World - Central Hub

[kismet_loop_mods]

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CENTRAL HUB

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The very center of the safe area has becoming known as the Central Hub. It was possibly a smaller area at one time, but it’s grown to cover a great deal of land. The flat area has been built up and was likely highly populated at one time, or at least prepared with the hope of a higher population.

There are two main buildings in the Central Hub, one called “The Hub” and the other is the Warehouse, which is the true center of the city. In The Hub are places such as a bar, a large atrium, a decent sized library, a couple restaurants, a grocery store, and various apartments for both the larger, robotic community and smaller, organic community. Settled just outside of The Hub is a smaller building from which the news is broadcast.

High above Haven, centered over and likely anchored to the Warehouse, hangs what has become known simply as the Sol, a massive artificial light source in a low, fixed orbit above the planet's surface. It is synced with Cybertron's distant sun, brightening as the sun comes into view on one horizon and dimming as it disappears on the other. The Sol breaks up the perpetual twilight of Cybertron’s natural lighting and is in large part responsible for allowing plant life to thrive as well as it has. The light reaches even to the edges of the borders. The bottom of the Sol has a special covering so the center of the city is not bombarded with too much light. While nowhere near as bright as a sun, it’s probably still not a good idea to spend long periods of time staring directly at it.

Places of Interest:
THE HUB: The Hub is a large building, containing several amenities for the residents of Haven.

THE BAR: The name of the bar is “Your Place” and has a sign above the door reading “There’s no place, like this place, near this place, so this must be the place. Your Place.” The bartender is a generally friendly mech and will make sure you have whatever you want. Cause trouble, and he’ll have you thrown out. High-grade energon and a wide selection of organic alcohols are both carried here.

The bar’s double doors open into a lofty room, easily comfortable for Cybertronians of any size, an arched bank of skylights letting in light from the Sol. Directly ahead sits a “U” shaped bar that can vary in height, from sections that fold down to be more accessible for humans and minibots to taller sections in the back from larger frames.

To the right sits a small stage and DJ area plus a small dance floor, with a few tables with stools scattered around the edges. When the dance floor is not in use, pleasant music makes for nice backdrop for conversation. The left wall is lined with more secluded mech-sized booths that flank the bar's secondary entrance from the Atrium. The corners house larger curved booths with round tables. Directly left of the U-shaped bar is a human-sized spiral staircase that leads to the second floor mezzanine.

Yet this is no normal mezzanine. Affectionately dubbed “The Loft” it sits at about the 15 foot mark, making it easily between chest and eye level on most mechs. The Loft wraps around more than half the outer edge of the room, creating a haven for humans and other smaller statured inhabitants away from the stomping, shuffling feet of drunken robots. An odd mix of appropriately-sized tables and chairs are scattered about with a few secluded booths in the corners.

There’s a door at the very rear of the main room, closed, but with a sign that reads “Workers Only.” This is pretty obviously the bar’s back room for service and storage, and there is a back door from this room that exits to the outside.

The place is decorated fairly eclectically, a far cry from stark metal construction of what most might consider contemporary Cybertronian design. But much of it is an exemplary exercise in how to make junk into art, and cheery, energetic art at that. Among the decorations include a placard near the door with all the names of those who helped build the place by way of thanks (Wing, Soundwave, and McCrane being a few of those names), and a second, smaller placard is hung over the back of the bar that reads “The Score Zone.” The decor might not be to everyone’s tastes, but it is reflective of the bar’s strange mish-mash of clientele, which is mostly the point.

THE PANTRY: This is the local grocery store. If you live far from the Farm, and most do, this is the most convenient place to pick up your sustenance. Both packaged organic food and refined energon are stored here. Don’t worry, the city hasn’t yet developed a currency, so you don’t have to buy anything, just fill out a form of what you’re taking so it can be replaced the next time the volunteers head to the Farm or energon mines to restock.

RESTAURANTS: There are two places people can go for food/fuel where they can sit back and just let someone serve them. One is meant for the robot community and only serves energon, and some experimental additives if you’re interested in trying something new. The other is for the organic population and serves a variety of dishes. The head chef if always experimenting with new recipes, so you never know what might be on the menu from week to week. There is a small area where these two facilities meet, in case a mixed crowed wishes to hang out over some good food/fuel.

ATRIUM: Round like a cog, this section mirrors the Hub's name being the central structure that connects the various different wings of the Hub complex. This section is light and airy, with tall vaulted ceilings, comprised of a massive dome of skylights. Banks of rotating mirrors beneath it direct the Sol’s light in a way that is similar to the rising and setting of the sun. Scattered about the Atrium are various lounge areas suitable for people of multiple sizes on different levels: some raised, some inset into the ground. There are also planter boxes with trees, vines or other plants. Overall, it’s a comfortable place to be.

LIBRARY: It’s not massive, by any means, but it’s a reasonably fair collection of reading material. Not just Cybertronian materials, but books and scrolls from all kinds of worlds and realities. The librarian is a meticulous lady, keeping the place clean and taking very good care of the reading materials here. She will help you find anything you wish, if it exists here, and will give you the verbal raking of a lifetime if you damage anything or put something back where it doesn’t belong.

NEWS STATION: A small building not far from The Hub. A small cast of people run the station and do their best to keep people updated on any notable events throughout the city. They won’t hesitate to broadcast about a person’s activities if they feel like it, but the main point is to keep people updated on potential threats or oddities left by the Miasma. They’re able to stay so on top of things thanks to a citywide security system that reaches to the borders. The system has gone through many upgrades over time, but it still closely resembles what was first set up. It’s lovingly referred to as “The Alia” and newscasts will often begin with “Alia says” or “Alia saw”, or some similar phrase.

THE WAREHOUSE: The Warehouse is a massive building sprawling a number of miles, and is the true center of the city. Inside the warehouse, you never know what you may find. It must have taken a lot of people a lot of time to organize all the stuff, and there are various Gateways to the most commonly used areas.

The rooms of the Warehouse are filled with all kinds of strange and practical things. Just about anything can be found here. What shape an item is in could be questionable, though. Some of the things have been here for centuries – a touch could have them disintegrating on the shelf. New things are arriving all the time, dropped by the Miasma within city limits. These things are collected and added to the Warehouse.

Anything within the Warehouse is available to anyone who wants it. Just ask some of the volunteers or drone. If they don’t know where it is exactly, they’ll help you find it.

COUCH FORT: One exceptionally strange room in the Warehouse is the Couch Fort room. It’s been there longer than anyone can remember, and story has it that it was so decrepit that the original long turned to dust. But the whimsical place was rebuilt with new couches either found when first organizing the Warehouse, or built from materials found in the Warehouse. The workers there like the place, and when a couch gets too old it’ll be refurbished or replaced to keep the fort in top shape. It’s located in one of the front rooms of the Warehouse and is something of an attraction and hangout place big enough to accommodate most bots, if they’re okay with crawling.

THE CONCRETE COASTER: Not so different from what it sounds like. It's a roller-coaster made of concrete, scaled for earth-sized cars. There is even a full 360 degree loop with a launch ramp, for those adventurous enough. Careful, though – some of the concrete track is starting to crumble. If you want to give it a whirl, you might want to take the time to inspect and repair it first. (Is this inside or outside next to the warehouse?)


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