Orphan Heights
The Finest Towne at the End of the World!
Archivist's Excerpt from A Tale of Almost Two Cities: Orphan Heights & Related Histories, CVI 42:4
"First thing you ought to know is that Orphan is not so much a towne as it is a machine that people live in."
Just what Baron Hiram Lorecroft meant by these words is a debate for academics, which he happens to be, and this Archivist is not. Orphan Heights is very likely the oddest place in the world, and that's saying something. It stands on the barren wasteland, now called The Expanse, that its occupants have long been told was once their beloved Angland. Whether or not it is will not be addressed in this entry. It is a settlement enclosed beneath a dome of metal and glass, approximately two miles wide, held aloft by great arches of Limeiron in order to fend off the horrendous conditions of the outside world, a sort of "Ark" of the lingering survivors of humanity, a town of steam power and the newly-discovered breakthrough of lectral energy.
It is also a town of secrets, including the very preceding sentences.
To be more precise, Orphan Heights is the "Finest towne at the end of the world" because, as its people are taught from little onward, it is the last human civilization on earth, the world having been obliterated many generations prior. There are, of course, holes in this narrative, the most presently obvious being the very fact that this entry exists as an outside perspective on Orphan Heights at all.
Let that one sink in for a moment.
It is a town of industrial wonders, however, of high invention and development, of lectral power, steam engines, tramways, engineering guilds, clockwork efficiency, and lots and lots of bronze.
Although many in its population hold loosely to old religions and such beliefs, Orphan Heights itself is an extremely secular society on the public level, fixated on a coldly reasoned and relativistic philosophy, almost Locke-like and utilitarian, if such terms mean anything to the reader, and if not, read more.
Most importantly, it is also the site of either the rediscovery or the reinvention of the Halo Program, (Author help us all), but which of the two possibilities it is, who bloody knows? What this means is that it is the location of the reappearance of a technology that had, many times in ages past, changed the course of not only human history, but cosmic history, and did so again with the obliteration of a whole continent, the one on which Orphan Heights itself stood, and brought about the end of Confluence 42.5 with the event known as the Great Initiative, but that's what happens when god-like technology ends up in the hands of a Third Class Tramrunner from Harchester, accidentally or no. But that's a story for another entry.
Demographics
Orphan's hereditary makeup is primary Anglish (sorry, English) and Germanic, with a smattering of a few others mixed in from its founding days, but such details are not covered here. What is known is that the English colonists primarily make up the aristocracy, while the Germanic folk make up the bulk of the labour class, though there has been a great deal of intermarriage and thus, inter-breeding among the ethnic variants over the generations, so original nationalistic distinctions are little more than family legacies, at this point.
Government
Orphan Heights is governed by a Parliamentary system, much to the chagrin of everyone except Parliament. It is despised by most almost as much as a monarchy, works almost as poorly as a democracy, and accomplishes almost as little as an oligarchy.
Defences
Thick Limeiron walls protect Orphan from any potential invasion, though such worries are not extremely realistic. Since the days of the Settler's Skirmish, which is not commonly known history within Orphan, the exterior of the towne is sealed by four gates, though only two are even still operational, Southgate and Westgate, their coded dial locks and heavy locking mechanisms forming a great deal of protection in and of themselves. Should all these fail, the towne is full of underpaid, overworked, hard-drinking and generally cantankerous hard-working men, most of whom own various sizes of wrenches. Invasion is not recommended.
Industry & Trade
Though it likely once engaged in trade, such economic systems now are entirely intra-town affairs, its own quasi-free market system forming a robust ecosystem of economic liberty. Many businesses and shops and small companies allow for financial independence and class mobility, but do not fret; the government finds ways to tax all of them without problem.
Infrastructure
The central infrastructure element of Orphan Heights is its great Limeiron Arches, each one nearly a mile in length, as the town itself is nearly two miles across. The arches span from the town's rim to its center holding aloft its great dome, and holding suspended its immense Heuridium Tower in the center of the great Academy of Science Campus. All other aspects of its infrastructure depend upon these. Their construction is stuff of legend, though, curiously, few actual historical details of the feat are actually recorded. Odd.
Beyond these, various "lofted" sections of road or even platforms for tenements or businesses span the city all around, most notably those holding aloft the Academy of Science Campus and the Merchant Circles. Tramways circle the town in endless loops, depositing and collecting townsfolk as they travel to and fro in their courses. Atop the great dome, Atmospheric Lectral Collectors assist in not only diffusing lightning strikes from the horrid Storms of the Expanse, but absorbing their energy into capacitors for use in the town's lectral systems. All in all, Orphan Heights is a marvel of a thing.
Districts
Guilds and Factions
Orphan Heights is manned by many organizations, from its Parliament to its Grand Colonial Academy of Science, but its many branches of the Orphan Heights Corps. of Engineers is probably its most noteworthy faction.
Points of interest
Though there are too many to divulge here, a few most prominent locations within Orphan are as follows:
Architecture
Georgian, with a side of Colonial and a dash of Gothic, stirred together with industrial, heated to impossible temperatures in the Limeiron forges, and all whisked together into a distinct and utterly unique blend of location and arrangement that wholly fails to please absolutely anybody.
More specifically, Orphan Heights is arranged as something of a giant bowl, tiers of levels that rise towards the outer edge, with great arches spanning the whole of town that meet in the center and suspend a great tower in the center.
Climate
Well controlled, thank you.
Fine. Internally, the heat and humidity and breathe-abilty of the general air is well governed by the Corps. of Ventilation Engineers (see below), but outside, the town's exterior is regularly ravaged by the Storms of the Expanse, a constant threat to everyone and everything in The Expanse. The land is dark for six months of the year and light for six months, and so in Orphan, a "day" and a "year" are, celestially, the same, which doesn't get confusing at all.
Natural Resources
Its most precious resource is the underground well drawing up the remains of the Yedak River. This is managed at Groundwell Station, especially since the river largely dried up some years back, and water in The Expanse is now an extremely rare commodity.
Beyond this Orphan harnesses lectral energy (besides what it generates on its own) through the use of Atmospheric Lectral Collectors atop its great glass and Limeiron dome. Its mines are able to dig great quantities of coal, copper, and the lime and other rock deposits in the area are extremely valuable.
RUINED SETTLEMENT
13 October 1897
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