作者： Morgane

“Is Morgane an expat or something? How come Mail Calls are almost always in the dead of the night?”

I’m operating on US time. Sometimes it’s the only time I have after doing everything else in the day. Other times, well, it’s tradition. In either case, it’s a good reminder to myself to keep things moving along.

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Just to sort of explain, I do try to answer questions in order (generally in the order in which I receive them), but sometimes, whims or interest might take me to other questions.

For instance, this is one from about a few months ago, but I’ve never gotten around to answering.

“Do shipgirls use magic?”

The question itself is a bit vague, but it’s an interesting one to consider. For starters, what is magic?

Is magic simply defined as something that an ordinary human can’t do? In that case, then, sure. The shipgirls can routinely perform superhuman feats. Lifting a car to them is as easy as opening a door for us.

Is magic something that, well, channels supernatural forces using incantations or rituals or whatnots? Sort of. Certainly some shipgirls think they’re magic. Certainly some of the things certain shipgirls can do would quantifiable as magic. However, I again answer the question with that it is a matter of perspective.

For instance, STEC isn’t quite sure how fairies are able to do a lot of the things they do, and what fairies can do might as well be magic. Take their ability to “pop” in and out of reality, for instance. That definitely sounds like magic, doesn’t it?

Well, maybe the prevailing theory is that they open up miniature wormholes to some alternative dimension to travel – i.e. literally walk between worlds. Maybe another theory says that they simply convert their own “matter” into energy, and achieve instant travel through higher dimensional physics. Maybe a third theory says that fairies aren’t living at all, but are simply some sort of projected “memory” or “images” that happens to be able to interact with the world.

What’s magic? You tell me.

You’ll notice that I sometimes take great pains to suggest plausible ways to explain phenomena within Pacific. Part of my preference for storytelling is to allow for the readers to explore this particular world. I, of course, have a clear idea in mind about how I want the world to function. But, that’s the joy of being the creator, I think. I may control how and when I water my garden and what I plant, but I want to see the garden bloom on its own. 🙂

Zero is currently headed to Taipei, and so he sends greetings to everyone. The Chinese New Year celebrations are winding down, and our artists’ll soon be resuming their work again…

… not that they’ve stopped much, to be honest. Hobbies are hobbies, after all. This stuff IS fun.

Here’s an example of a character that we’ll probably have you meet soon. She’s a part of another upcoming book, to be release for summer comiket. At this point, after sitting down and taking stock of what we’ve done, it’s clear that AR3 is going to be more than just AR3.

Now, you might be wondering, how does a subgirl wear glasses under water?

Well, why don’t you ask Ha-chan, heh. 

Yeah. Plenty to do, plenty to sort out. I’ll probably have pictures from Zero soon.  See you next time. 🙂

“Are the Pacific books sold out at this point? I can’t find it anywhere in any of the places you’ve linked.”

To the best of my knowledge, the Japanese copies are all sold out. (They’ve been sold out for the last month or so and no current plans for reprints)

The Chinese copies are also all sold out. What is available for purchase are on our site’s side bar, and we’ll be selling physical copies of volume 1 (in English) at Boston in a few months.

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Usually I take this time to round up sketches from the team and to update everyone on what’s going on. As we’re switching out image hosts, however, we’ll have a lot of administrative shuffling.

There’s a lot of stuff that I’ve never posted publicly. For instance…

You can see that something like this was made and uploaded more than a year ago. Sometimes I hold stuff back because I want to write a bigger post. Other stuff will be shown when it’s time for them to be shown.

Now, why Tennsy? I think that’s because from our own internal polling, there are certain shipgirls of ours that are a lot more popular (within the team) than others. Cal, for instance, is frequently used as a companion for Jer or Flora or Norknork. Tennsy, on the other hand…

Oh. That Tennsy. She’s, like, got her head up in the clouds half the time. Don’t get me wrong! She knows how to have a good time. Buuuuut, you know which gal God gave the fun parts? Like, the really fun parts?

Me, of course! Haha!

I’m learning how to create characters, and the way I’ve envisioned Tennsy is that I think she’d be a gentle and quiet girl. Now, would she really be the type to be talking about herself…

Probably not. So, here, rather than having her talk about herself, I wrote a simple line from the perspective of Cal. Now the reader learned two new things. Tennsy’s got her head “up in the clouds” (well, we did say that she’s a daydreamer in vol. 2 so that’s just confirming something you’d have already known), but, perhaps more than anything else, Cal’s bragging about herself again.

That’s a part of Cal’s personality, too. 🙂

See you guys next time.

(K9’s color is navy, and Morgane’s is black. )

“So if a submarine is sunk or is lost, would should she be labeled MIA instead of KIA?”

STEC normally knows what happens to subgirls on sortie thanks to MERLIN, so if one was to be lost, they’d know almost immediately if she was KIA and mark her as such.

No. WRONG. They do not get sunk or lost. They go on ETERNAL PATROL.

Luckily though, the subgirls on base are some of the most skilled shipgirls available. In combat, they have high autonomy – a commander doesn’t have to constantly give them orders. They know when to bug out if need be.

That girl that just yelled at you? She would much rather stay and fight.

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“You’ve mentioned that the United States Navy maintains a series of floating island bases such as the Avalon mentioned in the book. My question is how big are they, and what do they do, exactly?

If it’s a research facility, I can’t imagine it being very big. If it’s something bigger, then how does the Navy keep it a secret?”

STEC Archives, Print Document Division
Curator signature: [Classified]
Format: Photograph, Personal
Object: Photo #[Classified]
Location (if known): Unknown
Time (if known): Unknown

Photograph of Avalon base in Configuration R4 (Replenishment, Semi-submerged) with Main Aerial Component active in preparation for exercises.

First of all, just to be clear, the official explanation the Navy offers to the general public at large is that Avalon is a naval research facility located on an island somewhere in the Pacific. Speculation generally tends to place it somewhere maybe around California, as the official “projects” that are worked on involve areas such as metallurgy and materials. Most people that are directly involved in military research knows enough to not poke too much, and those that do, well, Avalon has fed a steady stream of new data and materials to its superiors.

In other words, Avalon is kept a secret because it’s doing a good job. In fact, it does a great job, which means a lot less attention would be drawn to it.

What about inspection, you ask? Wouldn’t the representatives touring the base know something’s up the instant they see piers meant to harbor warships or like the big air strips in the photo above?

Of course, but that’s assuming Avalon can’t choose what it wants to show. No, I’m not talking about the shields or the mist mechanism that’s discussed in OCEAN in greater detail. I’m talking about simple physics.

Those piers and air strips and walls and countless other facilities are only visible (in the conventional sense) if it’s above water, which it doesn’t have to be. The picture below is a pretty good example of the “tiered” nature of Avalon base.

STEC Archives, Print Document Division
Curator signature: [Classified]
Format: Photograph, Personal
Object: Photo #[Classified]
Location (if known): Unknown
Time (if known): Unknown

Photograph of a corner of Avalon base. Note “unusual” reflection/sky glimmer indicative of active shielding/interference in place. Stress test?

Avalon is a fusion of technological development and fairy magic. Many, many hours went into its design, and it was something that was built from the ground-up as something that’s meant to build up on over time. STEC’s planners had anticipated something akin to a very long war if the Abyssals were initially beaten back, and since humanity will likely not get a respite once the Abyssals come in force, it was important that STEC takes advantage of the current peace and, of course, their fairy allies’ penchant for taking the initiative to build and create on their own.

Remember that (perhaps even more important than the shipgirls themselves) Avalon is home to countless numbers of fairies. It’s part of the reason why it requires so little staff – the fairies perform all of the functions necessary for the operation of such a base, which includes maintenance (barnacles really aren’t an issue when magic is involved), build-up (particularly munitions and spare parts for shipgirls), construction (If Mike wants a new shooting range, make the labs bigger, or a new set of simulation targets, he’ll get it. Generally within days), and “research.”

… Yeah, that last bit is a bit of a misnomer. See, fairies tend to have a single-mindedness approach to a particular idea or concept. Once an idea enters their little heads (e.g. “It’d be really nice if we could get faster flying planes” or “Wouldn’t eggs for breakfast be nice?”), they’ll try to make it happen with laser-like focus. What passes for fairy research is less the fulfillment of hypotheses and directed experimentation of theories and more of fairies literally making random stuff on a whim.

It’s already difficult enough to figure out what the fairies are thinking to begin with, since communication with the little ones are a little … challenging. It also goes without saying that not every idea that the fairies come up with is practical (as of today, there’s still a group of fairies stubbornly trying to figure out ways to make Avalon fly), but that’s the simple of life of a fairy of Pacific.

They live to create.  It excites them, it makes them happy, and they’ve got a lot of creative ways to try to make it work. It doesn’t mean that it’ll be the result STEC wants, but sometimes great things are born entirely of accidents – and in all honesty, Avalon base, actually, is one of these. But that’s a tale better saved for another time.