#oc 40b

[greatwesternway]

We know 999's favorite exhibit is the fairy castle, do any of the other engines have a favorite exhibit (besides each other)?

Kinda mean, throwing the "besides each other" caveat in there! Even excepting engines with personal reasons to favor another engine's exhibit, lots of them just really enjoy each other's exhibits for their own merits.

Texaco's a big fan of Pioneer's exhibit, for instance. She likes racing the trains, other planes, and vacuum cleaners on the big panorama displays. She also thinks the Zephyr Fleet film is cool looking, but the questions it begs about who is who leave Pioneer trying to explain his complicated family tree to a little plane who just cannot follow it and loses interest as quickly as she asked. He doesn't mind though; he knows it's a lot.

Every ten years or so, Spitfire will get a little jealous of U-505's exhibit. It's not that he doesn't think U-505 shouldn't have an exhibit that big and detailed. There's a lot to say about him. Spitfire just has wartime stories too! He shot down five Nazi planes and he's got the stamps to prove it. (And he was on the right side of the war so his exhibit could be more fun). But we don't really have a lot of substantiated information about Spitfire, not enough to make an entire exhibit out of. You can't just go by what the plane himself says.

The most expeditious way to get him to let go of the idea is for U-505 to remind him that if he had a big exhibit all to himself, he would have to leave the Transportation Gallery fleet. A submarine is meant to work alone, but a small plane is meant to work in a group. It would be tactically disadvantageous then, both for him and the rest of the little planes, to leave them all to fly solo. (Texaco almost always ruins this because she is used to working alone and her display is appropriately separate of the other little planes. It's nothing an elbow in the ribs from Jenny won't stifle though.)

U-505 enjoys the Dome Theater, if he has claimed it before Stuka and Spitfire can. He particularly likes if the film is about the ocean. When he was in the ocean, it was usually too dark to see everything that was apparently down there with him. They can also go deeper now than he could. He finds films about space intriguing too, because space and the ocean are very similar (expect that one is finite and full of life and the other isn't). He'll watch anything in there though, as long as he's alone or with engines who know how to sit there, shut up, and watch the film.

Mate is not such an engine, so while all these guys were learning about tide pools or some shit, he was left in front of the Swiss Jolly Ball. Which he took as an insult at first, but the Jolly Ball is actually quite enthralling all told. You lean at the railing and watch the ball go on its Rube Goldberg journey and you get to thinking about how one guy put all this together and then you get to thinking about how a railway is a lot like the Jolly Ball except it needs everyone doing their job to run effectively (which is maybe why the Jolly Ball is out of order half the time you visit) and that maybe you yourself are just a large metal ball bearing on your second trip through the Swiss Alps, all thanks to the work of lots of people together. But the Jolly Ball, Mate suddenly realizes, is actually on its fifteenth trip through since he got there, proving... something about why he was left here in the first place, but he's sure it's not anything he wants to bring attention to.

The space wing has just been updated (per billionaire donor interests) and 40B rather likes the new SpaceX capsule room when the video isn't running. The dim lighting when the starfield attract mode is on the screen reminds him of flying at night in the snow. Ray and I have not put much thought into the MSI's space artifacts because we are not billionaires, but I expect most of them (those that might be engine enough to be sentient) also share 40B's sense of seriousness with regard to their work. They weren't just doing exhibition runs.

727 likes to take a stroll through the Ships Gallery from time to time. Aviation borrows a lot from naval tradition and now she's even got a boat to give her a personalized tour (although he doesn't actually know much about sailing).

And Pioneer... well, Pilot's favorite exhibit is the baby chicks. So Pioneer's come to be quite fond of them too. Before that, though, he also enjoyed watching films with a quiet friend who knows theater etiquette, but he preferred the silent comedies of the Yesterday's Main Street Nickelodeon. He wishes they'd thought of the seating they have in the Dome Theater a little sooner though.

[greatwesternway]

do the planes like the flight simulators?

Not really.

They've experienced the real thing, they'll nearly unanimously say. A simulation cannot compare!

40B finds the whole idea stressful to even think about. All the flight sim planes are combat jets. They go so fast and pewpewing all the while. Who needs that? Weather's enough of a struggle.

As for everyone else? The flight sim's selection of planes are mostly newer, faster, better planes than ours are. It's one thing to simply know you're an old, obsolete plane. They're still being enjoyed and admired every day and that they've been surpassed and are now a relic of the past is part of their appeal. It's entirely another thing, though, to get in a machine that's designed to show you exactly how out-of-date, under-powered and slow you are.

Delicate little plane egos are better off not deliberately confronting their own shortcomings.

[greatwesternway]

What’s up with 40B? What makes him the odd duck of the plane flock? Is he just shy?

He is reserved, yes. The thing that makes him the odd man out in the fleet is that everyone else is built for speed, agility, or combat. 40B, on the other hand, is built for stability and reliability.

All the other little planes had their exciting jobs and that makes them exciting planes, but 40B? He had responsibility. He was entrusted with people's mail.

You might think this would mean the other little planes would pick on him since he's not built to fight back, but they have respect for the nature of his work. Early airmail was incredibly dangerous and a lot of pilots died doing it in the first decade of service. They often flew at night over rocky terrain, in cold temperatures and turbulent winds. All the other planes are used to flying under more favorable conditions, but the mail must be delivered no matter what. The other planes do think he's a bit of a bore, but they know this is because his job didn't afford him much in the way of fun like their jobs did. He had to take it very seriously.

What the other planes do tease him about is his little crush on Pioneer. Pioneer also delivered mail and, if asked, will wax philosophic about the way mail transcends space apart and keeps people connected over distance. For a little mail plane who no one pays much mind, to hear the way Pioneer speaks of their work makes 40B feel like he was doing service much larger than himself. Easy to become smitten when a guy makes you feel that way without even knowing you're listening. I don't know that 40B has ever actually spoken to Pioneer directly.

40B's not lonely though, don't worry. He spends most of his time with the Rocket and Wright Flyer replicas, watching over the rest of the Transportation Gallery.

[greatwesternway]

how do the other msi planes feel about the stuka and spitfire being friends? i cant see that going well lol

If the warplanes are picking (play) fights with each other, they are not picking those fights with anyone else.

It's not the the little planes don't get along. They have their squabbles sometimes, but for the most part the Transportation Gallery is peaceful despite largely being occupied by dumbass little planes.

That said, Stuka and Spitfire are machines meant to destroy each other. No one cares about this detail particularly: one is what one is made to do. If they were made to destroy other machines, they can't really help that. But they play rough - as rough as they can get away with without actually damaging each other - and they take it further than the other little planes are interested in.

Jenny and Texaco are both scrappy and playful too, but Jenny is a stunt plane and Texaco is for racing. Neither of them is trying to knock the other to the ground. They prefer parallel competition to combat.

And 40B (a mail plane notable for his even and level flying) is not suited to either of those pursuits. He prefers to sit quietly with the Rocket and Wright Flyer replicas or with 727 if she's not otherwise engaged.

All the little planes do socialize with each other though. They're all quite proud of their exhibit and feel it was built around them (which they are half right about) so they need to work together to make it as dynamic and fun as envisioned. When there are spats in the gallery, they adjust their group flight pattern accordingly, separating into smaller social groups, to maintain the peace.

There is a time in the 70's when Stuka was sent offsite for refurbishment and Spitfire was left alone. It's not that the other little planes didn't want to help, but again, they're not really built to play with him on his terms. Technically speaking, a Supermarine Spitfire is actually meant to be roughhousing with U-505, but he's not playful except under very specific circumstances.

Fortunately, 2903 stepped up to keep peace in the... yard, as it were. He's one of the few civilian machines that can match a warplane in a brawl. And much as he disapproves of Spitfire's choice in besties, he can set that aside since Spitfire is an Allied unit and playing with him keeps out out of everyone else's hair.

As it is, when Stuka returns, he quite appreciates 2903 for having done this. He has no ability nor inclination to impart this to him, but that's just as well because 2903 does not care for Stuka any more than he does U-505.

[greatwesternway]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

In a bout of guilt generosity, 999 decides to reward a certain submarine's meddling in the affairs of others with some meddling of her own.