Cuarto Puente

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Cuarto Puente
por Kelley Harris
Tipo	Aeronave
Creadores	Alezi
Capitán	Navani Kholin
Mundo de origen	Roshar
Universo	Cosmere

“Es una nave extraña, desde luego, pero majestuosa a su propia manera. ”

—Kmakl

El Cuarto Puente es la primera aeronave de Roshar, que utiliza cientos de conjuntos de fabriales para moverse por el aire. Llamada así por el Puente Cuatro, fue construida en el primer año de la Auténtica Desolación por un equipo de fervorosos e ingenieros liderados por Navani Kholin.

Diseño

“Centenares de trabajadores en Urithiru haciendo girar engranajes para que la plataforma se eleve y descienda. Decenas de chulls para desplazarla lateralmente. Miles de fabriales para posibilitar ambas cosas, todos ellos infundidos una y otra vez sin descanso. Una meticulosa sincronización a través de media docena de vinculacañas para coordinar las maniobras. ”

—Rushu

El Cuarto Puente es un gran rectángulo de madera de más de treinta metros de largo, veinte de ancho y unos doce metros de grosor, con tres cubiertas en su interior. Los ventiladores están incorporados en la parte posterior para aumentar la velocidad, aunque por ahora, la diferencia es mínima. A toda velocidad, el barco viaja a unos cinco nudos.

La mitad trasera de la cubierta superior está cubierta por un techo semirredondo, mientras que la mitad delantera es al aire libre y está rodeada por una barandilla. El puente original del Puente Cuatro estaba incrustado en el suelo; algunos de los Corredores del viento tienen el hábito de arrodillarse y tocarlo antes de despegar. Una estación de mando, compuesta por varias mesas, suele colocarse en la sección protegida, aunque en algunos casos podría ser trasladada hacia la parte delantera. El mobiliario está atornillado por abajo.

Las cubiertas inferiores sirven como bodega. La inferior tiene una puerta amplia que permite que grandes cantidades de personas entren y salgan a la vez. Funciona de manera similar a un puente levadizo; forma una pared y puede ser bajado y levantado mediante cuerdas para abrir y cerrar. Aunque escasamente amuebladas, las bodegas pueden acomodar a varios cientos de personas. En las paredes hay números pintados, dividiéndolas en secciones.

Mecánica

El dirigible más que volar es mantenido en el aire por fabriales. Hay cientos de gemas formando una red de enormes entramados incrustados en la nave. Estaban conectadas a otro par de entramados. Uno de ellos estaba colgando en una de las pendientes del altiplano de Urithiru; el otro estaba en las Llanuras Quebradas. La aeronave se dirige desde esos dos entramados; el Cuarto Puente les comunica sus necesidades a través de vinculacañas. Como no pueden ser utilizados durante largos períodos de tiempo debido al movimiento, los escribas los usan encendiéndolos y apagándolos, creando un código de intermitencias.

Los fabriales entramados están aislados usando aluminio así que solo ciertos planos de movimiento se transfieren entre las mitades de gemas emparejadas. La estructura de Urithiru solo puede transmitir movimiento vertical; el entramado de las Llanuras Quebradas solo puede transferir movimiento horizontal. El primero se baja para elevar la aeronave, mientras que el segundo se mueve para hacerla volar y girar en cualquier dirección. Para permitir que la nave continúe moviéndose cuando se agote el espacio para los entramados, se utiliza un mecanismo de aluminio adicional para revertir el movimiento mientras las gemas se desenganchan temporalmente.

Toda la estructura requiere mano de obra importante para funcionar correctamente. En Urithiru, cientos de personas operan los cabrestantes que suben y bajan el entramado vertical; en las Llanuras, se utilizan escuadrones de chulls para mover la nave horizontalmente. El Cuarto Puente requiere que cientos de gemas estén perpetuamente imbuidas con luz tormentosa. Se han instalado ventiladores para aliviar la carga en los entramados horizontales, pero por ahora apenas están funcionando. También existen preocupaciones por el peso, ya que añadir demasiada masa a la estructura existente podría causar que las gemas se agrieten.

Historia

por Kelley Harris

Navani's early airship designs

Desarrollo

Plataformas flotantes

“Hey. Is that platform flying? ”

—Adolin

Navani Kholin began conducting her first tests a few months after arriving on the Shattered Plains, in the last year of the War of Reckoning. The earliest experiment was comprised of a tall tower, with its top and the column built as separate pieces, and a paired circular platform with crenellations. After infusing the embedded fabrials with Stormlight, when the pillar was rolled away, the top of the tower remained floating. As the top was pulled down, the platform rose into the air, creating an archer parapet unassailable to anyone standing below. While this was already useful, even back then, there were plans to do more with the technology.

Over time, Navani and her ardents improved the platforms even as they began planning for more ambitious projects. Shortly after the True Desolation began, Navani started designing proper airships; her initial sketches were more ship-like, with massive sails attached upside-down to the bottom of the hull. However, proper construction began only after the Battle of Thaylen Field, as Navani threw herself into work following the death of her son, Elhokar. A few months after the battle, the Alethi built a pair of massive platforms off the sides of the Urithiru plateau as their early experiments. By then, rumours of what they were planning began to spread covertly among the high-ranking members of the coalition.

Aluminio

“[Huio] left a bit of foiled aluminum in the mechanism, and it is interfering with the conjoined rubies in a fascinating way. ”

—Rushu

As the twin platforms were being constructed, the ship Wandersail set out to explore Aimia. As a favor to the expedition's leader, Rysn Ftori, Navani sent along Rushu, an ardent specializing in new fabrial designs. Rushu attempted to make Rysn's chair float; however, the fact that the conjoiner fabrials had to repeat the exact motion -- or the reverse of the exact motion -- of each other meant that the applications were severely limited.

A breakthrough came from Huio, one of the Herdazian Windrunners assigned to assist the expedition. An amateur fabrial scholar, Huio disassembled one of Rushu's spanreeds and began experimenting on the gemstone with aluminum. After he put the spanreed back together, it began to behave oddly, transferring the movement of its conjoined twin in an odd, jittery way. Realizing this would be a problem that couldn't be hidden, Huio and the other Windrunner on board, Lopen, brought the broken spanreed to Rushu. Upon examining it and experimenting further on Rysn's chair, Rushu realized that Huio accidentally used aluminum to isolate the spanreed's planes of motion, so that only movement in specific directions was transferred between the two. This allowed for the creation of a floating chair that could move freely by being pushed around.

Rushu later sent the information about Huio's discovery to Navani, who ordered further experiments. As a result, eventually, Falilar, one of her ardents, made a breakthrough that allowed for an airship to be constructed. A new design, based off the chasm-spanning bridges from the War of Reckoning, was built and tested on the Shattered Plains. After months of deliberation, it was named the Fourth Bridge, after the people who, over a year prior, had saved House Kholin from destruction.

Evacuación de Piedralar

por Esther Schrader

Navani and Dalinar aboard the airship

About a year after the Battle of Thaylen Field, the Fourth Bridge began conducting endurance tests. For several weeks, the ship flew above the Steamwater Ocean, hiding from highstorms in coves and laits. At that time, it was staffed only by a small number of engineers and sailors to maintain it. It was then that highmarshall Kaladin suggested the first field deployment: rescuing all the citizens of his occupied home town, Hearthstone. Dalinar agreed, and the ship changed course, with Windrunners bringing in other Knights Radiant and the command staff, including Dalinar himself and Navani, about a day before it reached the town. Kmakl, the consort of the Thaylen Queen Fen Rnamdi, was likewise present.

The arrival did not go smoothly, as Kaladin's approach to Hearthstone was discovered, leading to a squad of Fused being sent their way. However, the ship still successfully made landing, delivering the Radiants and picking up the citizens of Hearthstone and other refugees. The first among them was the Herdazian general Dieno enne Calah, who asked that the ship be used to pick up the remainder of his resistance forces, which Dalinar agreed to.

As the evacuation progressed, the battle began to rage in the skies around the ship. The Fused were fascinated by the Fourth Bridge, trying to approach and take a look at its mechanisms; Zandiel was able to gain a good enough look at the ship that he made some sketches of the craft. Nonetheless, the Fused attack was pushed back and the Fourth Bridge successfully returned to the air, then began the long journey back to the Shattered Plains.

Respuesta de los Fusionados

“We could not have crafted the flying device they have. ”

—A Fused of the Nine

In Kholinar, the airship caused some concern among the Nine who ruled the Fused, leading into a discussion about humanity's newfound technical prowess. It was this conversation that allowed Raboniel to suggest the plan to invade Urithiru. Meanwhile, the Fourth Bridge arrived on the Shattered Plains twenty days after it departed. It landed there, letting the refugees off board.

It's unclear what happened with the airship afterwards. Falilar and Navani both suggested a number of issues to resolve, including fixing the fans and checking whether the weight didn't crack the gemstones; as such, it probably remained on the Plains. In Urithiru, Navani began workshopping ideas for new designs, though her work was interrupted by the Voidbringer invasion. With conjoiner fabrials nonfunctional after Raboniel turned the tower's defenses on the Radiants, the airship most likely remained grounded for the entire period of occupation, as the vertical movement lattice was mounted in Urithiru.

Curiosidades

• The ship's speed -- about five knots -- is equivalent to about 9.2 km/h, or 5.8 mph.
• Brandon joked that "how can I make airships with this" was the third or fourth question he asked himself when creating Roshar's magic system.
• Up until very late in the publishing process for Rhythm of War, the discovery of the interactions between aluminum and fabrials, which made the Fourth Bridge possible, was attributed to Azish scholars; the version of chapter 3 released publicly on Tor.com still has this explanation. Brandon disliked it, and when writing Dawnshard, he changed it so that Huio and Rushu were behind the discovery. The change narrowly made it into book before release.

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