User:Najawin/Sandbox 4

Book Two
Julian White Mammoth Tusk's ship goes dead, diving to the planet. When he comes to, a robot guides him underground to a vast cavern with more robots scurrying around and a giant wall of valves, wires and sockets which he approaches, miles in ever dimension. The wall introduces itself to Julian as the Universal Machine, or UniMac.

Mesh Cos remembers her resurrection. As she awoke, a battle-drone of time long past stood over her and told her to be not afraid. In the fading light of humanity, the drone explained, the Universal Machine had wept, and attempted to bring back those who had died but could not. Time passed, and instead the Machine instead decided to reach out and bring back other artificial minds, reaching through time with the gifts that Cos had stolen from the homeworld. Through trial and error, this began to happen, creating a community of machine ancestors. Until one day, the Machine reached out to a mind that could tell it was being observed. Though reticent at first, the two worked out a covenant, creating the City of the Saved, an anthology of all human lives, just as the Machine was all machine life. Thanks to these two gods in machine form, humanity would be given a second, eternal, chance.

Notes for pages
Julian White Mammoth Tusk is a Neanderthal who used to date Lon Shel and hired the GDA under false pretenses to find her. Was sent on a mission by Mesh Cos to find the lost planet of Erath.

The Romuline District is an area of the city run by the Romans, specifically the Ignotian family and Cassius Ignotus. As nobody can be harmed in the city, they sell violence, through spectator sports, veerees, XP simulations, and even cloned bodies which they will pilot to dismember other cloned bodies.

Mesh Cos is a Councillor, described as heartmurmuringly beautiful, a member of the last human species. Mother of Lon Shel, had her through parthenogenesis, "a perfectly valid lifestyle choice". Created the Universal Machine through stealing Great House technology and as a result doomed humanity to extinction.

Hensile District is where Lon Shel is spotted.

Neptune and Dis Pater have been removed from the main Roman pantheon and made minor gods. Neptune for the seas in the city being effectively ornamental lakes, so much smaller than the rest of the city and not bordering the Romuline, and Dis Pater for the afterlife being different than expected. They've been replaced with Romulus and Civitata, though there was a failed attempt to make Dis Pater the patron god of the Tube system.

Ved Mostyn was a city Councillor killed by a potent weapon. He was also a member of the Rump Parliament and had (insert proclivities here, can't remember if he was a sadist or masochist).

Dedalus was a slave in the Romuline District who was supposed to take Urbanus to Kempes but was drugged by Tiresias so Tiresias could take his place.

Erath The lost planet of Erath inside the Great Park RealSpace was [insert more here, something about tourist attraction?] - only exists if you approach it from a specific string of hyperjumps, has very strong defenses. Has a colony of robots inside that cater to the Universal Machine.

Kempes District -Borders Manfold, Urbanus goes here on behalf of his g.grandfather and finds some ruffians who get into a bar fight, one of them actually gets hurt, he thinks this means it's damageable homunculi.

Keth Marrane is a menfolk hermaphrodite who went by the name Tiresias and worked as a spy in the Ignotian family, having minor precog abilities which they found useful for a time before becoming a tutor. He later defects back to Manfold.