The Architects

More than a simple collection of planners and builders, The Architects bear a significance in the Protectorate similar to a priesthood. Even the low ranking among the Architects are intelligent, loyal, and dedicated. Those with greater title draw crowds to grand openings and ribbon cuttings, giving sermons to celebrate the addition of new facilities and fortifications.

Becoming an Architect

The screening to become an Architect is more strict than that for a Sentinel or the Citizen’s Office. The test includes elements of spatial reasoning, mathematics, history, and creative writing. As demand for new buildings rises, Architects compete amongst each other to determine who may have the honor of performing the work.

Roles among Architects

Lower ranking Architects are responsible for maintenance, plumbing, and electrical work. The people are bound to respect visiting Architects, and may be asked to leave the home if their presence is determined to be disruptive.

Architects oversee much of the Protectorate’s manufacturing, establishing the standards of production and innovating on designs. Through assembly line specialization, The Protectorate is able to apply unskilled or moderately skilled labor towards complex final products. Workplace safety is a paramount concern, but equipment does periodically fail. The design of the Protectorate is cramped such that industrial accidents may leave workers with no place to flee, and fatalities sometimes occur. It is said that a fatality “sours” production in a facility for no less than two weeks, and results in inferior shaping.

Textile manufacturing is also managed by Architects with design acumen and thorough understanding of tradition. Workers listen to traditional Protectorate anthems and look up to patriotic posters as they work thread spun from Echoes. Second Architect “Gumption” Jenny was once a simple line worker before passing the Architect’s exam, and now wears and promotes the “Protectorate Blue” worn by most of the working class. She’s featured in many workplace posters.

Architects are responsible for maintenance and repair of the wall. Some Sentinels resent that the architects do not fight, but senior Wallsmen know to honor the stone. Patriotic and dutiful Sentinels and Architects can request burial within the wall after their eventual death.

Higher ranking Architects are the elite class in the Protectorate, with the greatest access to luxuries and potentia. Much of their time is spent working on new designs and blueprints, collaborating with one another, and receiving reports from lower ranking Architects regarding maintenance issues or structural flaws to be corrected in future projects.

Culture Surrounding Architects

While some of the work performed by Architects is necessarily messy, they strive to present themselves in a neat and clean manner when in public. To the Protectorate, cleanliness is a virtue. To become lax in their cleanliness would be disastrous for the large population living within the walled city.

Architects also establish and are responsible for media cable connections running into every citizen’s home. Audiovisual broadcasts consist of the news, educational broadcasts, children’s programs, sports events, and made-for-tv movies, usually dramas. Popular music ranges between folksy and orchestral.