The Cataractors

The citizens of Bailymena live in a city of wonders. As most people who live in such amazing convenience often do, they have no idea what it actually takes to make the City of Steel and Steam work. They turn on the lights, ride the BUSTER, talk on their spellphones and watch holos, all completely ignorant, or nearly so, of the cataractors. Most reasonably educated people know that the waterfalls that flow into the valley in which the city rests provide the city with power. That is where common knowledge ends. “Obviously someone has to make all of this work,” most would reply if asked, but don’t pay much thought to the concept beyond that.
Collectively, those who work the hydro-thaumo-electric plants are referred to as cataractors, a somewhat-obnoxious pun on the phenomenon which provides them employment. The breakdown within the profession is unsurprisingly quite diverse.
At the top of the field, and those who are most likely to gain any attention outside of their field, are the engineers who design the plants and the machinery within, and the arcanists who develop and maintain the capacitors and other artifice that capture and channel the energies generated by the waterfalls. The engineers typically come from the more-educated ranks of the middle classes, though the occasional noble’s child or heir to wealth may find themselves suited for this work. The artificers often are drawn here by curiosity, the lure of pitting their will against the raw power of nature, or the challenge and promise of reward. Unsurprisingly, this level of work is well compensated.
Below this level are the plant supervisors and foremen, usually having started as plant workers, but with the education and the experience to serve as go-betweens from the upper-level employees to the basic workers, able to “translate” between the often vastly different priorities present at each level.
The blood and bone of the cataractors are the workers who do the maintenance and operation of the plant. They are responsible for making sure that the water is channeled properly to turn the great turbines, and that the delicate network of thaumic wire and crystal transfers and holds the energy generated. They open and close the massive floodgates of the plants, diverting the water from areas that require maintenance, putting themselves at the risk of the occasional torrent of crushing pressure or drowning in a flooded turbine chamber. In a good year, the number of workers killed on the job numbers only in the dozens. Still, many citizens of Bailymena proudly count themselves among the cataractors, even if their efforts or existence go unnoticed by the larger population of the city.

Type

Public Services