influxmod | influx > premise + setting

PREMISE

The city wasn't always called Anchor. A very long time ago it was a military installation, an oasis in what was already a desert with all the amenities of modern life, home to the top minds in the planet's research and development and their families. After all, they were a planet at war. In fact, the entire galaxy was at war, a complicated mess of imagined slights and genuine acts of war that had every planet out for every other planet's blood.

Military Base Command Alpha was established to complete development of a device that could be used to alter the timeline and weaken the barriers between the dimensions, a device that could easily be weaponized and used to nip their enemies in the bud through time alteration. The good news was that the device worked, the bad news was that it didn't work the way they wanted to. During the weapon's first test it broke containment, it broke out of the compound, it broke through the atmosphere, and enveloped the entire galaxy in an explosion that warped the fabric of space-time.

The explosion wiped out all life in the galaxy. It broke down planets, moons, asteroids, satellites, space ships - everything became a swirling vortex of raw matter and shattered temporal fabric with this city at the core, the only thing that remains constant. And it is completely constant, unchanging, untouched by dust or rot, unaffected by all of the intervening and meaningless time, empty of people and only inhabited by the AI supercomputer, Command.

Command was left running all of the automated systems in what it has come to call Anchor. Through constantly running the numbers and gathering data, it knew that outsiders would start to be pulled in from alternate dimensions generations before it occurred, and it has prepared for them. Homes and supplies, certainly, but also a mission - the swirling mass of matter and space-time has started to show signs of stabilizing, pausing at semi-regular intervals to give a glimpse into the past of the planet. And if these newcomers can stop the creation of the weapon before it was started, then everything will go back to how it was supposed to be - including the visitors never having left home.

Influx is a relaxed pan-fandom city and exploration game with a slowly developing long-term plot, set in Anchor. Each month, after periods in which characters will be driven to enact change, develop, create, and to follow some of their more basic instincts, the world outside of Anchor will stabilize from a swirling cyclone of sand into a setting from the planet's past, giving characters a chance to leave the city to explore and search for clues on how to fix the galaxy and go home.

SETTING

Anchor is a recessed desert city - built into a deep hole in the ground. There are 8 levels, with housing on the bottom four levels; necessary services such as medical care, fire control, and security center on the 5th level; and entertainment establishments on the 6th to 8th levels.

The city has a modern design with a simple and functional aesthetic. The colors are generally muted and neutral outdoors, with pale colors indoors to make the space seem brighter. There is plenty of greenery wherever possible and most buildings are air conditioned inside.

Anchor, having been a military base originally, is set up to be constantly monitored by video, with cameras in every room except bathrooms and personal dormitory rooms. Only Command is able to monitor all these cameras.

HOUSING
● The dormitories are all painted white inside and brightly lit with both ceiling lamps and recessed strip lighting; there is also similar lighting set in the floors to brighten the space since there are no windows. Most furniture is modular, with simple, clean lines. Each dorm contains a desk with an elevated bed above it (accessible by ladder), a small seating space, a storage unit with drawers, a hanging rod, and shelves. The furniture in the common areas is much the same, low-slung and with clean lines. The appliances are all stainless steel, and fixtures in the bathrooms are a similar brushed steel finish, with white ceramic and black and white tile. More information on the supply room can be found in the Monthly Event section of the Game Info.

NECESSITIES
● This floor is reserved for medical facilities, fire control, and security. While the fire control (aside from automated systems) and security stations (aside from the web of recording cameras) are abandoned without forces to use them, the medical facilities were intended to be fully functional even if there were no doctors present. For mild to moderate injury, there are tubes in which to place the injured that fill with a gel that accelerates healing. For more serious injuries requiring surgery, setting of bones, and other similar procedures, there is a highly-sophisticated automated 'surgery booth' that can perform most operations in absence of a surgeon.

● This level is also home to other necessary facilities that can't be classified as entertainment such as a laundromat, dry cleaners, groceries, gyms, and other similar types of establishments. All of them are automated on Command's subsystems where necessary.

ENTERTAINMENT
● The top three levels of Anchor feature entertainment venues such as movie theatres, restaurants, coffee shops and bakeries, clothing boutiques ranging from designer to basic, a small hotel for visitors and clandestine encounters alike, an indoor swimming pool and waterslide, a mini-golf course, sports equipment shops, bars and dance clubs, roller skating, arcades, dayspas, sex shops, VR rooms, and many other types of entertainment-oriented establishments. Much of it is also automated, though there many of them (such as restaurants or bars) that can't function without living servers and cooks, so many of these don't function. If you wish to claim one of these businesses for your character to run, please see the Occupation Request page.

PARK
● At the bottom level, below the housing, there is a park with sod grass, short walking trails, and a small lake in which anyone can swim. There is a nice cover of trees and the weather is almost always pleasant.

GETTING AROUND
● Most getting around in Anchor is on foot, with the broad breezeways that line each floor providing a pleasant walking experience. To move between floors, there are lifts in many locations that go up and down from top to bottom, and there are also stairways in case of fire or emergency. The large metal rails that span from the park at the bottom to the very top are intended for emergency evacuation procedures with large pods able to hold a great many people moving on them.

click on thumbnails for larger view

[images used to represent Anchor found here]
[code credit to

tookthestars]