Circular Unity
Location: Mechanus
Character: Today is today, and we have our routines. Of course, we don’t know what they are, we haven’t decided. But we will, we do, we have. Everything is linked, you see. Free will is an illusion because the outcome of our every action is predestined. So, no matter what routine we take, the end is the same. Thus, all routines, in their infinite variety, are the same. We have our routines. We have yours, too. but our destiny is embossed in metal. There is nothing more liberating, after all, than a sense of the inevitable.
Ruler: The city has no organised government or ruling body. The clearest term describing the ruler of the Circular Unity is Fate. Because it is impossible to do that which is not predetermined, no one has ever held a title of power. Fate has kept this from happening.
Behind the Throne: It’s not as though people haven’t tried to circumvent the fate which Circular Unity has given them. On at least three occasions, the slaadi have come here and tried to lay waste to the city and enslave the population. In every case, they found themselves powerless to the force of the river of future history, as it swept them from the city. Currently, an Anarch named Zrenim (planar githzerai rogue [he/him] / Anarch’s Guild / N) and a Signer named Bujencci (planar tiefling wizard [she/her] / Sign of One / NG) have joined forces to try to bend Circular Unity to their wills. Though without success so far, they are determined they can succeed. Zrenim wishes to bend the axle of one of Circular Unity’s rings to stop the movement of the entire city. Bujencci tries in vain to affect people’s choices, though magic, guile, and will. Both have actually shown some signs of progress, but this, too, was determined ahead of time. The locals, grinning, call them the town’s Freedom Fighters.
Description: Circular Unity is, at its simplest, sixteen interconnected flat rings which can line up to form a flat disk. The outermost ring is connected to the rest of the gears of Mechanus, and has a toothy edge, locking it in with other gears. Each ring is connected to the next smallest and next largest ring by a single spoke. Each spoke runs along a different angle, and all of the rings rotate at seemingly random speeds. In truth, this gyroscopic burg is as organised as any other. They key is that the organisation is based on the people, not the people being based on the organisation.
To clarify: most burgs in Mechanus have lots of laws, and the character of the citizens is made distinct by those laws. In this case, Circular Unity has lost of people, and the laws (and therefore the burg) are made distinct by the people. In other words, the design is from the inside out, not vice versa.
Thus, every native of Circular Unity is born with his life planned. Every surprise is known ahead of time, every pratfall can be accounted for. The funny thing is that, because it is their life to live, no citizen of Circular Unity does anything but live the life they are born with. A barmy sod may be as lawful and as intelligent as any other citizen, but because it was their lot to be barmy, they behave in a barmy manner.
Each person’s plan for life is written on the Great Placard of Unity, a blank brass plaque which nearly covers the entire side of the city hall on the central ring. Each person sees the placard as the entire manuscript of their life (and thus, all see something different). The amount of time you will spend in Circular Unity as compared with your total life span is directly proportional to how much of your life you can see written. It’s all there, but only those destined to be born and die in Circular Unity can see it all. Thus, an explorer with a lifespan of 40 years who enters Circular Unity and will leave (they have no choice in the matter) in four days will see, at random, one word out of 5,000 in his life story on the Placard. But those are only those portions spent in Circular Unity.
The most disturbing aspect of the city is that, upon entering the burg, no on has any free will. Our explorer from the above example plans on spending a week in Circular Unity, but they manage to decipher from the Placard (out of sheer luck) that they will stay only four days. They can either ignore this or act based on it. If they ignore it, and sell their goods in record time, they might be accused of magical manipulation, and be exiled. If they act based on this portent, they sell things over-eagerly, having decided magical manipulation is the only way to get all of their goods sold in time. They charm some customers, get scragged, tried, and exiled. No matter what course they take, they’re accused of magical enchantment and exiled from Circular Unity.
Now, this is probably all very confusing, but bear with me. Now, only certain parts of a person’s life are predestined in Circular Unity, and these cannot be changed (the exile, for example). However, those actions not specified can be pursued in any way shape or form, because the outcome is always the same. Spellcaster or not, our merchant was accused, because the accusal was written into the Placard (though they could not see it). However, whether or not they are guilty is not written, so it doesn’t matter whether they actually carried out the crime or not.
Similarly, the rings of the city always seem to meet when a person is about to step across onto another ring. They don’t seem to speed up or slow down, but they are always there when they are needed. That is because every passing over the rings is assigned ahead of time. In Circular Unity’s history, no one has ever been killed or injured by falling off of the edge of a ring or getting caught and crushed between rings.
Interestingly, no one, not even powerful proxies or avatars, have found themselves immune to Circular Unity’s effects. Maddening to gods of chaos, the city is an unsiegeable bastion of Law, even more secure in Mechanus than the modrons. This unnerving immunity leads many to point to it as a dangerous source of lawful subversion.
Ultimately, Circular Unity works like a machine It operated as one precision clockwork device with intricately complicated gear that, despite their fickle natures, always turn at exactly the right time.
Militia: Circular Unity has no militia. Every attack against it has failed, for the same reason that that the townsfolk can;t change their own destinies. Disasters always seem to happen exactly when they shouldn’t (or should, if you look at it from the city’s perspective), and even the occasional invading hordes of Acheron seem to have no effect on the placidly normal lives of the locals.
Services: If a body can overcome the incredible annoyance of knowing every move they’ll make in the city is pre-planned and that there is no way they can avoid Fate, the burg is actually not a bad place to stay. Sure, there are the usual risks of harm or death, but these are never ‘accidental’, they’re predetermined.
Circular Unity has created some wonderful clocks which break down at a very specific time, so you know when to buy one in advance. Of course, this power is lost if the clocks are taken out of the city. Another useful enterprise is the trade in food. Though it is unclear where their money actually comes from, the locals always seem have just enough money to buy just what they need (unless their life is scheduled otherwise). Thus, a merchant selling food is assured of making a profit (unless, of course, Fate says otherwise).
Interestingly, there are no known portals to Sigil in Circular Unity. Not a one. This is known because it is written so in the lives of those whose fates it is to search for portals to Sigil. Furthermore, no portals from Sigil have ever been found from the Cage’s end either.
Current Chant: The current Freedom Fighters have made some small progress toward their goals, although they have yet to change a single life. What is interesting is that Bujencci, who has lived in the burg since the age of six, can read most of her life, but has been surprised to find no mention of death. If her theory is right, this means she cannot die while she remains in Circular Unity. Whether this is because she’ll become undead against her will, accidentally becomes a Prolonger (if that’s even possible), or something totally different, is unknown.
Source: Belarius. Author’s note: This piece was inspired by Arthur Dent’s inability to die until someone misses him with a disintegration pistol and the idea of Free Will being an illusion.
