Triumph of Progress

The Triumph of Progress, often known informally as just "the Triumph", is an enormous bronze statue standing near the southwest corner of the Rainbow Sea on the worlddisk of B'gor. The view of the Triumph from the east is considered particularly picturesque, as when the sky is relatively clear the Oleo can be seen behind it. Originally designed as a symbol of the world's improvement thanks to technological advancement, the Triumph has become one of B'gor's most famous and most recognizeable landmarks.

History

The Triumph of Progress was erected six hundred years ago as a coöperative project by Eaonics and Mathermold, and donated to the Consortium Populorum. Although the corporations claimed to have created the statue solely in the interests of fostering goodwill and showing their support of the Consortium, their real motivations probably had more to do with public relations and with buying the Consortium's favor in the hopes the Consortium would be more inclined to overlook some of their future transactions. The contruction of the Triumph took three years to complete, even with magical aid. Materials were imported from all over the world, with metals from many different sources alloyed to symbolize the international unity that the Consortium represented. The principal design of the statue is credited to a Nhevanian sculptor named Jathak Dhippata.

The enormous monument quickly became one of the best known landmarks in the world. However, with the dissolution of the Consortium, it passed through a succession of private hands, each eager to take advantage of its renown. The Triumph had always been honeycombed with chambers and passages inside, designed to be put to whatever use the Consortium saw fit, but that organization had done little with the statue's interior. The private sector, however, was quicker to do so, and the Consortium housed a series of different corporation headquarters. Over the years, while the exterior of the famous statue has remained unchanged, the interior has been greatly expanded; tunnels have been extended into the earth far below the surface, and many parts of the statue's interior have been expanded with multum in parvo enchantments. For the last forty years, the Triumph has been jointly owned by MoGoDal and Zetesis, with a minority share owned by Agheron-Tade.

Description

The Triumph of Progress depicts woman with long, flowing hair, wearing a hooded robe with the hood down. Her legs are straight and her feet slightly apart. Both her arms are stretched forward, the elbows slightly bent and the hands oriented with the palms upward. In the palm of the Triumph's left hand is a complex orrery showing B'gor along with its associated suns and moons. Triumph's right hand holds a model of a plemmyris of deltoplasm, the substance that holds the genetic information of most Sesi organisms.

Excluding the base, the Triumph is about 41 meters tall, and weighs about 360 metric tons. The pedestal and its foundation add another 32 meters.

Contents

Offices and workspaces of the owning corporations pack a fair proportion of the statue's interior. Agheron-Tade occupies a relatively small volume of the left-hand part of the base, taken up mostly by optical research laboratories with a few offices. Both MoGoDal and Zetesis take up much larger portions of the interior. MoGoDal is stationed mostly within the statue itself, where it has its corporate offices and where it processes some of its products, the raw materials to which are translocated into reception areas the largest of which in the statue's left hand. The corporation also takes up some space in the underground areas, where they do more of their heavy-duty manufacturing; their beverage products, for instance, are mixed there in huge vats. Zetesis, meanwhile, does take up most of the statue's right leg and part of torso, where many of their offices are, but most of their occupied area is underground. Some of the largest rooms there are taken up by their enormous printing presses, the loud churning of which can be heard through several walls in rooms many meters away.

The corporations do not, however, completely fill the interior space. Much of the aboveground part of the statue remains open to the public, with regular tours given. (The corporations run these operation mostly for public relations, though the money tourists spend on souvenirs and special services do also bring them in a little extra income.) Galleries inside the statue contain numerous historical and artistic displays, many highlighting the theme of national unity that supposedly underlay the statue's original construction. Tourists are also permitted into the top of the statue's head, where hidden windows allow a panoramic view of the monument's surroundings.

Large parts of the interior, however, especially the parts below, remain unoccupied. Some machinery and records remain there from some of the corporations and individuals that had a stake in the statue in the past, sometimes luring scavengers and investigators who try to break into the statue, or at least slip away from the public areas, to see what valuable devices or information may still remain there. A few trespassers are known to have made their homes in some of the deepest, unfrequented reaches of the complex, some managing to stay there for many years before being discovered and evicted by the rightful owners, and some not having their presence discovered until long after their deaths or disappearances. Not all of these squatters have been simple indigents; some powerful individuals have had lairs there, perhaps the most notable being the infamous mage Falethyne.

One particuarly extensive unused area in the statue's interior had its origin when Fettle Brothers decided to try to found a city there. Using multum in parvo to create an enormous chamber, the corporation constructed an entire enclosed town, called Wealiton, large enough to hold thousands of inhabitants. For various reasons, however, they never managed to attract more than a few score people to actually live there, and the project was quickly abandoned. The uninhabited city still exists, and many stories have spread as to what it now holds. Some doubters dismiss the rumors, but others point to the very fact that its contents are unknown as proof that there must be something there; if the city was still empty and harmless, then why wouldn't enough people have returned with reports for its status to be known for sure?