#dan flem draws

[thegreatsurvey]

The Sea Bird is a massive floating community built for the booming South Sea tourism industry, currently in its third decade of service. Initially planned as a large, but much more typical floating casino-cruise ship, the size and design became excessively large and more flamboyant over its decade of development as obscene amounts of money were poured into the project by a never ending flow of investors desperate to cash in on the innovative behemoth.

At launch it could hold 7,258 passengers and 2,112 crew while staying at sea for four months at a time without outside support. About a decade into service, the utilities and fittings were updated, living-areas expanded, and its propulsion system dramatically upgraded. Today almost 10,000 passengers board the bird, where they are presented with a never-ending cavalcade of entertainment and dining options, lavish accommodations, and an experience specifically tailored for comfort and relaxation. 

Though faced with enormous construction costs and daily expenses, the Sea Bird has proven extremely popular amongst the upper class and rarely sails with an empty suite, making it one of the more profitable floating cities on the south sea route. 

Sea Birds.

12x12"

Acrylic on panel. SOLD

[thegreatsurvey]

Happening Elsewhere: Salvage.

Not long after the First City Outpost fell, the market for gleaming new vessels, while lucrative for a select few, became so focused that the majority of ship builders transitioned to maintenance and “upgrade” construction, increasing the size and power of older vessels at a fraction of the cost. As old ships continued to grow, gradually adding rooms, corridors, antennae and engines, “designing” a ship became a thing of the past. The majority of vessels resembled wearhouses, almost anti-aerodynamic in their shape, and chugged along near the surface, incapable of reaching too great a speed with their underpowered, rebuilt and bolted-on engines. The ships regularly broke down and required abrupt landings, often becoming damaged, stuck and being abandoned when the cost became too great. The population would scatter to nearby port cities and, like a corpse, smaller ships and other conglomerates would scavenge parts from the fallen vessel.

Only the wealthiest merchants could afford upgrades that would keep the ships airborne for extended periods, and only the wealthiest of them could even hope to reach speeds that would escape the planet’s thick and humid atmosphere, not that any of the “conglomerate ships” would survive those forces even if they did have the engines for it. Over time the sight of a newer ship became rarer and rarer as they tended to remain in the clouds. Remnants of fallen vessels were highly contested and a sort of piracy arose between the larger conglomerates that roamed the plains. Territories arose and it became fairly dangerous for any ship, old, new, small or large to venture beyond their usual habitat. Small ships began to shadow the large, sometimes acting as scouts, and port cities, along with the conglomerates, began to develop strong defenses. 

Anything with a shine became virtually unheard of below the cloud cover, and even ownership of the oldest scrap piles was hotly contested. Owners of the conglomerates were masters of their territory, as long as their ships stayed aloft, but disputes were regular and dominion short-lived. 

Salvage.

24x24″

Acrylic on panel (Destroyed in flood 2025)