Writer's Block: Behind the wheel

[athelind]

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If you could have any vehicle (a helicopter, sports car, space ship, yacht, etc.) and a free place to park it, what would you choose, and why?

Do I just not get these questions, or something? Because I can't for the life of me think of a reason why anyone wouldn't instantly answer "space ship", since that's right there in the question, or "starship", if one feels that there's a distinction.

It just turns into a question of what kind of starship. A big ship like Enterprise or Galactica has a lot of advantages: absurd amounts of room to live aboard, and a whole lotta guest rooms. A classic tramp space freighter like the Millennium Falcon or Serenity is a bit cozier, and doesn't need a small army to operate.

This in turn does suggest reasons to pick a more modest or mundane kind of transport: the question as asked only hands you the vehicle and pays for parking. Maintenance, crew expenses, registration fees, and fuel are all out of pocket—and if you think gas prices are bad these days, check out what anti-matter's running these days.

Of course, a lot of those considerations apply to mundane-but-immodest choices such as, say, a yacht, or a submarine, or the Queen Mary ... .

Still ... if we're sticking to single-planet transport, and the parking is free ... I've always wanted a dirigible.

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Comments

[silussa.livejournal.com]

Athelind, I'm surprised at you.


I would think the choice would be obvious, and it is both the most flexible AND a one person vehicle with lots of room.


A TARDIS.

[twentythoughts.livejournal.com]

Yes, but then you get stalked by giant pepper shakers.

[silussa.livejournal.com]

Given anywhere in time and space, I can deal with the insane homicidal giant pepper shakers.

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

And as I have said before, such dirigible should be named Grauph Zeppelin. Registration D-LZ12GRAUPH.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Orange and purple, I hope.

[twentythoughts.livejournal.com]

The future-souped-up DeLorean from the end of Back to the Future/BTTF2. Runs on anything you can shove into the cold-fusion reactor. Flies and travels in time. Attracts less intergalactic attention than the Tardis.

[bfdragon.livejournal.com]

Helium is rather expensive, and effectively a non-renewable resource. Also I'm imagining the mileage on a blimp is really not all that good. (two 210HP engines that only get you up to 50 mph?)

The Queen Marry would have massive maintenance costs even just sitting in the water. Of course, you could get something you make a business of like a working cruise ship, but then it's just a business.

So from what I've seen, most all the fun non-scifi answers are horribly impractical, sadly. Sure a space shuttle would be COOL, but I wouldn't want to keep it under wraps away from the public so would probably just end up donating it to a museum anyway. (By the way, Anti-mater supposedly costs $25Bil to $62.5tril per gram, according Wikipedia. That's for about $500k of energy at the going wholesale rate between power companies)

It seems I'm just down to a mid-sized sailboat (also a place to live!) or self-driving car.

[ab3nd.livejournal.com]

The Enterprise can't land on planets, so "a free place to park it" means handing you the keys to Utopia Planita spacedock, which, IIRC is in orbit around Mars. Since it has transporters, you don't even have to worry about how to get there.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

I would have to say it would be a terrible choice between a dirigible or other LTA ship and a mole machine.

[kymri.livejournal.com]

For me it's always been simple: I want the Pandora from Crimson Skies (the PC game). Especially if it comes with additional aircraft. Even if it didn't, how can you not love an armed, pirate zeppelin?

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Dirigibles mean a smoking ban......
Rigid or non-rigid? (Hindenburg or barrage baloon?)

[dranga.livejournal.com]

Parking may be free, but they didn't say anything about who'd pay the cost to fuel and maintain it...

I'd have to go with a tardis, myself. Could make all kinds of wierdness with that.