Chen (ship)

The following is about a ship in The Gerosha Chronicles''. For the mythological sea creature, see Chen.''

The Chen is a massive, clam/oyster-shaped nuclear submarine aircraft carrier in The Gerosha Chronicles of Dozerfleet Comics. It is the chief mobile base and backup headquarters of the organization known as SCALLOP, and features in Sodality as the backup base when SCALLOP is required to constantly move its land headquarters both due to enemy threats and to legal challenges. Due to the timing of its release as a concept, it was not added to Gerosha mythos until Cataclysmic Gerosha. It therefore has no counterpart in any previous Gerosha timeline. The Chen lasts from 2008-2055, when it is destroyed following a raid by the Society of the Icy Finger.

Attributes
The Chen is a six-story-tall, clam-shaped submarine aircraft carrier modeled after a mythological shellfish from ancient China. It has five floors officially, with its third floor being a two-story-tall hanger for small-mid-sized aircraft. The Chen must surface to use this feature, and has large doors that slide shut to seal the aircraft inside when the vessel submerges. Its large size allows it to function as a sort of underwater military base. Its floor layouts for its first, second, fourth, and fifth floors are designed around the shape of a Chinese "chen" symbol. The Chen is nuclear-powered, but can utilize other forms of energy as well. It features a large on-deck Zeran teleporter, allowing it to teleport itself through Zeran holes from one ocean to the next so as to cut down travel time significantly. It features radiation shielding and other defense mechanisms, which it needs in order to survive being parked most of the time in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Chen may be used directly to transport National Guard, Marines, Coast Guard, Navy, or other military personnel in a pinch. It is more commonly used for transferring superheroes recruited to the Sodality of Gerosha in this manner. It has, at times, worked with the US and later the Toklisanan navy and air force aboard its third-floor flight deck. More commonly, it is used to send heroes or SCALLOP agents out on missions that require a jet. It features a full time staff that also perform experiments on Phexos, Marlquaanites, and Marlquaan ruby technology.

It has housed the entirety of SCALLOP on several occasions, though it is intended as a backup base. SCALLOP is expected to have an on-land headquarters at all times; but has had to move its location around several times due to legal harassment brought on by its ideological opponents.

Early history
In the 1990s, a meeting was held at the Triangulum by various Phaelite figures and the National Guard, concerning an organization that would operate with the National Guard as a liaison between them and Phaelite Society of Earth. The goal was to track and monitor the activities of Phexos that the US military commissioned the Phaelites to create during WWII. Very few Phexos were prepared for creating a super army in the nick of time, and the Phexo Quartet was ruled a failure. Even fewer first-generations, or Phex-1's, were available for combat. Therefore, more experiments were conducted. This included Stan Flippo, though he would not discover that right away. Having difficulty coming up with a name, the joint venture eventually took the advice of Stan to call themselves "SCALLOP." He came up with "Security-Centric Alliance Lending and Learning Of Phaelites" as a backronym to justify the name selection, citing the Gerosha Stone as his inspiration. Not having any better ideas, the joint venture voted and agreed to call itself SCALLOP.

In 2008, numerous events that had gone on involving Phexos and Meethexos reportedly in conflict in open public prompted a renewed interest in creating a league of heroes from the stock available. This included some Phex-3 Phexos (third generation from original experiment) involved in combat. The Bush administration, having discovered a section of Henry Lohtz's secondary treasure that even Stan Flippo could not discover, decided to forgo paying the Iraq War debt with that money; instead opting to spend it on a secret project to build what would ultimately be known as the Chen. The purpose of this was to allow SCALLOP to have at least one mobile base of operations, so that it would not be crippled by any on-land political or economic development which might pose a threat to its operations. The Chen was also seen as a last resort military operation vehicle for naval warfare.

2010s
In 2011, Wilbur Brocklyn and Rev. Tyler Kilmington began talks about forming a chaplain service for Phexos that would be recruited to a hero league supervised by SCALLOP. Various names were tossed around for what that should be called, including "Phexo Sodality of Faith and Arms." The word "sodality" was tossed around most often. Hushes and whispers were also given to Imaki Izuki.

The year 2012 was when Dereck Johnson of Marl-Q Industries accidentally caused a massive Marlquaan storm surge that created new Marlquaanites all around the globe. This led to SCALLOP wanting to consider updating its plans for its future league, including a few Marlquaanites after Junior Agent Kyle Medsor had done a partial dossier on the Gray Champion. Then-current SCALLOP direct Darius Philippine decided that a special crew dedicated specifically to the Chen should get its own insignia for service aboard, and that studying the Phexo end of operations would become the new central focus of researchers aboard the Chen. This freed up the land bases in Evansville and Louisville to address SCALLOP's new Marlquaanite-related affairs. An exception to that rule was made in 2013, when the Chen was sent to China with a few Phexos to aid Shanghai residents in fleeing from the carnage being caused by Spoliat. There were contingency plans in place to aid the Chinese government in launching a full-scale attack on Spoliat; but those plans were nixed when a rejuvenated Extirpon took care of the problem.

Eventually, the Chen became parked semi-permanently in the Gulf of Mexico, offshore a ways from Houston. SCALLOP moved its land headquarters to the Houston area, away from Evansville and Louisville. It also got itself involved in several factory business fronts and other economic adventures to ensure it always had a private funding source of revenue, as the US federal government grew less and less trustworthy. In 2018, the United States collapsed entirely. Halal Affadidah took control of the northeast, and renamed it "Ameristan." SCALLOP relocated to the southern states that became "Toklisana," having to deal with Netheel and the Hebbleskin Gang to the direct north and with "Chimerica" to the west and northwest. The Chen frequently alternated between being the main headquarters of SCALLOP, and being a satellite, based on where SCALLOP could set up an office in Houston. They faced frequent legal challenges and harassment, due to a liberal judge named Terry Beliah that had many followers looking for legal loopholes to evict SCALLOP for any little reason from any building in which it would set up shop.

Sodality
Main article: Sodality (series)

By very late 2019, the initial Sodality of Gerosha had formed on land. It was occasionally allowed aboard the Chen for special mission briefings. Its members consisted of Dolly Malestrom, Ciem, Laurie Pegol, and Jackrabbit plus a few of his former suitemates at the University of Houston. Its potential members missing in action were Emeraldon and Miranda Kanla. The Chen would see action a few more times after that as a naval war vessel. It became the last non-compromised station of SCALLOP's during Beliah's takeover of Houston with aid from the Phaletori and their True Centhuen army.

Before that even, it became a main headquarters when Houston was under siege by Musaran and Duke Arfaas's doomsday ship. It later became the last un-compromised communications center for SCALLOP during King Morzhuk's attack on the Sodality and SCALLOP. It was also utilized heavily under the direction of Lex Philippine's SCALLOP team to lead the first and second generations of the Sodality into battle against the Phaeltori's assault on China, Chimerica, and Alaska. Meanwhile, the land base of SCALLOP got Candi McArthur to resume being the original Ciem to get together with a strike team that would retake Ameristan. The Chen was set to self-destruct in 2055, in order to thwart a plot by Icy Finger agents to hijack it. With it, SCALLOP was demilitarized; and it became a Phexo health and population monitoring panel.

In other media
The Chen is one of many bases of operations for SCALLOP in Percolation. Darius makes certain that it stay out of combat, as the Society of the Icy Finger attacks SCALLOP's land bases to get its hands on a Marlquaanite ruby that can allow travel to-and-from other universes. In that fanfic, the Gray Champion and Navyrope team up with Jubilee and Ghost Rider from the Marvel Gaming Universe featured in Marvel: Avengers Alliance to stop the Icy Finger, as that ruby is the only way to get the Marvel characters back to their home universe. It is also essential in finding a way to get Extirpon and Anarteq back to Earth-G7.2.1.

Inspirations
The Chen began being considered a part of Cataclysmic Gerosha mythos around October 4th of 2013, during a discussion with the Dozerfleet founder and some friends in the ASPPIRE Social Club group on Facebook. One of the gals, a huge MCU Loki fangirl, was having a conversation about the SHIELD Helicarrier that featured in 2012's The Avengers. The Dozerfleet founder then asked her if she'd be willing to brainstorm an equivalent mobile base for the Gerosha universe, since SCALLOP didn't have one at the time. That, and the Justice League had a Satellite Watchtower, meaning it was standard fare for a comic book universe to feature at least one mobile base where heroes met. When the initial gal declined brainstorming, the Dozerfleet founder came up with the basic idea for a seashell-themed submarine aircraft carrier while in a conversation with someone else on Facebook.

The Chen was born as a concept after reading the Wikipedia article titled "Shen (clam monster)." A placeholder article was put on the wiki for the Chen as a ship on October 8th of 2013.

Logistics
The Sodality of Gerosha initially operates out of a college dorm room converted into a radio transmission station / mission control, and later out of a hidden room in the basement of a campus ministry center. Of the 13 main members to the first generation; only seven of them are able to fly, teleport, transmit themselves through wires, or do anything else the equivalent of long-range flight. So while Emeraldon, Jackrabbit, Meerkat, Gray Champion, Pilltar, Strawberry, and Extirpon have little trouble getting some place, the others have to piggy-back off a flier to travel long distances. Ciem can sometimes rely on Emeraldon for travel. Mapacha can rely on the Gray Champion. Pilltar can carry Mukade and Strawberry can carry Earwig. Extirpon could carry Botan in a teleportation, but would want to be well-charged on negative emotional energy before attempting a friendly passenger.

Meerkat and Jackrabbit, however, cannot carry passengers. That leaves Navyrope stranded. On top of that, heroes traveling without a passenger across an entire ocean, with the exception of Extirpon, would have little stamina left to fight with by the time they arrived at their destinations. On top of this, there was nowhere for SCALLOP to go in-between its land bases being switched out frequently. A mobile base that could be a Dozerfleet-friendly equivalent of a Marvel Helicarrier or DC Satellite Watchtower seemed like a suitable solution to that problem.

Design
The Chen has yet to be given a full 3D model rendering. However, some crude layouts were explored for it in The Sims 2 on October 10th of 2013. SCALLOP personnel who specialize in operations aboard the Chen were given a special insignia for their uniforms that featured the Chinese symbol for the mythological sea creature. This was apart from SCALLOP's standard agent insignia, which was modified to be a generic scallop top shell and not use the Gerosha Stone. This is because the Gerosha Stone belongs to the Flippo family estate, although the lightning whelk-carved letter "G" is permitted by the estate for use by the Sodality. All references to SCALLOP with the Gerosha Stone were then retconned in artwork to feature them with their more-generic logo.

Crude layouts for the first, second, fourth, and fifth floors were explored as having walls shaped in a room layout that is modeled after the Chinese symbol for "Chen." An exterior render shot was also attempted using Sims 2 build mode techniques, utilizing night time and lens flare to obscure giveaway details that it was not a ship at sea but a house. Metallic appearance and clam shape were essential to completing the design in spirit.