DE: travel edition

[yakalskovich]

As I am travelling today and actually writing this on a bus: what is travel like in your characters' worlds? Do they travel much, or are they more the stay-at-home types? Do they have horses, cars, spacecraft of their own?

Comments

[death_gone_mad]

One of the running jokes in Runescape is that there are no horses. There were hornless unicorns and wingless pegasi, but they were so tasty that they went extinct. Pork and bacon are only a recent (re)discovery so pigs are still around, but no one rides around on them. Pigs are for wrasslin'.

Mostly, magical teleportation is a thing, except for people allergic to it. Walking and running are the only other option available to most people. Amuscut has a seagoing ship but it's mostly a prop. Blame game mechanics.

[manofbusiness]

Childermass has a horse. His name is Brewer, and it's quite possible he's Childermass' closest friend.

[camwyn]

At the moment there are no known horses alive in Gordon and Shephard's world, although since the genetic banks of the USDA were found and recovered before the Combine could destroy them, there is the potential to resurrect the species provided a few mares or some other suitable large ruminant could be found to carry the foals to term. Cars and motorcycles exist, but most of them have been converted to run on alcohol due to lack of petroleum extraction and refinement infrastructure. Bicycles have become a more popular option since they don't require fuel and can be relatively easily repaired. However, it's not advised to attempt any kind of extended travel alone; the Xen things take up a lot of the ecosystem and they're both predatory and aggressive. If you want to make it any kind of distance, you travel with several other people and whatever firearms or other weapons you can carry.

(Shephard also has a few slightly better options thanks to Dejah Thoris reworking his old Buell motorcycle to run on radium and manage speeds up to 180-200 mph, and to being given command of an Aperture Science prototype icebreaker with onboard portal generation system, but the ship is essentially a trade and Navy vessel rather than personal transport.)

In Ellen and Fawkes' world there are currently no functioning cars. One- one- car was resurrected for the player's use in Fallout 2, but if a particular piece of scenery in Fallout New Vegas is anything to go by, that vehicle is now a wreck somewhere in the Mojave Wasteland. The only known functioning motor vehicles are a couple of Vertibirds captured from the Enclave by the Brotherhood of Steel. These are used only in the rarest of circumstances, as fuel is all but impossible to come by; part of the reason for the Great War in the first place was that petroleum and coal supplies the world over had begun running out, with the Texas oilfields going dry in the 2050s and the Middle East tapping out around the same time. Travel is generally accomplished on foot and in armed groups, with pack duties being handled by Brahmin two-headed cattle. The horse is extinct in North America (I realize there is a comic that came with certain F:NV editions that claims the NCR has cavalry, but the comic artist was not informed of the lack of horses), so that's out. I've never seen any sign of bicycles having survived the War, even though we've seen trashed prewar kiddie tricycles. Unless bikes appear in Fallout 4, I'm going with the assumption that they aren't used in the post-nuke world because people can't keep the tires in one piece without actual roads to ride on.

In Stacker's world travel is about what you'd see in ours, except that I suspect people are as scared of THE ENTIRE PACIFIC OCEAN WILL EAT US ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE as they are of the Bermuda Triangle. Which is stupid because boats and planes pass through the Triangle every day of the year without a single weird thing happening to them, and the number of weird things that do happen there aren't statistically significant compared to the total amount of- I'll stop now. point is, same kind of travel as here except I think people are scared of crossing the Pacific because they're convinced that the kaiju will eat them even when there are no active kaiju. Also a lot of Pacific ports have been closed down to be walled off because the Wall of Life is such a functional thing. Really.

Santo's world is jet age Mexico, really, so travel is what you'd expect in the late 1960s.

Wee Mad Arthur is from Discworld before Raising Steam, so travel is done on foot or by horse or or by ship or by some form of broom or carpet if you're a sufficiently magical individual. One submarine has existed, but its creator destroyed it. A ship has been made that was capable of going off the Disc and landing on the Moon, but that also has been removed from existence. The only known non-magical flying vehicle was used solely to paint the ceiling of a large Discworld temple, and the only known riding dragons appeared in one book and have never been spoken of since. Gnomes and other creatures of Arthur's size can ride buzzards and other large birds, and even train them to steer properly. Regular coach service exists on major roads but is not always as reliable as one might hope. Arthur himself stays in Ankh-Morpork, for the most part.

Varric's world has medieval travel tech, but with a wider choice of riding animals, since as of Dragon Age: Inquisition the available mounts include horses, large deer, dracolisks, and giant horned knuckle-walking bunnypig things called nuggalopes. The Grey Wardens used to have griffons to ride, but the griffons went extinct except for one egg clutch that appears in a novel I haven't read and have no real intention of reading. Despite the risks of the roads and all the things in Thedas that would like to eat you or rob you or haul you off to the Underdark- I'm sorry, the Deep Roads- to do unspeakable things to you, travel in Thedas is video-game reliable, to the point where people will not only casually arrange to meet other people in cities halfway across the known world but can catch up with each other and intervene in duels despite the person involved in the duel having at least a few days' head start. Varric mostly only travels if the person he's working most closely with is traveling; he's got things to attend to otherwise and is not that big on visiting faraway places for the sake of visiting.

[creator_raven]

NO NOT LLOLTH THE SPIDER-QUEEN.

[calmhrtprevails]

The Mother's got enough spidery bits coming off her mega bloated torso that if she were just dark-skinned and white-haired she could be mistaken for an avatar of Llolth without much trouble.

[sunbaked_baker]

Rae has only been as far as the ocean in her normal life, a driving trip of a few hours. Through Milliways she has been to New York City and California, and now to far-flung-in-time-and-space Kattegat. In her night-time excursions with Con, she has been all over her region of the country, traveling through Otherspace to cover great distances much faster than possible on foot.

Travel in Rae's world is much like modern day real-life, though there are little quirks in it thanks to magic. Some government agencies, for example, have space-folding doors that connect their various headquarters for instantaneous transportation between them.

[maid_of_tarth]

Combeferre is from a world before automobiles. He travels on foot if possible, otherwise on horseback, by carriage, or by omnibus, and occasionally by stagecoach for very long distances. His family doesn't have a ton of money, so most of his disposable income comes from his own translation work, which means he'll take the cheapest practical option. He leaves Paris about once a year or less for family visits, and occasionally for trips to other cities for political purposes. Mostly he stays in Paris.

In Milliways, he's gone into the Labyrinth, if that counts as traveling.

Jehan Prouvaire is from the same world, but he has more money, so he's likelier to splurge on the more expensive travel option. That said, within Paris, he'll almost certainly go on foot while lost in his thoughts, because he's that kind of person. He also mostly stays in Paris.

Fantine is from the same world, but dies before Paris gets omnibuses, and also has almost no money. She walks from Paris to Montreuil-sur-mer to look for a job. She doesn't travel for fun, on account of having no money, and her work tends to keep her in one place.

Brienne of Tarth travels on horseback, which is a fast and expensive form of travel in her world. She travels a lot! Not for fun, for fulfilling her oaths and going off to war and rescuing people and such. She found her way into Milliways while traveling through the Riverlands (currently a devastated warzone, not a very nice trip).

[have_no_mercy]

Tess has cars aplenty, private jets and helicopters at her disposal. She also has horses but they're for pleasure riding, not long distance travelling.

She doesn't mind travelling, and does so mostly for work, but heading down to French Polynesia for a vacation has been known to happen. She's also moved quite a bit in her life, so she almost feels like she's constantly travelling.

[student_of_impossibility]

Eriond: Medieval tech, lots of horses and wooden ships. And Eriond went pretty much everywhere in the world even before he got teleportation.

Henry: Modern day! But, uh, after he was brought into Storybrooke, he never left. Yet.

Evelyn: See Cam's answer for Varric, that covers it pretty thoroughly. Personally, Evelyn's never left Ostwick, at least not to date. Eventually... well. Stuff happens.

Lois: Modern day! (Except for the bits that are bizarre, like random Kryptonian tech or other such only-in-comics-related anomalies.) Lois is extremely well-traveled, be it by car, train, boat, plane, military tank--and, in fact, may have been born on a base in Germany--and has even been in another dimension at least once, if briefly. She has an exciting life.

Tavi: Medieval tech level... except something in the roads changes how travel rates work, at least with earthcrafters (I haven't quite worked that out) and, well, people can fly. There are definitely people-hauled flying carriages. Tavi himself has walked, ridden in carts/carriages, wind-coaches, ridden horses and giant badgers and taurga which are Canim mounts and I am not sure what they are actually, and he's flown himself. Oh yeah, and Tavi is one of the better traveled of his people. And may try to make airships because Milliways.

Star Wars: ...Need I say more? (Also, Anakin and his beeping tin can go everywhere.)

[1nv1nc1ble]

Mark flies. I'm not even sure he can drive a car; canon shows that he walks to school until his powers kick in and then he flies wherever he needs to go. The only time he's shown in a vehicle is when he's traveling with others or traveling to other planets.

[moonandstar]

Cassie & Raiden: Earthrealm's transportation is like reality only some people can teleport or make portals between universes. In Outworld some of Kotal Kahn's army rides dinosaur-like creatures. Some of the armies of Netherrealm have been seen riding some kind of giant zombie goat-horse.

Garyn & Sheogorath: TES takes place in a medieval-ish fantasy setting. On the continent, most travel on foot, on horseback, or by boat.

The transportation of Morrowind itself is considerably more interesting. The Dunmer aren't keen on horses - it's implied that the main reason is that Vvardenfell is poor country for horses, which aren't good for much except food there. The primary beasts of burden and transit are the guar, a kind of strange bipedal dino-cow, and a silt strider, a giant hollowed-out insect which they operate by pulling levers that prod its guts. There are also a number of commonly available teleportation spells - Mark and Recall spells mark a teleportation spot and take you to that spot, respectively, while Divine and Almsivi Intervention spells take you to the nearest temple. There are also the Guild Guides, which teleport you between Mages Guild sites in different cities, and the Propylon Indices, which can take you between old Dunmer strongholds.

Future games abandon the teleport mechanic - primarily because the return of the fast travel map menu makes it redundant for gameplay purposes - and explains it away by saying it's been outlawed. I'm not sure I quite buy that would get rid of it entirely - perhaps magic is getting slowly less powerful.

[yinyangwizard]

Seimei tends to travel by taking shortcuts through the spirit world. In Japan torii gates make this very easy. Elsewhere, it's more difficult, as entrances to the spirit world are not so easily marked.

He can technically fly with the aid of an air spirit, but he doesn't like to. If he's not going through the spirit world he prefers something mundane and not air-based, like trains, boats, or his own two feet.