we now know why Pemberton Pryce wants to find that Fourth Anchor's location so badly. It could serve as the nexus point of industrialized magic in the Americas.
Good heavens, it's a cable car ship!
I would have expected Vee to be just as ready as Lei to geek out about the engineering of the ship. Maybe her dismissal ("Mm, yes yes, magic this and that") is because the design of the ship is magic-based, and unlike Lei, she doesn't have even a little wizardly talent.
Or she's Being Cool and Jaded ;)
I didn't think Lei liked magic either.
She didn't like "cheapening" her mechanical creations by imbuing them with magic because of all the skill and work that went into creating them without magic ( [https://www.widdershinscomi...](https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/february-6th-2013 "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/february-6th-2013") ); IIRC, she doesn't dislike magic otherwise, plus she had magical talent herself and was pretty fond of Sid (who obviously has magic). :)
And Lei is not immediately angry that the part Verity is impressed by is the magic part. Good, that means she's shown growth from chapter 3.
So is this world functioning under old magic rules? Where it fails after passing over running water? I can imagine having a relay above (the cables) might get magic to get away with it by just looking the other way, but that doesn't sound like a sturdy method for travels longer than an hour.
Ms. Acedia said something about not being able to do a transportation spell over water here: [https://www.widdershinscomi...](https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-20th-2015 "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/october-20th-2015")
From the sounds of it I think it's just that large landmasses sort of stabilize magic, so the further out onto the water you get the harder complicated magic gets.
I've come to the same conclusion - in the page referenced by Emily, the small boat used by Henry Barber appears to be using magic for at least some of its propulsion, despite the fact that Ms. Acedia can't transport anyone to the island using magic.
Perhaps limited magic use over water is possible, but hard, as long as you're still over the continental shelf of a landmass, which would be the case in the short hop over to the lighthouse?
Strange Brew. The minerals in the water can be enchanted, but the water maybe not? [https://www.widdershinscomi...](https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/strange-brew-14 "https://www.widdershinscomic.com/wdshn/strange-brew-14")
The S.S. Good Intentions is also a very fast boat, in the proper hands.
Once, it did the Newcastle run in twelve knots.
Only if you round down.
All ships are the same speed on the way down
Oh, I'm sure a motivated fellow could design a ship which will sink faster.
Amazingly fast transport using incredible state-of-the-art technology, but it's going to be very difficult to create a sustainable business model. Perhaps they should have called it SS Concorde.
Rip Concorde, I was born too late to fly on that thing.
That's a lot of infrastructure for a single ship. Wonder how long her route is.
Yeah. It wouldn't make much sense for her to run to Europe and back -- they just left England, after all; why take a faster ship back?
Looks like early undersea telegraph tests were done across ports and harbors ([e.g. Samuel Morse testing in the New York Harbor: ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable#Early_history:_telegraph_and_coaxial_cables "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_communications_cable#Early_history:_telegraph_and_coaxial_cables")) so that'd be my guess. I can't remember if people came to a conclusion on which US city they are likely in but definitely a port city!
There was a French advertisement (Café Nouveux) on a previous page, so I'm thinking New Orleans or New York, due to the former being more Frenchified in general, and the second more likely to have European immigrant districts, but I'm not an expert.
Pretty sure with that name, that ship is Hell-bound. Good luck, Vee and Lei!
that sounds... prone to problems.
Lei you hate magic.
I mean, I knew it was gonna be using magic to some extent but a cruise ship running (kinda) on rails?
At least this presents the possibility (certainty) of it eventually running off the rails though. Hah
"never technically left the ground" eh? Does this mean vampires can use this to cross the ocean? XD (depending on which vampire lore you follow)
So it's really a tram? Ok, ok.
Steam, sails, and magic. Well prepared?
Verity: and we'll be hunty QUARY on this boat.
Lei: oh no, oh no no no no no this boat is DOOMED.
Technical question/remark - so this is more of a coast hugger than a blue-water vessel? Because I don't see how you get those pylons done once you go beyond the continental shelf.