This week for Magic Mondays we bring you something a little more fluffy, a little more setting oriented. Your characters may not see this array much in the Runed Age but it will definitely be there in the background all around them.
This week we bring you the Water Jet array.
Notation: Push, at speed of 512 m/s, Water, at a size 100 times the size of the array.
Description: Between the name and the notation I am sure you have already worked out what this array is. It is a water jet engine. It may be unfamiliar to today’s engineers but it serves the same purpose as those water jet engines we have in the real world: to push water really quickly in one direction to make a vessel go really quickly in the opposite direction.
512 metres per second is 1843 kilometres per hour. That is one hell of a speed. It is not surprising that dockworkers die every year when they are unlucky enough to walk in front of this array while repairing ships. For large ships, this array is usually set into a special jet cylinder (to channel and direct the water) that is 1 metre across. This means that 100 cubic metres are pushed out every second at speeds greater than the speed of sound. This could be a weapon in its own right, but it serves a more practical purpose: emergency propulsion for warships.
Warships are large and heavy beasts and during combat they need to be able to move at a moment’s notice. With the lethality of the runes, every canon shot coming a ship’s way could be the last so dexterity and swiftness is often more important than armour and shields. The Water Jet arrays (and their housings) are fitted onto ships to aid this, when these are activated the largest and heaviest of ships can prance around the water like small fishing boats. There are precious few ships which operated purely by jet power, most are still sail driven, so these jets are purely for combat or emergency use.
The other type of ship that has an everlasting love for this array are pirate ships. Often smaller, sleeker, and more nimble than great warships, pirate vessels still employ these Water Jets. They don’t use them for combat as such but for that extra boost in speed it can give them to catch up to fleeing merchant vessels. Often times pirate ships will have so many jets on them that when they are activated the ships actually lift off the water with the force of the jets.
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