BSA Avlen Campus

Stepping past the campus' threshold is like stepping into a different world. Glowing paths illuminate manicured gardens surrounding statues and buildings, some centuries old and others merely decades. The academy's emblem emblazons every door, lit by its motto. Skyways cross overhead, the glass-covered bridges connecting the campus' towers. The tallest sits in the center, and the blue light from its spire is visible across the city.
Yet around its feet are remnants of darker times, when human life mattered less than the data that could be extracted from them. Whether this history is a warning or aspiration depends on who's in charge.

The Light in the Dark

When symptoms of psionics made an unexpected return generations after the Scream, lessons on how to control it had to be cobbled together from what texts remained. The founders of Blue Spire Academy spent years compiling this into a curriculum, and built the first campus in the town of Avlen, on the skeleton of the long-dead Psionic Authority.
Though residents opposed inviting psions back to the town, the economics of selling the abandoned Authority campus won in the end. With limited funding and no students, renovations began with a single building. They painted its spire in a blue luminescent paint, similar to the bioluminescence present across the planet. It was called a beacon in the night, a light in the dark, a symbol of hope and recovery two hundred years past the Scream.

Psionics took many lives before we knew how to control it. The Psionic Authority took many more in reckless pursuit of total control. We must learn from this past to save present lives and prevent future tragedies.

— BSA founder

A Bigger Beacon

As years went on, BSA expanded in number and size as they continued renovating more of the old campus. This in turn brought more business to Avlen, from hotels to cafes to housing. By the time Xeros joined the Protectorate Alliance in 3080, the campus was barely able to hold those arriving from across the planet. If it was going to accept students from across the galaxy, it needed a significant upgrade.

Considerations

Must keep key historic buildings

Must have a blue spire

Must remain within existing property lines

Must have room to grow to expected numbers

Complications

Continuing class during construction

Relocating people and businesses

Managing cost and return-on-investment

Placating a nervous populace

Design

The new campus would be comprised of seven cylindrical towers. The largest tower would be in the center of the remaining six, and skywalk bridges between them would form a hexagonal shape when viewed from above. All towers would hold classrooms and lab spaces on the lower floors, with offices and dormitories filling the upper floors.

Central Tower

• Tallest building in Avlen and visible across the city.
• Topped with a scaled-up and modernized version of its namesake blue spire.
• Dedicated to general studies, including core curriculum and non-discipline study tracks.

Courtyards

• Historic buildings, including the original blue spire, reside in courtyards between the towers.
• Space filled with gardens, sporting fields, meal halls, administrative offices, the campus library, and other spots for students and staff.

Though these towers are near identical in structure, residents claim they each have their own personality:

• The hallways of the teleportation tower are nearly always empty.
• The telepathy tower is eerily quiet, in contrast to the clamor of the telekinesis tower as levitating objects drop or crash into each other.
• Illicit substances are most common in the biopsion tower, as gambling is in the precognition tower. Extra security is present in both locations.
• Nobody wants to go to the metapsion tower.

Discipline Towers

• Arches reach from the bottom of the spire down to the tops of the surrounding towers.
• Each tower is dedicated to a specific psionic discipline, and houses most of the classes and students related to that discipline's study tracks.

Blind Spots

Academy staff have noticed that the fewer major issues that occur during a school year, the more students complain about the inconveniences of dorm rooms' curved outer walls. Absent larger problems, the student body becomes vocal about their posters not hanging quite right. Staff have dubbed this "Curve's Law".

Clashing ideals mark the no-man's-land where design meets reality. Parts of the original design didn't comply with physics - bridges didn't have enough support, arches weren't rated for wind, and there were too few ways to navigate the campus. Engineers and artists clashed over changes for over a year before a design was finally approved. But that wasn't the end of issues.

Moving Walkways

Moving walkways expedite transit between towers, but proved a safety hazard to clumsy students. The academy planned to build safety walls, but abandoned the idea amid complaints of how inconvenient it'd be. They instead added legal agreements to prevent potential lawsuits.

Holographic Glass

The glass used across campus had an internal screen displaying the discipline's icon cascading down like falling snow. This proved too distracting, and thousands petitioned to change it. The school had to reconfigure the glass to display a static image or disable the image entirely.

Wind

As with any tall building, the upper floors of the towers sway on windy days. Some students proved more susceptible to motion sickness from this than anticipated. After several years of complaints, the academy finally added anti-motion-sickness medication to medicinal kiosks.

Timeline

2895

Renovations of old Psionics Authority campus began

2898

Original open date

3084

Construction begins on larger campus

3093

Main construction complete

3095

Grand opening of the full campus

Information

Parent Location

Xeros

Owning Organization

Blue Spire Academy

The Lingering Shadow

Many have mixed feelings about the lingering Psionic Authority buildings on campus. Some consider it a reminder of past mistakes to avoid, while others believe the original buildings should have been preserved instead of reclaimed.
Norah Everdin's actions have given the debate new life, as the school now contemplates how best to honor lives lost without glorifying the path to their loss.

Related Articles

Training psions to manage their abilities safely is the best way to ensure they and those around them don't suffer deadly consequences.

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While much psionic research aims to improve people's lives, those trying to rush the process often end up costing lives in the short term.

Author Commentary

Cut Content

To keep this article relatively short, I opted to not go into floor layouts, historic building maintenance, or how everything was built. I wanted to focus more on past meanings and current interactions. I may come back and add more when I finally run a campaign here.

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Entry for Stormbril's Marchitecture 2024

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