Everyone gets a Planeteer Geo-Cruiser(RAR)

[FaxModem1]

Gaia(since Q is busy dropping off other stuff in other scenarios), the spirit of the Earth, has used her magic to produce 8 billion Geo-cruisers

The capabilities of each are:

Shout Wiki

The geo-cruiser is the Planeteers' main vehicle. It is the vehicle they use most and it appears in most episodes. The geo-cruiser is solar-powered. It is yellow, with large, domed windows and solar panels on the wings. Though it occasionally is shown to use an air strip to land or take off, the geo-cruiser is also able to hover or touch down much like a helictoper.

Its landing gear composes of five (sometimes only three) wheels that unfold from beneath the belly of the cruiser. There is also a hatch in the bottom of the cruiser which enables the Planeteers to perform rescue operations or emergency escapes.

The regular way to embark or disembark the geo-cruiser is through the domed windows, which open upwards.


Occasionally, the Planeteers are shown performing maintenance works on the geo-cruiser.


The geo-cruiser is fitted with Planet Vision screens so the Planeteers can research their missions or watch footage of disasters or Eco-villain activity as they travel. There appear to be six seats, each one coloured a reddish-brown colour, complete with seatbelts. The floor/carpeting is dark blue-grey.

Distribution appears outside people's dwellings or wherever they last slept, in the cases of apartments and other crowded buildings, the geo cruisers will appear as a sort of traffic jam on streets, paved areas, and sidewalks.

How does the world react to the gift of self sustaining aircraft for every man, woman, and child?

[Simon_Jester]

1) Temporary economic chaos as roads and parking lots are massively cluttered with vast swarms of flying cars.
2) Considerable consternation as people realize that they do not, in point of fact, know how to fly a Geo-Cruiser. Or at least you didn't specify that they would know that.
3) Thousands if not millions of flying cars crashed by random joy-riders.
4) Since there is no well defined ownership of all these flying cars, in large parts of the world considerable numbers of them are going to be grabbed by whoever has leverage. Quite a number of them may end up getting scrapped for components (the batteries alone must be nearly priceless; can the Geo-Cruiser fly at night?). However, it is very likely that the state will end up auctioning off a lot of them for individual use, pending...
5) Massive escalation of pilot training, since all these Geo-Cruisers don't fly themselves. Come to think of it we will also need...
6) A complete redefinition of air traffic control laws, because there are just plain too many of these things for everyone to operate them over heavily populated areas without midair collisions becoming a regular thing.

[bilateralrope]

5) Massive escalation of pilot training, since all these Geo-Cruisers don't fly themselves. Come to think of it we will also need...

How much training did the Planeteers need ?

[Simon_Jester]

I don't know. I gather the first episode has Gaia actually recruiting the Planeteers personally; did they start using the Geo-Cruiser immediately, or did it appear in a later episode when they'd have had some time to familiarize themselves with the vehicle?

[bilateralrope]

All I remember with the first episode is that they were doing stuff away from their island immediately. Which brings up two possibilities:
- They could fly it quickly. Which means something assisting them during flight.
- They had some other means of international travel which they stopped using.

[FaxModem1]

The first episode runs like this : Gaia is in slumber, Hoggish Greedy(Captain Planet was anything but subtle) has a oil drilling mech robot vehicle that wakes her up by digging too greedily and too deep, Gaia sort of teleports the Planeteers to Hope Island, they're given the rings, and next scene they're flying the Geo Cruiser to stop him. This is while still learning their powers, as Wheeler starts a fire in the Geo-cruiser accidentally by saying 'fire' out loud.

So, presumably the cruiser was already on the island and easy enough for them to learn how to fly within hours. Either that or Captain Planet takes place in a universe with piloting the Geo-cruiser being similar to regular technology accessible to teenagers worldwide.

[Simon_Jester]

Okay, in that case the Geo-Cruiser is probably a very, very user-friendly vehicle. And probably includes some pretty good collision-avoidance protocol. So yeah, that mitigates a lot of the problems I foresaw...

Do we know if it can be programmed to fly independently, or does it require a pilot? Is there any Planeteer who explicitly does NOT know how to fly the Geo-Cruiser?

[FaxModem1]

The wiki says that it can be driven by remote control. Ma-ti was solely a passenger for the first few seasons. In later seasons, he's shown driving it. So presumably they waited until he was of driving age and/or was big enough to drive it.

[Simon_Jester]

Assuming we get the remote controls (and that each Geo-Cruiser has a working remote control) we might well see a sort of... uber-Uber system where you can casually summon flying taxis controlled by a central server.

Although that raises problems in the context of traffic control with all of uber-Uber's drone cars flying around while other, private individuals are trying to navigate the skies. Since a drone that lacks collision avoidance systems can't be safely operated in heavy traffic.

[mr friendly guy]

With the Geocruiser technology, one wonders why the Planeteers never marketed the tech and made their polluting enemies bankrupt.

This ship is so great at taking in solar energy it can get the Planeteers from one country to another. It can also store the energy in some form of batteries because the Geocruiser also flies at night, but has less power.

So in the real world, someone takes it apart, markets the super efficient solar panels and also the batteries and makes a big contribution to the fight against climate change, not to mention a big contribution to their personal wealth.

[Broomstick]

I'd run outside, see "my" geo-cruiser, and go SQUEEEE!!!!

But then, I already know how to fly.

Yes, there would be issues with idiots in the air, like on the road, only more so.

[hunter5]

With the Geocruiser technology, one wonders why the Planeteers never marketed the tech and made their polluting enemies bankrupt.

Because then they would be out of a job

[Mr Bean]

Has anyone considered the slight problem of millions of Planeteer Geo-Crusiers in the hands of the roughly fifty million people who wish they were elsewhere?

What happens when large parts of the population of the middle east, the interior of Africa, places like Somalia, don't forget our buddies the North Korean people and other such planes now having their hands on a plane that can cross oceans and thanks to the fact there's seven billion of them is now the most non-descriptive plane in the sky?

[Tandrax218]

what about ISIS and other terrorist groups getting them and using them as an ad-hoc suicide airforce ?
Because as stated above "everyone" gets one cruiser - even Al Baghdadi

[mr friendly guy]

With the Geocruiser technology, one wonders why the Planeteers never marketed the tech and made their polluting enemies bankrupt.

Because then they would be out of a job

But then they would have an even better job. Becoming an entrepreneur. Think Oxymandias who promotes his superheroing days as part of his personality to sell products. The Planeteers not only make gazillions with this solar technology, but they can market their personalities as heroes fighting eco villains (albeit in the past).

[U.P. Cinnabar]

1) Temporary economic chaos as roads and parking lots are massively cluttered with vast swarms of flying cars.
2) Considerable consternation as people realize that they do not, in point of fact, know how to fly a Geo-Cruiser. Or at least you didn't specify that they would know that.
3) Thousands if not millions of flying cars crashed by random joy-riders.
4) Since there is no well defined ownership of all these flying cars, in large parts of the world considerable numbers of them are going to be grabbed by whoever has leverage. Quite a number of them may end up getting scrapped for components (the batteries alone must be nearly priceless; can the Geo-Cruiser fly at night?). However, it is very likely that the state will end up auctioning off a lot of them for individual use, pending...
5) Massive escalation of pilot training, since all these Geo-Cruisers don't fly themselves. Come to think of it we will also need...
6) A complete redefinition of air traffic control laws, because there are just plain too many of these things for everyone to operate them over heavily populated areas without midair collisions becoming a regular thing.

7) More dakka!

[Elheru Aran]

what about ISIS and other terrorist groups getting them and using them as an ad-hoc suicide airforce ?
Because as stated above "everyone" gets one cruiser - even Al Baghdadi

There are still military planes around, aren't there? I suspect a *lot* of bombs and missiles will be hastily used very quickly in the first 24 hours or so of this unusual bequest.

Some more, ahem, regimented nations will likely attempt to ground everybody permanently. Others will try to flood the airwaves and tell everybody to stay on the ground until they can sort out the rules. Stuff like that.

Me? I take a bunch of free trips wherever the hell I want to on weekends

[Tandrax218]

Yeah i thought about that thing:
Military's around the globe rying to shoot them up in the first day, but i think 8 000 000 000 of these things would be a huge problem as it would force the air forces to DEPLETE their stockpiles of guided air to air missiles and bombs and almost every thing they have. Hell some AF would just say "fuck it " and not launch their planes because there is no way to destroy so manny things. Unless you target them with nukes, or carpet bombings on the ground...

i

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah i thought about that thing:
Military's around the globe rying to shoot them up in the first day, but i think 8 000 000 000 of these things would be a huge problem as it would force the air forces to DEPLETE their stockpiles of guided air to air missiles and bombs and almost every thing they have. Hell some AF would just say "fuck it " and not launch their planes because there is no way to destroy so manny things. Unless you target them with nukes, or carpet bombings on the ground...

i

Well if they're on the ground, you don't even necessarily need bombs-- just strafe the heck out of them. These are basically magic-tech, ain't nobody going to be figuring out how to fix them anytime soon. Carpet bombing would be a fine solution as well since they'll be pretty much just lined up in any open area.

[Me2005]

Although that raises problems in the context of traffic control with all of uber-Uber's drone cars flying around while other, private individuals are trying to navigate the skies. Since a drone that lacks collision avoidance systems can't be safely operated in heavy traffic.

"Heavy Traffic" in the air shouldn't mean nearly as much as "heavy traffic" on the ground. Cars get into traffic jams because of flow problems - there is only so much sanctioned space for the cars to drive through. In the air, just using the air above roads gets you 30-100,000' of height to use. Airports have traffic problems because regular airplanes can't all use the runway at the same time. These things can VTOL. The whole volume of the atmosphere should not have serious trouble with this many flying things long term; though having collision avoidance and central planning would be important short-term until people figure out that the E-W fast lane is at 24,000' and the W-E fast lane at 26,000' (or whatever).

It probably has some kind of collision avoidance built in if it's remote, but it wouldn't be purpose-built for this application and we'd likely want to reprogram it to fit in with expected behavior of all the other such vehicles.

Has anyone considered the slight problem of millions of Planeteer Geo-Crusiers in the hands of the roughly fifty million people who wish they were elsewhere?

What happens when large parts of the population of the middle east, the interior of Africa, places like Somalia, don't forget our buddies the North Korean people and other such planes now having their hands on a plane that can cross oceans and thanks to the fact there's seven billion of them is now the most non-descriptive plane in the sky?

I'd hope that the surveillance planes and drones circling overhead would call in strikes to blow them up before many got off the ground. They're going to be sitting in an area grouped together near their people, so they'll be easy targets in known baddie camps.

The bigger problem is that you're talking globalization:complete in this scenario, every person on earth can at any time go meet any other person on earth, barring intervention. It'd be possible for someone who wants to be a terrorist to hop in his aircraft, fly to a terrorist camp or safehouse or pickup spot, get equipment, and fly to a target. I'm not sure how fast these things are, but you might even be dealing with a newfound ability to live in Siberia but work in DC (or wherever) on the "mundane, but still actually very disruptive" side of things.

[Simon_Jester]

I was basically thinking entirely of collision avoidance.

Yeah i thought about that thing:
Military's around the globe rying to shoot them up in the first day, but i think 8 000 000 000 of these things would be a huge problem as it would force the air forces to DEPLETE their stockpiles of guided air to air missiles and bombs and almost every thing they have. Hell some AF would just say "fuck it " and not launch their planes because there is no way to destroy so manny things. Unless you target them with nukes, or carpet bombings on the ground...

i

Well if they're on the ground, you don't even necessarily need bombs-- just strafe the heck out of them. These are basically magic-tech, ain't nobody going to be figuring out how to fix them anytime soon. Carpet bombing would be a fine solution as well since they'll be pretty much just lined up in any open area.

Yes... and you'd still run out of bullets and bombs. There are that many of them. Even if you wreck millions, the odds are that damaged ones can be cannibalized for spare parts to repair others- they may be magitech but they're still machines that teenagers can figure out how to maintain.

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, obviously they're not going to try and shoot up *all* of them. Say Daesh has a few thousand, I'm sure the US military can blow up most of those.

I expect the real issue to be parking. People are simply not going to have anywhere to put them, unless you're magically replacing cars. The existing ground vehicles and buildings already take up quite a bit of space, and it's quite possible that many urban dwellers may be simply *unaware* that they have one available for their use because it's parked outside city limits. Expect unclaimed vehicles to quickly be snatched, unless there's some form of security measure such as fingerprint scanners or whatever.

[Me2005]

I expect the real issue to be parking. People are simply not going to have anywhere to put them, unless you're magically replacing cars. The existing ground vehicles and buildings already take up quite a bit of space, and it's quite possible that many urban dwellers may be simply *unaware* that they have one available for their use because it's parked outside city limits. Expect unclaimed vehicles to quickly be snatched, unless there's some form of security measure such as fingerprint scanners or whatever.

How big are these things anyway? Per the OP, it sounds roughly van-sized+wings; but if this is more like a C130 then yeah, there'll be all kinds of parking problems.

There also absolutely *must* be some form of security; otherwise there is no way to know who which one belongs to.

[FaxModem1]

Here are some images of the exterior and interior of the Geo-cruiser. As you can see, it really is a flying minivan.

Lower exterior

Exterior sideview with Planeteers for perspective

Interior of the cabin, upper shot

Cabin Interior, level shot. The fire was started by Wheeler, it is not a normal function of the Geo-cruiser.

Shot of the controls Gi is extinguishing the fire.

[Elheru Aran]

Mmm... so roughly, it's a triangle, call it maybe 12 feet long by roughly twice that wide?

Yeah, that's going to be a bitch to find enough space to park. If the wings fold up (a reasonable adaption) that helps, but still.