Land, ho!In the absence of the Katzar, the colonists agree that all decisions shall be made by a popular vote. The Katzarin, still a child, will have no say in decisions concerning the fate of the ship or colony, and no other colonist is in such high esteem as to hold the authority to veto votes or arbitrate ties. By a narrow vote, the colonists decide to make way for the Antarctic Peninsula, the least-cold part of the continent. Most of the voting takes place not with the whole group of colonists, but by a few vocals, many of them once having been the Katzar's advisors, and in the Katzar's quarters. It works well enough, they are the most knowledgeable and strong-willed, but if the common colonists grow unhappy they might decide what to do on their own without some commanding authority figure. There is some talk of forming a Dictatorship of Kot, but nothing much comes of it.
On the 4th of August, 1944, the
Ovechkin Did Nothing Wrong (as the colonists have agreed to call it) see land! Hours later the ship proceeds south to where the land is a little wider. This being still the middle of winter the entire sea around Antarctica is thick with ice, even before quite reaching a suitable spot of land the ship is pushing aside small ice floes. Coming close to shore, nearly no part of the water is visible for the thin sheet of ice in all directions. With the limited life boats, moving things to and from the shore will be a challenge, so the helmsman tries to bring the ship as close to the shore as possible. [1d6:1] This was a mistake. With a terrible grinding sound even worse than the iceberg collision, the
Ovechkin Did Nothing Wrong (which still says
Crabby Wench on its side) comes to a halt. "We must have hit some terrain feature under the water. I couldn't see anything with the ice. I guess we've run aground now, but maybe we'll get loose as the tide rises. If that doesn't happen, we can probably engineer some solution to get moving in a few months when some of the ice thaws."
The helmsman, being the de facto expert on matters of seamanship, went to the main hall to speak to the colonists and calm the panic which was arising. "We have run aground, but there is need for alarm! We can reach land by lifeboat from here, and we may yet move the ship again in mere hours when the tides are in our favor. If not- have no sorrow! This place is as good as any, for now, and we can no doubt think of some clever solution to get her moving again if we're resourceful. Now that we've stopped, we are in no further danger!" As if to prove him wrong, the ship chose this particular time to make yet another awful noise the likes of which nobody aboard had ever heard. Though nobody was above deck to see it, a crack appeared in the top deck, spread across the ship, and turned into a widening fissure which made its way from the top of the hull down to the bottom. Deck after deck was riven in two until the entire ship came apart like a zipper, in two halves only attached by the remains of the keel.
The entire ship was now broken in half, nearly in the middle, across the undersea ridge on which it had beached itself. The bow half leaned down from the center just a few degrees before coming to rest, while the stern half sank some fifteen degrees back and then listed another twenty degrees to port. The two steam-turbine engines, contained in the center of the ship due to the "citadel" design philosophy of the original warship on which the Kraken-C pattern is based, crash down onto the bilge deck as the broken floor can no longer support them, and the contents of the coal bunkers spill into the sea. Fortunately, everyone on the ship has been gathered in the galley for the arrival announcement (except for Kot, who takes advantage of the collapsing ship to escape the kitchen) and there are no injuries.
It is Day 9The rest of the last day passes trying to assess the damage to the ship and make sure nobody has been harmed, as well as shouting and arguing about whose fault the current situation was and exactly how poor the colony's chances of survival were. The Helmsman ultimately avoids being lynched, but it's agreed that if the colony somehow comes to be in command of a ship again, someone else will steer it. As for the
Crabby Wench (all enthusiasm for repainting the side has been lost and nobody can find paint besides), it is clear she will never be seaworthy again. For now everybody is trapped in the bow section and it is incredibly overcrowded, you will need to bridge the gap to the stern section if you want to access all of your stuff. Besides being overcrowded, it's ungodly cold, (the middle of the ship being open to the wind does not help) and to keep the rooms warm, everyone has begun burning the coal at a somewhat alarming rate (the exact amount will be clearly accounted for when a week or so has passed.)
From here you can see the land, it is covered in snow except for rocky ridges which are exposed, some near the flat expanses which border the shore and some further out which are perhaps hundreds of feet tall. It's difficult to see very far as much of the time it is covered in fog. Your ship is in a bay, just two or three hundred yards from the shore, and judging from the fact that you collided with the sea floor it's 25-40 feet deep. There is no plant or animal life that you've seen yet, it is barren.
Since the ship has come to a stop now, some people decide to force Kot to dive for the lost farming tools, I'm pretty sure their reasoning is that they hope he will drown. [2d6: 6, 6] Luckily the tools are sitting neatly in open bins right near where the hull has been gouged open. Kot, despite barely having swam in his life before, takes to the cold water like a fish. He piles every last tool into a waiting lifeboat, and, rather than allowing himself to be helped immediately out of the icy water, swims an extra lap around the entire ship just to show off. By early into the attempt the Amazing Ice-Diving Kot had already gathered a crowd (most of whom were initially just wondering if he would drown) but by the time he's finished, half of the entire colony is cheering for his amazing skill and fortitude. He, defying death in the icy water for some meager hoes and watering cans (and miraculously, a 150lb tractor plow) shines like a beacon in the fog, a symbol that Antarctica's cold can be beaten, a symbol that Vlanlados will survive the strangling cold and see another summer.
Once Kot is back aboard, the peoples' mandate is clear: "HAIL KOT! HAIL THE KATZAR!" No amount of convincing otherwise by the few intellectuals who have been making decisions thus far is going to change their minds.
Kot will now have the power to veto votes and decide the outcome of ties.-956 Individuals
-1 Doctor
-1 Architect
-1 Mining Expert
-3 Mechanical Manufacturing/Repair experts
-1 Agriculture Expert
-1 Electrical/Radio Engineer
-1 Theoretical Physicist
-1 Expert Hunter
-1 GLORIOUS KATZAR KOT
--------------
100 Assigned to Cooking & Cleaning
856 Idle
1 Recovering from injury
Main Cargo Hold:
-Steel Foundry
-Machining Tools
-18046 Food rations (Enough for about 19 days, consuming 956/day) consisting mainly of Vlanladosian products: Fish, beets, potatoes, and barley-wheat.
-450 Chicken Leathers
-450 Chickens' worth of feathers
-20 Goat Leathers
-2 Cow Leathers
-350 sets of fishing tools
-200 sets of construction tools
-100 sets of farming tools
-150 sets of hunting tools (spears and traps)
-200 VL-41 "Dove" Semi-Automatic Rifles
-35,000 rifle bullets
-1 Crane (all mobile equipment is steam powered)
-1 Excavator
-1 Tractor
-4 Tons of coal
-0.9 Tons of medicine
Fuel Reserves
8 tons of coal are currently lying at the bottom of the bay.
Right now, anyone working on shore will spend a lot of time in transit to and from the ship each day, until you have some kind of shelter to survive the night on land. You currently have 12 lifeboats capable of carrying 20 people each, so 240 can work outside the ship at a time unless some more people are dedicated to ferrying passengers (which will add even more transit time for some). Now that it is August the very worst of the winter is already past, and there are 9 hours between sunrise and sunset, including twilight. Alternatively you may want to dedicate some boats to fishing.
Putting aside the awful sea winds that are felt above decks on the ship, the weather isn't that much worse than it is this time of the year in Vlanlados. Yesterday, the thermometer outside the ship's cabin measured a low of -4F/-20C and a high of 12F/-11C. Not weather you'd want to be stuck outside in, but not unimaginably cold.
Your immediate goals will be:
-To explore the land, which will involve sending parties out. 100 people total should be able to spread out pretty well, but they won't be able to go far without tents and/or other equipment to help them survive the night. In the short term, it looks like you will need food and coal.
-You will also want to find some way to bridge the gap between the bow and stern halves of the ship.
-You will need a way of getting equipment on shore.
-You will probably want to make shelter on shore if you find a source of food or coal, otherwise your work hours will be very short each day.
Much of what you do next will probably be contingent on what your scout parties find. If they only venture out for one day, the next turn will be only a day from now so you don't need to worry too much about assigning labor to ship duties. If they want them to attempt a week sojourn then the next turn can be a standard week and you'll want to rest of your labor assigned accordingly.
Author
Topic: Exodus from Vlanlados (Read 29391 times)