MaPaCoA

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  3. Locations
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  5. World Locations
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  7. Zargonia Locations
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  11. Continental Thantos*
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  13. MaPaCoA

  

 

  

The Massive Parallel Computing Array (MaPaCoA) is a facility near Dataton on Zargonia built to house the Dominion’s largest computer.

  

The Way to MaPaCoA

The pod appears to be heading into hilly terrain and at several points the track passes through hill cuttings and a couple of tunnels.  Five Tasks go by before the Travel Pod comes to a stop.

  

Locations at MaPaCoA

Travel Pod Station

A large station set in an expanse of concrete and surrounded by steep hills. As they alight with their luggage they can see that the place is lightly trafficked, groups and individuals are boarding pods. A few moments later another pod comes in behind them. There is a lightweight roof over the platform, but they are essentially outside. Currently, the planet is in its daylight cycle and the weather is overcast with a light wind gusting. At the exit to the Travel Pod Station is a Legion security checkpoint.

  

The Park

The ‘park’ is a wasteland of grey concrete. Off to one side a gaggle of vehicles are clustered by a portable hut. A fenced-off area looks reserved for air vehicles and a couple of AeroStats are parked there. Near the centre of the empty expanse there are three forlorn-looking trees and a few benches and tables – perhaps that’s the park?

Painted pathways lead to various destinations. One is marked ‘Reception’ and leads directly across the open area to a cluster of box-like concrete buildings.

  

Reception

MaPaCoA Reception is a bit like visiting an abandoned warehouse, or perhaps a mausoleum.
Behind transparent, but probably bulletproof, heavy doors is a cavernous, almost featureless, empty polished concrete space.  There are a several waiting chairs on one side of the room and on the other, a ridiculous distance away, is a single reception desk.  At right angles to the chairs and desk on the left, is a single water cooler.  A single door is located, promisingly, in the wall behind the desk.
Oliver and his comrades cross the space, footsteps echoing, wait beside an incongruous pillar with a small sign atop it that reads Queue Here while a single person ahead of them is directed back out the main doors to an obscure destination before being seen by the uniformed Vizant of indeterminate age that staffs the Reception desk.

  

HR Offices

The interior of the offices seems to be the same grey polished concrete as the exterior.  Where there are furnishings they tend to be a mix of more grey, or a dull pink colour.

  

Vizier Kahn-Serf’s Office

The office is well appointed.  
Thick carpet, panelled walls, quality furniture, large and ornate desk.  One wall is mounted with several screens, behind and on the desk is an elaborate IT set-up.  There are leather-covered visitor’s chairs.
  
 

Cafeteria

The cafeteria is a large space that actually has windows.

At the top of the escalator is an area with couches that has carpet, unlike the downstairs area, and thus is much quieter.  A floor-to-ceiling window overlooks a hillside sloping gently away from the entry park.  Hills rise and fall off into the distance.  The star is approaching late afternoon and the shadows are just beginning to lengthen.  In the distance, the clouds are dark, it seems a storm is approaching.
  

Vehicle Pool

A building off the Park with an adjacent Aerostat landing pad.

  

Governance

MaPaCoA is run by the Vizierate as a service for the whole Dominion, nothing else has the computing power housed in this facility. We have an inter-organisational agreement to pool a component of the computational capital budgets of the Vizierate, the Overlord’s Household, the Legion, and the Bureaucracy. The Buraucracy is represented as a whole by the Planning Bureau as they have some of the most intensive need for computing power.

Most of the time, a user from one of the organisations has a problem they want to solve approaches us to book a block of processing time and power and we allocate as much processor and storage space from our resource pool as is needed. However, we need to secure those resources in their own secure partition and ensure there is nothing left in there of any previous user’s activities. For security reasons, you can imagine that our partner organisations treat the joint agreement with some caution. My role here is to oversee both the internal partition security and the external security of MaPaCoA, preserve the safety of and everyone’s information, and ensure continuing trust in the joint agreement.

– Minor Vizier Kahn-Serf  

  

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