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.

Urbanus sat in a cell with three other captured city born, two wounded students, one dead. Soon, the guard came to find him, under a name he had given them, Stupidus Titus, and took him to see Gnas Gortine. An amiable man, slightly smaller than other manfolk, the two chatted about their situation, and about how Gnas intended to make the City listen thanks to the hostages. During the conversation, Gnas let slip a few tidbits of information that Urbanus reacted to, and Gnas pointed out how unlikely it was for his cover story to be true given his reactions.

Tobin tumbled into an empty tube tunnel, diving around until she was able to close the distance on one of the thugs without them realizing it. His companion shoots him in the confusion, wounding him but he flees, dropping his gun, and she dispatches the remaining assailant with the potent weapon of the first. Wincing, she looks down to see that she's been grazed by a bullet, and limps home for the night.

Little Brother Edward reflects on his early life in the city. On how he was created by a rich woman to be her plaything, and how when his life was found to be a lie he found his way to Faction Paradox, as the thoughts in his head fractured, spun against each other, as he lay weeping.

Kyme Janute, the ambassador from Manfold, stamped through the council house, talking to an image of Alisheer St Marx about how she needed to return because things were going south in Manfold. St Marx agreed, noting that Marrane wouldn't have deserted his post had he not been worried about what was going to happen. Jamute then walks into her chambers to find Councillor Cos rummaging through her things, before telling her that they need to talk, and holding up a dagger that she's found.

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.

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.

Gnas Gortine-

Little Brother Edward - remake created by Nina Gutierrez from fantasies, a personality from a legend, based on an actor, created as the plaything for a rich woman. Her younger sister ended up breaking the illusion of who he was, his false memories, leading to him having a fragile sense of self as he found his way to the Rump Parliament (Of the City of the Saved...).