Two Streams Facility

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A visitors room in the Two Streams Facility

The Two Streams Facility (a.k.a. Two Streams) was a kindness facility on Apalapucia designed to care for the Apalapucians who had contracted Chen-7, a plague that would ordinarily kill any two-hearted organism that contracted it in a day.

Functions

The Two Streams Facility was designed to fulfill two main goals: quarantine of the infected from the uninfected Apalapucians (to stem the spread of the plague); palliative care for those infected Apalapucians.

Two Streams achieved both of these goals using temporal technology; the infected were sent to live in separate, "compressed" time streams from the main one, all held in place with "Temporal Engines", (hence the name of the facility). The compressed time streams were all collectively known as "Red Waterfall" and the singular, normal one was known as "Green Anchor", with matching emblems for each.

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The emblems for the two different time streams.

Whilst the separate time streams prevented infected Apalapucians spreading their disease to the rest of the population, they also served another function. Because Red Waterfall time was compressed, Green Anchor time would seem dilated to those in Red Waterfall. In turn, this meant that for any given period of absolute time that passed, Red Waterfall occupants would "experience" it for longer than Green Anchor occupants. Therefore, several seconds in Green Anchor could equate to a whole week from the point of view of the Red Waterfall occupants, and likewise a day in Green Anchor could potentially equate to a whole lifetime. Since Chen-7 kills in a day of absolute time, this curious effect of Red Waterfall's compressed nature gave Chen-7 infectees a chance to live their lives before their inevitable death. (DW: The Girl Who Waited)

Whilst patients were physically isolated from the uninfected, further temporal manipulation allowed safe visitation to occur; an object resembling an oversized magnifying glass (known as a Time Glass) synced up the parallel streams (Red Waterfall and Green Anchor) for visits, with the visitors being able to communicate visually and audibly with the patients through the Glass (they could not, however, travel through it). Patients were also kept entertained by the creation of entertainment zones throughout the Red Waterfall parts of the facility, accessed through an area known as "The Gate". (DW: The Girl Who Waited)

The Gate consisted of a console that controlled access to Two Streams' various entertainment zones, of which five are known: Mountain zone, Roller-coaster zone, Cinema, Aquarium and Garden (the latter of which was a perfect replica of a Shill governor's mansion on Shallanna). Various alien artefacts were also scattered around the facility, possibly for the pleasure of the patients also. (DW: The Girl Who Waited)

The facility was largely maintained by two parties: the Interface and the Handbots. The Interface was - as the name suggests - the main method of communication between residents and the computer system that ran Two Streams, answering any and all of the residents' questions to it as best it could.

Side Effects

Another strange effect of Red Waterfall's compressed time stream was that it eliminated the need for food. It did not, however, affect the progress of aging. (DW: The Girl Who Waited)