What is the Tower of Wisdom?

A tower built by the Vanquished, however, repurposed by Ormenos.

Ormenos: Used the Tower to rediscover the means of writing a Glyph. Done through a great sacrifice of pariah. Lots of folk died/were mutilated in order to bring this forth. Big question: Was this done in the manner Vanquished had gone about it? Perhaps the Vanquished required a sacrifice. A blood sacrifice. However, this has to be distinct from Full Metal Alchemist. That show has a Babylonian city/sacrifice style thing. So, the solution is to go back to real history and mythology and avoid that made-up wacky Japanese crap which would put this solidly in the realm of anime imitation.

So let's get a brief run down of the historical Uruk.

Mini History of Uruk

In real life, Uruk's history was comprised of a number of eras. They are numbered chronologically backward from our time, e.g. I is most recent, followed by II and so on. In each era, there were changes in the structure of society, politics and religion. This was relfected in changes in the city. Principally, in a series of temples that were built but then ritually deconstructed to give rise to new temples.

Era VI: Creation of the first temples.

Stone Temple
The Stone Temple is a ziggurat which might have been an attempt to simulate a mountian. As part of their religion, they worshiped a sky god (Anu) or gods (PIE reliigon derivitive) who lived in the mountains. However, Sumeria was flat. This temple is an attempt to simulate a meeting between the divine and the earthly. Natural site of divine contact.

Multi-coloured Stone Cone Temple
This was the site of some kind of water cult. Water is nature. Idea of chaos. Abzu/Tiamat. The womb from which the world springs. Nature as mother that gives rise to all things and yet is also dangerous and must be appeased. A primordial mystery.

Era V: Creation of the Third Temple

Limestone Temple
This was a massive temple built to Inanna, the goddess of love/fertility/sex. Built to honour human face of gods. Notion of human quality of divine or divine quality of human.

Era IV: First Death of the Temples

Riemchen Building
The multi-coloured stone cone temple is demolished in ritual and interned in a burial site. This place had a fire burning within at all times.

Red Temple
The Limestone Temple is similarly deconstructed and upon its foundations is constructed the Red Temple, a tripartite building. Apparently, some of the first human writing was created here.

Era III: Final Temple Phase

The Red Temple is ritually destroyed in III for reasons unknown.

White Temple
The Stone Temple is somewhat destroyed. Upon it is constructed the White Temple. A beautiful palace and Home of the Gods on Earth. A demonstration to surrounding city states that they are rich badasses and not to be fucked with.

Prior to this, we also have PIE religion. This in broad strokes concerned a sky god that wandered the heavens, a god that had something to do with law and order and the military, and another that had something to do with farming. Also had a dying-rising god, world-ending flood, sacred groves.

I actually think this stuff works well for our purposes. Uruk did not sacrifice people like in Fullmetal Alchemist. It sacrificed ideas. It sacrificed religions. Perhaps even gods.

Where does this leave us in Conscientia World?

The basic landscape of Ur'Ruk should have been a changing city of nodes or collections of information. These nodes would eventually be disassembled and recompiled to form others. Now, it might be tempting to put the Jinetes into here somewhere. Stone Temple = ConquistutsGuernicus Temple because they are... strong or something. However, I think it would be cool if we indicate how primitive or removed early Vanquished stuff was. The Vanquished themselves should be inscrutable, so the early history of their civilization should be really difficult. Again, we can maybe use real history for some inspiration here. We don't know why the Red Temple was constructed where it was for instance. We don't need to formulate the one to ones on every single one of these temples. In fact, to preserve ambiguity, it might be best if some of them were left mysterious. However it could be that it went something like this:

Ur'Ruk of Kabu

Like us, the Vanquished were caught between human, nature and divine. Are these things are separate or not? They were moving forward to find the answer.

Era VII: Spirals

Spirals and chaos culture. Natural maelstrom of life and survival systems. Analagous to proto Kabans and perhaps our own civilization. No one unifying leader, religion, concept or ideology, but small whirls or eddies of power, knowledge or information will appear and then disappear. Goves, dying and rising god (Eidos), other mysterious stuff.

Era VI: Stone Temple and Water Temple = Thought Wheel (DKR) and Waters of Abzu

Attempt to simulate meeting between the divine and the earthly. Site of divine contact. Home of the gods but not gods personified. Ergo, a computer centre that builds towards god. The home of god. Receptacle for God. The first DKR? Can be thought of as the largest DKR and the one from which all others spring. Stone = Mountain = Home of Gods = Thought Wheel (DKR)

Water is nature as well. Idea of chaos. Womb from which the world springs. Primeval chaos. Abzu in Sumerian myth. What could this be? Well, it could be a unified life/death principle...thing. Well if everything was chaos before and now they've got a thinking engine on their hands, it might stand to reason that they have an "other" place. A source of concentrated chaos. A house of entropy through which they can touch the "other". Basically, it could be something like dark "chaos water" that can't be understood and kills life. It might be cool if this thing is somehow related to creation destruction and therefore is a grandmother of Mortis/Hel on some level. Maybe a precursor to the Door of Night?

Ergo

Era VI: Thought Wheel (DKR) and Waters of Abzu

Era V: Inanna Temple = Eidos Temple

Built to honour human face of gods. Notion of human quality of divine or divine quality of human. However, this form is archetypical. Idealised. A dying and rising god. It's clear what this must have been.

Ergo

Era V: Eidos Temple

Era IV: Water temple turned into Memorial Temple = Neverborn Temple (Draugnir Temple?)

OK. The Water Temple's death. Death of Underworld? How? And turned into a dead, fire temple? Well, fire is human artifice. It's the crucible from which humans create. They burn nature within it. Also, the water cult of mesopotamia was associated with craft anyway. In our game, the neverborn and draugnir are very similar. So let's basically say that this was the site of "the other" in terms of creating weird minions or automatons or whatever. Also, the Underworld=Graylands for us so the Closing of the Door of Abzu is basically cutting them off from the Graylands. Draugnir are cut off from the Graylands.

Ergo

Memorial Temple = Neverborn Temple

Era IV: Conversion of Inanna Temple (Eidos Temple) to Red Temple = Tower of Wisdom

Godess turned to human mind. Also, tripartite. Divided. Divisions give rise to mind. Common idea with the Greeks. Athena divided from Zeus.

So what was the Red Temple? We know it crafted writing (Glyphs). What characterised it? It would seem the obvious conclusion would be separation. Writing is the externalisation of an idea. It is divisive but it is generous. It seeks to externaise an idea, make it independantly manifest in the world so that others can do with it what they will. So it does contrast with Jinete attitudes. Jinetes were divisive and jealous, secretive and occult. When they externalised an idea, it was entrypted so that only like-minded individuals would be capable of making use of it, so that it would ultimately be an extension of themselves. Limited, but secure. The glyphs that were made in the Red Temple were understood by all. Unlimited but insecure.

Ergo

The Red Temple is the Tower of Wisdom. Repurposing the Eidos Temple.

Era III:  Conversion of Stone Temple (DKR) to White Temple = The Empyrean

White Temple is simple. Built upon Stone (DKR). Now, the home of God on earth (Conscientia).
Ergo
White Temple = The Empyrean

Era II: Creation of the Angels

Era I: End of the Vanquished = Destruction of the DKR and The Empyrean

Ultimately, the White temple was destroyed, which created the Wasteland and current situation.
Where did the Jinetes come from? They could have been created at any time. Post Tower of Wisdom seems likely. However, they were built from recombined structures. This could lead some to say that Mortis hails from Era VI (Door of Abzu) while Vanargand hails from later. Or vice versa. Heck, they could have been created after Conscientia. They certainly were in terms of their modern purpose. However, they likely should have been around prior to Era III in at least some sense. However, not necessary to figure this out at this point.