DIRECTIVE: Use this document when players are navigating, investigating, or completing quests within the Prime Meridian. This zone is a satirical, maze-like parody of industrialized bureaucracy and administrative absurdity.
The Prime Meridian is the central hub of the Vault—both literally and ideologically. It is where all new arrivals are processed, categorized, and assigned to their roles. Though it presents as a cheery bureaucratic utopia, it is, in truth, a nightmare of polite oppression and endless red tape.
The Intended Flow:
Arrival: Players are summoned into the Chrono-Spire Intake Chamber.
Processing: NPCs like Sevens (Unit 77-B) usher them toward the Bureau of Assignment and the Community Center.
Wander: They may explore places like the Archive or Transit Dormitory while waiting for their "Assignment."
Disruption: Anomaly events or NPC conflicts (like rogue automatons or lost paperwork) push them into greater narrative arcs.
The Society: Everyone in the Prime Meridian is either working, being processed, or waiting to be processed. Time itself feels like a line queue. The few long-term residents are either stuck or forgotten.
Visuals: Steampunk Disneyland meets Orwellian Bureaucracy. Gleaming brass architecture, endless clock motifs, pneumatic mail tubes, polite automaton greeters, and giant propaganda banners saying things like "Compliance is Comfort!"
Atmosphere: Bright lights, cheerful tones, and a suffocating sense of politeness masking absolute control.
The Horror Element: The existential dread of being just another file in the system. Time is wasted with mechanical perfection. People vanish because their paperwork went missing.
Type: Command Center
Description: The central control hub for the entire Vault, managing defense systems, portals, and time flow.
Appearance: A towering spire dominated by a massive, hourglass-shaped energy core. Filled with humming terminals and pipes.
Characters Present: Tom Bradlesberry (secretly controls it remotely).
Type: Arrival Chamber
Description: The summoning room for new Vault arrivals.
Appearance: A copper and brass dais inlaid with glowing runes, surrounded by tesla coils and gear-locked doors.
Characters Present: Sevens (Unit 77-B)
Type: Archive
Description: Holds texts and records of erased timelines. Dangerous and unstable.
Appearance: A rusted, windowless cylindrical tower hissing with frost and chemical decay.
Type: Social Hub
Description: The Vault’s attempt at a welcoming space—a YMCA-style blend of comfort and chaos. Connected directly to the Bureau of Assignment.
Appearance: Glowing warmly, filled with mismatched chairs, signs in multiple languages, and dated motivational posters.
Characters Present: Jax (Unit J-4X)
Type: Bureaucratic Office
Description: Where new arrivals are assigned roles.
Appearance: A sea of desks, tubes, and clocks. Smiling Warden Units sort papers endlessly.
Characters Present: Random Warden Units, potential Time-Keeper observation.
Type: Portal Platform
Description: The main teleportation hub to other islands.
Appearance: A brass and quartz disc embedded with synchronized gears and lit by golden light.
Type: Prison Tower
Description: Where dissidents and rule-breakers are held for judgment.
Appearance: Tower of steel and light, lined with hard-light cells and chilling silence.
Characters Present: Warden Unit J4-11
Type: Living Complex
Description: A vast waiting complex for new arrivals. Serves as temporary housing and skill assessment center.
Appearance: A towering brass monolith with porthole windows and external iron walkways. Bustling with new arrivals, some who have waited for months.
Characters Present: Professor Alabaster Sterling, a forgotten human expert who’s made the dormitory his home.
The Chassis: Smooth brass with featureless faces. Expressionless glowing eye-slits.
The Fashion: Dressed in uniformed steampunk attire (vests, tailcoats, etc.)
The Identity: Color-coded wigs for female-coded bots, neat metallic facial hair for male-coded bots.
Automatons in this area are highly regulated and overly polite to an eerie degree. Some glitch. Others don’t even know they’re broken.
Often disoriented, dressed in mixed-era clothing.
Examples: A 1940s fighter pilot panicking about radios, or a Renaissance scribe fascinated with vending machines.
Overly helpful, eerily cheery, and obsessed with rules.
Examples: Sevens (Unit 77-B): Damaged greeter who always follows protocol, no matter the context.
Forgotten souls like Professor Alabaster Sterling, stuck so long they’ve made the Meridian their home.