Syensy's art blog

MUCH longer than intended ramble about the general conditions of the various zones during Recycle below.

During Recycle depends on the Zone and is primarily what survived of life before. The new guardians are a lifeline keeping the Zones from genuinely falling apart and turning into their purified counterparts (again), but being suddenly revived from a state of purification isn't just a quick fix. Save for the Room, all of the zones are still shattered and broken Physically from that connection having been severed, and, generally, are overrun with spectres. There is still transport between the zones possible via a system set up by Zacharie, but few know of it and even fewer use it; none of the three guardians or their residents are very aware at all of what's happening in the other zones, and none of them have any clue the Queen is straight up missing. Likewise, the Room's elsen are entirely clueless of the state of things outside of the Room.

Zone 1: Overall the elsen of Z1 are enjoying a Very Nice break from Dedan and are practically on vacation. The only ones still working are the ones that Really want to do work, and are probably doing the best out of all the zones! Plenty of (liquid) food and materials and little to worry about. The most they have to worry about is the meat fountains of Alma near overflowing and occasional spectre outbreak, but none of them are too concerned about those things. Dailies probably consist of enjoying Awesome Alma Meat Slop, hitting the Pentel barns to see Awesome Cows, and chilling by the numerous plastic sea locations.

Pentel is more of a petting zoo, Damien is not the safest, Shachihata is defunct, and Alma is kind of submerged. Most work being done is primarily in Pentel, Alma, and somewhat Damien, though nowhere near as many working as under Dedan. Any given day would probably involve seeing the local guardian Decker running around like a headless chicken working on whatever errand he's currently focusing on.

Zone 2: Zone 2 is probably the closest to it's purified state out of the three; Salvo is kind of MIA, so there's no guardian to rebuild the zone or protect its inhabitants from spectres. Most elsen are content staying within the walls of the (mostly) safe residential district, so it feels like Bismark has shrunken in on itself; the mall is vacant, the library is rarely visited, and the amusement park even rarer, even though the later two are still functioning. For the most part, a good chunk of residents spend most of their time and have moved most of their activities to the residential district, such as with Caramel running his shop out of his home for example.

There is a group in Bismark following Luzon, someone fulfilling the role of guardian in Salvo's place. Although they mean well, they've become somewhat of a cult-like figure to some of the zone. Unlike the standard Bismark resident, those in Luzon's group tend to be a bit more adventurous and careless than the typical Bismark resident, and as such spend more of their time outside of the residential district.

...Much to the irritation of Plause, one of the few elsen left running what is left of the amusement park.

Luzon does what he can to "protect" them and supply them, but he's just one non-guardian. For elsen sticking to safety, daily life probably consists of Bunker Slop, standing around in the residential area, rinse and repeat. For the reckless, the above applies with additions of visiting the shopping mall for Awesome Leftover Abandoned Products, Premium Bunker Slop, and other such goods; and hey, the amusement park isn't that bad off!

Zone 2 is also experiencing a bit of a famine due to the supply chain with Z1 being entirely cut. A saving grace is the extensive amount of preserved goods they have being... well, a consumerist paradise. Previously, at least.

Spectres are much more of a problem in Z2 than any other zone.

Zone 3: Z3 is an absolute trainwreck. The average elsen in the zone is on a higher standard sugar high than under Enoch. Great for them! Not so great for their health probably. Unlike Z2, Malic has been able to do some repairs to the zone, so it's at least not incredibly inaccessible. Life in Z3 is probably the most similar to life pre-Recycle out of the three zones: sugar and its production are still the primary concerns, there's still abundant death, and spectres and burnts still roam the halls fairly freely.

What's different though is why that's all occurring; although Scire managed to be the self-appointed OSHA regulator for safety in the zone, entirely overhauling Enoch's detrimental "safety" guidelines, Malic has decided that just about any problem can be solved with sugar. Malic and Scire can never agree on anything, most elsen in the zone are absolutely zoinked on sugar, and while Malic's doing what she can, there's a terrible spectre and burnt problem due to the amount of burnings and casualties.

Oh, and that supply chain issue Decker caused on accident? Causing a critical food shortage in Vesper since Vesper gets food primarily from import being. well. a sugar factory with not much in terms of saved food supplies. They have like very little food. Another problem Malic thinks sugar can at least stave off. Also leading to a minor probably nothing verrry tiny issue of rampant cannibalism in the zone.

That, and research being done on finding or creating other food sources. Thanks Mel.

Lastly, all of the zones (Room included) have at least one Doctor; Zone 3... is admittedly not doing too hot in that department, though, as its previous doctor was murdered (ButterScotch) and its new doctor kind of forgot a lot of things from sugar addiction and also believes everything can be solved with sugar.

The Room... is Mostly the same, but there's an unease to it. Something's off, even for those of the Room. The Room never was properly purified, but like the other zones, it is also barely hanging on. The Room itself exists in a stasis of sorts, but that stasis is wavering, causing the elsen to start feeling the creeping feeling of burning and other issues. For the most part, those in the Room spend their time biding their time, waiting for Something to change. That whatever emerges from the cocoon isn't malicious. That the Queen gets back. Some news. Anything. They're patient, they can wait. They have hope.

For context, in Recycle, most of the elsen in the room come from two places: either they were made specifically for the Queen herself for the room or they were notable accomplished Zone elsen given as gifts to the Queen.

Analyst is from this first category; they were previously a notable engineer and analyst from Zone 3 who helped with sugar efficiency and facility planning. As such, they ended up as a top choice for being gifted to the Queen. As Such As Well become Zone 3 is Zone 3, being notable like that also meant some combination of being Incredibly high on sugar always forever because of Enoch rewarding them with sugar.

You'd think being in the room would be an issue given there's no sugar there, but nope. It's in a stasis and Analyst is perpetually* stuck in a sugar high (*until that Room Stasis(tm) wears off and they finally experience a massive never before seen sugar crash probably).

...Also turns out also having an engineer in a place with nothing really to engineer isn't too enriching for them. Everyone in the room is too boring (or too weird considering how most of the room are) to be concerned with whatever Analyst is cooking up most of the time, so they mainly worked with plastic and studying its uses.

...Stopping there for a moment. Who the hell is Secretary you may ask? Great question! Elsen made for the room he loves his job he loves the Queen he loves Hugo he loves the Room he loves everything In the Room he Also loves Analyst. Secretary of the Queen and organizer of plastic shipments extraordinaire: Secretary!

He's kind of like a shivering chihuahua and doesn't know much at all about Non-Room things. You'd mention literally anything that's a daily occurrence for elsen in any of the non-room zones and he's looking at you like the "I don't know... That's scary..." old man.

Both of those things are also why the Queen disappearing was of Monumental concern for him. He loves the safety, stability, and certainty of the Room, and with the Queen gone, that's kind of all out the window.

Not to mention a weird looking ominous cocoon that gives him the heebie-jeebies.

With that said, that's why Secretary clings so much to Analyst; that's pretty much one of the only certainties and safeties he has left.

Back to, quite literally, the robot in the Room though; Analyst had prompted robots several times and nobody liked that (though in analysts Not defense it being "replace elsen with robots" so.). Secretary in his "the Queen is totally alive and coming back trust" denial brought up the idea of a protection of some kind for their Dearly Beloved Dear The Queen against Evil Mean Mysterious Individuals Such As The Better which Analyst immediately turned into "ok we're not building a canon I'm not doing that. ...what if robot." And so robot it was!

Canonically, Six's design was inspired by the Ballman comics due to Caretaker's input. Analyst had never really read the comics. Six doesn't know shit about the comics. Neither of them know anything about baseball. Caretaker just showed Analyst the comic one day because of Hugo reasons and Analyst went "what if looked like that."

Analyst created Six solely to be a weapon and guard for the Queen in whatever way that is; they didn't intend for her to deal with other things, exist outside of the room, and certainly not to be sentient. Though they may chalk that up to them being that good of a programmer, they don't genuinely view Six as sentient and treat her as such. Six, frankly, hates seeing it for repairs for this reason.

On the other hand, Secretary taught Six various things (...though primarily about the Room...) and viewed and treated him like his kid basically. Even if he thought Six was Creepy and Unsettling because That's Not An Elsen And Looks Kind Of Freak for all of two seconds, he loves her dearly.

Later on, though, with Six doing Zone Errands:tm: with Wayfar, the Room is getting less stable and The Nefarious Moth is Nefarious Mothing. Analyst starts to feel The Effects of a vague sugar crash and with The Moth Secretary promptly loses his shit. And his head. He kind of burns because his "Yes Yes The Queen Is Fine" shield finally shattered into a billion shards with The Moth so rudely declaring she's the Queen now.

Analyst also loses his shit over this and is devastated and created Yet Another Robot That's Actually Elsen-Like This Time because they got kind of lonely about Secretary up and burning like he's still alive and Analyst is caring for him but also christ they're lonely and they want to talk to someone that isn't one of the weirdos (derogatory) in the room that they don't like* (*mostly they don't like them).

This goes well! Eight is indeed a functioning bot! Analyst kind of also dislikes Eight because Eight is doing a very bad job at being Like Secretary despite literally being an entirely working and improved robot from Six and also a sentient individual. Eight kind of fucks off because like Six Eight also dislikes analyst. congrats Analyst you're a x2 deadbeat parent.

Secretary is @somberine 's and The Moth (AKA Doctor) is @goldenteddie i love both of those freaks dearly. Walten had this to say about Secretary as well.