• DOCUMENT ID: NRR-PER-77B1-VALENS
• CLASSIFICATION: Level 3 Internal Review (Eyes Only)
• SUBJECT: Personal log entries of Lord Arbiter Valerius Valens, Office of Structural Integrity, Nova Roma. Recovered from a redacted data-slate found in the lower archives.

[LOG ENTRY: CYCLE 223.15.01]

Another tedious assignment from the Mandate. They’ve tasked me with a comprehensive review of the lower-sector spire foundations, citing “routine maintenance assessments.” A formality, of course. The Unbroken Spire of Nova Roma stands eternal, a testament to the perfection of our ancestors and the enduring stability of our Faith. The structure is sound because the ideology is sound.

Still, the bureaucracy demands its rituals. I am to spend the next cycle collating maintenance reports from transient engineering crews. It is a waste of my time, but a necessary performance. The lower classes require these displays of diligence to feel secure. One must occasionally humor the Fiction of fragility to reinforce the Fact of our permanence. The Hegemonic Mandate provides, and we, its loyal servants, must be seen to be providing as well. Annoying, but necessary for social cohesion.

[LOG ENTRY: CYCLE 223.21.04]

The data from the outer sectors is… disorderly. Reports are incomplete, sensor readings are suspiciously uniform, and maintenance schedules show a pattern of deferrals that border on systemic negligence. I initially flagged this as typical transient incompetence—a species that lives and dies in a century cannot be expected to comprehend projects that span millennia.

But I found an anomaly in the archives today. An original structural report from the Third Era for spire G-77, a sector now designated as a “Silent Zone.” The report detailed significant metal fatigue and recommended a full refit. The public-facing version of that same report, the one in the main archive, lists the spire’s status as “Perfected.” The numbers were not just omitted; they were altered. This is not incompetence. This is a deliberate lie. A flaw in the sacred data. I have dispatched a formal query to the Ministry of Records. Their reply will likely take a decade.

[LOG ENTRY: CYCLE 223.39.11]

The Ministry’s reply was, as expected, a masterpiece of bureaucratic obfuscation. No answers. I have taken matters into my own hands. I conducted a physical inspection of Sub-Level 412 myself. The experience was… unsettling. The official histories describe our world’s lower levels as the “roots of the Spire,” the foundation of our glory. The reality is… decay. The air has a metallic taste, the scent of rust and damp that even the best olfactory neutralizers can’t completely mask. The walls weep an oily condensate. This is not the “shedding of an old skin” described in the official texts. This is rot.

I spoke with a foreman, a withered human whose family had worked these levels for twelve generations. He laughed when I showed him my official schematics. He called them “the pretty picture for the sky-dwellers.” He spoke of entire sections that have been “swallowed by the rust,” of power grids that flicker on and off unpredictably. He did not speak with fear or anger, but with a weary, absolute certainty. For him, the decay is not a theory; it is the water he drinks and the air he breathes. His Fact and my Faith cannot coexist. For the first time in my long life, I felt the ground beneath my feet begin to shift.

[LOG ENTRY: CYCLE 223.58.07]

It’s all a lie. The whole fucking thing.

Following a cryptic message from the human foreman, I found a ghost archive. A hidden, un-networked server maintained by a cabal of disgraced engineers—heretics who dared to believe their sensor readings over the Ministry’s proclamations. They have been keeping the real records.

The Unbroken Spire is a myth. The atmospheric processors in the outer sectors are in a state of cascading failure. The structural integrity of the upper spires is compromised by centuries of unaddressed metal fatigue. The Hegemonic Mandate isn’t preserving order; it’s managing a collapse in slow motion. The entire system is a facade, a beautifully crafted Fiction designed to prevent mass panic among a population of trillions. Our famous [stasis] is not a sign of perfection; it’s the paralysis of a body that knows it is dying but refuses to admit it.

The Faith I have served my entire life is a lie. The world I believed in does not exist. The [fear_of_decay], the one emotion our philosophy is meant to have conquered, is the only rational response to this reality. I am an Arbiter of Structural Integrity for a structure that is fundamentally, irredeemably compromised.

[LOG ENTRY: CYCLE 223.60.01]

I sit before my terminal, the ghost archive’s data burning on the screen. My final report is due. I have three paths, three possible futures I can author.

1. Uphold the Fiction: I can file the sanitized report. I can follow the Mandate, uphold the lie, and preserve the “stability” that has kept us from tearing ourselves apart. I would become a knowing priest in a faith I know to be false, a guardian of a beautiful, dying lie. The society would continue, serene and ignorant, for another century. Maybe more. This is the path of order.

2. Reveal the Fact: I can release the ghost archive. I can send the undoctored data to every terminal on the planet. The truth would be out. The Myth of the Unbroken Spire would shatter. The resulting panic and chaos would be unimaginable. It would mean the death of our civilization as we know it. But it would be the truth. This is the path of chaos.

3. Forge a New Faith: I can gather the other heretics. I can use my authority and their knowledge to begin a secret, desperate project of repair. We could become a hidden counter-culture, a fellowship of realists working in the shadows to mend the rot, one beam and one conduit at a time. It is an impossible task. We would be hunted. We would likely fail. But it is a path that is neither a lie nor an act of pure destruction. It is a path of responsibility.

The Amaranthine were not meant for this. We were meant for perfection, for permanence. But the choice is mine. The Spire is broken. And so, it must be reforged. Or it must fall. My next action will decide which.

[TRANSCRIPT ENDS]