In wake of the momentous discoveries these recent years have witnessed, such that have changed the very face of Vorth’s history, in the year `3232r.IV, I that am First Illuminator to the throne hereby do take up pen and stain for to revisit the tale of Meck, past and lauded engineer of Antissa.
Herein, upon command of His Majesty the Satrap-Archimandrite Bardon, I would seek to cast a closer eye upon that man's true story and the mysteries he faced than yet has properly been granted. I would seek to forge a timely whole of many scattered fragments. And in committing to the page both his life and all that might be understood, if not surmised, of how he came to know such long-lost ancient secrets of our lore, I would thus seek to bestow his genius the rightful light of recognition our former dynasty so long and most unjustly denied.
Osh Esidh, First Illuminator
`3232/Fon’verun
----------------------------------------
Gaspar Meck was born in Antissa, the fortress-capital of Vorth, on `3144/Shafan/r.5, and there raised. His parents, Radwan and Khestra Meck, were middle-class Vedans originally of Verunia caliphy; though unaffiliated to any guild, both reputable artisans of the city districts: parchment-maker and silversmith respectively. Gaspar was the only child of these and, while it is thought by some that his birth was not foremost among the plans of the Mecks, he did nevertheless receive an uncommonly full and comprehensive education for his parents’ social standing and income.
Education complete and proving disinterested in the trades of his forebears, he was apprenticed to a North District blacksmith at the age of 16. Largely unhappy in this endeavour, he fared slowly, showing little promise; deemed by his masters in turn as undisciplined, distractible and mulish. So it was that four years later, upon the death of his father in active jhendrit service, Meck immediately abandoned his blacksmith apprenticeship to seek training instead as an engineer.
In the City Engineering Guild he flourished, displaying extraordinary talent and swiftly developing mastery in many crafts practiced therein; in itself a rare feat, all the more so perhaps as all such crafts are notoriously demanding of strength and Meck was small in stature, a physically unimpressive man. Indeed it is known that his previous apprenticeship had come closest to outright failure with his difficulty in handling the heavy tools of the blacksmith trade.
Completing his apprenticeship with the Guild in due course, he became a City Engineer at the age of 26. Already widely recognised for his aptitude across so wide a range of skills, it is known that at this time he was almost certainly stable in his own finances. Nevertheless, the following year he persuaded his mother to release his family inheritance and, obtaining which, purchased a small estate in Antissa’s Citizen District. Here he took up residence in `3171. At this time a forced estrangement between mother and son seems to have begun, although as Meck remained consistently private about his family affairs throughout his life, only guesses can be made as to the cause.
As he steadily acquired the respect of his peers in the capital districts, Meck soon also attracted the attention of Royal Engineers. Before long, increase in frequency, then near exclusivity, of the Royal Guild’s sub-contracting of his wide-ranging services led to pressure being mounted by the City Guild, many of whose members now faced marginalisation of their own hard-won Royal commissions, due to Meck. This in turn swiftly led to his employment by the Royal Engineering Guild in mid-`3172.
Although a dedicated diarist for most of his life (these texts now property of the throne), any such personal records from these years of Meck’s life are not known to exist. What is known from his business records, however, is that the year of his employment to the Royal Guild may have seen his first meeting, or at the outmost transactional dealings, with one already long-enshrined in Vedish legend. Ledgers from this year contain entries ― at least a dozen ― of the client handle “Az-math” or “Az.Mat”, which is conspicuously singular in its brevity. In recent times it has been inferred as shorthand for none other than Albastra Azal, the famed and enigmatic mathematician.
It is well-documented that Azal resided in Antissa for seven to eight years between `3130 - `3140; arguably longer outwith this period. Prior to this, although not of fixed abode, extended periods of residence as well as intermittent shorter appearances are known to have taken place over the course of at least a decade; his first recorded appearance in Vorth dated to `3120/21. His noted mathematical works, including Endocratic Structure, Practical Contranumerics and the renowned Theorem of Intercausality (c.`3125), are dated to this time, some minor works composed thereafter.
There are markedly few descriptions of Azal the man, the only recurring details being those of advanced age and considerable tallness. Despite having been bestowed the status of honorary Vedan following his academic contributions to Antissan science and technology, he was not Vedish by birth. There has never been consensus as to his nationality or origin, though it is most popularly believed and certainly likely that he was Eredian, in no small part due to the intimate academic relationship he had with the Empire’s Academy; overtly and abundantly evident in all his compositions.
Conversely, Azal does not appear to have ever displayed any special knowledge of engineering-craft. But he is far from a mere footnote to the Antissan inventions in which his methods played a part. His mathematical concepts endeared him early to the Guilds and certainly by the time of Meck’s youth many of these were long-since firmly indoctrinated core-texts in Antissa’s academic and engineering circles. From years of notebooks containing Meck’s own mathematical forays, we know that, most likely from a young age, he would have been an avid reader, student, if not devotee, of Azal’s oeuvre. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to assume a deeper discourse between the two even as early as those first ledger entries. Nor, then, is it improbable that the Mathematician Azal in some way spurred Meck’s ideas regarding Antissa and its early construction, by then burgeoning for some years.
From the detail of the ledger entries themselves we can be almost completely confident that business dealings with Azal were at least in part responsible for Meck’s sudden keen interest in another building located in the Citizen District; a building to which he relocated in early `3273 after purchasing it for an exorbitant sum. Despite the sale of his former residence the transaction drove him into debt, although this was seemingly addressed later that year when he gained position with the more senior staff of the Chief Engineer.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Reaching the age of 30, Meck began to assert himself as an expert in his field (indeed, his many fields.) Thorfin Thazra, the over-praised grandson of the city’s first Chief Engineer, was a year younger than Meck, had headed Antissa’s Guilds for only two years and was, by now, a noticeably inept engineer himself. This ushered in a period of quickly intensifying one-upmanship between the two. Between `3174 - `3176 Thazra all too frequently found himself shamefaced before the Royal Guild by Meck’s finesse, expertise and innovation, already being lauded by some as genius.
But it was at approximately this stage that Meck became only more intensely fascinated by the legacy of Antissa’s founders, the ancient Builders, thence devoting more and more hungry attention to the exploration of their craft and legacy. Then, in `3176, his diary clearly recounts a [second] meeting with Azal, during which he obtained a recently-composed “addendum” to the mathematician’s Theorem of Intercausality: a logical problem expressed in mathematics that had been in circulation for over 30 years and ever since perplexing Antissa’s finest minds. Meck’s diaries are peculiarly ambiguous as to not only the content of the exchange between himself and Azal, but the manner in which this page was acquired. Nevertheless the page was soon after transcribed and made public to the city’s academic circles (though Meck retained the original.) In the same year, the Theorem of Intercausality was almost unanimously disproved.
Over the year that followed, however, Meck privately solved the addendum. His written material purported that the problem as presented therein could be proved totally independent of the rest of the Theorem. There is no written evidence that the potential engineering ramifications implied by his solution were either confirmed or refuted by the Theorem’s author ― the two not known to have ever met again ― but Meck never published the solution. Indeed it did not come to light until after his death. Diary entries on the subject make it clear that he anticipated the idea’s virulent rejection by contemporaries. The proof as proposed pushed boldly at the boundaries of accepted physical laws, and was for this reason obviously too steep a risk to Meck’s reputation as a Royal Engineer.
By late `3176 civic upkeep in Antissa was faltering as a direct result of Thazra’s feckless administration, culminating in several dangerous complications and near collapses of city systems. Meck was key, not only in rectifying these complications, but in largely improving upon the systems themselves. Then in `3177, just after Meck’s thirty-third name-day, Thazra was ousted from his position by the Sanhedrin council and Meck unanimously elected Chief Engineer by the Royal Guild. Accepting, he became fifth to hold the office.
At heart a private man, heretofore well-suited to solitary work, Meck at first found it challenging to head the Royal Guild efficiently. The first year and a half of his tenure proved to be trying and arguably unsuccessful. But just as confidence in his abilities began to lapse, he authorised the excavation and construction of a new engineering centre under the citadel in the form of a single-level “Deep” (constituting the first level of the since-expanded modern Deep). This was entirely the brainchild of Meck, seemingly inspired by his research into the early Antissa of the Builders. It was begun in `3179, completed two years later, and succeeded in sweepingly mustering the full machine of the Guilds under his leadership. Immediately thereafter, a succession of ground-breaking advances were made to the engineering systems of both the Inner City and fortress at large.
Meck was not only a clear genius and master engineer, but before long came into his own as an expert administrator. By `3185 he had sculpted an upper tier of royal engineering staff able to manage the running of all civic systems with minimal direction. In turn, he began to devote more time to the furthering of his interest in the Builders. Resultantly more taciturn between `3185 - `3190, he earned criticism for being consumed by abstractions; “obsessed” with Antissa’s secrets and the discovery of “lost learning” many believed did not exist. Due to his intense solitude and the fact that he seldom dated his writings and diagrams on the subject, it is merely speculated that his most significant discoveries were made during this period. Few of his findings were ever conclusive at the time, and those that were saw modest, if any, circulation.
His mother died in late `3190. At the time, so isolated and absorbed by his pursuits was Meck that her body was not discovered until early `3191. To the 46-year-old engineer, it came as a twofold shock. He responded by entrusting his highest echelon of engineers with civic upkeep and taking leave of Antissa for almost two full years. He travelled widely in Vorth and beyond over this time; visiting Elman, Norwynd, Naemia, some of the Barrier Isles and even the Lackish outskirts of Lostrian Ered, all the while maintaining regular correspondence with his deputies. His long journey ended with visits to the temples in Methar, Laudassa and Verunia, where he discovered that the inscriptions of the Builders upon the Monument Stones safeguarded there had become almost entirely illegible. Of his time among the clerics of those temples he wrote with some despondency that the interpretations of the clerical community bore little relation to what he had come to understand of the Builders by way of his own research. Hereafter clearly disillusioned, Meck seems to have pursued his theories with less voracity.
Returning to Antissa in late `3192, he resumed his duties as Chief Engineer. Though best described throughout his life as an eccentric, the sharpest edges of his unusual personality and often intransigent stubbornness appeared to soften at this time. Nevertheless innovative advances to the city’s infrastructure, technology and engineering method would continue in much the same trajectory as before, and in `3195 country and Satrap officially acknowledged him as the finest engineer in recorded history. He also relocated his private residence to the city’s High District, but refused to sell either his previous home or his family estate, having both boarded up as storehouses for obsolete machinery.
In the same year he personally authorised the initiation of repatriated exile Rusper Symphin onto the Royal Guild; three years later officiating Symphin’s position on his leading staff. Although Symphin was essentially his right-hand engineer, Meck would treat him with the trust and confidence of a friend ― possibly his only friend ― though the dynamic may not have been clear to the younger man. Were this not the case, however, it is unlikely that Meck would have entrusted him personally with Azal’s Theorem Addendum, concealed as it was inside the ink-pen that Symphin later would inherit.
Meck never married or sired children; his peculiar personality likely concealing a difficult loneliness only exacerbated by brilliance.
As early as `3204, aged 59, his health began to deteriorate. He would remain fit enough to effectively maintain his role for another seven years, but withdrew from all physical labour. At around this time, for reasons that are still not fully clear, his vast store of written work (including Builder-related material) was hurriedly and poorly archived by Guild administration and more-or-less forgotten until well into his successor’s tenure. Much would be damaged in the course of the Deep’s expansion; his Builder-related papers next subject to proper scrutiny by Symphin’s staff.
Gout and rheumatic fever finally incapacitated Meck in `3211, whereupon he left office and passed full authority over Antissan engineering to his protégé Rusper Symphin. He died on `3212/Senerat/r.12, aged 67, and was honoured with a public funeral ceremony, rare in Vorth.