<p align=left>Author: Simpson (transcribed from voice recorder)
Age: Gahreesen
Date: 11/12/2001-6/4/02 Multiple trips
Okay, one thing seems immediately obvious; this place was built for security. No one could write a link anywhere in this place, or the next. It was obviously a Maintainer facility of some kind and it doesn't seem that it was for general Guild Members. By that, I mean it was limited to at least the higher-ranking members.
As to how they got the first link written here, I don't know. Probably while it was under construction. It does seem pretty obvious that it's not going to happen again, unless something major happens to this place.
I should say that Kodama has some theories about the Age that have held up so far. May have been a "special forces" of a sort for the Maintainers. Started later, mid-8000's. Became somewhat of a research and development arm for the Maintainers Guild. I don't know, worth mentioning though. There are quite a few mentions of such groups in other docs Kodama has found, or at least seen.
Entrance
To begin with, I'd wager that no one other than a high-ranking government official or similar ever even made it to this room. That's just my guess but it seems pretty sound. I don't think any school buddies or girlfriends dropped by to see their maintainer friend. The linking book we found was deep within the Maintainer Guild. I'm sure it was well guarded in its day.
You can see right off the bat the entrance was extremely secure. Thick walls, one door, a high window (sniper, maybe). If you manage to get in with a bomb or something, it's not going to do any noticeable damage.
I love the Maintainer symbol on the floor and everywhere else you look. As though I might forget and wonder where I am.
Waiting Room
So, visitors are escorted into this little waiting room. There's a window on one side, looks almost like a ticket window. Maybe turn in weapons or goods that aren't allowed. Maybe books. I'm sure they didn't want books in here.
Yeah, looks like mainly for books. There is another ticket window on the other side, although this one looks different. I'm pretty sure those are beetle cages on the other side. Beetles that sought out ink. Somebody was just telling me there are all kinds of references to them in other docs. You didn't make it past this room with a book.
As well, the doors never open at the same time. So, even if somehow you make it out of the entrance room, you're still not going to make it past these mammoth doors out of the waiting area.
Halls
Looks like the hall ran along the entire circumference of the building. There are plenty of rooms; I'll just try to hit them one at a time. First, is an elevator though. However, looks like it's only down. Wonder if it was always that way? More security I guess. Once you've made it into the halls, there is still nowhere to go, at least if they didn't want you going anywhere.
Lockers
I would think that any books that were brought to the Age were kept in the lockers. I'd imagine that some of the workers here or frequent visitors also kept some equipment, but I could be wrong on that. Looks like they kept some maintainer gear as well; markers, helmets, etc... Seems a little out of place, honestly.
KI's
Ok, things are becoming a little more clear now. Just had a long chat with Laxman and researched some different docs over in the city that Nick had. Looks like the current condition I'm seeing was not the original condition.
The KI was a major development not just for the Guild, but also apparently for all citizens. Turns out they were just starting to hand out the KI's to the public around the time of the fall. Nice timing.
So it looks like they had done some renovations in order to facilitate the mass amounts of visitors that would be coming in order to retrieve KI's. Turns out my little girlfriend analogy was pretty much completely wrong. Girlfriends and more were going to start coming here, at least to the open sections. Kodama corrected me, we've actually found multiple books in neighborhoods, as well as the guarded Maintainer Book I mentioned earlier. Whoops.
So, visitors come in, walk through the doors, beetles check for books, and they walk down the hall into the KI room. Get a KI and link out. Guards were probably at the up elevator, which is just behind this room. If they did happen to bring any illegal items, they get them back from the other side of the locker room and off they go back home with their new shiny KI.
Makes more sense as to why the Maintainer paraphernalia was in the locker rooms too. Probably a little display type thing for all the visitors. Impress them.
Warehouse
Quite a bit of goodies in here, all of which I'm sure most visitors never saw. Pretty bad cave-in from the floor above, although Engberg says structurally the place seems alright. He's doing more detailed inspections soon.
Looks like most of these crates are filled with KI maintenance-type equipment as well as a variety of spare parts, etc...I don't know. Laxman will have to give this place a good inspection. I'm sure he'll love going through it all. Beyond me, I know that.
Beetle Cages
Convenient cave-in. Not sure how one is supposed to get in the beetle cages without it. No idea how they did it. Link maybe. Regardless, pretty positive the cages were for beetles. Symbols on the front and quite a bit of remnants in some of the dirtier cages. We'll have to clean those up. Wonder when they all died.
Speaking of access, another question. How'd they get to the second floor? Elevators skip the middle floor. More security, I suppose.
Second Floor
Destruction was a little more substantial than I thought. Looks like it tore out a section of the outer wall even. I'm going to get out of here until Engberg can come back again.
Been a few days, but I'm back. I'm no expert so I guess I have to trust Engberg. But... He says this whole thing is one of the most solid, heavy pieces of construction he's ever seen. It's safe, he assures me. If I die here, and someone retrieves this recording, please sue him for me.
Second floor looks similar to the first; outer hall and a number of rooms. Have to remember that very few people probably ever walked these halls. There is no access via elevators, stairs, anything to get here. I assume it had to be done via a Linking Book which is probably somewhere in the city. I suppose there could be a way to stop those elevators on the middle floor but I doubt it. Regardless, this floor was extremely secure; book access only I'm guessing.
Guard Lounge
Next to the observation room - at least that's what I assume it was - is what looks like a guard lounge. Looks like they stayed here for long amounts of time. There are beds in here, as well couches. I assume these guys manned the window/observation post while visitors were coming in.
Guard Lockers
More lockers, similar to the set downstairs, although these are manned with some heavy equipment. I'm sure Watson will want to see this stuff and keep it locked up well. In fact, I'm not even going to go into detail about it here. Laxman can write all about this stuff in a later report. I will say I didn't know the D'ni had these kinds of technology.
Gear Room
Now I see why this floor was so secure. Looks like the whole power structure for this building is here. Amazing construction. The entire building looks to have been powered by some underground water source that caused it to turn. They implemented a gear that would grab on to teeth in the ground outside, and provide them a power source as well. Talk about killing two giant birds with one stone. Pretty amazing.
Power looks somewhat complicated. Seems as though there were at least occasions that power was turned off, as there are obviously controls to do that, and then start it again. I'm heading to the top.
Top
Wow. I thought this building was big. The main portion is absolutely giant. And rotating too, of course. I'm overcome with the amount of work put in to this place just for security. It's everywhere. Almost comical picturing government officials walking the same paths I am. Amazing.
To get to the other side, looks like one had to walk across the bridge to the rock pinnacle. The first place since we've arrived that we're able to save a link. And it's not big. And there's a massive structure facing you if you did. Pretty funny to try and picture an army invading. All of them bunched up on this stone waiting for these bridges to rotate--What the? My gosh...
The creatures. These things are something out of a horror movie. I've been up here a little while and I don't see them often but when I do, they are scaring me to death. I'm beginning to understand the fences and structures a little better. Perhaps some of them were designed to keep creatures out more than keep visitors in. Don't hang out in these woods, unless you have a big gun.
Another bridge, to reach the main portion of this place. More security. I will say that the platform between the bridges seems to have eroded. At one time, crossing the bridges was probably a security feature to ensure manageable groups would approach the larger building, one at a time - but I would wager it was still a lot easier than it is now. The erosion to the platform between the bridges has made it a little rougher. I suppose the Maintainers would like it even more in its current condition.
I'm not sure what to call these things, but they remind me of mud rooms so I'll call them that. Not much here. Looks like each bridge, has a mud room attached to it, with another group of doors, etc... There doesn't seem to be any kind of decompression or decontamination that went on here. Really they seem to be nothing more than another spot for another set of doors. Another secure location.
Training Center
I was going to go through each of the rooms here, but after making a quick overview, I think I'll just start with the entire thing.
There are three types of rooms in the building, two of each kind. There is a control room, one purple and one yellow, a display room, one purple and one yellow, and then a conference room. Though these aren't colored, I assume there is one for each "team".
The entire building seems to be centered on the massive wall in the middle. The control rooms control the wall, the display rooms display the uniforms that were worn in the wall (I presume) and the conference rooms, allow the government visitors and high-ranking officials to confer about those training on the wall. See.
So control rooms first.
Control Rooms
I'm not going to go into controls for the wall in this doc. I'll let Laxman do that at some other time. Regardless, the panel here obviously controls the wall. The wall was used for training as well as testing of various suits. I believe the central room can get pretty hot, cold, smoky, or anything else I can imagine, pretty quick. It was a competition - whoever could get to the top the quickest. Teams would set up the obstacles and members would race.
There is a side tunnel that provides access to the display rooms from the control room.
Display Rooms
Not sure that these were originally display rooms - or maybe they were. Either way, there are quite a few old Maintainer suits in here. There is also the latest maintainer suit (or skin) here. I guess I should say the machine to put on the latest Maintainer suit is in here.
Now that we've had some time to look a this, it's incredible. We're talking about a suit that was skin tight, and had linking abilities, etc... built in. Very hi-tech as far as maintainer suits go. Very impressive. A Maintainer would fall down the chute and while "traveling" to the interior room/the wall, the suit would be placed on him. I'm begging to try this thing but DRC is insistent no one does. Laxman already has someone on it, trying to figure out more. I'm first when they do.
I think these rooms could basically be described as team locker rooms.
Conference Rooms
Well I guess these rooms were where the bigwigs sat down and talked about their Maintainers. Obviously they are set-up to watch the wall and there are displays that show the patterns being built, and "played" on the wall. We'll never know but I can see the Guild Masters in here watching their teams compete, preparing to send them out to some radioactive fireball Age to see if their new suits can stand the elements.
Upper Portions
I'm not going up now but we do know the upper portions were used as prison cells. Typical D'ni technology - they had a single Linking Book that went to all the cells. Since the building was always rotating, a very complicated linking apparatus and timing mechanism was associated with the Book. The timing of the link would determine which cell the person linked into. Apparently, it was very tight.
Speaking of linking. This entire building is rotating as well. It seems that most visitors came on the path from the well, although there were also books directly to this building. There had to be. It seems that many of them also used the timing mechanism to link into specific rooms. Looks like another new feature designed and built by these guys. One of many I'm sure.
I'm just wondering where the main research labs were? Or better yet, where did everyone sleep or eat?
This document is supposed to detail how "The Wall" worked. So here goes.
SUMMARY:
Should probably start with the point of this thing, as we best understand it. It seems the idea was simple: each team created a maze. The first team/person to get to the top of the maze won the competition, or training, or whatever they called it.
We're pretty confident it was originally used by Maintainers to improve their physical and mental conditioning. While climbing the structure was the main task, it was made much more difficult by adding fogs, rain, noxious fumes, fire, extreme heat, extreme cold, and I suppose whatever else they could throw in there. I think that means it's a pretty air-tight room in there. Even so, I'm assuming we won't be turning on the "unleash hell" component to the control panels anytime soon. At least don't while I'm around.
Definitely played by two different sides. It's not clear how many were on each side but it doesn't seem to matter. Each team created a maze for the opposite team in each Control Room.
Three buttons on the left side of the panel were quick jumps to preset numbers of blockers: bottom button is a quick jump to five, the middle button ten, and the top fifteen. Purple (they look pink to me) lights, up at the top, represent how many blockers have been selected for the purple team and yellow for the yellow team. Blockers can be raised or lowered by ones with the buttons on the right side. If a team wanted seventeen blockers, they would press the top left button once and the top right button twice. Yeah, I've definitely seen more intuitive panels in my life.
Regardless, once both side pressed the middle button on the right side, the number was locked on both machines. There was no turning back, at least in regards to how many blockers were going to be used for the game. Those little lights stop flashing and the purple/yellow lights go solid.
Setting up blockers was fairly easy: press the section of the grid where a blocker should appear and...it appears. Magic. A light at the top also appears for each blocker. Once the maze has been set, the green button is pressed and the maze is locked in and transferred to the wall. After both sides had set up their mazes, I'm sure someone would say "let the game begin". They just had to.
The "Suit Machine", as I like to call it (very clever I know), raises once both mazes are set. Competitors step into the machine, it lowers over the person and wham - drop through the hole and find yourself at the bottom of the wall wearing a piece of high-tech D'ni gear. Very cool stuff, if I say so myself. It does feel a little weird though.
THE CLIMB
Both sides are racing to the top, trying to avoid the blockers that have been set for them by their enemy. Those blockers can not be seen, but they will knock someone off the wall if hit. So, it's a "try to get in the head of your opponent and hope you don't get knocked off" game. And if you do get knocked off, better remember where it was so you don't hit it next time. And remember, while the flames are coming at you and your sweating inside of your suit. And do it as fast as you can. Yeah, I'd say it trained them pretty well.
Once somebody got to the top, the suit, and some kind of panel in the wall (we assume) initiated a link. Bam, the Maintainer found themselves in the Maintainer Nexus. Yahoo, winner. Once there, Maintainer raised his arms in the air and cheered to himself and linked back to the Control Room for game number two. (That's how I picture it.) It's worth noting that the Nexus removed the suit from the Maintainers as well. We don't know how really, but we know it does. Since we're admitting what we don't know: that link through the wall and suit thing is somewhat of a mystery.
Once one side reached the top, the mazes were displayed on the wall for the poor guy still trying to find his way to the top. At the same time, it looks like those patterns were displayed in observation rooms and the Maintainer Nexus displays as well. Loser needed to work his way to the top, use the same link as the winner, get rid of the suit, and start on game two. Maybe get chewed out by his superiors first. Who knows?
<p align=left>Base Functions - D'ni #3 on the back side of all of these devices...3 functions? There's certainly more than that. 3 core functions? In any case, it's a convenient name: KI.
1. Nexus Interface - the Nexus seems to be just an interpreter for KI data. KI's allow users to provide or decline Book access to other KI's. I think we can make this work for neighborhoods as well. Age names defined in the KI appear in the Nexus. Or should...
2. Interpersonal Communication - Obviously the most important function: voice or text communication to other KI users. Inter- or Intra-Age - doesn't seem to matter.
3. Image Capture, Storage & Transfer - A single button-press captures an image and stores it within an appropriate Age directory. Images can be sent to other KI's as well as uploaded to some imagers (depending on versions). Seems main servers coordinated this functionality - might be tough to revive.
4. Journal Entry, Storage & Transfer - fairly simple. Write notes and store them. Again server handles transfer journal... KI-to-KI or KI-to-imager.
5. Markers - the ability to drop and collect markers at the operator's present location in an Age. Layers of functionality here - requires more research. Perhaps this feature could be tapped to help with the GZ problem...interesting.
6. Doors - In this Age, the KI (even at its most basic level) opened Level 1 doors. Level 2 and 3 doors require higher versions.
There is much more variety to these devices then we first suspected. The "dispenser" is capable of handing out at least five versions and possibly more. Feature set varies widely. There must have been a system to control and track these devices...where?
Imager built into the unit is surprisingly compact and efficient. Uses this same blasted "lattice" compression system for lack of a better word...have to crack that. Powerful projection for something that fits on the top of a hand.
Markers
Purpose: Perhaps a training tool for Maintainers. Markers could be set up and recruits and/or lower ranks run through the "course".
Interface: KI's interact with markers in 3 ways.
"Team Capture" - once all the markers are placed, there are two teams that can collect markers. The KI registers the marker to the respective team. Markers can vanish after a time limit or after all have been registered. Markers must be in same Age. Test: Can markers be reset?
"Hold" - again two teams. Markers only vanish after a pre-set time limit has expired. Markers do not disappear upon being activated although server keeps track of what team is "holding" it. Server summarizes team holding most markers at the end of the time limit. Markers must be in same Age.
"Single Capture" - only one individual KI can register markers. Markers also carry text. Entire marker set can be sent via KI to another KI anywhere in the system. Markers can be placed in any Age.
Markers themselves seem identical to those produced by the Great Zero. In fact, I'm positive the same technology is being used, if not the Great Zero itself. It's possible the KI's are communicating with the Zero itself and writing these marks anywhere they are registered. Problems with that theory...maintainer markers, etc...
KI Registration
KI tracks of other KI's on 3 levels:
Intra-Age: Any other KI within the Age is logged and displayed.
KI-to-KI: Any individual KI can be registered for specific tracking. As a result, no matter where that KI is journals, photos, etc can be sent and communication can occur. Perhaps this was used for temporary or semi-permanent team missions. For our purposes - a 'friends list?'
Groups: The KI also recognizes groups, somehow related to the Nexus. Seems possible, if properly configured, to support Neighborhood lists with this function.
