Kat's Factory

[drmemory]

Kat's computer room is obviously more of a factory.  It isn't just a makerspace with a few tools and instruments - it's a major facility.

Initially I was envisioning something more like a room with a computer and a couple 3d printers, maybe some smaller automated machinery, but obviously that isn't the right scale to be thinking!  Her factory is large enough for Annie and Paz to wander around in.  It is packed with CNC machines, server farm(s), robotic assembly machines, etc.  This stuff is full sized and there is a lot of it.

A couple implications:

It isn't nearly as etheric as I would have expected.  Not magical.  Just a lot of manufacturing and computing technology.  So I once again wonder how the heck she got all of this?  Someone spent substantial money to put this together!  Has Kat been embezzling money from the court?  Contracting on the side?  Selling inventions?  Or what?  If we aren't seeing millions of dollars in hardware I'd be surprised.  Maybe she simply stole it from the court?

The only magical-seeming stuff we've seen seems to be based on the court's dimension compression technology.  I still think this is all inside the court, probably underground.  Her "guest user entrance portal" is an interesting clue but I'm not sure how to interpret it.  I don't think we can rule out some sort of weird science usage for hiding the place though - maybe it's out of phase with our reality or just really, really small.    I'm thinking of Marvel comics and the Microverse - if you shrink enough you go to a different dimension or something, even though that makes no sense.

Anyway, I can picture Kat still not having magical or ethereal powers yet being able to build this place and use it, by leveraging her own science prodigy capabilities and the court's technology.  But if that's the case, I have to loop back around to wondering why she thinks the place is safe.  If she used court technology to build it and hide it, why assume they won't be able to find and access it?  They might be quite interested in doing so if a bunch of stuff has come up missing from their inventory.