Reconfiguration is a process by which Samothes can drastically shift and rearrange the buildings and layout of Marielda.
History
Samothes first unveiled the process during autumn of the Quiet Year, when he moved Emberboro from the island's northwest to the black sand beaches on its eastern shore.
During the time between the Quiet Year and the rest of Marielda, Samothes reconfigured the Golden Zone to stretch horizontally across the island, becoming Chrysanthemum Parish.
Exemptions
Samothes cannot reconfigure buildings made of lumber from the Western Wood, most of which are in Canopy Row.
Although richer sections of the city are less often shifted, Memoriam College was considered to be the one place never altered by reconfiguration.
Oversight
Officially, reconfigurations are planned by the Bureau of Reconfiguration, although their degree of control seems slight; more likely, Samothes does what he can himself, perhaps to a fault, as evidenced by the erratic nature of reconfiguration whenever he is out on the front in the war against Samot.
Things often go missing during the process, and end up in the Office of Lost Materials, a sort of citywide bureaucratic lost and found. Castille is fond of showing up there and using her authority as a pala-din to impound things she wants, from fancy necklaces to golden retrievers.
Origin
The process of reconfiguration recalls the sci-fi noir Dark City, in which the city of the title is rearranged and altered at midnight every night. Austin has confirmed that this film was an influence on the concept[1].
References
External links
- Dark City (1998 film) on Wikipedia