The Engine's core, inside the Azadi tower.
The Azadi Calculating Engine is a gigantic mechanical computer installed in Marcuria. It is at the center of a web of competing plots by the Prophet, the Azadi leadership, Mother Utana, Sister Sahya and Vamon, and even conspirators in Stark.
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“Where have you gone to, Dreamer. Whose dreams are you dreaming?” — Spoilers for Dreamfall Chapters follow. |
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Conceived and designed by Roper Klacks based on ideas obtained while trapped inside the calculator, the engine consists of a network of pneumatic tubes traversing Marcuria, which transport metal orbs encoded with calculations between stations; the stations themselves, where engineers receive and encode the data; and the Engine’s core, located inside the Azadi Tower and atop the Dream Chamber, whose energies power the machine. Its team of coders is led by the engineer Ferdows, who operates inside a station located near the City Green.
The proper operation of the Engine is one of the main forces driving the mass deportation of Magicals from Marcuria, whose presence injects chaos into the system, manifesting as uncertainties and fallacies in the Engine’s calculations.
Unbeknownst to most, The Engine has a counterpart in Stark, the second Eingana, operated by Helena Chang. Its ultimate purpose, known only to the Prophet, is to bring about the rejoining of Stark and Arcadia, and an end to magic.
Discovering the Engine’s purpose and putting a stop to it is one of the chief objectives of the rebellion. After both Ferdows and General Hami are turned, the rebels devise a plan to shut the engine down by causing it to crash. The plan goes awry however, and it is only the unexpected arrival of Saga and Zoë Castillo that allows the Engine to be shut down. After stepping into Arcadia via a Shift opened by Saga, Zoë takes Ferdows with her back to Stark, where she puts him in contact with the one person she knows who may be able to come up with a way to shut down the Engine: the programmer Wit. With Wit’s guidance, Ferdows is able to create a virus that shuts down the Engine, severs its link to Eingana, and closes the Dream Chamber’s vortex.