I voted Starmada because it's grand!
8-)
And... because there wasn´t another suplement for IRON STARS in the batch! :mrgreen:

First: After receiving some clarifications on data and canon in the IS universe from Mr. Daniel and Admiral Dungan, I edited the story so far and made the changes that permited the flowing of logic. I could not take out the free fall belts, but they became more logic within the universe. I maintained the possibility of a ethership being used to go up and down vertically in the atmosphere like an elevator, but creating a tornado in the process. If Mr. Daniel doesn't vetoe this idea I'll keep it in the story.

Second: Today morning, I played with my students, I'm a teacher, a rpg, a very loose one, in this universe, and as dice rule, I used a variation of the rules in IS. 1D4, 1d6. 1D8, etc, and the basic target number was half the dice number. Target number to 1D4 = 2, etc. Statistics were based on the following: Strenght 1 = 1D4, Strength 2 = 1D6, etc. The normal statistic being 2. The interesting part: A player with strength 2 can choose to roll a D6 or a D4, because:

A D4 without modifiers get 75% of having a sucess and a D6 without modifiers gets 66% of having a sucess. But with negative modifiers, it's better to roll a D6 than a D4 and so on.

Problems: Positive modifiers, damage, etc.

Though there were problems, my students (between 15 and 18 years old) loved the system and the universe.

And, I had to invent a lot, not having a system to base my calls.

As for Zeppelins, airships, dirigibles, blips, etc, it does't start hurricanes, it crashes on hurricanes.
Are a poor weapon mount because... it leaks.
One too many crew member and it can't lift up in the air.
You want to go west, but the wind is blowing south, so you go south-west.
It's fun for an expedition adventure, but will it work against the kind of fire power already created in this universe?

From the diary of the Lt-Captain Afonso Miranda Teles, Captain of the Light Cruiser "Cidade de Lisboa" and Commander of the Venus Expedition:

September 27, 1911.
Only by now I have the time to write down the events that followed our first encounter with the humanoid Venusians. Mr. Fernando Pessoa gathered himself after the first shock and told us that those who were communicating with him in his head called themselves the "Ainduren" and were grateful for our help in expelling the Karroon. I must say that I never had the pretension of taking credit for that, but as I will explain later, things worked in a way I could not control. Maintaining the rest of the fleet much above the ground, more to their own protection than to avoid the turbulence of the air over the city I ordered the cruiser to land. As we left the ship, the air was mild and completely breathable, having a strange but not bad smell. To my astonishment in front of me a group of bluish humanoids waited. As I studied their forms, two notions become clear to me. The entire group was composed of females, if breasts and hips are a universal trait for humanoid females and secondly they weren't afraid and seemed excited and happy with our arrival. One of them advanced some steps and approached Mr. Fernando Pessoa, which, in a most civilized way bowed to the humanoid female. After that he looked at me and said that she was asking me if she could talk in my mind. I confess that the thought was very disturbing but I accepted finding no way past around this. And then a voice sang in my mind and if i wasn't a little afraid I would think that it was the most beautiful thing it ever happened to me. We talked for some time and she told me many things about her people and Venus, or Anidar as they call their planet. I will try to summarize what she told me and what happened after that.

First. The other race they were fighting is called Karroon. They are amphibious beings with eight legs and a strong tail fin. Almost all creatures in Venus are octopod. They are brown or purple and have a big globoid body with big eyes. Of the eight legs, two are arms. They are very strong and dwell in shallow waters where they build underwater cities. They build devices that work with a kind of energy that I could not understand very well, though Sa'atia (the name of the Ainduren female) has tried to explain me several times. It has to do with salt. I have been into one of these vehicles that were destroyed in the battlefield and it seemed to me very impressive.

Second. The Ainduren know that they aren't originally from Venus. They say that they are as we are. And of course I could not pretend I didn't see the similarities. They are smaller, 5 feet tall, they are skinny, maybe the gravity being less made them this way, they have an head as big as ours, but a longer neck. Their hands are bigger than ours but in the females, still very gracious. Their hair is much thicker, looking almost alive, and as I pointed this, Sa'atia told me that this was on account of their telepathy. She can speak a language I don't understand, but she told me that the language is only to speak with children for they only acquire telepathy when they reach puberty. She has a very sweet voice.

Third. They fight a war with the Karroon ever since they can remember. They only stopped fighting them when the asteroids started to fall in Anidar and strange and horrid beast firing an hot ray raised from the asteroids. I told her about the Martian invasion. They don't have telescopes due the eternal clouds in the sky so they don't know that there are other planets, but they suspected and their legends also confirm this. At the attack of the Martians, the Karroom and the Ainduren stop fighting themselves and though they didn't allied themselves, both races tried to fight the Martians. To their surprise and relieve the Martians started to die for themselves and after a fashion disappeared in the bottom of the oceans. Some cities were burned to the ground and people kidnapped but it all ended 15 Venusians years ago.

Fourth. They have dirigibles or zeppelins, lighter than air aircrafts, to move from island to island and they don't use ships for the Karroon sink it all. There are, as we suspected, two big islands. This is called Atra'tia and the other in the other pole is called Atra'ud'atria. The smaller islands are one hundred and eighty six habitable ones and near the equator there are several deserted ones.

Fifth. The strangest thing is that we have met yet no males of the Ainduren. As I casually asked for these I felt a sense of terrible sadness and danger. I'll ask no more of that for the time being.

Sixt. We have visited the city that was being attacked and we were most impressed. The buildings are beautiful and very opened and the way the few children we saw played around gave me the feeling of trust that I needed to send for the other ships. We have been here since yesterday and already we tasted their food that harmed us not. Just some intestinal flatulence, but I think we will eventually accommodate with this for the food is very tasteful.

Last. Tomorrow we will see one of their most reverend places. They call it the "Arriving" and I was told that I will understand it fully when we arrive there. By zeppelin. I am a bit concerned with this, but I'll go along, although I gave some very precise instructions to my second in command, Commander O'Dunagan, the American Captain of the Destroyer "Edward". We will see.

It's nothing, Daniel, just a poor joke.

It's a joke about "ketsu giri", a japanese paradox about duty and honor.

In "ketsu giri" whatever happens it's always your fault, because you supposely had the duty to prevent others to lose honor by pointing first what they shouldn't do, but if you had the arrogance of doing it you would lose honor so you couldn't do it, so if you didn't do it you weren't making your duty, but if you make your duty, and so on and so on...

Yes. I admit it.  :roll:

I didn't want to point it at you so you wouldn't become embarassed and now I am myself covered in shame for not having done it.   :oops:

   
Shame. Shame. Shame.

:oops:  :oops:  :evil:

Before anyone else, let me be the first one to congratolate you, Admiral, sir.
:roll:

Yes. I admit it.

I was covered in shame with your astronomical knowledge and so I pretended to ignore it so I wouldn't become embarassed.  :oops:

:oops:  :oops:  :oops:
Shame. Shame. Shame.

Yes, sir, mister Vice Admiral, sir!!  :wink:  Just stopped singing!
Before anything else I'd like to congratulate you on your very near change in Ranking. I hope the pay goes up as well, sir!
:?

And I am sorry to have resorted to such a lowly way as the Major-General routine to get your attention. Next time I swear that I'll halt myself in the Groucho Brothers.  :roll:

As for the scientific explanation, I've read it all, and I get it more clearly.

I would argue with you with the golem being magic devices, but it's of minor importance, and I would lose against the MTG folklore.

With all you have opened I can go on labouring my idea.

I wasn't clear enough but Ialso meant very slow progression of technology, or at least the open to the humans technology. I would like to have the martians to have a kind of tech that would be so alien that it would be seen by us as being in the domain of the occult and the macabre.

Thanks again for your kind help. 

From the diary of the Lt-Captain Afonso Miranda Teles, Captain of the Light Cruiser "Cidade de Lisboa" and Commander of the Venus Expedition:

September 23, 1911.
The crystal planet, as everybody now calls Venus is almost at my hands grasp. Today we stopped all engines. It was difficult to relay the order to the other ships, but we managed to do it. Between us and the planet a small satellite floats in a high orbit, seeming to look at us. I sent the Frigate "Moçambedes" to investigate and as she was at range, the satellite spitted a coherent beam of fire revealing it's true nature. The Martians are, or have been, here. I guess that our fleet of four warships and one civil ship isn't a match for the beast. We will now start to circumnavigate the satellite in order to reach the Venusians atmosphere. I'm not happy at all with this and the crew, after these months of monotonous travel, with the exception of the 12 August incident, is in a terrible mood.

September, 24 1911.
We have made our first low orbit observation of this planet. Where the clouds have let us peek the surface, we saw almost only water. This is a water world. There is a large island, of continental proportions in each of both poles, but all over the planet we have found only smallish archipelagos of islands. Tomorrow, if we don't find any threat, we'll land in the North Pole continent. The bad humour seems to have abandoned the crew of all our ships and I ordered the opening of a casket of wine. Even I long for a sweet sip of it...

September 25, 1911
Even now, that the night has fallen over us, even if only because I close the entrance of light in my quarters, as the day and night in Venus have almost the same duration of half an year, I can't calm down. We met one of the two intelligent species that inhabits this strange planet. And happily now we know that there are no Martians here. Oh, but I must start from the beginning, for the information in my head is much and so new that I fear I will not be able to put it all on paper. We decided to go down as a fleet over a peninsula in the North Pole continent. There is no ice here and the poles are the places where it seems that the weather temperature is more acceptable to us. Then, when we were at six miles over it, the clouds opened and we saw a small city. We were astonished and I almost pulled back. But then curiosity stayed my hand and we started to see huge fires and signs of fighting. At almost one mile over the city that is very near the sea we could watch the battle. It was easy to understand who were the opposite contenders, since they were so different. At one side we watch strange vehicles, almost like giant amphibians, rising from the wave and shooting enormous catapults that spilled a dark fire into the city and against big mechanic walkers that fired back explosive arrows from strange ballista like arms. We were astonished. Mr. Correia was magnificent with his steady hand over the controls as we hovered over the battlefield. And then, they took notion of us. It couldn't be helped, since by then, the air being jogged by the permanence of the ship in the atmosphere was starting to build quite a few whirlwinds. The battle came to a stop and the creatures from the sea retired hastily. The others just stared at us and us at them. And then... then Mr. Fernando Pessoa told us with a very thin voice that we were being invited to land. They were politely asking it in his head. There's so much more but I'm most tired so I'll write the rest after I sleep a pair of hours.

I searched for these portuguese light cruisers, later after wwII, suffered heavy modernization, mostly anti-air and ain-sub, and changed denomination to frigate, and they were not Tejo-class, but Vouga-class (vaya?) And the ships of that class were five: "Vouga", "Tejo", "Lima", "Douro" "Dão"; It's portuguese rivers names.

When I design a vehicle, starship or otherwise, I try always to give it a role. With all the pros and cons of that role. I don't like superships, and I like stories where you pitch an old design against modern enemies. The Wood exploding because he had a flaw in it's design is what thrills me in the "Hunting the Bismark story". Or the old Swordfish planes. Or the last stand of the polish cavalry against the german tanks.

I like to write the story around a ship or starcraft.

The Magalhães-class Heavy Cruiser is from the 1910 program for laying down a bigger cruiser capable of an extended range and performance in space. Using the hull of the Tejo class cruiser and extended it, the Magalhães has space for 4 small secondary weapons and extra load. The use of a more sloped hull gives the ship a bigger protection than the hull of the Tejo class. But the most interesting feature of this ship is the use of less powerful torpedoes, but more acurate since the role of this ship is protection of convoys and the engaging of smaller vessels. The "Magalhães" was launched in February 1911, followed by the "Diogo Cão" three months later. The most interesting detail of these two vessels is the bust of the two portuguese navigators in the prow of the ships.

Magalhães-class Heavy Cruiser (74 pts)
Hull: 15
HVP: 2
TR: 6, AV: 3
Primary: 4/d10(x2)
Secondary: 4/d6(x1)
Light: 6/d4(x1)
Torpedoes: 3/d8(x3)
Equipment:
Machine Gun(2)
[Hull] [Armour] [Thrust] [Primary] [Secondary] [Light Guns]
[1-11] [12] [13-14] [15-16] [17-18] [19-20]