The Machines of the City

The Forever Grove or The Grove was a factory, hospital, surgical center and care facility all-in-one which produced the means by which humankind achieved eternal life.  The Grove served to act as the gateway to indefinite life on Earth.  In a time long since forgotten by history but remembered by those that were rebirthed by the Grove, a team of scientists, biologists, anthropologists, gene sequencers, zoologists, microrobotic engineers, and more, synthesized the method that humans used to cheat death.  This team was lead by a man known only as the mononym Johann where his identity and actual name, age and profession have all been lost to time. He is simply credited with directing this team to steal design elements from nature to craft milli- to micro-scale robots that assisted humans to indefinitely keep the human alive. These creatures, known as Replets (replicates), worked a constant rate to symbiotically pair with the human to stave off disease, repair broken or lost tissue, restore missing tissue and even reverse the effects of aging. They contained a full sequence of the human host's genome and anatomy wherein any deviation to this stored knowledge was quickly brought back in line.  Any DNA lost to aging was restored. Any disease creating cellular havoc was eliminated. And so on.  They were designed after the tardigrade, a small creature which boasted as being "the most indestructible living creature ever". The scientific descendants to the FG scientists, after the knowledge was lost, named the lead designer after the man who discovered the tardigrade, Johann August Ephraim Goeze. 

The Grove itself sits at the end of a large Cleanrooms street, closed off to vehicular traffic, access only available to pedestrians. Like contemporaries such as the Greenhouse and Weather Machine, the Grove is a massive and beautiful structure. It was designed with Roman architecture as the key motif. Wide, sloping steps lead up to the face of the Grove; age has shown through as the steps are cracked in various places with the most pitiful of vegetation growing through. The entrance arch, enormous in length and suspended highly off the ground, is supported by four beautifully crafted marble figures. The current interpretations of these figures are unknown. Were they founders, representations of life's stages, the four elements or seasons? Who is to say. Upon ascending the steps and proceeding under the entrance's cover, one is greeted with the Grove itself, a circular building with thick columns that decorate the frame. Various ceramic benches and light fixtures surround the outside. Standing in front is a pair of large, oak doors, still fully intact. Steel handles the size of a fully grown man are placed upon the door to permit entry.

Opening the door’s reveal the chest cavity of the Grove. One is immediately met with a monumental scene. A large oak tree stands as the center piece with the branches reaching half a city block wide and tens of stories tall.  It lies bare. Four immaculate white buttresses support a dome which encapsulates the Grove. A large hole, which used to be covered in glass, allows the sun's rays to penetrate into the facility, bathing the current and higher elevated platforms in eternal sunshine. As one moves to the edge of the catwalk and peers down over, the trunk and base of the tree are seen reaching far below into a chasm. The sunlight does not reach there as branches and other platforms block its way. Looking around, no windows other than the dome are spotted.

This area is the welcome area; a staircase, the Spine, that wraps around the tree’s contours presents paths to navigate inside the Grove. Those that travel upwards, lead to a series of platforms, rooms, and houses nestled within the branches known as known as the Brain, the first of the four Grove partitions.  These buildings that were once painted in beautiful murals with extraordinary colors and designs now stand with pure white paint.  That area is where patients who have received their Replets can chose to live out their life amongst others in eternal harmony. The concentration of houses in this region is dilute. Many are obscured from the shadows from the ones at the top.  The way up to these platforms is complicated and arduous.

Taking the Spine downwards leads to the remainder of the

--Include Statues, park/nature stuff, large tree at the center, hotel rooms, murals on ceilings, Caesar's palace in Las Vegas-- 

Due to the massive implications of awarding someone with powers over mortality, the selection process for who was awarded with entry into the Grove was exceedingly narrow. Only the most upstanding, powerful, important, intelligent and altruistic could be given the microbots. Dennis, the inventor to the Weather Machine was one such person. Dorothie, the Master Gardener to the Greenhouse was another.