The Guyot Vault

In the depths of the North-Atlantic lies one of the most secure facilities on Earth. Beneath 600 meters of water and carved in the volcanic rock of a submerged mountain range, we find the main vault of the Lathrop-Edison consortium. The installation has a long and troubled history. It was first built as a waypoint and warehouse for underwater smuggling in the late 22nd century. Used as a modern-day pirate cove, this feat of engineering, combined with stealth submarine technology, provided a strategic edge to the Atlantic Cartel for over thirty years. All the while, that organization kept upgrading and expanding the artificial cave network.

It is not clear whether or not authorities ever suspected the existence of that base. If they did, the information was quickly removed from their databanks, investigators bribed -- or threatened -- into silence, and any development in the investigations stifled. We know today that the Lathrop-Edison Consortium was behind that obstruction. It used all its contacts and moles within global security agencies and militaries to make sure that the nature and location of the Atlantic Cartel's base remain secret. This action allowed to Consortium te establish ties with the criminal organization. Threatening to divulge information about the base, Lathrop-Edison was even able to blackmail its operators into paying it protection money. Of course, that income was nothing but pocket change for the industrial consortium. What they were really after was the facility itself. It did not take long before Lathrop-Edison had infiltrated the Cartel to such an extent that it was not only able to start using the facility for its own purposes, but it was also in a position to start dismantling the entire Cartel from the inside. Mysterious accidents started to decimate de submarine fleet and their crew. On-board explosions, curious viral outbreaks rendering the ships unusable, and unexplained disappearances of submarines started to plague the organization. Soon, the lines of communications to the Guyot base were all but severed. And then came the final blow. On March 5th 2173, simultaneous attacks were launched against the Atlantic Cartel. No police force was involved, or even aware of the events before everything was over. In one swoop, the Lathrop-Edison had dismantled the organization. Not one person who had set foot in the Guyot base was left standing. The coup cleared the path for a major repurposing, and expansion, of the Guyot caves.

In later years, some corridori organizations would start to build secure storage facilities in orbit, on the Moon, on Mars, and even as far as the moon of Europa, as the Laplacians would do after the fiasco of their Demon space station. But in the second half of the 22nd century, underwater bases were deemed the most secure installations available to groups wishing to store their precious collections out of their competitors' reach.

Purpose / Function

Even though it is of relatively recent origin, the Lathrop-Edison Consortium is today one major contender in the quest for the Sirakoth. Its origins can be traced back to the 1890's, when Thomas Alva Edison and his friend George Parsons Lathrop began discussing ideas for a science fiction novel. Although the original intention was to provide a rather banal sequel to some Jules Verne stories, the conversation soon took a much more serious tone when, one night at dinner, Edison started musing about exerting total control over all the atoms of the universe. Imagine, offered Edison, if I could order one particular atom of my body to leave it and become part of any other plant, animal, rock or being, and then order it back to me, carrying with it all the memories of the experience of being part of that foreign body. Most people would have dismissed such reverie as mere after-dinner amusement, but not Edison and Lathrop. Both resolved, this very evening, to set up an organization devoted to the pursuit of the idea. Edison would fund it secretly, and provide insights as he got them, and Lathrop would manage the day to day operations of the venture. Given the fantastical nature of the quest, Edison asked from the start that the new organization should remain secret. He had the reputation of being the "Magician of Menlo Park", but he knew full well that it would not take much to have him renamed a madman. The Edison businesses would henceforth secretly fund and provide resources to the quest for the absolute technology. Plans, laboratory logs, prototype devices, samples of rare and strange substances quickly started to accumulate in the clandestine facilities of the Lathrop-Edison endeavor. Projects were fragmented so that no employee could know the final applications of the work carried out. But that meant building a central depot, where final assemblies could be carried out, and institutional memory archived.

As the Lathrop-Edison Consortium began to take shape, it also started to draw attention from corridori organizations, who got both intrigued by the techno-industrial approach taken, and concerned that a new, and formidable, XXth century competitors emerging before their eyes. So they went on the offensive. On the of most impressive attack on the consortium took place in December 1914, when the Kirle Clan burned Edison's Menlo Park facilities to the ground. Not much Sirakoth-related research was carried out in these installations, but the message was clear. The Lathrop-Edison Consortium was now a major target. Thus began the search for more and more secure locations for housing the organization's collections.

Alterations

Once it took the Guyot base from the hands of the Atlantic Cartel, the Lathrop-Edison Consortium undertook a major expansion of the complex. That involved quadrupling the number of excavated cubic meters in the basaltic formation. Environmental control and life support subsystems were upgraded to a point where long term habitation of the underwater complex, and storage of precious archives, was possible. The Guyot's defense and detection systems were also reinforced. Thus, the Guyot base was transformed into the Guyot Vault.

Architecture

The basis structure of the Guyot Vault, is a network of galleries and rooms carved in the solid rock mass of one the deepest seamounts of the Northern Atlantic.

Founding Date

2142

Alternative Names

The Lathrop Treasure Complex

Type

Room, Security, Vault

Ruling/Owning Rank

Curatores Capitis