Speaking of the first impressions of the Xianzhou Luofu, many people would first think of the starskiffs that flow endlessly at the Jade Gate like a huge school of fish or a flock of birds.
Nah, an endless stream of flying vessels is nothing unusual. I've once witnessed the traffic jams of spaceships at Tannhauser's portal and the flying taxicabs in Punklorde. But it was still quite a culture shock to witness these elegant skiffs gliding past the jade-green eaves.
In the Xianzhou language, they refer to any vehicle that can fly as a "starskiff," much like how we call them "spaceships." However, based on the research I have conducted thus far, the term "starskiff" also has a more limited use case, where it specifically refers to those small passenger aircraft that have a streamlined design with a pointy end and are only for civilian usage within the Xianzhou's delves.
In the standardized months since I arrived at Xianzhou, these starskiffs have shuttled me around to different delves. The Amicassador accompanying me was a beautiful Foxian girl (God knows, she might even be older than my grandmother). Then, she gave me an encouraging smile and asked if I wanted to try my hand at piloting a starskiff. "It's fairly simple, really. Here on the Luofu, it's natural for any young person around the age of
In my free time, I got to closely examine the design of these starskiffs, and I found out that their sterns were all equipped with a type of basic anti-gravity device that had the appearance of a jade piece. (The Amicassador informed me this was known as a "jade wheel.") It was quite intriguing that I could not spot any visible traces of the ship being pieced together. From the bottom to the deck and to the bow, the entire body of the vessel seemed to come in just one single piece. This kind of manufacturing technology piqued my curiosity, but I didn't get an answer until I got an invitation to visit the Stargazer Navalia six months later.
It was there that I got to see the starskiff assembly line. These ships weren't manufactured by some convoluted array of industrialized machinery. Rather, it was a series of petri dishes, or perhaps I should say they were more like pots for growing plants. These ships are made in a bionic assembly line that is more comparable to plant cultivation than it is to industrialized manufacturing. The ship's skeleton, hull, deck, and all other parts were all made from seeds grown in petri dishes, which were eventually made into a starskiff as one.
In terms of the advancement of space flight technology, I'm of the opinion that Interastral Peace Corporation's vessels are not inferior to these. Nevertheless, I can also see why the IPC's ships aren't more common in Xianzhou, judging from the perspective of demand and production speed.