Noma

Noma is a city of experimentation in structure and form. An artificial intelligence, distributed in a neural network and sometimes also referred to as Noma by the city’s residents, directs activity in the city. It issues commands from everywhere and nowhere, its ultimate purpose unknowable to outsiders. Noma’s AI uses a coordinate system to identify the city’s hexagonal sectors.
Each sector serves as a laboratory unto itself, distinct from the others and separated by shallow, dry canals. Many parts of the city resemble those of technologically advanced civilizations, seemingly with distinct industrial, residential, and commercial areas. Most sectors are filled with modern-looking structures, including skyscrapers, but stranger buildings occupy several sectors. In one sector, odd sky bridges connect globular mounds similar to those that social insects on other worlds build. In another, bizarre angular spires jut from smooth pools of viscous liquid, like raindrops frozen on impact. Ringed edifices in another sector connect in intricate patterns that seem to hold some enigmatic significance, if only because the connections serve no obvious architectural purpose.
Even within sectors filled with ordinary structures, bizarre exceptions are prevalent, and careful observation reveals strange details. Doors might have hinges on both sides, or what appear to be windows might actually be large, opaque mirrors. Entire blocks might be exact duplicates of neighboring ones, except for one detail, such as the height of lampposts, the existence of faux wear marks, or the width of the street. Other areas are apparently in ruins, though for some it’s difficult to tell whether these structures were designed that way or if they represent experiments that are, as yet, unfinished or abandoned. Other areas are filled with a hodgepodge of buildings, where some seem to be vertical slices of preexisting structures, as though they were cut out from a modern city on some alien world and slotted into place next to other equally out-of-place edifices.
Despite Noma’s structural diversity, almost everything in it is created from a UPB-like liquid called polyfluid. This dark, purplish liquid can be arranged into any atomic configuration to replicate ranges of material properties such as conductivity, density, hardness, tensile strength, transparency, and more. Polyfluid lends a telltale purple tinge to the objects made from it, but such objects are otherwise indistinguishable from traditionally manufactured items of a similar nature.
Anacite-like constructs roam Noma’s streets and structures. However, the city can be eerily quiet. Its population is small and focused. Energy production is silent, and other activities produce no more sound than is intended or necessary.

Demographics

Noma has a small population for a city of its size and scope, yet it has nearly as many quasi-social structures as it does sectors. Its residents, the anacite-like protocites, share many common features with their counterparts on Aballon. A few model lines directly match anacite equivalents. However, some protocites are alien even to their robotic kin, particularly two of the most common protocites, speakers and reclaimers, though myriad other strange models are part of Noma’s populace. A few truly unique units also bustle about the city, fulfilling directives known only to them and Noma.
A given speaker is apt to be confined to a single sector for the duration of its existence, and it focuses on that sector’s purpose. Although these constructs are likely to be nonhostile, and some interact with visitors, none seem able or willing to reveal what they’re doing—it’s possible they don’t know. They might receive only the instructions they need to carry out assigned tasks on a moment-to-moment timeline. It seems Noma itself isn’t interested in engaging with visitors.
Reclaimers patrol Noma, most often using the shallow channels between sectors to travel rather than traversing thoroughfares, which could interrupt ongoing activities in a sector. This habit can make the channels dangerous paths for visitors. Reclaimers might ignore intruders, but they’re also likely to try to reclaim damaged or broken gear, unconcerned about taking parts of the owner at the same time. Fighting fixated reclaimers off might require destroying them.
Spidery heat-sink protocites can be found all over Noma. They are especially numerous at its edges, near the bubble separating the city from its awe-inspiring energy source. Normally dormant, these tiny protocites absorb and store excess heat when needed, using the influx of energy to clamber to cooler areas and distribute heat there. In this way, they help to maintain balance and prevent dangerous hot spots from forming. These protocites use some harvested energy to return to safe locations for dormancy, clinging to spires at the tops of buildings or forming clusters near regular heat-spike sources, such as the Blasting Grounds (see Notable Locations).
Various other protocites exist. Like most of the creatures here, they rarely interact directly with each other, even when they cross paths. Some of these creatures resemble anacites. Larger protocites—some built for conflict, others less obvious in their purpose—can be found roaming the city, and clouds of minuscule flying protocite nanobots buzz around in sudden, inexplicable migrations. Constructs of intermediate sizes perform various tasks, from construction to whatever other mysterious endeavor Noma directs them to pursue.

History

The origin of Noma, much like that of the Burning Archipelago and virtually every bubble-city in The Pact Worlds’ Sun, is shrouded in mystery. As ever, The Gap further complicates matters. It’s possible that Noma’s autonomous AI was disrupted by this galaxy-wide scrambling of information, but it’s equally likely that the Gap altered a management system meant to be guided by intelligent beings into an autonomous one. Aside from Noma’s Core, little trace remains of whoever or whatever constructed the original bubble and set the grand experiment in motion. Noma’s enigmatic founders must also have deposited an enormous supply of raw polyfluid in the city’s canals at some point in the past. The scale of the information-collecting efforts necessary to build the city’s database of alien civilizations would certainly have required massive amounts of effort, magical or otherwise. Whatever Noma’s origin, its connection to the First Ones—the progenitors of the creatures that now populate the planet Aballon—is undeniable. While the exact nature of this relationship is unclear, there are multiple possible explanations. One possibility is that the First Ones seeded the bubble-city, just as they did Aballon, and the resultant artificial evolution took radically different courses because of the divergent environments. Another perhaps more likely theory is that the First Ones created Aballon’s anacites for different reasons—it could be that Aballon was a control and Noma was a radical line of research. The least likely but perhaps most tantalizing explanation is that Noma is where the First Ones originated, perhaps as Noma’s intended result. Maybe these synthesized beings left Noma and then fashioned Aballon’s anacites in their own image.
Noma’s Core is by far its oldest building, but it’s impossible to tell the age of any other structure with any certainty. Given the constant recycling of the city’s materials, it’s difficult to say how old the whole place is. (An estimate of millennia is liable to be most accurate.) Examination of the city’s most deteriorated structures, other than the Core, reveals they were built that way. Their apparent “age” is an intentional feature rather than an actual state of disrepair. Neither is there a clear rhyme or reason for the layout of the bubble’s hexagonal grid. Adjacent sectors might seem, at first glance, to be iterations of one another, but upon further study, the relationships could be chalked up to coincidence. Other neighboring sectors are more glaringly disparate, once again raising the question of the purpose of the place.
It becomes apparent in Noma’s Core that the city had a bizarre visitor or visitors at some point. What effects this intrusion had on Noma, if any, are impossible to tell. However, some cryptic information can be gleaned from the Core itself, in the form of physical evidence, possible visions, and ancient memories.
Noma has also suffered a recent incursion of creatures from the Plane of Fire who damaged and destroyed several key pieces of technology. They destabilized the bubble that protects Noma from the sun. What lasting impact this invasion might have, and whether the city can recover without outside help, remains to be seen.

Tourism

Noma is full of locales seen by few creatures in the galaxy.
The Assembly: This broad, round amphitheater-like plaza is host to the Assembly, one of the regular events in Noma. Following a timetable known only to the city’s AI, 256 speaker protocites from all over the city periodically assemble here, in a rare example of such creatures leaving their assigned sectors. They arrive at exactly the same time, ringing the plaza in a crescent and facing inward. These protocites remain for several hours, silent and inactive the entire time, before they return to their home sectors, peeling off from the group one at a time. Someone trained in Computers, Culture, Engineering, or a Profession involving organizing workers can infer this activity might be a remnant of a time when Noma’s first speakers were issued commands in person. Therefore, the Assembly might be composed of protocites still following a defunct protocol, waiting for instructions that will never come.
Blasting Grounds: At the edge of the city, the Blasting Grounds sector seems devoted to producing technology that can survive direct contact with the forces inside a star. Deducing this fact requires traveling to the sector’s center through layer upon layer of tall, semicircular shielding. A character trained in Engineering, Physical Science, or an appropriate construction-related Profession can tell, after seeing several shields, that the structures radiate out from a central point to form concentric shells. At that center is a large, scorched platform topped with a thin layer of hot siccatite. The shields separate the platform from the rest of the city. Characters trained in the aforementioned skills can comprehend the purpose of this arrangement.
Periodically, a protocite journeys to the platform or protocite speakers place an immobile construct there. Then, after any helper protocites leave, Noma’s bubble exposes the platform to the sun for a time in a narrow beam. When the bubble closes and the site cools, either protocite speakers return to collect the remains or reclaimers emerge to clean up. Heat-sink protocites also collect and disperse excess heat.
Concealed Colossus: Visible behind the facade of an otherwise normal-looking windowed skyscraper is an enormous, smooth-walled silo, hundreds of feet tall. The structure has four ground entrances that lead to enormous elevators. These conveyances go only to the top of the structure, where a single opening allows access to visitors and a stream of sunlight. Hanging from struts and scaffolding within the silo is a half-constructed protocite colossus, so large that it dwarfs some of Noma’s other structures. Someone trained in Engineering or Physical Science can discern the colossus is shielded like a starship and seems likely to be resistant to solar forces. However, it doesn’t have any weapons.
Whether the city has ceased developing the colossus, and for how long, is as unclear as what purpose the construct might serve if ever completed. Given its hidden location and massive size, the project might have begun as a response to an external threat the city sensed. This massive construct’s continued existence could be an efficiency measure. Noma’s AI might not want to start over the next time a similar protocite is called for.
The Gallery: In a bizarre approximation of an art gallery, display screens cycle through generated artwork, while daises hold sculptures that collapse into polyfluid only to reshape themselves into new forms. The works bear little resemblance to any known art, but aspects are familiar to those of common species of the Pact Worlds. Looking at any piece is like staring at pieces of several almost-familiar creatures, objects, and landscapes as if through a kaleidoscope. A small number of protocite speakers periodically tour the gallery, pausing to observe each work for the same amount of time before moving to the next. Although this observation period is exact on a given “tour,” it changes during each visit.
Glass Houses: A series of bungalows, reminiscent of some planets’ suburban co-living structures, stands within this sector. However, the street side of each “home” is made of transparent material. Protocite speakers dwell in the structures, divided into groups of varying numbers of individuals configured in disparate ways, like families, couples, or other cohabitants. The individuals perform various tasks, including some leaving the area for other activities, in a 24-hour cycle, including rest periods. None act like they are aware of being visible or of being able to see into the other groups’ “homes.”
Lowing Hollow: This squat, domed structure contains long tubes, each of which has a huge fan at the end and an automatic iris doorway at the other. The tubes are of varying diameter and have different wind speeds. Operation of the fans creates a lowing chorus that can be heard as far away as adjacent sectors. The purpose of these wind tunnels is unclear, but an individual trained in Engineering or Piloting can tell the passages are large enough for aerodynamic testing.
Machine Reef: Structures and lighting in this sector mimic a biological reef, the violet light providing some relief from the yellows and oranges of the sun. A trained Engineer can tell that, instead of being built out from a skeletal frame, the reef-like edifices are formed from countless small, jagged, rudimentary shapes sutured together with flexible strands. Although the structures are in open air, their design seems centered on principles of fluid dynamics. An individual trained in Engineering, Life Science, or Physical Science can tell these buildings would indeed serve well as an undersea complex.
The Melt: This entire sector appears to have been directly exposed, however briefly, to the full intensity of the sun. Buildings are warped and bent in extreme angles, partially collapsed, and pocked with bubbles, as though the metallic structures flash boiled and then resolidified within moments. Noma has deigned neither to entirely erase the sector by cordoning it off and fully exposing it to the sun, nor to send in reclaimers to return the ruined structures to polyfluid. The most likely explanation is that this area is a transitional stage in a long-term test.
Noma’s Mouth: In this area, a large circular pit, several hundred feet wide, is filled with enormous grinding plates similar to those reclaimers use to chew up material Noma designates for recycling. Dozens of empty polyfluid canals extend from the pit’s fringes. This place was once a major reprocessing center. The “mouth” is still used when Noma directs a gigantic protocite or other mobile experiment to throw itself in.
Reclaimer Manufactory: This manufactory resembles the machine forges of Aballon and is of outsize importance to Noma. A large number of the city’s reclaimers are produced here. The manufactory’s complex assembly line produces the constructs, scaling the speed of the process to accommodate the city’s needs. As many as several reclaimers can be produced each hour, but the manufactory usually produces only one every 24 hours. This place could further prove that some deeper connection exists between Noma and Aballon.
The Shifting City: The structures composing this sector are on tracks built into the ground on a massive grid. Each edifice moves constantly, albeit at a pace of only several inches per hour. As a result, the sector’s layout shifts continually, with alleys becoming avenues and areas exchanging locations. Remaining in one place for any length of time can be disorienting for sapient creatures, as their surroundings shift gradually yet undeniably.
Shiver Shell: This structure is shaped like a nautilus shell, a spiraling series of chambers that grow smaller and smaller as they curve in toward a tiny central chamber. The temperature in each chamber, starting from the largest and proceeding inward, is colder than the last, until the final chamber, which comes within a fraction of a percent of absolute zero. Multiple speakers are frozen solid in the inner chambers, each leaning toward the next chamber as though struggling to proceed when their movement was arrested. Someone trained in Engineering or Physical Science realizes the speakers closer to the center have modifications designed to insulate them from the cold. All have had their data cores removed.
Sorting Grounds: In this large warehouse, scores of simplified protocite speakers interact with metallic gray cubes about half their size on a flat floor. Seen from far enough away, the chaos might seem to have some order; tracking the actions of any individual robot reveals that the programming is very simple. Each construct wanders in a random direction until it encounters another robot, an obstacle, or a cube. Each robot has different criteria for what to do next, whether it’s stopping for a specific time, turning in a new direction, dropping a cube if it’s holding one, picking up a cube if it has none, and so forth. Watching a robot long enough reveals the cycles of its behavior. Given sufficient time, most metallic cubes might make their way into a single organized pile. Hours later, they might be scattered across the warehouse in a seemingly random arrangement. Other speakers wander the floor like impartial overseers, while a reclaimer patrols the perimeter, devouring any smaller protocite that ceases functioning.
Spectrum’s Reach: This conical tower has an internal ramp that spirals up its interior, and opaque floors and ceilings horizontally divide it into levels. The walls of each level allow in exactly one wavelength of electromagnetic radiation and don’t allow it to pass back out again. Most floors are completely dark. However, several floors of colored visible light can be found near the top of the structure. One high floor is reddish and filled with extreme heat. Farther up, ionizing radiation floods several floors, starting at low radiation and proceeding up to severe.
The Stacks: This coliseum-sized manufactory is dedicated to creating struts, similar to the framing beams used on many worlds for large structures. Reclaimers deposit polyfluid into huge hoppers, which begins a complex process. Several miles of conveyors wind through countless stations, where struts are extruded, cut, shaped, reshaped, polished, and deposited in neat stacks. Protocites configured with forklift-like protuberances then sort and stack the struts in vast warehouses, according to some kind of arcane system, building a new warehouse as each one fills. A character trained in Engineering or a supply-chain-savvy Profession realizes a significant and increasing amount of polyfluid is tied up in these stacks. This reserve might serve a future plan, or the facility may have become caught in a loop of pointless production independent of Noma’s AI.

Type

City