Posted July 13, 20159 yr [K - A05] The Heart of Awsomnium Location: A08, Crentium Tags: Spaceship, Building (the hangar, the judges will have to decide if it counts), Science, Kawashita Before we begin, this story is a direct continuation of Agent Beltar's post "A Strange Deal" which was posted earlier this week, so it will make a lot less sense if you haven't read that one. It's also the culmination of a 3 week storyline I have been doing (previous entries: "More Than Meets the Eye... and The Investigation Continues...). Earlier this week, I discussed with a friend and fellow AG builder. He said that I should probably build a little smaller, since the details might get lost when the size gets too big. I pondered upon this and thought "yea, that makes sense... I should start building smaller things". Then I completely f*cked that up and went on to build my largest build yet. The spaceship is a bit over 3900 pieces, and then there are various scenes, etc. on top of that. The design might seem a bit odd at first, but take into account that it's supposed to be a prototype for testing this particular engine. Now, let's begin. (Since Bluerender renders transparent images very dark, I've decided to include unrendered versions under the Spoiler button directly after the renders. Also, isn't it odd how much "Light Stone Grey" in LDD looks like white?) --//Alpha Level Encrypted Private Log Begin. Date: 1307(38)15. Scramble code: ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... [Encrypted].//-- [Alpha level clearance check... ... ... ... ... Passed.] As expected, Agent Beltar "came by" earlier. After making sure he received the mail from Lauren, I was pretty certain he would seek me out, and that I would get my pilot for The Heart of Awsomnium. When we got down to the hangar and he first saw the ship, Beltar immediately let out a little gasp. It was clear that he was impressed, despite doing his best to hide it. Recording... begin: Beltar: You want me to pilot... that? Q: Yes. Remember, if you do this for me, I'll get you your files on Lauren. Beltar: *Sigh* Fine, so what is it that is so special about this ship? What do those rings back there do? Q: The Heart of Awsomnium is the first recorded attempt of teleportation by mankind. Beltar: *O_O* What?! Q: I know it may be hard to grasp. A couple of weeks ago, we came across what seemed to be an Awsomnium generator created by an ancient civilization. However, some things were quite off about it. It didn't seem to have any way of outputting the energy, and we found it in the middle of the ocean, not near any other recorded ruins. So, I ordered a team to bring it here in order for me to study it. After a few days, it was clear that my suspicions were correct; it was the remainder of an old teleportation experiment. After a lot of tinkering and even more calculating, I finally managed to create this prototype drive. It is still fairly large, but I hope I can reduce the size over time. The "rings" which you refer to are part of a black hole generator, which has enough pull to fold space-time, thus creating a wormhole between your current location and the destination, which you will go through. Beltar: So... you wish me to become swallowed and spit out by a black hole? Q: If you want to put it like that... yes. Based on my calculations, the shuttle should be able to withstand the pressure, and you should survive. Beltar: And then you will give me the files I need? Q: Yes. [beltar ponders for around half a minute.] Beltar: Fine, in for a penny, in for a pound, right? Also, if this goes according to plan, I'll be the first teleported human! Q: Yes, I suppose. I have downloaded PauL into this smaller astromech droid shell, which will fit in the dock of the ship. The ship is ready whenever you are. [beltar boards the ship and flies it out outside the Kaiju.] Q: I have set the ship's coordinates so that you will be teleported to Marden. It's a peaceful planet within our area of control, so you shouldn't have any problems. As soon as you arrive, set up a comlink to me, and I'll have the coordinates for you to be teleported back calculated. Beltar: Roger that. [beltar takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and turns on the teleporting device.] Beltar: Am I alive? I am alive! Yattaaaa! Wow, awsome, I am the first teleported person! You rock Nu'q! Q: Uhm, all those are technically correct, but it seems you have ended up near Mynderis instead. Also, it seems like you ended up right next to a large M.A.N.T.I.S. fleet. Beltar: Oh, it's gonna be one of THOSE days... Recording... end. The prototype testing was in the end considered a success, despite the loss of The Heart of Awsomnium. The incorrect location of the teleportation device was found to be a result of a minor miscalibration in the calculation software. This has since been fixed. Thanks to its highly explosive Awsomnium core, it seems like the Heart of Awsomnium was completely destroyed and thus unable to be recovered by the nearby M.A.N.T.I.S. fleet. Preliminary readings suggest Agent Beltar managed to escape. His current whereabouts are however unknown. --//Alpha Level Encrypted Private Log End. Signature: Col. QL. Scramble code: ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... [Encrypted].//-- More pictures under the (sixth) spoiler button. C&C always welcome! The rings. Closeup of a sublight engine. Closeup of landing gear. The Heart of Awsomnium with the shuttle detached. M.A.N.T.I.S. microships. Closeup of astromech PauL and the gang. Edited July 13, 20159 yr by NuckElBerg
July 13, 20159 yr Very nice ship and interesting shape NuckElBurg, if anything could teleport it would be that thing! Very cool M.A.N.T.I.S. fleet as well!
July 13, 20159 yr At first I was thinking that it was quite an odd looking ship until I realized those rings spun around. Pure awesomeness!
July 13, 20159 yr Pretty ambitious build! I love those inner rotating rings so much! Very cool looking ship as well.
July 13, 20159 yr Woah, great build! Love that ship design! Neat story as well, you certainly calmed Beltar down in this one! I like what you did with PauL ! Also great idea with the title... (HHGttG, right?) Wait....you purposely delivered that mail? Also, yes, that's not a very small build. I also like the MANTIS fleet..! ~Beltar
July 13, 20159 yr Then I completely f*cked that up and went on to build my largest build yet. The spaceship is a bit over 3900 pieces That sounds typical NuckElBerg. I think Operative Q just builds big! Very creative ship design, very out-of-the-box. I'm assuming a little inspired by the Heart of Gold, at least in name One critique: I find the cockpit piece very bland. I've got it myself, but it's from Lego's era where they were trying to simplify building so it's a bit ugly. It could work better if it had some kind of hood over it, or if it was built up on either side a little.
July 14, 20159 yr Author First of all, thank you everyone! I'm glad you liked the build and found it original! In general, I try to build very utilitarian, i.e. I think what a ship should be able to do, and how to achieve it in the best way possible. For this build, the main idea was that this was a prototype teleportation device, so the engine had to be BIG (since Q hadn't had time to make it smaller yet), with a "wormhole sphere" that extends from the center of the engine. As such, the distances from the center are fairly symmetrical (since everything has to fit in a sphere extending from there). When it came to the wings, I actually thought about having one wing pointing down and two up (mostly so that it wouldn't look so much like the Imperial Shuttle), but went against it, since it would make landing almost impossible (instead, I changed the shape of the wings to create a more distinct look). That's a very original concept and shape you got there... Fantastic ship, inspired by one of Bob's builds? Thank you Bob! I tried to be a lot more mindful in regards to buildability this week (based on your comments last week). I don't think I've used any illegal colours, and all "clicking" hinges are posted in multiples of 22.5. Also, I've thought a lot about structural integrity and only used connections that I think would actually hold IRL (the only thing I'm a bit uncertain about is the 2x2 plates holding the detachable shuttle, but I think it would be possible to switch those for plates with technic pins IRL (it was actually possible to do so in LDD, but then they would be offset by ~0.05 of a stud, resulting in not being able to place bricks right next to them... so I guess that would be a semi-legal connection IRL). And as Tyrus asked, yes, I actually looked through Bob's whole Flickr in the beginning of the week. If I remember it correctly, Bob posted a picture of his drawer ( ) where he had the Whitefang ( ) standing, so I went through his photos and eventually found it. Needless to say, I also got a lot of inspiration and ideas for techniques, which sorta went together with my earlier ideas of how I wanted to do the wormhole generator drive, so this was the end result. Very awesome ship and story. Love that oh-crap moment with the MANTIS fleet too. Haha, that's actually a direct line written by Beltar himself. We came up with this storyline in the beginning of the week (which fit perfectly into both of our overaching ones), so I told him what I wanted to do and he said "Beltar would say 'Oh, it's gonna be one of THOSE days...' in that situation". But yea, I liked that bit too. I'm quite satisfied with the look of the explosion also! Woah, great build! Love that ship design! Neat story as well, you certainly calmed Beltar down in this one! I like what you did with PauL ! Also great idea with the title... (HHGttG, right?) Wait....you purposely delivered that mail? Also, yes, that's not a very small build. I also like the MANTIS fleet..! ~Beltar Thanks man! Well, he knew what he was in for, and I think seeing The Heart of Awsomnium (which is of course a Hitchhiker's reference... the working name was actually "The Adamsa" (after Douglas Adams, plus it sounded pretty japanese), but I went for The Heart of Awsomnium instead) for the first time does that to you. Plus, it seemed like he was pretty calm during the majority of your build. Thanks! The large version of PauL wouldn't fit in the cockpit, so I made a smaller version with the same feel, glad you liked it! Well, I thought it would be a nice tie-in. I mean, if Q found out about it fairly recently, maybe he was just waiting for the opportune moment to release that mail to Beltar... No, it is not, and thanks! That sounds typical NuckElBerg. I think Operative Q just builds big! Very creative ship design, very out-of-the-box. I'm assuming a little inspired by the Heart of Gold, at least in name One critique: I find the cockpit piece very bland. I've got it myself, but it's from Lego's era where they were trying to simplify building so it's a bit ugly. It could work better if it had some kind of hood over it, or if it was built up on either side a little. Haha, I really did try following your advice, you know! Well, it's almost only in name, other than (of course) that it is a teleporting spaceship (even though Adams uses multiverse switching with his infinite improbability drive (similar to Kris Straub's starslip drive) and I use a more bland, "sciency" black hole/wormhole creator). I did try around with a lot of different cockpits, but in the end I found that this one worked best, so sorry if you didn't like it! Also, I felt that since the rest of the ship uses quite a lot of fairly advanced techniques, it would be okay to use 2 big pieces for the cockpit!
July 15, 20159 yr Author I think Lord Tyrus was talking about this one. Ah, that's a really cool one, I actually forgot about it! Although, I can definitely see the similarities (maybe even to the point that people would be saying that I ripped Bob off... which I can assure you I didn't (seriously, I hadn't even read the backstory to that ship until now, and before that I only sifted through the pictures quickly )!)! You know what they say... great minds think alike!
July 15, 20159 yr Superb build, really nice design. I think it would be nice if the mk II is shaped more like a running shoe
July 15, 20159 yr Love the closeups on the ring from the sixth spoiler. Truly creative stuff right there!
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