As always thanks to my patrons for all the support! I was debating whether or not to have a big list of their names but decided against it, instead thanks to all of you your support means the world and the money I get has been a huge game changer, thank you!

Onto the ramble

So lets talk about the Celeste and the ships of the deep draconic future that traverse the Celeste

As I have talked about this here and there but consider this a more concentrated blurb of the Celeste. The DragonScape ain't just the americas, its actually a vast expanse of "planar", or floating continental bodies that float within the DragonScapes Space, the Celeste.

Though the Celeste isn't exactly space, its far from an unfriendly void... Still dangerous in many ways! But it is at least breathable.

I would compare it more to an infinite sky than the void of space. There are often currents of breathable wind, drinkable water, and safe temperatures. Particularly around the planar which tend to attract and have both atmospheres and air currents that regularly blow air and water upon them! As you get further away from an expanse of planar the air will gradually get thinner and harder to breathe, and the celestial seas will likely become more desolate and less safe to drink, due to heavy metals or strange microbes of which no dragon is well adapted to drink without illness. But regardless, you don't need a NASA rocket to jump from The Americas (Known as Suyu in the DragonScape) to another plana like Logáu, in fact the technological needs need not be so complicated as long as a community has a reasonably advanced understanding of resonance, and manatechnology

So the Celestial ships!

Celestial ships are vessels designed to transport people and things across the Celeste, the endless sky between the Planar. And they actually have a long history!

The first journey between planar was by water, using the vast celestial seas that connect planar in the "earthen expanse" in a journey that quite literally took years of time. With that journey happening around 6000PA. But 4000 years later the "modern" concept of the celestial ship would be invented in what is known in the timeline as the "Draconic Golden Age". Which was an age defined by rapid Celestial traversal, utilizing reality warping obelisks which allowed for a level of trade and interconnectivity in the Earthen Expanse that was never seen before... and never since.

In the millennia after, a long gradual social rot and decline in the Americas would set in, totalitarianism would dominate, and radicalized dictators would inevitably start a reality destroying war with what remained of Humanity.

And so by the onset of the Thalmvaric Age, the technology would simplify

Prewar ships were gleaming, titanic vessels of aluminum as light as air and stronger than steel, often propelled by powerful obelisk propulsion devices, capable of moving at speeds many times the speed of sound through the endless skies for easy trade, as well as fast moving celestial warfare. They were mass manufactured and perhaps some of the most high tech things in the whole timeline. By contrast, Thalmvaric age ships are made by hand, usually by small non state peoples spread about a plana. They are usually made of materials like wood, insect chitin, woven bamboo, cloth, hides, glass, and often a small amount of bronze for structural integrity. Relying on Null Sails, and basic amenities, hearths for fires, and interiors that are far from the extremely advanced prewar age ships

But... They work! They aren't as fast or as fancy but celestial travel is still very possible thanks to these thalmvaric celestial ships! They are a lot less like a spaceshp and more like a sailboat. So lets talk about how they work

So how do these things move in the Celeste anyways?

Namely, through Celestial Resonance and harnessing that through Null Sails. Celestial Resonance is about as pure a resonance as one can find in the DragonScape, not filtered through reality and bounced off of landmasses. While it is a pure resonance it is not intense. It won't kill a dragon (though its advisable to wear hearing protection while out in the Celeste). Null Sails are simply sails, made of cloth, hide, or some other such material, that is impregnated with an alchemical rubber and reinforced with a wire mesh, best done with an alloy of Copper, stãl, bismuth, and lead. As dense and heavy as possible, as it needs to bounce back the resonance that shapes reality

This sort of sail can indeed repulse resonance. If affixed in a bowl shape it will have resonance roll into it and get repulsed out of it, pushing an object forward! And that on its own in the low to no gravity skies of the celeste is enough to rocket a ship at a very reasonable speed, enough to bridge the 4000-10,000 miles of space that usually sits between planar. Now of course these aren't sailboats in water... they are in a breathable atmosphere! But one that doesn't really have anything for gravity to move them towards. so most celestial ships are built around. So usually the shape of a celestial ship tends to be built around the Celeste

they are often long, cylindrical bodies with sails attached to a "steerhelm" at the front. There are usually 2-9 such sails around the steerhelm, with the steerhelm being a sort of "deck" from which the sails can be manually rotated or adjusted to change the direction of the ship as it moves throughout the Celeste. It's a bit slow to turn but is reasonably agile in the open celeste. Nothing in comparison to the prewar military ships but noone is trying for those old fascist warships these days

As for the rest of the ship

Usually you're in breathable air, so not much else is needed to make the ship work aside from a solution for gravity and a solution for heat. As sure, those dragons could very well just deal with living in low gravity for months and months... but that does make life hard! Especially if you want to enjoy an open air part of the ship which many celestial ships have. So the most common high tech amenity that you find in celestial ships are gravity obelisks that essentially make a high center of gravity around them. That way you can walk around the ship and live like you would on most normal planar, and if you're outside in the open celeste standing on the open air deck, the ship going upside down won't launch you into the endless skies to starve to death (pretty bad)

But aside from that usually a celestial ship is lived in like any thalmvaric home could be respective to who built it.

Most don't have electricity or running water. Usually cooking and heating is done with simple steady technologies like boiling bronze, Water tanks are just simple stores of water to fill bath pans for cleaning, or bowls for drinking and cooking.

They really are just kinda the same thing as a lot of the simple homes dragons build, just in a shape and with a light enough weight to serve as a celestial ship.

But be it a fire hearth in the back or a far more rare case of an electric mana oven for heating, life on such a vessel is a lot closer to the 19th century than it is the 25th

Also how do you land these things anyways?

Getting them up into the air is difficult but not too impossible. The most common way to get a celestial ship up into the big blue is just to strap large baloons to them, usually full of aether. Once the ship is high enough for the resonance to catch in the sails they just pop the baloons and let them fall back to the Plana

But landing one!.. well

you crash it, its kinda hard to get these things through the atmosphere completely intact even with planar with nice open landing fields.

Let alone the fact that most planar have pretty sparse populations who at best may have cleared areas of land for ships to (crash)land safely more or less. Some just will radio you directions to a nice few sand dunes to brace into. That isn't even counting planar without any large sapient population in which that landing is entirely up to the ability of the pilots to crash well. So usually for most thalmvaric celestial ships, you draw the sails close to the ship, get everyone and any supplies that is important into a hardened bronze, reinforced area where they can brace for impact, and then uh impact. Usually good ships are well designed to gradually slide into the ground rather than slam it like a rocket, resembling less of an ICBM impact and more like skipping a big rock across the ground

Which usually means these ships aren't permanent dwellings. But rather usually, parts of the ship are indispensible, usually the stuff that is designed to withstand the impact. The Sails, The reinforced crash bracing area, the Steerhelm, But the main body of it? No not really that shits gonna break apart. Woven bamboo is strong but not "plummet from the skies" strong So usually a landing crew will need a few months at best to rebuild, reassemble, and put together a new ship body and reattach the sturdier parts of their ship (and make some new balloons) before drifting off into the sky.

Aside from very advanced celestial ships that usually utilize prewar technologies (or repaired prewar ships), most celestial ships aren't very good at touch and go visits to planar. So usually when a ship lands, they have to get along with the locals at least a reasonable bit

Lastly what do people do with these ships?

While a tribe in the mountains of a plana can assemble their hundreds of drekir and ormer together to build one of these ships over a few months and launch it off... its a lot of work Especially since usually they are gonna break up and need months of more work once they land. Usually these ships are built for specific tasks, like sending a crew up into the Celeste to mine tin from a fracture belt, or so that tribe can make an effort to reach another plana to trade important resources over there that are nonexistant on their own plana

The Martian water trade is a great example of that, water is very rare in the Martian expanse but immensely powerful manatechnology from the ancient Syrinxians is everywhere, so many tribes and chiefdoms from other more water rich martian planar will regularly build and launch ships from their water wealthy planar in the expanse (or other expanses) just to trade water for extremely advanced technologies

In which usually, the traders will (crash) land on the plana, spend a few months caravaning around to trade goods, live with the locals, etc. While slowly fixing up their celestial ship before setting out a few months of time later to return home. Often with the whole journey taking over an earthen years time. Otherwise it may be spending a few weeks just outside of the home planas orbit to gather mineral resources

but there are also those who live their lives in the Celeste

Celestial Nomads! Those who built these ships some time ago, perhaps generations ago, who live in them full time. Usually making a living with some on ship insect farming, fishing celestial seas, and seasonally landing on planar to hunt, gather, and trade. Effectively from nowhere and with nothing but the metaphysical whir of resonance behind them

But those folks are probably a ramble for another day

so yeah!

Thank you all for the support again! It means the world to me