Olivine Islands

The Olivine Islands are a cluster of rocky islands located on the oceanic Western C5 cube face. The largest island plays host to the dreaded Olivine Hills Modular Correctional Center, while the smaller, outlying prominences feature top secret research facilites and archives. The Olivine Islands are a remote and isolated holding of the Voxelian state, the nearest major population center being Ozhilian on the opposite face.

Geography

The Olivine Islands consist of a large, dark, rocky island surrounded by three smaller islands of similar composition. The tops of the islands have been eroded by circumvective forces over geological time, creating patches of coarse, black sand in which sparse patches of Penrose fescue grow. The sides of the islands are pockmarked, jagged, and drop almost vertically into the ocean below.
The geological origins of the Olivine Islands is the subject of intense debate among the scientific community, though few researchers from the Voxelia Academy of Sciences are permitted access to them due to the sensitive nature of the activities being carried out there. The Olivine Islands are named for the large concentration of olivine minerals found in their cores. These yellow-green deposits have been eroded away where the wind, rain, and sea spray have been able to reach them, leaving a spongy skeleton of black stone in their wake that howls when the air blows through its hollows. The islands appear to rest on top of a pre-existing sandbar, as though dropped from a great height into the sea rather than having grown out from it through some nautral process (i.e. volcanism). The age of the rock suggests that this event might have occurred around the same period of the semi-mythical Curved Time, suggesting intervention by forces originating in the Celestial System beyond the bounds of the Manifold Sky rather than a terrestrial geophysical process, though most serious scientists are loathe to speculate on such overtly fantastical origin stories. An alternative theory suggests that the dormant volcano beneath Ozhilian might have been much more active around that time and spewed forth the rock that formed the Olivine Islands, in the manner of structures like the Ventral A Volcanic Event Remnant and associated objects like Maximilian's Bolide. However. the mineral composition of Ozhilian's volcano doesn't match that of the Olivine Islands, and the reason for this discrepancy remains unclear.

Climate

The Olivine Islands have a wet, but temperate climate that sees rainfall all year round. During the winter months, snow accumulates along the tops of the islands, but this quickly melts away as the dark stone and sand beneath retain the heat of the midday sun.

Tourism

Everything within ten miles of the Olivine Islands is considered a restricted space per standing orders from the Grand Army of Voxelia. Law enforcement and military craft may traverse the water and air exclusion zones as required, but all other craft must recieve clearance from the Grand Army of Voxelia to enter and are subject to search at any time wthin the restricted space. This is mostly done in support of the Olivine Hills prison facility, a maximum-security prison where particularly important prisoners are held, including potential intelligence assets and high-ranking prisoners of war from the ongoing War of Reunification. The intense isolation of the place - including the fact that all commissures to adjoining cubes are flooded, leaving only a Voxelia-controlled inflection layer for airship access - coupled the wierd sounds produced by the unusual geology in the presence of wind and surf have a much stronger psychological effect on prisoners than any cruelty the gaolers would think to perpetrate.
The research conducted in facilities on the outlying islands has little to do with the prison, though there are psychologists on staff who pour over surveillance footage from the prison to glean insights. Instead, the island plays host to small-scale weapons development projects and respositories for information gathered by Bards-Recursant deep cover agents. Intelligence is synergized with observations here to help perfect Voxelian spycraft tools and techniques. This 'Olivine Island School' produces some of the most elite covert operatives in the Manifold Sky, people for whom the greatest recognition comes from never being recognized at all.

Type

Island