Star Wars OCs, yay!

More than friends even. They're a bonded pair; do not separate.

Even without Stuka's particular background, I think they would have ended up together. They're from the same time period, the same conflict, and so the museum always displays them together. They also play too roughly for the other little planes so they can only really play with each other anyway.

But Stuka's particular background is that he very nearly loves the British. Not enough to learn English or anything, but they've done a lot for him. Everything he has, including Spitfire, is British largesse.

Stuka came to be so familiar with the British when he was shot down in combat over Libya. Managing to land safely, his crew attempted repairs but the British found them before they could finish. Protocol was to destroy the plane in this event, but his crew chose to flee before getting captured themselves instead. So the British collected Stuka and took him home with them.

The British Information Services then took him on tour of America with a bunch of other war relics and donated him to the MSI after the tour concluded. And Stuka quite preferred his new job to getting shot at and abandoned in North African deserts. That he's only one of two Stukas out of roughly six thousand to make it to preservation? The British are all right, far as he's concerned.

About a year later after they left him with the MSI, they returned and offered the museum a Spitfire to go with him. "Well, you ought to have an Allied aircraft too," they said. And they were right, honestly. Spitfire... gives Stuka context, let's say.

Spitfire doesn't have any particular love for Germans, but he did learn to speak German for Stuka. Not only does this better facilitate their relationship, but it also serves as a defensive measure. Some engines would question the wisdom of getting so cozy with an enemy unit, but it is hard to argue the point when Spitfire went to the trouble to learn the language. No Nazis will be collaborating on his watch (and what have Some Engines done to curtail the spread of enemy rhetoric in the museum)?

As to why they should have become so friendly at all? Spitifre explains it as a warrior's bond. Once the war is over, it's a lot easier to see oneself in the enemy.

Spitfire, I don't think that's how you hold a tubie 😧 (throw it off the ledge next 🙏). Vroski needs his medical licence removed frfr

My favourite, Spitfire!! Positing this now before I start suffering tomorrow. I don't know how to make references, but I tried 😭

Under the cut is my long yap session about his details.

Did some OC artwork, close ups and desaturated version beneath the cut.

U-505 is of two minds about it.

On the one hand, war machines operate by a lot of rules about how they can engage with each other based on who won what. And in this situation, because the Allies won World War II, Spitfire gets to set the terms.

Technically, if Stuka wanted to avoid this, he could simply not engage with Spitfire at all (assuming Spitfire also chose not to engage). That he seems to have no qualms about letting Spitfire dictate the terms though?

"Have you no dignity?" U-505 asks.

"<No. I lost the same war you did>," so says Stuka.

But then, Stuka and Spitfire are also afforded some latitude in how they interpret these rules. The British did win, but only just. Means there's some room in the off hours for Stuka to win a battle or two. And Stuka, you'll recall, also does not consider himself to have been captured and so thinks prize rules do not apply to him. It's also been decades since the war ended and there was a good ten years before U-505 showed up to have an opinion it.

Ultimately, though, U-505 leaves well enough alone. When Spitfire and Stuka are in disagreement, Stuka prefers to loiter around U-505's exhibit. Better that they entertain each other than Stuka spend all his time down there with him, intruding on his solitude, trying (and sometimes succeeding) to get him to slip in to speaking German, and making it look like they're up to something.

It is very annoying when 727 arrives in the 90's and states her interest in U-505 because now the war planes get their turn to have an opinion on what he's doing.

"<If a beautiful plane wants you>," says Stuka, "<then you should let her have you.>" Especially if she's American (or United, as it is).

Kinda mean, throwing the "besides each other" caveat in there! Even excepting engines with personal reasons to favor another engine's exhibit, lots of them just really enjoy each other's exhibits for their own merits.

Texaco's a big fan of Pioneer's exhibit, for instance. She likes racing the trains, other planes, and vacuum cleaners on the big panorama displays. She also thinks the Zephyr Fleet film is cool looking, but the questions it begs about who is who leave Pioneer trying to explain his complicated family tree to a little plane who just cannot follow it and loses interest as quickly as she asked. He doesn't mind though; he knows it's a lot.

Every ten years or so, Spitfire will get a little jealous of U-505's exhibit. It's not that he doesn't think U-505 shouldn't have an exhibit that big and detailed. There's a lot to say about him. Spitfire just has wartime stories too! He shot down five Nazi planes and he's got the stamps to prove it. (And he was on the right side of the war so his exhibit could be more fun). But we don't really have a lot of substantiated information about Spitfire, not enough to make an entire exhibit out of. You can't just go by what the plane himself says.

The most expeditious way to get him to let go of the idea is for U-505 to remind him that if he had a big exhibit all to himself, he would have to leave the Transportation Gallery fleet. A submarine is meant to work alone, but a small plane is meant to work in a group. It would be tactically disadvantageous then, both for him and the rest of the little planes, to leave them all to fly solo. (Texaco almost always ruins this because she is used to working alone and her display is appropriately separate of the other little planes. It's nothing an elbow in the ribs from Jenny won't stifle though.)

U-505 enjoys the Dome Theater, if he has claimed it before Stuka and Spitfire can. He particularly likes if the film is about the ocean. When he was in the ocean, it was usually too dark to see everything that was apparently down there with him. They can also go deeper now than he could. He finds films about space intriguing too, because space and the ocean are very similar (expect that one is finite and full of life and the other isn't). He'll watch anything in there though, as long as he's alone or with engines who know how to sit there, shut up, and watch the film.

Mate is not such an engine, so while all these guys were learning about tide pools or some shit, he was left in front of the Swiss Jolly Ball. Which he took as an insult at first, but the Jolly Ball is actually quite enthralling all told. You lean at the railing and watch the ball go on its Rube Goldberg journey and you get to thinking about how one guy put all this together and then you get to thinking about how a railway is a lot like the Jolly Ball except it needs everyone doing their job to run effectively (which is maybe why the Jolly Ball is out of order half the time you visit) and that maybe you yourself are just a large metal ball bearing on your second trip through the Swiss Alps, all thanks to the work of lots of people together. But the Jolly Ball, Mate suddenly realizes, is actually on its fifteenth trip through since he got there, proving... something about why he was left here in the first place, but he's sure it's not anything he wants to bring attention to.

The space wing has just been updated (per billionaire donor interests) and 40B rather likes the new SpaceX capsule room when the video isn't running. The dim lighting when the starfield attract mode is on the screen reminds him of flying at night in the snow. Ray and I have not put much thought into the MSI's space artifacts because we are not billionaires, but I expect most of them (those that might be engine enough to be sentient) also share 40B's sense of seriousness with regard to their work. They weren't just doing exhibition runs.

727 likes to take a stroll through the Ships Gallery from time to time. Aviation borrows a lot from naval tradition and now she's even got a boat to give her a personalized tour (although he doesn't actually know much about sailing).