Nature of the age
The connection age consists of a planet and its moon. The moon maintains a geosynchronous orbit around the planet, and that allows for the thing that makes this age so interesting. Connecting the moon and the planet is a naturally-formed bridge, made of a kind of stone which is very close to the strength of Nara.
About half of the planet's surface is very volatile, and is constantly subject to volcanic activity. The other half, which is at a much higher elevation, is covered in ocean. At the point where the ocean ends and the volcanic activity begins, the ocean cascades down a massive waterfall, evaporates when it reaches the volcanic area, and finally rains back down upon the ocean in an endless shower which is spread across the entire planet. The whole sky of the planet is covered in dark clouds, and there is only one place where they break; the bridge. There, you can see the true sky, which is a bright orange color.
The moon, surprisingly, is a lot more hospitable than the planet it orbits. Like the planet, roughly half of it is ocean, however, the other half is made up of land masses which are mostly covered in forest. The same side of the moon is always facing the sun, so it has a dark side and a light side. The dark side has a starry sky similar to that of Todelmer's, except without quite as many celestial bodies.
Gameplay
Tower 3, first visit
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The age begins in tower 3. You link into a dark, circular room. The only thing you can see is the windows around the outer wall of the room, and the few things close enough to it to be illuminated by their dim light. The window is so fiercely battered by rain that you can see nothing outside. The room has many normal-sized columns throughout, and one big one in the center. Since it is so dark at the moment, you cannot see any exit doors, and for the moment, you are stuck here. By walking around the circumference of the room, you find a small switch on one of the columns, lit by the light of the window. Pressing the switch turns on a small lamp on the column. The lamp will remain turned on for about a minute, and then turn off again. While the light is on, however, it will allow you to see another switch on a different column, which will turn on another lamp, which will, in turn, illuminate another switch. This continues for about five lamps, and then you finally turn on a lamp near the big column, which reveals a door and a lever which opens it.
The door leads to a dimly lit spiral stairway that leads down for a ways and ends at a lobby of sorts. Here, you can exit the tower and get your first view of the age. The tower you just left seems to be some distance off the edge of the ocean. It sits atop a rocky pinnacle which juts out of the side of the waterfall. There is a a dock here with a strange looking vehicle by it. It travels on four rails. Two of the rails are above it and two are below it. Unfortunately, the vehicle doesn't seem to work at the moment. You have no choice but to return to the tower. You find another stairway, leading down to a basement level. Since the only light in the basement is coming from the stairway down there, you can only see what is in the immediate vicinity of the entrance. You find a switch right next to the entrance which powers the vehicle. Once that is activated, you can travel back to the vehicle, and ride it to the moon bridge. You can see out of the windshield of the vehicle, even with all the rain, because the vehicle has a strange variety of windshield wiper, as shown in the picture below.
Hydroelectric Plant and Office
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The bridge could be described as the ages hub, for from there you can travel to every possible location in the age. It has tracks to towers 2 and 3, and tower 1 can be walked to from it. It is also where you can access the space elevator, but we'll get to that later. At the moment, we can access towers 1 and 3, the Hydroelectric plant, and the Office. As for tower 2, the vehicle to there doesn't work at the moment. We have already been to tower 3, and tower 1 is pitch black inside, so the remaining two are the best choices to visit.
The Office is a large room with all glass walls, however, there is a switch that deploys metal blinds to cover them all. This room also serves as a sleeping quarters. It is filled with odd little trinkets, each with a little switch that causes it to do something interesting. These items are entertaining to watch, but they don't seem to serve a purpose other than being eye candy. Oddly enough, however, they all seem to be nailed down, and each one has a different symbol carved into its base. There is also a map on one of the tables here, which contains an important clue for another puzzle in the age.
The hydroelectric plant is important, although you won't spend much time there. You climb a ladder to a small control room overlooking two waterwheels, turning as a result of the strong current moving toward the waterfall. There is a switch here which restores power to the lights in all three towers, as well as the trams that lead to them. Once you restore power, you should turn our focus to the towers.
The Towers
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The towers are, in fact, geothermal power plants. Why should there be more power plants when the whole age is already powered? Well, there is still something that needs power, and it needs a lot more power than simply the power supplied by the hydroelectric plant. I have already mentioned the space elevator once, and if you were paying attention, it should be obvious that that's what I'm talking about.
So, now that the lights in the towers are powered, what can we find there? Well, each tower has the same thing: a switch to power the elevator. The combined power of all the towers is needed for the elevator to work. There is something wrong, however. Time has taken its toll on this age, and towers 1 and 2 have a few problems that will make powering them a tad more difficult. Tower 3 is the only one which has nothing wrong with it, so it may be a good idea to visit it first.
Tower 3: Upon arriving, you can see that this tower is different than it was when you first visited. The lights are a lot brighter than the dim backup lighting that was on when you arrived. Upon going downstairs to the basement, you can see that the whole room is visible. You have to flip off the vehicle power switch, because the tram is now receiving enough power from the hydroelectric plant to function without the help of the tower, and with the switch activated it will use energy that would otherwise be used for the elevator. Looking around some more will bring you across another switch that powers the elevator. Before leaving, you should check the room upstairs you began in. You can now see out the windows because the power from the water wheel also turned on wipers that slide up and down the windows, cleaning the rain water off. Also, on the back of the center column, there are two symbols. They should be noted down before you leave.
Tower 1: This tower seems okay, but there is a problem. The switch to power the elevator is broken, and you will have to find an alternate way to power it. I, honestly haven't thought of how this puzzle will work, but I'm sure you will have some suggestions. Anyway, you will also have to go up to the top room and note down the symbols, just like in tower 3.
Tower 2: For this, the tower itself is working perfectly, but there is still a problem; There is a break in the rails towards the end of the track, and the vehicle will automatically stop when it reaches them, forcing you to turn around and go back. There is, however, and alternate route. On the map in the office, you can see a path branching off of one of the pylons. There are platforms on each of the pylons on the track, and there is a button in the vehicle which will stop it at the closest pylon in front of it. Each of the pylons have a call button as well, so there is no need to worry about getting stranded. If you stop at the pylon on the map, you won't see anything at first, but there is something there. After the button is pressed, the vehicle will take several seconds start up, giving you time to exit before it departs. If you do this on that particular pylon, you will find that there is a ladder underneath where the vehicle was. The ladder will take you down to an emergency walkway down by the water. At the end of this walkway is a ladder up to the dock of tower 2. Once you arrive there, you can simply enter the tower, flip the switch, get your symbols, and go back.
Getting to the Elevator
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Now that power is restored to the elevator, you face yet another issue; Getting there. It doesn't look like there's any way to reach the elevator, even though you see it above you when you are at the bridge. Rest assured, there is a path that leads there, and the office is where that path starts. There is an interesting observation to be made there: the symbols that you found in the towers match some of the symbols on the trinkets. There is a code here! The problem is, though, that if you are are not on the development team and have not read this, you do not know how the towers are numbered, and you must know if you want to know the exact order the pairs come in. The thing in this age that reveals those numbers is the same map that helped us before. They are numbered on that map. Now, just activate each widget in the proper order, and the back wall of the room will slide away, revealing a ladder.
Elevator Activation
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The ladder will take you up a short shaft, and then you will come out on a ledge that spirals around the bridge. At various points on the ledge, there will be control panels. There are three in all, and each is for one of the towers. When you are using one, you will be facing the tower they are for. If you keep going up, the ledge will finally end at the elevator, which is in a ring shape around the bridge. The elevator won't activate, however, even with the power from the towers. You need to manipulate the control panels for it to work. The panels are made to control how much power goes into the elevator. There is a paper in the office that tells exactly how many units of power that the elevator needs. You must achieve that amount of power. No more, no less. The panels, however, each give units of power in different multiples. For example, on one panel, every time you press the button for more power, it adds 7 more units of power, and if you press the button for less it takes away 7, and for another panel, it gives and takes in nines.
Once power is exact, you can return to the elevator and take your ride.
Elevator ride
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As seen in the picture above, there is a sudden color change in the bridge at one point. The true color of the bridge is the part above the elevator. The yellowish stone below it is a weaker stone which encases the nara-like stone. The odd green light things are the track that the elevator travels on. For it to travel the speed it is going, Climbing mechanically is too slow, and it needs a quicker form of propulsion.
The elevator has windows on the floor and ceiling. The glass is so thick that walking on it will do no damage. Most of the chairs inside are passenger chairs, for if you are traveling with friends, but there is only one seat that actually has a button that starts the elevator. Once the elevator is activated, the seats will lay back so they are facing the windows on the ceiling. Then the elevator will begin its climb. It will start slow, but pick up speed quickly. Within 45 seconds it will clear the atmosphere, and you will see the moon. About halfway there, the seats will rotate to be facing downward towards the planet. The ride will take about three minutes, but there will be good music playing during the ride, so the wait will be bearable.
The Moon
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When you arrive on the moon, you won't be able to see any stars in the sky, as a result of the light of the planet. There will be another rail car by the arrival point, though, and that will take you away from the point directly under the planet. At the end of the track, you will get off in a garden in the middle of the forest, which surrounds an observatory. There will be a use for the observatory, but it will tie into a puzzle that is spread across multiple ages. That is all I have thought of in the age for now.
Story
This age is part of the Ages of Devokahn story. There is a journal in the office where you can read the story about this particular age.
The reason Tal'ri wrote this age was to test the limits of his construction capabilities. He wanted to see if he was actually capable of building an entire space elevator. He also wrote the moon to be a much nicer place, as a reward for his effort if he managed to reach it. Even though the bridge was already there, building the track on the bridge would still be incredibly difficult.
Tal'ri couldn't hand-build the track, for most of the bridge was exposed to the vacuum of space, so he came up with a plan. He knew that he could make an elevator that could climb the bridge without a track, but that would travel much slower, and take years to complete its journey. He knew that he couldn't ride in it for that long, but he realized he could use it to build the track. By programming it to embed the track in the bridge on the way up, and then return to the planet, he could make it do most of the work for him. There were still many problems with his plan, however.
In order to fully work, the elevator would have to be supplied with a continuous source of power, as well as metal for building the track. Tal'ri's best batteries could only hold up for a quarter of the journey, and it would be impossible to fit that much metal inside. He realized that the only real problem was supplying the metal, for he could easily send electricity through the track to reach the elevator. He realized that the only way would be to have a hose which sent molten metal directly into the elevator. He was about to eliminate this possibility as well, for the hose would have to be a ridiculous length for it to work, but after realizing that the hose was the only way he could possibly have a chance of reaching the moon, he decided he would have to find a way.
The first structures Tal'ri built in the age were the hydroelectric plant and office. The hydroelectric plant didn't generate nearly enough electricity to power the elevator, so instead he turned to the age's volcanic vents. He had written the age to include several small islands with volcanic vents, so he instituted a plan to construct the towers. He also asked for help from the inhabitants of one of his ages. They agreed to help him build the towers, so they went to the age and began.
The plan was to build 4 towers; 3 to power the elevator itself, and one to power the supply hose and to the device that melts the metal. After the first four towers were built, Tal'ri realized that the metal-melting furnace would require more power than he originally anticipated. The problem was that he only wrote the age to include four vents in the ocean. He searched the ocean of the age for weeks, trying to find any other vents. Finally, he noticed steam rising from one of the rocks jutting out of the side of the waterfall. After some difficulty, he finally managed to make it across to the rock, and found a vent there. A tower was built there and he moved on to the final part of his plan.
The hose problem was difficult, but he managed to invent a machine that could quickly generate massive lengths of hose in a relatively short time. On the ocean floor, there were large deposits of metal which he used for the hose. After the hose was finished, the elevator was finally ready for launch. He activated it and then left the age for several years to focus on other things.
Upon the elevator's return, he went back to the age. Now that the elevator had returned, he decided to ride in it. The tracks increased the speed considerably, and instead of taking several years, the ride would only take a few days. He packed some food for his trip, boarded the elevator, and rode to the moon. Once there, he wrote an additional linking book to the moon's surface.
While there, he found that the moon not only had beautiful forests; it also has a beautiful starry sky. He decided to build an observatory here so he could study the cosmos. He already had one on Devokahn, but the sky in this age was much clearer than the Devokahn night sky.
Upon returning to the main planet, he demolished the whole metal supply hose set up and two of the five towers because they were no longer needed. He then built the rail car tracks and the rail cars to make access to the towers much easier.
Several years later, after he came into contact with the inhabited planet on Devokahn, he found that some of their technology would help make the elevator even faster. He went back to Connection and used it to upgrade the elevator, so that the trip only takes 3 minutes.
At one point, the tracks to one of the towers broke. Since at this time Tal'ri was preparing his ages for D'ni arrival, he took advantage of this misfortune and used it as an obstacle to make the age more difficult. He also found that there were some problems with the switch in another of the towers. He used this as an obstacle too. He was sad to leave this age for good, but felt that it was a necessary part of enlightening the D'ni.
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So, what do you think? Love it? Hate it? Have a suggestion to make it better? Please comment.
EDIT 2: Fixed some errors, and also changed the puzzle for tower 2 a little bit.
