The OP Lich is a Returnee, Book 19 Prologue

Prologue – Trade Chat

(Magical World Disharmony Server, General Chat)

UsualSuspect, manoutoftime, muon, MewTwo, Avariel, Chummer, Golddigger, CrazyCelt, Blaze, DoYouEvenLyft?, MarcoPolo, MightMakesRight, MacD, Inquisitor, OrangeQueen, Lizard, RedFox, SemiSolidSnake, BabyShark, Lichwatcher, Not_the_Face!, TheLichQueen, Scholar, Salty, Anonymous3, Anonymous4, Anonymous7, Anonymous9, WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot, DigDug, Backlog, DarkAvariel, Knocker, GrimDark, BloodForTheBloodGod, BackDat@55Up and DarkAngel are in the chat.

Not_the_Face!: My cousin in San Diego is saying that the they are finally finished fixing the ships that were damaged when the Navy pulled back from Pearl Harbor.

MacD: Wild that the pinnacle of military tech got taken down by sharks.

Salty: Magic sharks. Makes a difference.

Inquisitor: Those sharks could bite through steel. And they were smarter than normal sharks.

Scholar: According to research by Risen Athelia, something about the old-style screw propellers attracts the sharks. Nuclear and diesel engines make it worse. Except, for some reason, the sharks ignore submarines almost completely.

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot: Old drinking buddy from when I was in the Army is a native of Athelian Samoa (was American at the time), he told me that the Athelian Royal Navy currently has a series of ‘corvette’ ships that look like the unholy fusion of age of sail and WW2 ships. Turrets with big guns, and a gundeck with actual broadsides! Steel hull but full-rigged sails. Only thing was, he said that they don’t have much in the way of anti-air defenses.

GrimDark: There has to be a reason for that approach.

TheLichQueen: There is. This isn’t a secret, or anything, but the cannons are all following design principles I came up with, allowing vehicle weapons to fire either projectiles or spells. And there is at least one mage on each ship, as well as shooters with the Warrior’s Way. The shield and armor enchantments will also stand up to modern missiles quite nicely.

Salty: Hey, LQ! Is it true that you’ve got the third largest merchant fleet in the Pacific?

TheLichQueen: Yes, just behind China and Japan. Our vessels are slower than pre-magic container ships, but they have not yet suffered an attack by Great Steel Sharks while under primary propulsion alone.

BabyShark: LQ, is it true that you’re taking all the dead in the cemeteries in Hawai’i and the other new territories and raising them as undead?

TheLichQueen: Oh, is that the nonsense they’re talking about me now? Well, the answer is no. There are wards on the existing cemeteries, to keep any of the dead from rising without permission. However, any citizen of Risen Athelia may donate their body to the legions when they die. Much like organ donors.

TheLichQueen: Of course, that only applies to law-abiding citizens. Those who commit certain offenses under Athelian law, or who attack my domain, however? I am not so merciful as to allow death to be the end of their penance.

Lizard: So, going back to things that aren’t going to keep me up at night, what is the new navy for, LQ?

TheLichQueen: The Athelian Royal Navy is for protecting our sea lanes, primarily, and ensuring that any idiots don’t start getting ‘ideas’. Unlike other countries, Risen Athelia is not going to play world police. Eventually, we plan to get full-on battleships, but that will take some time, as we build up to it.

Scholar: No carriers or air force, though?

TheLichQueen: We do have some aerial options, but fuel is a concern for modern fighter craft. Both land-based and carrier-launched. I’ve invested more in air defenses, rather than aircraft. The aircraft we have are primarily either for reconnaissance, or designs that can run on the mana engines already in existence.

Lizard: Doesn’t that leave your land kindof vulnerable?

TheLichQueen: Not really. Fighters have a round-trip range of between eight and eleven hundred kilometers. To reach Risen Athelia, a carrier group from, say, San Diego would need to travel hundreds of kilometers into the open ocean, with all the Great Steel Sharks, before they could possibly get into maximum range. Mid-air refueling extends that somewhat, but the refueling planes would still need to launch from somewhere. And without bases in Hawai’i, Guam, and the like, they don’t have the range to actually make that happen.

MewTwo: So, the age of US dominance over the oceans has ended, then?

Scholar: Looks like it. While submarines can still get anywhere, carrier groups are probably done for. Even if you solved fuel issues, you can’t rig a carrier with masts to sail around with, because the planes would crash.

Anonymous7: I wouldn’t say that carriers are completely out, just yet. Just that modern-style carriers are out.

Scholar: What do you mean?

Anonymous7: Well, to start, I’m an engineering student at the Cambridge. One of our projects this semester was to design a carrier concept that would work with modern magitech. According to the numbers we were working with, if you went away from jets to mana-engine planes, there’s some room to work with an airship carrier.

Scholar: So, more like WW2 fighters than modern ones?

Anonymous7: Think more WW1. Biplanes and the like, light as possible.

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot: Hmm. Those designs would be less useful at long-range force protection. Even if the planes used mana so they didn’t run out of fuel, there’s only so long you can keep someone in a cockpit before performance degrades.

TheLichQueen: Which is why you teleport the carrier, and any escorts, where you need to go, and then launch, rather than launching from over the horizon to strike.

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot: That’s possible?

TheLichQueen: Other than the Three Great Exceptions, everything is possible, with magic. You just need enough time, power, and knowledge to pull it off. The more you have of one, the less you need of the other two.

Scholar: Just how much power would it take to teleport a carrier group?

TheLichQueen: If you used ritual magic, instead of direct casting? Not much, on a per-mage basis. It would just need more time, and the ritual leader would need more knowledge, both of magic and of the target area. If you had a beacon or landmark to target, that makes things easier, which is why teleporting individuals around the world is something thaumaturgists had already accomplished before I returned from the other world.

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot: So, carriers would become a deep strike weapon, instead of a force projection weapon?

TheLichQueen: More or less. But without ritual magic, the number of known beings that could teleport a carrier group any reasonable distance can be counted on one hand. Which means that sending a group too far behind enemy lines would make it a one-way trip. And that’s assuming the target doesn’t have wards to interfere with teleportation.

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot: You can ward a country against teleportation?

TheLichQueen: That’s getting into higher-level magical discussions, but it is possible. Usually, though, it is more like a filter, redirecting teleports so that individuals or small groups are channeled into certain areas, and larger groups are thrown off course, entirely. On top of the extra instability of large-scale magic. There is a reason I marched my army across a continent, rather than just teleporting to the Demon King.

UsualSuspect: LQ, I heard a rumor that Risen Athelia was going to be joining the UN?

TheLichQueen: We submitted an application to the UN Security Council. Of course, the US could veto it, but that would just prove that their president was a scared little child. Either way, I’m planning on going to the General Assembly next month.