The server room.
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To establish a new location from which the Collective can do Collective-y things. Also, to sub a fortress, because fortresses are awesome.
- Image Credit: BlueRogueVyse, Reza Afshar, Young Gook Song, Kurobot
- Canon: N/A
- Links: N/A
A shack.
- Base Name: Catalyst Point
- Classification: Anti-Siege Fortress, AI Housing Facility
- Location: Arkania
- Affiliation: The Collective
- Population: Catalyst Point typically houses one hundred people, composed of Board Members, Technicians, Field Agents, and Security Guards. If it’s absolutely necessary, it can house up to triple that, although that brings with it every issue that packing a large number of people into a relatively small space normally brings.
- Accessibility: While not intentionally hidden, Catalyst Point is rather hard to access for two reasons - the first is that it's located in the middle of Nowhere, Arkanian Tundra District. The second is that it's located in the middle of an eternal blizzard - making approaching it by the ground inconvenient at best, and aerial approaches flat out suicidal. The only safe method of access is a single mag-rail tram system, the entrances to which are located beneath various private-sector buildings on Arkania. More on that will be explained down below, in Points of Interest.
- Description: A shack. Catalyst Point is pretty much just a shack in the middle of nowhere. At least, that’s what it looks like from above ground. A couple of hundred meters below ground, at the fortress’s main entrance, it resembles…well, a giant hole in the wall. A giant hole with a blast door and a few dozen turrets defending it, but a giant hole in the wall nonetheless. Inside, however, it looks like a mix between a military installation and a corporate office building – water coolers next to the Armory, a caf station in the Security Manager’s Office, and all manner of cringe-worthy inspirational posters in the Holding Cells.
POINTS OF INTEREST
The Magrail.
- The Server Room – Also (erroneously) called ‘The Mainframe,’ the Server Room is the core of Catalyst Point, the room which houses the multitude of computers with which Xira researches, calculates, and plots. It is widely believed by the residents of Catalyst Point that Xira is hosted on one of the many servers in this area, and that she is periodically transferred from one machine to another, so as to confuse any would-be intruders. This is, of course, a lie. Although Xira does spend quite a bit of time accessing these machines, she is hosted on a server located beneath the Janitor’s closet.
- The Security Manager's Office - A bit of a clunky name, but no one ever claimed that 818's vocabulary was elegant. Despite not actually being the Security Manager (or a manager of any kind, for that matter), 818-K has named her personal residence such, for the simple reason that it is in this room that 818-K is able to observe and influence the wide array of defensive measures in place around Catalyst Point and connected locales.
- The Magrail - More a series of tubes than a single location, the Magrail is the name for the system by which members of the Collective may access Catalyst point. It is, as one might expect, a magnetic tram system which runs under the surface of Arkania. Each entry point is hidden beneath a branch of Discount Arkania Caf, a shell company whose only purpose is to provide cover for the aforementioned secret underground tunnels.
Assault Unit 818-K, charged with overseeing the construction of the various defenses around Catalyst Point, and with the Collective's bitter defeat on Nar Shaddaa still fresh in her memory, designed the new base with a singular goal in mind: construct this fortress in such a way that attempting to siege it is as painful, miserable, and costly an exercise as humanly possible.
First and foremost: Accessibility. Catalyst Point is located deep within the Arkanian Tundras, and is surrounded by a blizzard which, like a number of super-storms on other planets, appears to be never ending. This storm not only makes any approach by ground a major inconvenience at best, it also makes aerial assaults near-suicidal; sight is significantly impaired by the constant snowing, and the extreme turbulence makes any attempt at controlling an aircraft almost futile.
Should any hostiles navigate their way through the storm and attempt to enter the base, they will find themselves lead down underground, into a series of disorienting, tight corridors, wide enough only to accommodate a single-file march. These hallways twist and turn, rising and falling, all in an attempt to confuse and exhaust the intruders - what is normally a half kilometer walk is stretched out to over six. Once they make their way through that, the intruding forces will arrive at an underground checkpoint, half a kilometer from the base itself. This checkpoint, which is heavily guarded, leads to the main entrance of the base itself, and is the point at which all of the above-mentioned magrail lines meet.
Assuming the hostiles defeat the checkpoint's security forces, they will be faced with another half kilometer of perfectly straight, perfectly bland corridor. This tunnel is three meters tall by three meters wide, hexagonal in shape, lacks any features which could be used as cover, and is lined with an array of quadlaser turrets (two on the ceiling and one on each wall) every twenty-five meters. The air vents in this final stretch are 30 centimeters by 30 centimeters in diameter, and can be flooded with airborne neurotoxin at the command of Xira, or a member of the Board. This neurotoxin can also be dispersed through the rest of the base as a final resort, although this protocol can only be activated by Xira herself.
At the end of the aptly titled Death Gauntlet, a three meter thick durasteel blast door serves as the final obstacle of any would be intruders, a door which can only be opened via a biometric lock located within the base itself, keyed to open only upon reading the biometric data of a select few Collective personnel - the Board Members.
Technology Used -
Discount Arkania Caf.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
Catalyst Point does not have a long history, but it is an important one. The Collective — spearheaded by 818-K — launched its efforts to construct a proper fortress after their narrow retreat from Nar Shaddaa so that never again would they suffer such an unfortunate event. The intricacies of constructing a base in the heart of a seemingly eternal snow storm required a great deal of planning. As the only way to transport the necessary materials and tools would be to do so via ground transport. However, the Collective’s dirty secret is that the base was actually constructed out of a natural cavern network.
Once the supports were installed, it was only a matter of time to piece together the prefabricated components into a proper structure around the base’s skeleton. During this effort there were, as to be expected, a number of complications as a result. The most notable of them being a sizable cave-in near where the magrail had been installed, narrowing the passages to the eventual checkpoint. This eventually proved to be a unique opportunity to expand the base’s natural defenses. Towards the end of construction, the snow storm increased in severity and saw a number of construction crews disappear in the storm never to be found again.
In present times Catalyst Point is still technically under construction. Much of the interior is superficial and serves as expansion room; future proofing the base. If all goes accordingly, Catalyst Point will continue to serve as the Collective’s primary base of operations and most formidable fortress.
