Fimbul Vardo

The Fimbul Vardo is a ship that is wholly unique to Bohemia. It was designed in response to a need for a ship that would facilitate the innate Bohemian desire and drive to live a nomadic lifestyle.

These residential ships, unlike most other ships, are not designed for inter-planetary space travel as they are designed exclusively for intra-planetary travel, and with the addition of their Anti-Grav Drives, they actually make fantastic floating intra-atmospheric mobile homes.

Origin of the Name

Vardo is the angloromani word for caravan or Gypsy wagon. Whilst the Boheme are not descended from the Romani Gypsies, who are racially distinct from the Irish Travellers, the founder of Bohemia Caedmon O’Tuathail appropriated many concepts from the Gypsies, including the name for what eventually became the most popular and widely used residential ship on Bohemia.

Origin of the Ship

The founder of Bohemia, Caedmon O’Tuathail of Clann Aodha, was actually the first person to conceptualise such a ship. After overseeing the terraforming and settlement of Bohemia, which took some twenty odd years, as well as the creation of the Public Governance system Caedmon was satisfied that Bohemia would be able to prevail on its own without his continued direction and leadership. At this point, he took on more of an advisory role and turned his attention to other interests, one of which was his passion for invention and engineering.

For a long time he had envisaged a residential ship limited to local intra-planetary travel that would effectively act as a technologically modern equivalent of the ancient Gypsy wagons that would cart around small family units that moved within larger Clann groups. He knew that it would need to be different to any existing ship given certain specific requirements.

He knew it would be a ship that would not require weapons, given they lived on a peaceful planet protected by powerful national police and military forces. It would be a ship that would not require a Warp Drive, given it would not be required for long-distance space-warp or faster-than-light travel as it would be limited to local intra-planetary travel only. It would be a ship that would be wholly dedicated to residential living and thus would require an emphasis on compact yet comfortable accommodation quarters, restroom, dining area and kitchen; a ship that would easily connect with other similar ships to form small floating villages; and a ship that could effectively and efficiently hover within the atmosphere at any height despite the force of gravity acting upon it continuously.

Initially, Caedmon had created his own decentralised autonomous company (DAC), named O’Tuathail Industries, and he hired many talented Boheme to work with him on manifesting his idea. After his team of engineers had worked with him to draft up the first rough design, they then got to work on developing the drive that would allow such a ship to effectively and efficiently hover within the atmosphere at any height despite the force of gravity acting upon it continuously. This was a true engineering challenge and required the input of an entire team of physicists. Normally, gravity would cause large physical objects like these ships to simply fall to the ground without continuous use of manoeuvring thrusters, which would very quickly deplete all available fuel. In order to have economical floating residential ships, which is to say ships that stay airborne in a strong gravity environment with very minimal energy usage, they needed to develop an innovative technology to solve this problem. The Rainbow ship manufacturing brand had already overcome this physics dilemma many many years prior but the secret of how their ships functioned was a mystery to all but the Photoli.

Therefore, after several years of research Caedmon and his team successfully developed what came to be known as the Anti-Grav Drive. These ingenious additions to the line of Fimbul Vardos allow them to essentially float at whatever height is desired above the planet surface. Technically, the Fimbul Vardos can travel above the limits of the planetary atmosphere, thus taking them into the space surrounding the planet, however, they are not designed for the demands of longterm space travel as they lack adequate insulation, fuel reserves and, as most significantly, they lack a Warp Drive.

Connection to Fimbul Brand

Once Caedmon cracked the enigma of anti-gravity technology, he contacted the Fimbul Manufacturing Corporation and met up with them to discuss the possibility of co-designing and developing a purely residential ship under the Fimbul brand. The Fimbul Manufacturing Corporation agreed to embark on co-designing such a ship intrigued as they were by the idea and because of their good relationship with the Bohemian Nation State. The final design was a ship that without a doubt had all the legendary and distinct hall marks of a Fimbul ship, but was also entirely unique in its own right.

Caedmon, being the talented negotiator that he was, managed to convince the representatives of the Fimbul Manufacturing Corporation to agree to giving exclusive manufacturing rights of the Fimbul Vardo to O’Tuathail Industries for a one hundred (100) year period. What the Fimbul Manufacturing Corporation representatives overlooked in their excitement to sign a deal which, in their minds, would provide their corporation with the opportunity to make a fortune once the exclusive agreement ended after a hundred years, was that O’Tuathail Industries actually owned the rights to the intellectual property for the Anti-Grav Drive. And without the Anti-Grav Drive, the ships were just overpriced land-based portable homes with the ability to move around intra-planet but definitely without the ability to hover in the air in an economical and efficient manner, which all things considered was their greatest draw card.

The Secret of the Anti-Grav Design

The design of the Anti-Grav Drive was and still is a preciously kept secret of O’Tuathail Industries, and only the direct descendants of Caedmon and their direct descendants have the ability to access the original designs. The right to access the records are passed down the O’Tuathail bloodline. And no individual is able to access these designs alone. At least 80% of those who are alive and have the birthright privilege must simultaneously vote to access the designs. In practice, no member of the O’Tuathail family have ever tried to or needed to access the designs for the Anti-Grav Drive as the O’Tuathail Industries-owned manufacturing facility that produce the Anti-Grav Drives is fully-automated and controlled by an advanced AI that is immune to hacking and bad actor attacks. Interestingly, the AI has actually been patterned off the personality of its creator Caedmon O’Tuathail. Patterning the AI system directly off a real human personality makes it immune to hacking but susceptible to psychological manipulation. But a bad actor would have to first physically penetrate within the heavily guarded and fortified manufacturing facility to undertake such a thing. Not to mention Caedmon was such an incredibly strong personality that he is naturally resistant to psychological manipulation.

Model Types

There are three models of the Fimbul Vardo, which differ primarily in size only.

• Fimbul Vardo S = small size

• Fimbul Vardo M = medium size

• Fimbul Vardo L = large size

Customisation of Ships

There are many ship workshops on Bohemia that focus exclusively on customising Fimbul Vardos given how widely used they are. These mostly relate to modifications of the interior elements and core components as well as customisation of the exterior paintwork. These modifications can at times include the addition of storage modules and/or repurposed passenger modules to act as living quarters for guests or growing families.