Ahira's Hangar

--The Order of Mystic Mathemeticians and Other Seekers of the Ineffable Flame was founded, as was the city of Neverness, on the planet Icefall, 2908 years before Mallory Ringess was born. The reason they choose this particular spot was due to the fact that one of their pilots (a deep-space explorer) fell through a Manifold pathway and discovered a region of space that no one believed existed. The region is called "Thickspace" and contains an infinate number of routes to and through different parts of the Manifold. Essentially, as they now know it, it is the nexus or the major junction of the Manifold that offers pilots the opportunity to map and jump though hyper-connectives (wormholes, if you like) to fenester (or open a 'window') to anywhere in the galaxy, and/or beyond. Needless to say the Manifold is an incredibly dangerous, and beautiful, place and if you don't know what you're doing your Lightship can explode, you can go crazy or you can get caught in one of its mysterious webs (such as a Decision Tree or an Infinite Tree) and remain there till you die, unless you can calculate or mathematically theorize your way out--if tou really can... Thickspace just happened to be located near a cold, cold planet in the middle of nowhere and this is where the Order decided to plant it's roots.
--There are no real continents on Icefall, actually not much land at all, just some occassional islands or island chains completely surrounded by ice "seas". The Order set up it's pilot training center on a mountainous island they named Neverness. Neverness is a city/island that sprang into being by supporting The Academy: The Order's huge base and training schools for pilots and many, many disciplines that support exploration. There are thought to be over 180 support disciplines and many of them have their own Colleges in Academy, the Pilot's College, for xample is called Resa, these disciplines include; Cantors: mathematicians, Cetics: who interface with cybernetic spaces,
Horologes:quantum "timekeepers", Akashics: who map and create roads within the brain, Scryers: eyeless ones who are oracles and visionaries, Eschatologists, Professionals, Academicians, Historians, Holists, Remembrancers, Programmers, Neologicians, Mechanics and Ecologists.
--Neverness is occupied by all sorts of traders, alien refugees, merchants and many who settle there for their own particular reasons: usually profit or learning. But the Academy is it's center and beings come, or are sent by their parents, from all over the thousands and thousands of civilized worlds at very early ages to study and, hopefully, master these disciplines thereby become members of "The Order". The Academy, in Mallory's time, is now totally integrated with the city and altogether it's architecture is stunning; twisting, turning, arched and spiraling towers and skyscrapers made out of obsidian, shatterwood, diamonds and granite. Intersected by mulitcored glissades and slidderies that the inhabitants skate, or sled, across to reach their various destinations-- Northshore, the Hofgarten, the street of 10,000 bars, the Farsider's Quarter, the Hollow Fields, the Fravashi district, wherever.. Fall Far and Well Pilots!<i>Edited by: danlo60 at: 12/27/06 2:47 pm
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