TNH Lounges – Austin Bunton Designs

Most people come here to socialize when aboard.

–

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Locations & Layout
Lounge Features
Distinct Lounges
Served
Conceptual Images

–

Introduction:

There are hundreds of small community lounges positioned throughout The New Horizon’s many districts and decks (every one of TNH’s 50 levels/floors has several of them; 50 x 7 = 350*). The main lounge is located forward the Command and Flag Bridges, and offers relaxing modules, including an old-fashioned library stocked with papyrus scrolls and paper hard-back books, just like most cruise ships provide. Any passenger may, of course, access a much greater variety of materials via their vambrace (forearm-mounted) LCD-scroll and/or tough-netbook (an iPad made for more rugged use).

These lounges are where people go when they just want to sit in a public space and chat or chill. Whenever they want a massage or to “hook up”, they go to places such as the Companions Wing. If they want to snack on something, they go to one of the 20 Mess Halls.

2024 August 26 Monday note: *Why have so many lounges in one ship? This supercarrier dwarfs terrestrial carriers and even the biggest cargo ships and tankers; it makes more sense (when considering tight schedules, last-minute requests, and potential drills/emergencies/musters) for people in this ship to travel to nearby lounges than all the way to an opposite side or end and back.
Also, it plays host to tens of thousands of humans at a time (compared to a few thousand on terrestrial carriers), and not all those will always get along well with each other; providing numerous alternate hangout venues allows any tension to be temporarily remedied. ICVs are experts at talking people into calming down, but they aren’t hear to use their mind-/mood-override ability, so we maintain the old-fashioned options.

–

Locations & Layout:

TNH lounges are always away from work stations/modules/areas. This means you won’t find them near the Bridge or hangars, but you will find them within short walking-distance of places such as the Commercial Wing (shopping mall) and Mess Halls. Every lounge has tables, booths, and seats along the bar.

–

Lounge Features:

Each TNH lounge has all of the following:

arcade games (thin wall-mounted panels now contain what the old-fashioned ‘box’ arcades used to)
band stage (for human personnel to show off their musical/vocal skills)
bar (and Inisfreeans monitor the vitals / body-language of everyone around them, ensuring no one gets drunk)
chairs & couches
dance floor
jukebox (with a variety of genres, but nothing heavy/edgy like stripper music)
low lighting (mostly dim and indirect, producing a cozier “feel”)
pool tables (and every pool-ball will be held to the table by its built-in electromagnetic grid –which automatically turns on anytime gravity drops enough to allow those balls to start floating around)
restrooms
tables & stools

You may have noticed that TVs are not on that list. This is because Inisfreeans don’t watch human TV stations, as those always tended to get overloaded with propaganda, all their news “anchors” and other show hosts brainwashed if not directly bribed to read scripts designed to hypnotize and degrade audiences. It is also because a little “bad news” showing up on a shipboard TV… can seriously affect morale, distracting once-professional crew members; they might end up seeing shocking views of devastation in once-peaceful now-war-torn areas back home / planet-side, then feel compelled to desert to get back there to help or find their loved ones.

–

Special Features:

Even ventilation to and from these rooms has noise cancellation structures in it, ensuring the music and din in the lounges never disturbs any adjacent or connected rooms.

–

Distinct Lounges:

All TNH lounges are unique. These are the four categories/styles they fall into:

comfortable industrial/minimalist/spartan setting with moderate lighting
luxury beach restaurant patio with OmniMax-style ceiling; an LCD dome functioning similarly to a Holodeck, providing 360° views of pristine vacation getaways
modern dark night-club with low yet colorful lighting
pool hall with billiards tables and low lighting

Like a jukebox, a lounge’s holographic display/s / wall-scenes can be adjusted by its staff; the bartender or manager on deck/duty can change the views from, for example, Hawaii to Monaco. Ask for the kind of views you want during your lounge hangout, and they’ll be happy to help you find and display them. High-res (“4K”) drone footage of many tropical getaways is also available (and not just from the long-forgotten places back on Earth; views from all the popular 34 Tauri worlds are also in this database).

–

Served:

Lounges offer nonalcoholic versions of most popular alcoholic drinks;