Civilisation. A big word for something so simple, so inevitable. So mundane, really. “A place for civilised people, made by civilised people by their mere presence”. Or something to that effect. While there may be life beyond the tunnels of the Lowcity, whether the alien swarms of the Hohi or the mysterious Outsiders that linger on in the minds of those who believe they exist, there remains a sense of pride among many in the Lowcity that their home is the only Civilised place left. But of course, Civilisation is anything but civilised. Because one of the first things that happens when Civilisation is formed is the creation of Laws. And, therefore, Crimes. Because it is only when something is declared a crime that it becomes one.

 

The Lowcity, as a whole, does not have a codified set of laws, nor does it have a unified policing force. This should not come as too much of a surprise, as the divisions between the various species which make up the City’s population make the creation of such a thing prohibitively complex. Instead, the issue of crime is dealt with on a case by case basis by the people of the guilty, with outside parties kept as separate as possible. The different peoples of the Lowcity all have their own ways of dealing with criminals, with standards and punishments which variously seem pathetically lax, hideously harsh, or just downright bizarre to those outside of their culture. Capital Punishment against Skitterlings, for example, is unheard of: the harshest sentence a Skitterling will ever face from its fellows is exile, a practise which has held strong all the way since the time before the Lowcity- albeit one complicated by the far more restricted movement possible in the Lowcity’s tunnels. Among Umbressi punishment itself is more rare and nebulous in its forms, more akin to a broad social shunning, revoking the personhood of the guilty party until such a time as they have repented for their crimes. Similarly, the strange shared consciousness of the Runlog lends a great deal of empathy among Golnur to those who break their strange and specific rules. Typically, it is only murder that results in death. To the Fallen, however, the opposite is true: Capital Punishment is one of the most common punishments among their criminals, as their very existence is already considered to be punishment and therefore any further transgressions must be considered especially severe. According to some Fallen, death is the greatest punishment of all because it is a sort of cruel mercy: the punishment that is simply living in the Lowcity ends, but with it ends the chance the individual has to atone for their species’ original sin. In Lesh society, on the other hand, incarceration is the norm. In the deepest parts of Lesh territory lies a prison where the dregs of that society are sent, for crimes which often seem petty to others and for lengths which often seem excessive. Lastly, among the Grib, punishment always takes the form of the guilty being forced to pay back their debt to society through labour or other contributions to the broader good. The length and difficulty of this work depends on the transgression committed and, while both corporal and capital punishment are formally unacceptable, it is quietly expected that those guilty of the most heinous crimes will work themselves to death.

 

If crime or punishment exist in Hohi society, none in the Lowcity know of it.

 

These various methods and standards for the upholding of order within the Lowcity, while inconsistent and perhaps objectionable to some, do manage to keep the last bastion of Civilisation in the destroyed world at a sort of stable equilibrium. However, this scattershot approach has a crucial weakness- an obvious one. The people of the Lowcity are anything but a monolith, and while the majority of residents live in enclaves belonging to their own kind it is all but impossible to avoid interactions between the species. Intermingling and co-operation is core to the Lowcity’s continued existence, and while some xenophobes will complain about this for the most part the status quo of the Lowcity is a kind of amicable multiculturalism. This status quo is fragile, however. And when crime crosses the boundaries between species, whether it be petty theft or more heinous acts, it is sadly common for people to retreat back into their little pocket of the world and the emotional crutch of prejudice. Lines that are supposed to be gone, or at the very least blurred, are redrawn in an instant as soon as something happens to remind the people of the Lowcity just how different their neighbours are from them. It isn’t bigotry- they tell themselves. It’s just a matter of safety, of survival: after all, everyone else will be doing the same- retreating back to safe territory, throwing out accusations, calling for consequences- not doing so would only put them in danger! Attempts have been made over the Lowcity’s long history to remedy this in a number of ways, but when the dust has settled all that remains is a new version of the status quo. 

 

And now, a new group is trying their hand at a sort of unification- or, at least, remediation- between the peoples of the Lowcity. There isn’t really a single name for them, as there often isn’t in The Lowcity. Facilitators, Helpers, Fellow Travelers, Idealistic Fools, each of these labels is given to them about as much as the other. For our purposes, let’s call them Facilitators: It accurately describes what they attempt to do, without undue romanticisation. The Facilitators are a broad collection of individuals from all throughout the Lowcity who have dedicated themselves to ameliorating the tensions that exist between the species. When fraught interspecies situations arise, or when specificity in cross-cultural communication is of the utmost importance, the Facilitators will endeavour to insert themselves into that situation and facilitate. Whether or not their presence is welcome is another matter, but the Facilitators have- necessarily- become quite adept in defusing this tension in the handful of years since they came into existence. Their initial form came into being in response to a labour dispute.

 

Perhaps fittingly, the workers involved were miners: just as the Lowcity itself began with mining, so too did the Facilitators. Mining in the Lowcity is harsh work, as all minerals in the immediate vicinity of the City proper have long ago been stripped away. New deposits are always, of course, further and further away, spreading farther and deeper in their search for resources. Conditions, then, had only been getting worse for the souls whose lives are dedicated to this work. They had to travel far from home, staying in cramped miner’s quarters for months at a time whose horrid conditions were only slightly better than those of the mine itself. Callous overseers dictated unreasonable goals, rations were less than meagre, and the air quality- so far from the more populated areas of the Lowcity serviced by the air-tubes- was barely breathable. There were any number of things that could have been the final straw, the spark to light this powder keg of a situation. But there was another element at play, of which those in power were not aware. A growing movement among lower class Umbressi, inspired by an event many years in the past. An Umbressi Maintainer had sacrificed his life to save many others, and in doing so he had attained a significance even the brightest of Umbressi minds could scarcely dream of no matter how great their inventions might be. For so long young Umbressi had been taught that the greatest thing an Umbressi could achieve with their life was to create something that nobody had ever made before. But Holoran, the Maintainer who had given his life for others, had disproven that. His memory lived on, not because he had created something, but because he had preserved something. Life. He had made the Lowcity a better place, and he had likely known that very act would mean he would not live to get credit. This simple, soulful display power of an individual, of action, had lit a fire in the hearts of many young Umbressi born to low stations, had shown them that there was more than one way to be significant. It was still a fringe belief in Umbressi society, one with a relatively small number of adherents. But, by sheer chance, a number of these adherents happened to work in the Lowcity Mines. 

 

Some in the past had attempted to create a union of workers, not just in the Mines but elsewhere in the Lowcity. But these efforts were always complicated and eventually compromised by miscommunications and mistrust between different groups- and species. But the followers of Holoran’s example knew- or at least believed- that an individual could be more than an individual, and so talks began with their Skitterling and Fallen colleagues about what could be done. It was not a quick or easy process, nor was it a bloodless one as strikes met with strikebreakers and the displeasure of the money men was made known. But eventually, after many battles, the war was won. Agreements were made, improvements followed. Working in a mine will never be easy work, but now it could at the very least be said that it was a dignified work. And all because different people put aside their differences to make something more. But not all who were responsible for this victory remained to reap the benefits. A small group of Umbressi and Fallen, some Skitterlings, a couple of Grib, found a new calling. To them this was not one victory, but the beginning of something more: a movement of understanding and cooperation that could only exist through the combined efforts of the Lowcity’s disparate peoples. They didn’t know what their new calling would be called, or how successful it could possibly be. But they knew that they had to try. 

 

The next victory of the group that would come to be called the Facilitators came in the form of a dispute between Grib and Fallen. Grib horticulturalists had earmarked a newly discovered cavern as the site for experimental fungus propagation techniques, utilising the area’s extensive stalactites. Preparation had been underway for some time when the project’s leaders discovered, to their consternation, that the cavern was not as “newly discovered” as they had believed. A sect of Fallen had been coming to this cavern for some time, finding the way the stalactites descended so far from a ceiling they could only barely see to have some deep spiritual meaning to them. And now they discovered, at the same time that the Grib discovered them, that their temple was going to be turned into an experiment. The conflict that followed was brief but brutal, with the Grib bringing in enforcers to evict what they considered to be unlawful occupants and the Fallen resorting to borderline Guerilla tactics to protect a place that had become quite special to them. Then came the nascent Facilitators, now a group composed of members of all the Lowcity’s peoples. They were, at this point, more a philosophically-minded commune than a peacemaking coalition, as they spent their days learning of one another’s cultures and hypothesising ways that they might be able to work together for the Lowcity’s betterment. They heard of the dispute over the stalactite cavern and, at first, treated it as an interesting subject for discussion. From the Grib perspective, failing to make proper use of this resource would be letting down future generations. This could lead to a bounty of food, of new types of food, which would improve the lives of their children and their childrens’ children. How could they deny this? The Fallen perspective was less utilitarian. A world without beauty, without wonder, without reminders of what had come before and what might- one day- come again, was that a place they would want their children to live? There were precious few places in the Lowcity where one could forget, if only for a moment, the miles of dirt that linger overhead- the Reservoir was hardly a place for children, after all. Elsewhere in the Lowcity this debate may have been rather fraught, a battle of beliefs with no goal other than the assertion of both sides’ superiority. But here, it was more than that. It was a genuine effort to learn, to understand the other side’s point of view. And, in the end, they realised that the best solution to this conflict was one where both sides could benefit. The Fallen wanted the cavern to be a place of beauty, of spiritual significance; the Grib wanted it to be a place of utility. Why couldn’t it be both? It was not a quick process, nor an easy one, but eventually an agreement was met. And now, in the Ancient Lowcity, there exists a place where anyone can come and marvel at a ceiling covered in stalactites, themselves covered in all manner of hanging plants the likes of which few have ever seen. And clambering about at heights most would never dare reach, Fallen workers tend to these plants, adhering to the techniques developed by their horticulturalist colleagues while making sure that the place’s beauty is never compromised. A result better than anyone dared imagine, and one which inspired those responsible, and many others beside, to believe in something more.

 

You may have noticed that this story began with a discussion of crime in the Lowcity, but these tales of the Facilitators and their goals have been tales of bringing people together- not solving crimes or punishing the guilty. While the Facilitators have, on occasion, worked with law enforcement to achieve these goals- and will likely do so more and more as their reputation grows- this is not their primary function. At least, not directly. The Facilitators exist not to solve or punish crime, but to prevent it: not through force or enforcement, but by bringing the Lowcity’s inhabitants together. Because they believe that, if you understand your neighbour, if you know who they are on the inside and not just through your preconceived notions of their kind, you may well be less likely to raise a hand against them. Their work is not that of Law Enforcement but, in a world perhaps a little better than the one they live in, perhaps it could make Law Enforcement unnecessary. That is, of course, an overstatement of their potential: even in a future where the Facilitators bring together all the peoples of the Lowcity in perfect harmony there will always be other causes for crime. But maybe, just maybe, there will be one fewer. And perhaps it is worth it just to try. Because in a world where all can seem lost, where it seems that the world can only ever be a shadow of its former self, it means something that someone is trying. That some people are trying, no matter how foolhardy the effort may seem, to make a better place out of the Lowcity.