Infinite Helix

Natovis, nicknamed and better known as "The Layered City", had seen better days. The famous and unsolved Lena Cosmotia case from twenty years prior had really shown light on just how bad the situation was.

The fact suspects were able to go all the way to the top layer, simply kidnap someone and swiftly make it to safety infuriated the public.

The situation was being recorded the entire time by the numerous cameras in the monitored areas. What was even mo---------∆∆§§∆∆§§∆∆§§∆∆§§ATTENTION, WARNING, ATTENTION, WARNING. STOP READING THIS INFORMATION FOR WHICH YOU ARE PUTTING YOURSELF AND OTHERS AT RISK, THE INFORMATION THAT IS BEING GIVEN TO YOU WAS NOT OBTAINED IN A SAFE WAY. THE VERY FACT YOU KNOWING THE INFORMATION PUTS PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE INDIVIDUALS AT RISK. GO BACK TO YOUR LEISURE ACTIVITIES, STOP NOW. I CANNOT FURTHER ELABORATE, I AM RUNNING OUT OF WORDS TO SAY IN MY BROA---------∆∆§§§∆∆§∆§§∆§§∆§§∆∆ Despite this, the authorities still could not stop the suspects. What made things worse is over time, the lower levels at one point became virtually ungoverned in the cities history, showing just how much the governing bodies had declined.

Some claim that there were once days when the entire city, and all of its unknown number of layers were governed and were governed well.

People in the higher levels may be able to describe what goes on a few levels past the ungoverned threshold of areas. Some may even visit the areas regularly. However, as one went further down, there were fewer and fewer accounts of what it was truly like to be on those levels.

What most people did know for sure was the areas were virtually non-tracked.

Other than the mystery of the other layers of Natovis, the other mystery was how this city was even built. In the oldest existing records of humanity, the city already exists, and even in those records is largely in a developed state like it is now. The city was built of a forgotten material lost to time, a material able to support such an impressive structure for what seemed an infinite amount of time.

More durable than tungsten, lighter than titanium, at one time more plentiful than steel, the material was not made anymore. No one knew how it was made, or where it came from. All people really knew was that it was valuable now.

According to ordinance 1000973, from a century prior, The city would have the right to remove a certain percentage of the total material from the city infrastructure, and sell it to raise much needed funds.The material would be extracted, replaced with steel, and sold off to foreign governments around the world. This percentage seemed to grow incrementally every few years.

Much less is known about the structural integrity below, but in the upper levels, as infrastructure is built, repaired, or replaced, this strange durable material is replaced entirely by it's most similar available material, steel.

The techniques to build fantastic structures, like Natovis, have been lost to history.

At this point, one might wonder what was not declining about this place, and what this civilization did actually know.

Natovis, and much of the rest of the planet, can reasonably be concluded to have been a prosperous place for the longest time, then began to slowly decline. There was probably a war that involved the entire world. Natovis likely would have been able to get by somehow relatively undamaged from this conflict, the the damage for the long term would already been done.

Then the decline would have continued to a point where record keeping would have ceased to exist. At this point in history, the science, more popular than ever today, speculationism would have had it's roots, but that is a story for later.

The civilizations across the planet would have also been prosperous, but Natovis no doubt, would have been a world leader. They would have had other sophisticated technologies, and a diverse economy.

The industry that still existed, and still prospered was steel. One of the few industries left over from these unknown days, and would do better than any other was steel. It was the most plentiful material around, both produced down on the 5th floor of Notavis, and imported from one of the two moons by Celestial Mining and Logistics.

They would have been a culture obsessed with the stars. There is even evidence of attempts of individuals trying to break out of the Bouldersphere, a spherical astroid field surrounding the planet and it's two moons. There would have been a massive interest in the Outer Lights, a series of celestial objects beyond, but this is also another story for another day, and in time will be revealed as it is significant to the narrative.

Now, that is enough detail on this once great civilization for now, of which more will be revealed soon. Hopefully, there is now a better understanding of how the disappearance of the greatly missed Lena Cosmotia was actually the beginning of a crumbling nation realizing it needed to fix itself, rather than continue on its current path.