The Last Sky City

Deciphering Sky City Technology: Trials and Triumphs in the Algerian Sands

Excerpt from In the Footsteps of Titans-A Triumvirate's Unyielding Pursuit of Knowledge by Dr. Viktor Petrov

It was during my time in Algeria that I saw my first sky city. The year was 1819-I was barely twenty-one, fresh out of university in Moscow, eager, young, and hungry for knowledge and adventure. Me and my companions, Boris Morozov, who we called "Borya", a fellow archaeologist, and Andrei Yefremov, and anthropologist, had taken an airship from Moscow to Algiers, and then took a sandspeeder from there out to the middle of the Sahara Desert. After a few hours of sledding over the dunes in our broken-down speeder, our guide finally brought us to the City of Tagis, one of the most well-known fallen sky cities to date. half-buried in the dunes, the City of Tagis was nothing like me or my colleagues had ever seen before. We had seen the scattered Sitka ruins in Russian America, but compared to the City of Tagis, those were merely a snowy field of scattered stone and scrap metal.

So as two archaeologists and one anthropologist, we set to work.

The sight that greeted us as we ventured into the City of Tagis was awe-inspiring. The city had fallen on its side, so a good third of it was buried beneath the sand while the rest of it towered over a kilometer up into the dusty sky. Upon approaching the city, I distinctly remember Andrei cracking a joke about being grateful to have brought both shovels and climbing gear, and Borya and I laughed. The towering stone and metal spires, once reaching toward the heavens, now lay half-buried in the dust, a testament to the former grandeur of the Great Builders' once great civilization.

When we finally reached the city, Borya, ever the practical one, immediately began setting up the equipment to document our findings. Armed with a notepad and an old holofilm recorder, he meticulously measured and recorded every detail of the beginning of our expedition while  Andrei was fascinated by the remnants of daily life left behind by the long-gone inhabitants, and began to mark things and set up a grid at the base of the city.

As for me, I was captivated by the sheer scale of the ruins. The precision of the Builder's architecture and the intricacy of their designs spoke of a highly advanced society. Every step I took seemed to uncover new wonders and spark more questions in my mind. It was then that I knew this was the beginning of a lifelong quest for knowledge and understanding for me. 

Days turned into weeks as we meticulously explored every corner of the City of Tagis. The city's precarious angle meant that we had to rappell in and out of structures, and as we made our way toward the upper rim of the city, we found ourselves having to adjust to the altitude. 

We found several intact chambers filled with valuable relics and artifacts, along with several subterranean passageways and a massive disc-shaped reservoir beneath the center of the city which, given the erosion on the limestone walls and floor, was most likely used by the Builders for water storage. However, upon climbing into the chamber, Andrei, the anthropologist, said he believed it to be religious, while Boris insisted it may have acted as a sort of generator for the massive amount of electric power required to keep the city afloat. However, given the fact that the Great Builder's religious practices have been heavily documented and there was no sign of any sort of hydroelectric generator, both of these hypotheses are highly unlikely.

We also uncovered Templar markings in some of the upper levels, and about fifty small chambers around the rim of the city, evenly spaced and far too small to stand in. While the purpose of these chambers remains unclear, I believe it may have something to do with lessening the weight of the city to reduce the strain on her electromagnets. One of the great mysteries of the Builders has always been how they gathered enough power to keep an entire city in the sky without the aid of gas balloons. There have been several documented experiments, all of which have either failed or been inconclusive, and even more hypotheses, from the Builders gathering electricity straight out of the air, to their having used some sort of extraterrestrial technology which was given to them from beyond the stars. To this day it remains the modern man's chrysopoeia, and is one of the many riddles I hoped to solve during my lifetime quest for knowledge as an archaeologist.

But our exploration was not without its dangers. Aside from having to climb our way in and out of every structure, the desert's harsh conditions took a toll on us with scorching heat unlike anything we'd ever experienced before, sandstorms threatening to destroy us along with our worksites, there was even a particular incident when Boris found a deadly viper in his pack. More than once, we narrowly avoided collapsing structures and being electrocuted or crushed by half-working technology within the city's ruins. 

Yet, despite the site's challenges, we pressed on, driven by our insatiable curiosity and thirst for knowledge. Our nights were spent poring over notes, holofiles, and artifacts, each new discovery fueling our excitement. And every morning, as the desert sun rose, we would don our hats and boots, ready to continue our exploration.

Six months later, with our findings packed and our minds brimming with curiosity, we set our sights on the next enigmatic destination, ready to unravel the secrets left behind by the Titans of old. The City of Tagis had been a catalyst for me, igniting a passion that would define my life as a triumphant pursuer of knowledge.