Episode XXXIX – A.C.

The Hive has nothing much to say about Pike. It provides his birth records, his private employment records (he’s an analyst of some kind at Haight Western) and his “Profile” — his ratings by various people he’s interacted with electronically and physically in the Mark. He’s an ordinary guy, absurdly rich by Undercity standards, upper middle class otherwise. According to his Profile and employment reviews, he’s average at his job and not in any danger either of  losing it or being promoted. He has no criminal record, though he likes to gamble. People see him as a perennial striver — always on the make but not really good enough to make it. As such his trust ratings are fine for commercial transactions, but not stellar. In short, he’s an average, if slightly shady, banker.

The Hive also has nothing much (useful) to say about August. It provides his various arrest records and the private law-enforcement files on him. He’s a thug. It also provides the same rumors A.C. has already heard. It doesn’t have anything more on him. It’s not a clearance level issue, there just aren’t any good sources. The Hive notes that it could attempt to secure information from certain restricted sources that it has not yet prioritized, but that to do so it would require something in return. A.C.’s sense is that The Hive is talking about hacking the Inns, and that doing so would be costly.

LB: The thing about the Thing, is that it’s not something you guys made. Well, it is. I mean, someone made it — carved it into that shape. But that’s not what matters. It’s the stuff. LB pauses. A.C.’s connection to him flickers for a moment, as if he were away for just a second. Then he’s back.

Here’s the thing. We were here first. We were here long before you. A really, really long time before you. When you came here, you didn’t settle down next to us, you wiped the world clean first. You can’t understand what it means. No one can. Close as we are, Doc, it’s not even real for me and it can’t be real for you. It was a million times worse than the worst thing ever. I don’t even understand it. I don’t understand what was left behind when nothing was left behind — but that’s that. Anyway some of what you did was just make these big, hot fires. And some of what came out of those fires was, like, melted dirt or sand or rock or something. And some of that rock cooled down into this black glass with . . . stuff in it. And the head is a chunk of that. And what it has in it has power. Old, old power. It’s some of the last stuff left from before you wiped us off the face of our own planet. It doesn’t do anything in your world — or maybe it does. It’s hard to tell because it’s so active in mine. People with a close connection to my world are going to be drawn to it because of what’s inside it. Whether they know it or not. What they do with that power depends on who they are and how they work.

Episode XXXIX – Kaz

Kaz sends his messages to A.C., Gummo and The Hive. The Hive acknowledges and will watch. He cleans up his place and bugs out.

Episode XXXIX – Gummo

Gummo goes to sleep in his cabin as night falls.

Some time later he awakens, back under the old Axia A-Point Condenser Supports, digging around in the discarded trash for salvage to take up to Lying Pete’s. It’s a crappy way to spend the hot, rainy afternoon but it beats the Undercity community center and at least he has a few friends to play hooky with. Pickings are thin today and Kyle keeps beating him to the decent stuff, so after a while Gummo decides to kick off and go check out that strange door in the K-V-13 strut. It’s always been there, of course — some kind of maintenance hatch — but today it’s tantalizingly ajar.

Gummo crosses the trash field under the condenser and yanks open the small hatch. Oddly, there is cool air coming from inside. It’s refreshing and inviting, and Gummo quickly slips into the hatch with little more than a glance behind him.

Beyond the hatch is not a tight, constricted maintenance ladder or access shaft, but rather a small, neat office. It is night time (suddenly), and the large back window of the office, which must be high in a tower somehow, reveals a sky full of stars. Hanging in the sky among the stars is a single, large, blue-green moon. None of this seems especially strange to Gummo. It is what it is.

At the back of the office, near the window, is a desk and at the desk sits a man. He’s not very remarkable. Middle-aged, in shirt-sleeves with his tie hanging loose, a worn suit jacket over the back of his chair. Fancy for the Undercity, sure, but this isn’t the Undercity anymore, Gummo figures, and this guy doesn’t look like much. His skin is pale, like that girl’s — what’s her name? — but he’s not tall like her. He’s just average. His desk is tidy; his terminal and datapads are dark. He gestures for Gummo to sit in on of the two chairs facing his desk.

Hello Gummo. I’m Jack. You going to work for me?

LoTHNet: Gracefield and the Inns

Gracefield is a suburban community approximately one hour by car from Newmarket’s major business districts. Originally a working class area for those who could not afford the city, it has more recently (over the past 20 years) become gentrified. It is a very old community, having been an extra-urban settlement of substantial size prior to the Uprising. Gracefield is one of many Newmarket suburbs and has few notable features, with the exception of the Inns.

The Inns refers to a Newmarket guild once known as the Brotherhood of Hostelers and Tavernkeeps. It is the Learning of the Hive that that name was archaic when adopted, but that the guild was originally a group serving workers and management in the hospitality trades. The guild continues to exist as a group, though it is not a profiled Newmarket Guild. It is an underground group that, based on present information insufficient to quantify in Learning, no longer serves the hospitality trades. Information on the actual activities of the Inns varies sufficiently that no Learning is available, however there is a high probability that the group engages in activities related to trade that is not permitted under Newmarket regulations and policies. Source variability is high as to specific activities, however the Inns has been referred to in multiple sources as a “Black Market”, a “Thieves Guild”, an “Assassin’s Guild”, a “Fencing Network” and an “Underground”. Given the strongly disregulated trade common in Newmarket, some or all of these descriptors may be archaic or irrelevant. The location of the Inns is believed to be either distributed or impermanent, however the Inns is believed to have a locus in Gracefield. It is not within Learning whether such locus is physical. Additional Learning as to the Inns is considered high value to the Hive. This is the Learning of the Hive.

LoTHNet: House Westerly

House Westerly (sometimes known as House Ehrwood or The Eclipse House) is the name of one of the extended “families” or “dynasties” that have concentrated their power and possessions through inheritance, purportedly dating back to the Passage or Old Earth. Its primary compound and ancestral home is located just outside the Mark on an estate known as Ehrwood. Ehrwood is a land parcel of approximately 0.5 square kilometers ((about 125 acres)) some parts of which constitute the estates, grounds and outbuildings occupied by various family members, and other parts of which either were never developed or have been permitted to return to woodlands. Ehrwood has been in the lawful possession of members of House Westerly for as long as title records are available, at least since 1 CR. This possession was not disturbed, nor seriously contested, during the Newmarket uprisings. House Westerly has innumerable other holdings available as Learning to appropriate cells, including smaller land holdings and compounds in or near at least four other Cities.

The leader of House Westerly is usually referred to by the name “Ehrwood”, rather than Westerly, for reasons that are not within present Learning. Matrilineality and Patrilineality are both recognized under the House charter, and leaders have been of both genders. Presently, the ranking member of House Westerly is its First Son, Colin Jaycott Westerly bar Ehrwood.  Colin Ehrwood, apart from his various foundation and House duties, is also the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Haight Western, one of Newmarket’s largest investment banks. Bank holding structure and ownership is not transparent, however it is within Learning that interests within the control of House Westerly own a majority of Haight Western, and have for many years, including prior to Colin Ehrwood’s taking over the chairmanship. Colin Ehrwood’s Mark profile and related reputational tagging indicate that he is considered extremely competent at his job, if somewhat ruthless, and is not seen to be running the bank as a “vanity” project. Available data suggests that the bank has grown substantially in the seven years he has been at its head. It is now the primary (visible) income driver for the House. Estimates of the wealth of the House vary widely. Colin Ehrwood (who does not pay himself a salary) has been estimated by sources believed reliable to have a personal net worth in excess of 20 billion en. This is the Learning of the Hive.

LoTHNet: Pre-Establishment History

Very little recorded Learning is available regarding the years immediately following Planetfall. In the Foundation phase, the Cities landed, shed their shells and created and established their fundamental infrastructure out of recycled and local materials. It is not within the Learning of the Hive or any available source how long this took or what the population of the Cities did during this phase, however there is strong evidentiary support for the widely held view that the Cities kept their populations in some sort of statis or sedation and that he process took on the order of weeks or, at most, months.

After Foundation, the Cities began to operate as separate entities and all populations underwent greater or lesser periods of social and political upheaval. It was some time before there was substantial local stability and unified local governance in all of the Cities (with some settling sooner than others); longer before there was material and sustained communication and trade among them. The period between Foundation and the establishment of stable and sustained communication and commerce among the Cities is generally called the Pre-Establishment period. Numerous Pre-Establishment sources survive and are within the Learning of the Hive, however they are not internally consistent and typically cannot be sufficiently distinguished from fiction to determine baseline credibility and trustworthiness for any given source. There is substantial disagreement in contemporary sources even as to the length of Pre-Establishment history — that is, the precise time between Planetfall and Year One CR. ((The game takes place in the year 1187 Common Reckoning)). Estimates from highly credible sources range from 50 years to over 400. Certain physical evidence establishes to the satisfaction of the Hive that higher estimates are likely to me more accurate.

In general, it is the present Learning of the Hive (consistent with that of certain high-credential value contemporary historians) that large sections of Pre-Establishment history are properly considered “dark”, in the sense that no Learning of acceptable utility is available regarding them. There are, however, Pre-Establishment sources relating to certain historical periods in certain Cities and Territories that appear to be reasonably verifiable. Such sources have been integrated into the Learning of the Hive. The Hive continues to seek and assimilate additional Learning on this subject and considers such Learning of high value. This is the Learning of the Hive.

LoTHNet: Esme and the Esmeid Unity Empire

As noted elsewhere in the Learning, the Pre-Establishment history of the Cities is of varying quality. Much of it is internally inconsistent or insufficiently sourced to be assimilated into Learning. Certain Cities are particularly lacking in reliable Pre-Establishment historical record, and among these is Traice. It is accepted by numerous well-credentialed sources that Traice experienced extreme social and political upheaval immediately after Foundation. Much of the City is believed to have emptied out, and it is accepted that only the core was occupied and in use for some period, with the rest of the population occupied the surrounding outlands. This view of Traice’s early Pre-Establishment history is supported by sufficient independent and consistent source material to be accepted as Learning.

According to the best aggregation of available source materials, the Traice outlander population was loosely organized into clans that were at more or less constant war for a period of between 50 and 275 years, depending on source. During much of that period the dominant clan was referred to as Sola, Solav or Solave, and the leaders are generally referred to in current literature as Solavin Warlords. Eventually, one such leader (Katris or Kathrish) was able to conquer or unite a sufficient portion of the clans to extend substantial dominance over the Traice outlands. Contemporary examination of the geographic, social, political and technological structures of the clans indicates that this kind of unification should have been extremely difficult, if not impossible. Although various explanations of the unification are offered in contemporary sources, none is sufficiently convincing to be assimilated into Learning.

The unified outland under Katris/Kathrish and his issue (or, in other source materials, under Katris/Kathrish alone over a greatly extended lifespan) was known as the Esemeid Unity Empire, and later simply Esme. By the time of the Establishment, Esme had been assimilated in whole or in part into Traice, or had simply taken over the City and reestablished itself as the ruling government of Traice. Useful records from the period during which that assimilation occurred are not among currently available sources. Many Traice outlander clans still exist at and around the Traice M-Line, and most purport to be connected to the Esme throne. This is the Learning of the Hive.

Episode XXXVIII – Gummo

Gummo leaves the diner and walks out into the street.

Episode XXXVIII – Kaz

Kaz leaves the diner and walks out into the street.

Episode XXXVIII – A.C.

A.C. leaves the diner and walks out into the street.