MacThorstenson

"I actually didn't model for it." Mac said, "I have no idea how the Archivist got a good enough picture of me to make this statue, but he did." He tore his attention away from his glorius marble visage and refocused on Temira as she continued talking mostly to herself. "I wonder, what I can do here, in this city, in this world. I'm just a woman, nobody special. From what I've seen, a sword is useless. I'm like a traveller that ended up in a dark forest and lost her way." "Well depending on your perspective, that could be the best position to be in. You have the entire world open to you." Mac turned and started walking across the hall, "I could take you home you know. It wouldn't be hard. Either to Roshar, or Nalthis. But why would you want to? This world is the center of something huge. Here you can meet people from thousands of different planets, learn anything you want. Something like 1 out of every 5 people on the planet were born somewhere else. Everyone here is a nobody from another planet." He stopped in front of Devaans statue. "Look at Devaan Sheonar. He was a servant for royalty when he was born, then he worldhopped and trained and then formed the Canton of Combat, the most prestigious fighting guild around. You could join them, if you wanted. Even though a normal sword isn't the most powerful weapon here, they could turn you into someone to be reckoned with." He peered closer at Devaans coat, Why would they go to so much detail on his statue? Putting an inside of his coat? "And as an added benefit, they aren't bad people either..." He trailed off. "Give me a second. The detail of this statue is different," He walked up to the statue, and reached inside of the coat, grabbing a little piece of paper. What is this doing here? As if he were at a crime scene, he only touched the edges of the page, trying to to fingerprint any part of it. After reading what was on the page, he glanced again at the statue, reading the final lines of the inscription on the plaque, "World hopping, Devaan created many magical artefacts scattered around the alleyverse.'" Mac let out a small chuckle. "Sorry for being distracted. But it looks like old Devaan left a bit more to his legacy then I thought he did." Mac looked around, the hall, not seeing anyone except for him, Temira, and the Currator. He thought about the words in the poem, one line in particular sticking out to him. 2 rings, lying on 2 lovers, forever separated. What could that mean, and why was he focusing on that one? @Sorana @Voidus

Could we at the very least change the start date? If the republic started it, then they probably wouldn’t use the day tuba was discovered as the start date, they would either use the day the republic was initiated as a start date, or maybe the end of the SDW.

The handwavium is killing me. But if its the will of the people, then I will also be fine with it.

Mac rounded the final street corner, walking into a large plaza with an enormous building on one side, its golden dome shining in the sunlight of mid day. Despite the chaos of last year, this place still stood strong, as a memorial to the strength of the people of the alleyverse. He could still see people moving around the yard, keeping it clean and organized. This, he thought, this is a place of unity. People banded together to keep the memorial above the catacombs clean and respectful. Though there was a certain irony that the people were united only in the death of their loved ones. "This is the Hall of Legends, the Doorway to the Tomb of the Forgotten, where those who died in the seven day war lay." He told Temira, "The Main hall contains several statues and a small door way for people to go into the graves to claim the belongings of their dead." He continued walking, leading the way inside the vaulted doors and into the marble halls lined with columns. "The city put a ton of resources into building this building, importing materials from all over the cosmere." He gave a nod to the Canton guards at the door. "This," He said proudly, pointing down the hall, "Is my statue. They never got the nose right, but aside from that its pretty good." @Sorana @Voidus

Mac carefully put his bowler hat back on his head. Would it be bad to share why spren started talking? Probably, Mac would hold his silence for now. He wouldn’t want to hurt anything just yet. “It is interesting. Spren are a relatively new field of study for us considering that they only just recently started bonding people again.” Recently being 300 years ish, but what did it matter? ”we don’t know a whole lot about them, but this spren seems to be oddly sentient.” @Sorana @Voidus

Mac kept an eye on the spren as it changed his appearance to mimic his. "We don't usually have too many..." Why was there a flamespren talking? It made no sense unless, well unless it was a proto radiant spren. A few thoughts fell into place, and Mac let out an ever so small smile as he continued inspecting his hat. "Well, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing to discover a fireball in my hat, but there isn't anything here right now." Now that the crisis of potential damage to his hat was gone, he refocused on Temira. "Yes, we rarely have spren, essentially spren that have such good taste as this fellow here."

I guess my question was more along the lines of why would the same city have different calendars, especially one so advanced as the AV? While I don't disagree that it would be like that in the beginning, once you reach a certain point in a cities development there needs to be some form universal time keeping, otherwise how would people coordinate business? I guess my point rests on three things: The first is that the Alleyverse planet is roughly 1000 years old. The DA was approximately 2000 years old at the fall of the final empire. Assuming the planet was created about 1000 years later, (as a rough estimate) the AV would be around 1000 years old. Second, that most if not all worldhopper groups would include people capable of astronomy. Or they would become capable of astronomy within the 1000 years of living on the planet. Meaning that they could see that the planet had 30 days to a month and 360 days to a year. Then thirdly, that the Alleycity couldn't become as advanced as it is today without significant communication between peoples in the area around the alleycity. Regardless of how many people/cultural groups were in the Alleycity at the beginning, once the ones around the Alleycity began to form into a city, they would need some form of way to mark time so that they would be on the same page. The easiest way to do this would be on a day and month basis, as both would easily fit into the year and the farming times would be consistent along this measure of telling time as well. Regardless of who decreed it, for a city to become advanced as the alleycity (somehow without a centralized government) there must have been some form of time telling communication. I mean, we have plumbing and mobiles and cars, these things don't pop up if business/production doesn't have a centralized system of telling time. While I don't disagree that it would have been chaos at the beginning, I feel like the existence of an advanced society with citywide infrastructure necessitates the existence of a centralized timing system far earlier in the timeline then we are currently at. Of course, all of this could be thrown out the window considering that the alleycity managed to become extremely advanced without having any form of centralized government, which is an unprecedented task in our world.

But considering that everything happens in the Alleycity, both before and after the seven day war, and that the republic is only over the alleycity, then why would they change? Wouldn't the alleycity have a calendar that it used before the sdw?

Hmmm... Well one proposal is to encourage my gigantic ego and name them after Mac Unimac, dimacus, trimacus, tetramacus, etc... But something tells me that that wouldn't happen. I think it would depend on what people came up with for the history, what kind of societies existed before the RP, did the guilds from when the DA was made exist etc. The age of the planet depends on a few factors, namely when in the history of the DA it was made, and where we are in relation to the rest of the cosmere atm. Honestly I would just suggest that we turn it into a 30 day per month and 12 month calendar. Remove the last 5 days of the year. and have each lunar cycle last 30 days starting on the first day of the month. If the DA wanted a way to indicate the time for the AV experiments, we would probably have named every month after the latin number. (I would say latin as it indicates that we just chose the root languages numbers to name our months. In whatever language these people speak it would be the first 12 numbers of their root language). But I don't know if that's what the rest of the population would have used. They would have come up with their own things, based on their history. A lot of the DA's history and such hasn't been outlined, but I can confidently say that we do not have a consistent calendar. The amount of temporal warping that occurs in the alleys makes that impossible. We would have local calendars for specific projects, but not one overarching one. Also, I don't think that the french revolution is comparable because the DA was never officially in charge of the planet. We always had and have the power to seize control, but the way we are currently acting is how we have acted for the history of the planet.

I like the concept, but I have a few issues with it. These are by no means an end all to the timeline, but just a few things that I would like to see put in for the final version. First is that life began tracking time way before most of the guilds were made, so imo making the names based off of guild names doesn't make much sense unless for some reason they decided to change the dating system right before the seven day war. I feel like coming up with a little bit of history/reason for naming the months adds more depth to the history of the Alleyverse, showing that it didn't start with the guilds. Also, if ene wants to do a AV prequel thread, then having more time independant month names works better. Second, because this planet/universe was created, I feel like the days/months/years would be neater then the 365 and 12. This world iirc wasn't made to model any specific planet, and they would design the revolutions and rotations to have common factors to make months consistent. The third issue is a bit bigger, that basing anything in the RP off of OOC times I feel, wouldn't work. Like if there is a big thing of inactivity in a scene, suddenly the whole thing is out of whack. I feel like an alternate system that could be used is stating the start date of a thread/encounter, then if you want to imply that time has passed you state that in your post or in a quote box. That said, I do like the idea of having the length of an era based off of the real life timing, I just don't think that dating all the encounters and threads with irl time would work. Just having people self date the times of events, and saying that you can't start anything ahead of real life time, to avoid having people start things far in the future. Or, we have them start it, at any date they want, then if the IRL time of an era has the era ending before their event, then they retcon it. I love the idea, and the first two parts are more suggestions then anything. But Something about basing the timing of events on IRL time doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me

Mac thought over her words for a couple of steps. "I suppose it depends on if there's a difference between a fight and a slaughter," He was silent for a few more steps, "I think there is. I'm not all that great at fighting, I haven't fought a lot. Every time I kill its from a position of strength. That is the bad part, I think. But an honest fight, I don't know. For being over 15 hundred years old I don't have much wisdom to share." He walked silently for a couple more steps, then saw a light in the corner of his eye, he barely had enough time to identify it as a flame spren until it landed on his head. "Storms!" He shouted, ripping off his hat. He was rather attached to it. He inspected it carefully, making sure that there was no smoldering or discoloration, before pulling it in protectively toward his chest and glaring at the firespren. "What was that about?" He asked before attempting to shoo it away. @Sorana @Voidus

New poll is up, here are the results of the previous poll.

They have been added.

"Thank you." Mac said quietly. Nodding as she explained. "That does help." He turned his head to hide a tear forming in the corner of his eye. He didn't do anything to deserve this treatment. Yet she forgave him when he turned down her gift. Sometimes people were a pain, other times they were boring, and occasionally they were wonderful and inspiring. She had dealt with the memories, despite her young age. Yet it didn't embitter her, didn't drive her insane. He shook his head in marvel, and followed her out the door. After they had walked a few steps, he said "Sometimes it's better not to forget. As painful as it is, the past can help guide you. It certainly has helped me. In recent years it has kept me humble, and it has kept me human. Some of my colleagues, I should say all of my colleagues, disagree with me. To them it is better to forget about the past, only looking toward the future. Mishaps are only as good as the lessons they teach. But once you've learned your lesson you have no more need for them. To me the past is the only sure way to know where you are going. It provides the context for your life, and is how you make decisions. Without it how would you know what to do?" @Sorana

Mac took deep breaths, trying to banish the memories. Now wasn't the time to dwell on the past. "It's alright," He said, as she came down the stairs, "I wouldn't expect you to know. Its not something that anyone knows." Mac started walking toward the door. "I appreciate the gesture, but there are some things from my past that I shouldn't mettle with." He watched, noticing her obvious discomfort. "Yes, lets go," he said, "I'm sorry for reacting how I did. If it's any consolation, you now know more about me then any living person." Idly he wondered in the back of his mind, Did Death count as living? I mean he had a daughter but... He walked to the front door and held it open for her, "The Hall of legends isn't too far from here, it's maybe a 10 minute walk." @Sorana

"Of course." Mac reached his hand out, warping a key labeled 102 into it. "Here is your key," He watched as she got her stuff situated, and he watched as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a flask. Suddenly he was 7. He saw himself sitting in the back of a house as he heard a drunk man hurting a crying women. He saw himself sneaking out the back window. Running into the Deepness. Trying to find help. To find power. He remembered taking a cookie from a man made of metal, and finding a spike inside of it. He remembered looking up and seeing the gray ceiling above the alleys for the first time. He remembered starting his journey, becoming who he was today. He remembered the path of his journey, discovering that without inhibitions he could do more, destroy more. And he remembered the regret he would feel every time he emerged from the Haze. Suddenly 1500 years passed, and he was standing in a boarding house, being offered a drink. "No thank you," He said strained, "I'm sorry, I... I shouldn't have that. We can leave when youre ready, I'll be downstairs." Turning, he made his way downstairs, leaving the situation quickly. Somethings were too dangerous for him. @Sorana

“Of course! Follow me,” Mac said as he led the way out of his office and up the stairs to the second floor. “We have three levels of rooms, starting with 2 rooms here, right across from the library, and 4 on the third floor as well as four on the fourth floor.” Turning and pointing to the room closest to the stairs, he said “this one is taken, but all the others are open. You can have your choice of room. The only difference is location, besides that, they are all identical.” @Sorana

Macs face brightened, “Certainly! Its possibly the most interesting planet out there." It was also the only bloodless accomplishment of the DA. He paused, gathering his thoughts, “First, a little bit of background. This iteration of the world was made less than 3000 years ago, by some of my colleagues. It’s held together by a giant spike in the center of the city. Along with this world, they created an alternate dimension, called the alleys, in some ways its a lot like the cognitive realm, or shadesmar as you may know it. This dimension of alleys is connect to all the alleys in every planet in the multiverse, and they allow those who have the right knowledge to travel nearly instantly from place to place.” He thought back to the far reaches of the past, back when the planet had been young. “Long ago there were multiple guilds that could use the powers of the alleys, but now only we remain. Other guilds have risen up in the city and the area around it, each having different themes and purposes. One is a guild of assassins, the Ghostbloods, there are two guilds of bakers, the Dark alleys, and TUBA, another is the scholars guild. The guilds have the power in this world, with only them having the money and resources to get things done," Now what kind of things would she need to know about the technology? Glancing around, he realized he didn't have any way to pull up a picture of a gun, or advanced technology. "Storms, this is when you need a phone," he muttered, "In terms of technology, I would advise you to be careful. There are these long rods that shoot a tiny piece of metal faster than you can see. If you are hit with those it can be lethal. Also, most people have things called phones. They are like spanreeds, but they can do a lot more. They can share messages with voice or text over long distances. I don't carry one due to certain, issues I have with them," Dang candy crush addiction, "but they can be very good things to carry around, but the technology is easily research able. With the large amount of immigrants we have here, there are lots of people who are able to catch newer people up with the technology. That's fairly straightforward. What is controversial is the recent history of the alleyverse. I can give you a rundown of it, but as I was technically a disembodied spirit for most of it, I think im not the best source of information." He paused, thinking about the seven day war and what he could share. “From what I remember about it, About 20 years ago, there was a massive guild war, with all the guilds except for mine laying siege to the city, trying to remove the spike that holds this world together, and trying to remove us from power. It ended up with a big explosion, er, blast of energy, destroying most of the city. But despite the war, those were the days of hero’s, the days of legends. The world is worse off without them.” He finished. He paused, an idea coming to the front of his mind. A memory of a place long forgotten, a hall honoring those who had fallen, and the legends of the city. "How about I give you a little tour of some history in the city? There's one place that was built as a memorial to those who fought, and a grave to those who died. Its called the hall of legends. I've always thought that it does a good job of honoring those who fell." Then he leaned in, and in a conspiratorial whisper said "It also has a statue of me for some odd reason, and I have to say that I like having a statue."

“It takes a special kind of person to deal with immortality. Thankfully the complexity of my magic makes it so that I am always learning or experimenting,” he kept his mind on his words, not thinking about what he learned to do or experiment on, “it does get tiring and lonely sometimes, but it’s never long. Things always happen that demand my attention. Im always looking forward, making sure I have something to do. Otherwise I start dwelling on my thoughts, and while reflecting is important, for me it can be incapacitating.” @Sorana

"I have indeed," Mac replied, "It was a beautiful place, though the first time I visited I didn't have much time for sightseeing. I spent around 20 years on Roshar, studying the Magic and the spren. Then I moved on." He glanced out the window, at the cars speeding by and the jaywalkers darting off the road. Cam would have a heart attack. "When I went back later it was after the Vengeance pact had been finished? Broken? Is that the right word?" He shrugged and waved his hand. "It still is a very different place from here. But I think that is a good thing. Where are you from in alethkar?" @Sorana

Mac grinned in return, and reached out and shook her hand. "Mac Thorstenson. Though most call me Mac." He took the contract back from Temeria, and put it in a file. It was an odd experience, meeting someone who didn't know him. It was oddly refreshing, and rather easing. Though for the first time in milenia he found himself repeating the same line describing department heads. "We, er I," he said, correcting himself, "am no god. Long age does not a god make. I'm human just like the rest of you," he continued, "And people aren't worms or bugs," That hadn't always been true. For much of his life they hadn't even been worms, but tools. But for the first time in years, he realized, it was true. Mac grinned, "No, they are more like dynamite. Small and simple on the outside, but when put in the right situation they can make quite the impact." He thought back to the people he met. The first generation of people living in the alleyverse. They were an interesting bunch. Then he frowned. He realized that whenever people were dynamite, they usually tried to blow him up. Figuratively. He glanced at Temeria as he continued packing up his stuff, then realized something. "Do you know what dynamite is?" @Sorana