by Ed Ostermeyer (Master Engineer – Grade 2)

My young friend, it is good to see you.

How can I be of service to you this fine day?

You’ve doubts about the usefulness of what you are doing?

Yes, I’ve heard of the project Simeon Bourgeois has undertaken.

The French Navy is not as close-mouthed as they would like to think that they are.

And I am also aware of what that Spanish radical Senor Narcis Monturiol is up to with his dual-powered submersible. Though I’ve no information about what he intends to use for propulsion while submerged, using a coal-fired boiler for surface travel means smoke and a smokestack, both of which will attract they eye.

Stop wondering what other Inventors are up to and concentrate on your own project.

True, your “fishboat” as you call it is using several different design parameters construction techniques and mechanisms that are not unique to your design alone.

What is unique is the way you have assembled them into an Underwater Wonder that not only “works” but is dependable in its operation.

So, you want to get an idea of your work’s effectiveness?

In our last conversation, we talked about how you could determine your Legacy and perhaps glimpse what so-called “judgment of history” on your fishboat project would be.

Upon totaling the number of successful missions in your fishboat’s career, you received a number of Victory Laurels.

Taking number of Victory Laurels determined in the Legacy phase, you now consult the Effectiveness Table.

Your result here is matching the number of your Victory Laurels received against the number of times your fishboat was “Lost” on a Mission, as in “Failed to return to port.” Row and column entries yield a letter grade between “A”, Excellent, and “F” Terrible.

(There is also a grade “N” meaning you had no Laurels as well as no Losses either: a grade of “Nothing.”)

For example, if your Victory Laurels total was four (4), but your fishboat failed to return on two occasions, your Effectiveness letter grade would be a “B.”

Consulting the Effectiveness Schedule in your Almanac you find the sentiment, an entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica’s volume 9 from the 1876 edition, as follows:

“The Confederate navy and its famous “fishboat” soon triggered a naval contest to perfect this new mode of war.”

Remember our discussion about what your project’s Outcome would be, not just during the Civil War, but what its legacy in history would be?

Your fishboat project’s Outcome will influence the fields of engineering, nautical design and fabrication, far beyond the work you and your team of Mechanics and Journeymen have done.

The true judgment of history will not be handed down by the historians, but by the engineers and the designers. They will take the inspiration for their work from they see the Effectiveness of your fishboat in accomplishing the purpose of the designer, you.

Those men will build upon that Effectiveness; their inspiration changing, modifying and then completing their version of a fishboat or whatever project they turn their hands to –

just as you took inspiration for the shape of your design from that of Ross Winan’s “Cigar” steamboat.

All engineers stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors.

They build “Their Dream” from the work of their forebears.

Just as you have built from theirs.

The work we do here today is building a future that can just be glimpsed from this vantage point in the 19^th Century.

The 20^th Century and its engineers beckon us to do our best.

It and they will accept nothing less.

Good day to you, my young friend.

(Note: All graphic images of Infernal Machine game materials used in this series of articles are subjective and may change and appear different in their final form.  All images show sourcing unless otherwise noted.)

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