Hall of Presidents

History in Oil Paint

by vivengene

"I visited it once. It was stuffy and boring and went on for forever. Just hundreds of people in blue suits with the same expression."

— A dissatisfied tourist

The Interstellar Regiment for Unified Systems has a long and lauded history. Existing for as long as it has, there have been hundreds of presidents of the organization, and IRUS has done an exceptional job of keeping records of all of them -- all kept a building in central Passe-Makoa called the Hall of Presidents.

A Thousand Years of Portraits

When you enter the grand doors to the IRUS Hall of Presidents, the first thing you encounter (after getting through security) is the portrait of President Jonathan Ravnio -- the current leader of IRUS, followed by a portrait of Howman Dtreila, the president before Ravnio, and then Ceria Adams, the president before Dtreila. Portraits of all of the past presidents of IRUS are arranged in order, and the further you walk through the vast halls, the further back in time you go. For some notable presidents, simple metal signs illustrate in brief paragraphs their accomplishments, but for most, the only mark of their existence is their gold-framed yet austere portrait on the wall.
Walking through the Hall of Presidents has been described by some visitors as boring, solemn, exhausting, unsettling, or awe-inspiring, respectively. Traversing the expansive network takes hours on foot, although benches are frequent and serve as places to stop and rest. The corridors are dimly lit, with the majority of the lighting focused on individual portraits, and due to the building's huge size there are no windows in 90% of the gallery. Soft classical music plays at all times as guests walk through and admire portraits.
Despite being open to the public, the Hall of Presidents does not get many visitors and it is possible to walk through the entire building -- all the way back to the picture of the first president -- without encountering another person. A long time ago, there used to be security guards to prevent vandalism, but the solitude and somber atmosphere made the job unsuitable for the mental health of guards and eventually the positions were scrapped in favor of automated protection for portraits.

Snapshots of the UDPR

At about three-quarters of the way through the exhibit, the portrait of the Second Founder marks the turn of the standard professionally commissioned portraits of officials in IRUS blue suits, red ties, and gold pins to printed-out photographs of varying quality with no standard appearance. This is where the UDPR became IRUS. The Hall of Presidents was only built after the era of the UDPR, and during its construction and development, archivists had to search through mountains of historical data to find suitable pictures of former UDPR presidents to put on display. These corridors play no music, as very few visitors make it this far into the exhibit, and are almost completely silent.

The Archives

While the majority of the Hall of Presidents building is comprised of the exhibit that makes up its namesake, there is another wing of the building off-limits to the public. These are the Archives, dedicated to keeping records of all actions, policies, and executive orders taken by not only past Presidents but other high-ranking officials as well. The Archives essentially document all IRUS and UDPR activities carried out over a thousand years, and the amount of data housed in its massive underground servers is near-impossible for anyone except trained archivists or Salve, the city's resident God-program, to sift through.
The Archives also contain data on covert IRUS operations and actions as well, and for this reason this wing of the building is much more heavily guarded than the Hall of Presidents.

Type

Archive

Parent Location

Passe-Makoa

Owning Organization

IRUS

The UDPR

The Unified Defense of Passe-Rath, or UDPR, was the predecessor organization to IRUS and founded to protect humanity shortly after the Talitanic War devastated the planet. It was a volunteer military force not tied to any specific megacity yet loyal to all of them that promoted a united Passe-Rath and attempted to calm the tensions between megacities. In 758 BDL, it was dissolved and turned into the Interstellar Regiment for Unified Systems (IRUS) in order to focus on peace on a galactic scale, rather than just on Passe-Rath.

The Missing Portrait

About 45 minutes into a tour of the Hall of Presidents, visitors will come across a unique absence in the normally perfectly placed portraits. Between IRUS President #127, Marta Parelon, and IRUS President #129, Prem Alucino, the portrait of President #128 is missing. No one knows who this person is, as everyone who lived during President #128's term died long ago; but more than this, no public records exist of IRUS activities during this time. This anomaly is a novelty for tourists and citizens ("if you visit Passe-Makoa, you GOTTA go see the Missing Portrait! It's worth the walk!") as well as a hot topic for conspiracy theorists. What IRUS doesn't tell the public, though, is that they have no private records of this president either; IRUS archivists are scrambling to find any and all documentation from their term but have found nothing.

The First Founders

Those determined visitors who make it all the way through the Hall of Presidents to the founding of the organization receive a special reward for their perseverance: getting to see the room of the First Founders, the group of people who started the UDPR. There are 11 photographs on the walls of this chilled room, each depicting a First Founder; some pictures are clear portraits of their subjects, while for others, the only surviving photos of their subjects render them in a blurry wartime background.
Reaching this room is something of a right of passage for young Passe-Makoans who wish to join the IRUS; typically, a group of friends will trek through the long hallways the night before they enlist.