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Oh, hello there! I had heard
you were coming. Welcome to Helios Tours, Incorporated!
My name is Admiral Ted Helix, lead
designer and commander of the Helios airship series, and I will
be your guide today! Please step into this tour balloon,
and in a few moments we shall fly up and begin the aerial
portion of the tour.
Before we leave the ground, however, I will provide a brief
background and general overview of the Helios series in general,
as well as introduce this particular ship you see behind
hovering behind me; the
Chateau Nouveau.
The term Helios is a general
title or "brand" for a handful of different models of airships.
Several Helios models have been released before the one we will
be touring today, and all Helios models share many of its same
traits. The most notable feature of the Helios series are
each ship's four, spherical helium pontoons. These
pontoons are packed with an inert, gaseous helium mixture that
allows the ships to retain the approximate buoyancy of air, even
with all equipment turned off. Even the very first Helios
design, which was essentially a man-powered bicycle with
pontoons attached, boasted this type of technology.
In other words, a Helios unit can
hover in mid-air like a helicopter, but with virtually no usage
of its propellers. Since Helios airships are typically
science vessels, they are well equipped to hover in one area for
long periods of time for research purposes without any worry of
expending large amounts of fuel in the process. The
pressure in the pontoons can be adjusted to match atmospheric
pressure, so a Helios ship can hold its position in virtually
any altitude, for any length of time.
The latest and greatest addition to
the Helios family is the ship before us, the Chateau Nouveau.
It represents the culmination of months of planning by some of
Arcadia's top scientists, engineers, designers, and architects, as well as many more months of work spent
actually building. The project was privately funded by a
number of individuals and corporations, and bears no official
political affiliation with either of Arcadia's disputed ruling
political factions (neither Celestial Empire nor
Feuersturm).
We are hired to carry out many
scientific tests and studies by various private and government
parties. On this ship we build mechanical objects, test
explosives and ammunition, run weather experiments, execute high
altitude tests, map the geography and geology of Arcadia,
explore mountainous regions, monitor various water filtering
systems on the ship itself, study electrical fields, monitor our
own states of well-being, and much, much more!
Please feel free to take photos,
but I must remind you that this is not only a state-of-the-art
science vessel; it is also a home. Myself, my expedition partner
and our robotic assistant are aloft often for weeks at a time.
Please do behave in any way that might inconvenience us or delay
our next voyage, and that includes wandering away from
the tour group!
Anyway, up we go!
Next: Up, up,
and away! >
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