The Community
A deeper cavern inside the Bilming caverns that holds Wayfarer, a painted town built around an Edwarn-era Set experiment: kidnap victims with Allomantic lineage are kept underground and told the world above ended in ashfall, so they will, over generations, breed a captive supply of Metalborn for the Set to recruit or to spike. The cavern also conceals the site Entrone is preparing as Autonomy's perpendicularity for the invasion. MB2:TLM:Ch 56
A small painted town sealed inside the deeper half of the cavern complex, separated from the Set's working tunnels by a tall wooden wall with hidden one-way windows. Floodlit from above, with painted flowers and grass on the floor and sculpted foliage along its streets, it holds rows of houses and ordinary people in everyday clothes who walk those streets calmly — apparently unaware of the order to quarters, the gunfire, or the invasion being staged just beyond their false sky. The townsfolk are the population Entrone is keeping safe; the wall keeps them from seeing what is being done in their name. MB2:TLM:Ch 53 superseded at MB2:TLM:Ch 56
A place deeper inside the caverns, referred to by Entrone and his scientists only by name. Gave leaves the lab shack *to see to the perpendicularity* at the Community; the editor of the *Seasons* tells Marasi she believes it is the invading army's staging ground. Whatever the place actually is, it is bound up with Autonomy's portal onto the planet and the next phase of the Set's plan. MB2:TLM:Ch 50 superseded at MB2:TLM:Ch 53
Known facts
- edwarns-allomantic-breeding-experimentOriginally conceived by Edwarn Ladrian as a long-term solution to the Set's shortage of Allomantic power: kidnap people with Allomancy in their family lines (with a lottery *weighted toward women of childbearing age*), seal them in the cavern, and convince them that the surface has been destroyed in ashfall so they will live, breed, and raise Metalborn children for the Set to recruit — or to spike for Hemalurgy — generations down. After Edwarn's death the project was inherited by Telsin and Gave Entrone, who built Wayfarer on top of it.MB2:TLM:Ch 56
- no-metal-ruleThe cavern is kept almost entirely free of metal: no nails in the buildings, no lamps, no window frames, no street lights — only aluminum for the ceiling floodlights and the public address speakers. The cover story given to the residents is that *metal mutants* on the surface can sense iron and steel and would be drawn to it; the real reason is that the captives include a high concentration of Metalborn and the Set cannot risk arming them.MB2:TLM:Ch 56
- shown-real-skyLed up the long ladder by Marasi, Armal and three other former Community captives reach the surface observation room and watch the falling-ash image flicker on the wall. In the next room they put their hands through the projection itself. Then Marasi opens a second door onto a real street in a real Bilming night, electric light twinkling across the city. It is the first time they have seen the sky in years — and, for Armal's generation, in their lives.MB2:TLM:Ch 68
Backreferences
- summaryMB2:TLM:Ch 50
- factAutonomy
- factEditor of the Seasons
- factPerpendicularity
- summaryMB2:TLM:Ch 53
- factMoonlight
- factThe Set's Hemalurgic Creatures
- summaryMB2:TLM:Ch 54
- factAon Tye-A
- summaryMB2:TLM:Ch 56
- factArmal
- factWayfarer
- summaryMB2:TLM:Ch 57
- factMarasi
- factGave Entrone
- factGave Entrone
- factPerpendicularity
- factThe Perpendicularity Pool
- summaryMB2:TLM:Ch 64
- factMarasi
- factThe Perpendicularity Pool
- summaryMB2:TLM:Ch 68
- factArmal
- factThe Community
- factWayfarer Observation Room