places // facility notes, floor by floor
Locations
Four worlds are named in the story and one building does most of the work. Here is what we could pin down.
S-23 Sierpinski
An AEON facility on Leng, named — like the fractal — after the Sierpiński triangle. In-game it descends in numbered levels, and the numbers tell you what the Nation thought each floor was for:
| Level | Designation |
|---|---|
| B1 | Reeducation |
| B2 | Worker Accommodations |
| B3 | New Medical Ward |
| B4 | Old Medical Ward |
| B5 | Service Level |
| B6 | Staff Accommodations |
| B7 | Protektor Accommodations |
| B8 | Controller Accommodations |
Two things are worth noticing on the way down. The medical wards are duplicated — a new one and an old one — and the last two floors are given to the Protektor and to whoever “controls” them. The facility is laid out like an organisational chart, and Elster walks it from the bottom of the chart to the top.
Penrose-512
An AEON scouting ship, and the place where the game starts and ends. Penrose is an allusion to Roger Penrose; 512 is a self number in base twelve and a very ordinary disk sector size, which is the kind of joke this game likes. The mission runs in phases, and the third one is the one that matters: at 3000 cycles — roughly 2,827 Vinetan days, about 7.74 years — decay of ship, Replika and Gestalt is expected. This is where the original Elster on Penrose-512 died.
You visit at least three versions of the interior: the intro, the one in the memory sequence, and the one at the end.
Rotfront
A moon orbiting the fourth planet of the system, and the location of the game's final chapter. Ariane, Isa and Erika all spent their teenage years here. Two places in particular:
- Block Sector C — the residential block you explore late in the game, and the source of the North Wall puzzle.
- Rotfront Interplanetar Station 06 — the small radio station once operated by Ariane's mother, Iris Yeong. Visited during a first-person segment.
Ariane's bedroom is here, and so is the safe with the three padlocks — see the endings page for what is inside.
Leng
The frozen planet the Penrose crashes on, and the planet Ariane was born on. The crash site gives you the first gate, and the gate gives you a hole in the ground, and the hole is not a hole. Everything below happens because Elster goes down it.
Nowhere, and Eternity
Below the mines there is an area the documents do not name, referred to in the walkthrough as Nowhere. Past it lies Eternity — a red field under a red sky, several gates, and a great many Elsters who did not make it. It is the point where the game stops pretending to be a building.
Elsewhere, by name
- Heimat — capital of the Eusan Nation.
- Vineta — home world of Isa, Erika and Alina; site of the Vinetan War.
- The Eusan Empire — the state the Nation revolted from and is still fighting; never shown directly.