More images...

More images! I'll try to finish a sketch of UK One soon and upload it aswell.

Inspiration... again !

Hey, here are a couple more images I've found. The first two are of an orbital spacecraft, called  HOTOL, scanned from a book on Concorde replacements. It's very similar to how I imagine UK One to be like. In particular, I like the fin at the front, and the jet layout at the rear, with engines slung under the belly for normal flight. Anyway, after that, there are some scans from a book called "Anatomy of the aeroplane". I found it in a tiny book shop in Bridport, and its full of technical aircraft notes, some of which I can only just understand! Anyway, its got lots of interesting drawings and diagrams, some of which are included below:

BAe HOTOL concept

BAe HOTOL concept

Some more progress...

Here's a bit more of what I have written so far. It's all very rough, and full of errors, and no doubt it will get rewritten at some point. But here it is anyway: 

High up in the atmosphere, above the clouds, higher than the mountain plateaus of  Nouveau Europia, a gigantic shard of metal and glass hangs like an early morning star. Being thousands of meters in length, it pierces the heavens, dwarfing the moon; its pale glistening exterior reflects the rays of a dying sun. As the streaks of red and gold rush across the crystal sky, they light up this strange object with colours of crimson and saffron, making it seem like a glowing fireball.

This is UK-One.

*****

It is the year 2999,  34th of December. High up in UK-One, the population of sector 7, are starting to awaken and start the day. The Glocke-Engines are spooling up to full capacity, propelling the sky-ship onto a new course.

On the bridge, President [Don’t have a name yet] monitors the vast banks of instruments and displays before him.  He turns to speak to the captain. 

"How are the radiation levels?"

"In the safety zone sir, and falling. "

"Get Westminster on the phone. I want them to prepare the central docking pan for our arrival."

Without warning, a deafening boom reverberates throughout the fabric of UK One. Klaxons sound, whilst a massive groan of flailing power cuts through the air. The nose of the ship rises, whilst the stern falls, throwing everyone on the bridge to the ground.

The President turns to the captain,

"What the devil just happened ? "

As captain [No name yet] struggles up the slope to the controls, his face turns ashen.

"It's the Glocke Engines. They've all stopped. Their gravity resistance output is at 46%, no wait, 45%, oh god it's falling. What shall we"

He doesn't get to finish his question, for at that moment a second, much larger blast shakes the ship.  Cracks snake their way along the entire 7500 metres of the ship, whilst the gigantic glass panels that make up the sides seem to pop out of their frames. With a deafening moan, the top keel snaps, decks pancake onto one another, flames licking up into the morning sky. 

I'm not so sure about destroying the central part of the book in the first opening part, but it could work, if I carried on with a "six months earlier" bit, and then spend the rest of the story building up to this event. As I said in the beginning of this post, everything is all a bit jumbled, and I don't really know where this book will lead. I don't want it to sound like any of the books I've read, so it's going to take some thinking to come up with an entirely different time period and place in which to place my story.

Inspiration

Sorry there hasn't been an update recently, what with GCSE's and revision, time has been limited. Anyway, I recently found these images, which are similar to what think UK ONE would look like. I think they are of a conceptual spacecraft. called hypersoar (what an awesome name).