“All on board” the Caledon Air Transport

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird … it’s a biplane … no, it’s a Caledon Air Transport airship, gliding majestically over Caledon. For four years the CAT ships have provided free transportation to any who wish to travel Caledon in style, or see the Independent State from a different angle.

How did Caledon acquire this transport system? I asked Jorge Serapis, who built the airships and now maintains the system.

“I was playing around with some airship designs, and in chat, Des [Guvnah Desmond Shang] had mentioned his dream is to see airships plying the skies of Caledon.” Mr. Serapis said, adding that he considered the conjunction of ideas a lightbulb moment. “So I asked permission to use commonwealth paths for an airship system, and he gave me the green light.”

But the path to steampunk transportation was not without its potholes.

“At first, wow… you should have seen the opposition to it.. People were complaining that I was taking away prims from Commonwealth… flying over private parcels,” Mr. Serapis shook his head. “I made a point of getting written permission from parcel and duchy owners for passage, and even still, it came. But one statement always won out. Des gave me permission.”

Mr. Serapis said that perceptions started changing when the service went into operation. “People realised that the CAT added a living dimension to Caledon,a moving ship seen out of the corner of their eye.”

The opposition diminished after the ship Sumie took to the air, named after Caledonian Sumie Kawashima, who designed and built aircraft in Kawashima Aero, and who was a Group Captain in the Royal Caledon Air Force. Ms. Kawashima had recently died, in real life, of a bone infection and her presence in Caledon was very much missed.

“I only met her once.. but she was such a light. A sweet lovely talented young lady who built ships and lighthouses and dreams and fun. She was one of the first people whose passing in RL moved the whole of Caledon.”

“And then, people started using the CAT,” Mr Serapis said. “I was working on the hub in Cay, and a young lady was there talking to me. She mentioned she was going to an event, and I said I’d let her go so she can attend. “Oh, that’s OK”, she said..” I’m waiting for the airship so i can go there.” That’s when it really hit me what I’ve made.. not only something new for people to enjoy, but it was becoming part of the roleplay for people here. People took it for granted, and in a good way.”

Mr. Serapis pointed out that he did not invent the name “Caledon Air Transport”, which was created by Dan Gervasi, who gave Mr. Serapis permission to work under his umbrella. ” he had a few planes flying routes, I think three overall at first. I didn’t want to build an airship line in competition; rather, in tandem. There’s room enough for everyone.”

Creating an airship requires knowledge of building; getting it to move along a path in the air requires scripting. The late Kaluura Boa wrote the original scripts that put the ships on their routes; since his death, Rehman Polanski has stepped in to let it continue.

“We worked well together,” Mr. Serapis said of Mr. Boa. “When we had problems, I’d think it through concept-wise, and he’d tinker with the mechanics.”

“I consider myself a halfway decent builder,” Mr. Serapis said, “and I wanted to create a consistent branding with them. The brass colour and textures are all kept to a specific palette.” Apparently this did not go well with some critics, who told him it wasn’t “steampunky” enough. “My counter argument was the CAT was so modern, it was drawing on deco and dieselpunk influences. One of the fiercest opponents of the CAT told me “I don’t like they’re not steampunk, but i love your branding. All I have to do is glance at something to know it’s CAT.”

However, the CAT airships are not powered by steam, but by a combination of solar power and cavorite through an innovative and complex design.

“As we know, cavorite has gravity negating abilities; different types have different abilities, but all do the same. Green cavorite has the most stable and predictable rate of gravity null — left on its own, it will repel itself in the opposite direction of the gravity influence — straight up into the sky, until the gravity influence is nulled by the distance.”

“So we take cavorite and fashion it into a funnel-like shape. The skin of the primary hull of the CATs (the coloured hull) has solar cells embedded. This generates an electric current that, when carefully applied to the cavorite, can actually focus the direction of the cavorite’s natural repelling abilities,” he continued. “The secondary hull contains cavorite cells to generate the lift, and the engines contain the cavorite needed to generate thrust.”

The cavorite wears down over time as the current is applied, resulting in the signature green contrails behind the CAT ships. Depending on mileage, the cavorite wedges used for the thrust average 4 months of use before needing to be replaced, Mr. Serapis said.

Over time, the routes traveled by the airships also have undergone changes, and more are in the works, according to Mr. Serapis.

“Due to the recent border upheavals, certain rights of passage are no longer feasible. We’ve finished a new system to allow a more easily modifiable route. After beta testing, the existing lines will be reworked, and we hope to have what we affectionately call the Big Ring in action — a large circuitous route around the borders of Caledon.”

As the routes stand now, to switch lines, one must go to the Caledon Cay hub station to change ships. The Caledon Cay hub connects all CAT airship routes; a secondary hubs in Steam Sky City connects the CAT with the commuter Caledon Aquatic Transport’s two submarines, Bright Shadow and Dark Sun, and a small ferryboat, the Kitty Heart, that connects the CAT on Steam Sky City with the station on Galileo Island. The island, formerly owned by Infinite Galileo, is an ideal spot for passengers to use to get to Steam Sky City.

“When Mr. Galileo offered us a spot on his island for the CAT, we realised there was no easy way to get to SSC, so Kitty Heart was launched to get passengers across.” Mr. Serapis said the island and CAT stop were named in his honor.

The Big Ring route is anticipated to make commuting easier and more straightforward for passengers. It also might help protect them from attacks on CAT ships by the sky kraken that infest the region of the Iron Cloud. Mr. Serapis said those beasts had caused great difficulty in the past.

“We tried everything — kraken cannon, shields, the works — but the [unprintable word] always attacked. One time, one held on so long, it got loose inside the Iron cloud! LOL! I sent a quick notecard to Wrath Constantine: ‘ooopsie..’ ” he said.

Since then, the kraken’s natural territoriality, and attraction to moving objects, has been used against them to prevent attacks.

“The kraken operate at a minumum and maximum altitude in Middlesea, so instead of doing the rise to the Iron Cloud inside Middlesea, we do it just outside the region,” Mr. Serapis said.

The current airships, which can be distinguished from one another by the color of the oval diagrams on their sides, and their routes:

• Sumie K (red)– Caledon Cay, Caledon Downs, Caledon South End, Caledon Oxbridge Village, Caledon Steam Sky City and Caledon Tamrannoch
• Judy Vee (green)– Caledon Cay, Caledon Kittiwickshire and Port Caledon.
• Dorothy Ruth (blue)– Caledon Cay, Caledon Penzance, Caledon Loch Avie, Caledon Morgaine, Caledon Middlesea “Iron Cloud”
• Leosanni S (magenta)– Caledon Cay, Caledon Victoria City, Caledon Victorian Gardens, Caledon Steam Sky City, Caledon South End.

There is one more CAT airship to mention, one with silver sides and a large red cross — the Ophelia.

“She went into service in about 2010 after the pirate attack that destroyed the former SSC. She shuttled casualties from the shell of SSC to the Iron Cloud,” Mr. Serapis said. “As a thank-you to Duke Wrath for letting us use the IC as a base of operatins, he named her and is her godfather. Now she travels from Galileo Island to the Iron Cloud to Templemore.”

The Ophelia can carry passengers, but is also equipped with hospital stretchers to carry the wounded.

“It’s a nod to British history, requisitioning liners for troops and emergency evacuations,” he said.

Mr Serapis said that many Caledonians deserve thanks for their great support for the CAT throughout its history, including but not limited to the following:

• Guvnah Desmond Shang, whose unwavering support for the CAT has helped it become what it is.
• Dan Gervasi, for his gracious permission in using the CAT name.
• Kaluura Boa, for his understated scripting genius.
• Rehman Polanski, for stepping in and keeping Kaluura`s legacy alive.
• Mavromichali Szondi, for his assistance in mapping routes.
• Garth Goode, for his excellent artwork displayed in our logo and branding.
• Duke Wratch Constantine and Duchess Aevelle Galicia-Constantine, Rachire Andel and the Crimson Pirates for their iron support of the CAT in its infancy.
• Bram Hallison, for being a sounding board for ideas and concepts.

“To the hundreds of passengers over the years- a huge thank you. If I’ve left anyone out, please let it be known my sin of omission is due to the overwhelming support Caledonians have come to give over the years,” Mr. Serapis said.