Southern Fields

South of New Vedard’s main spire complex, the landscape opens into possibility. The Southern Fields represent the city’s long-term commitment to restoration—a zone where agriculture, experimentation, and art converge in an effort to reclaim what the collapse destroyed.

Character & Geography

The Southern Fields occupy a unique position in the city’s geography. They are not built upon the floating spires like the more central districts, but rather spread across a series of connected platforms suspended from the main city structure by elegant cable systems. This gives the Fields a distinct character: slightly removed from the urban density, yet still part of the city proper.

Landscape Features:

• Vast Open Spaces: Unlike the crowded vertical architecture of central New Vedard, the Southern Fields offer genuine expanses of sky. The feeling is almost rural, though surrounded by visible reminders of civilization.
• Experimental Farms: Plots of varying sizes testing pre-collapse seed varieties, hybrid crops, and entirely new cultivars developed by post-collapse botanists. The diversity is striking—some plots are densely planted, others sparse and methodical.
• Greenhouses: Multiple large structures with copper frameworks and glass panels, maintained at specific temperatures and humidity levels. Inside: rare specimens, controlled environments for sensitive research, early-season propagation.
• Water Systems: Elegant irrigation networks drawing clean water from above, with carefully engineered slope and flow. The water sparkles in sunlight, turning the landscape into a series of reflecting pools.
• Observation Posts & Laboratories: Small buildings integrated into the landscape, designed to be as unobtrusive as possible, where researchers work among the growing things.
• Pathways: Stone-paved routes connecting the various sections, lined with flowering shrubs and vines. The pathways are beautiful by design—not mere utilitarian routes but places meant for contemplation.

Dr. Anya Petrova’s Workshop

The intellectual and spiritual heart of the Southern Fields. Dr. Petrova is a restoration botanist whose singular vision has shaped this entire district.

Main Workshop: A sprawling structure built partially underground, with living walls of vines that create natural insulation. Inside, the space combines laboratory, studio, and sanctuary. Natural light pours through skylights positioned to mimic seasonal variations of sunlight angle. The air inside is thick with the scent of growing things—green, fertile, alive.

The Famous 80-Foot Robotic Elephant: Dr. Petrova’s masterwork. An mechanical construct in the shape of a pre-collapse elephant, standing eight stories tall. The elephant is not merely decorative—it serves multiple functions:

• Agricultural Tool: The trunk can extend to reach high branches and trees for pollination, sample collection, and experimentation
• Water Distribution System: Internally, it houses pumps and distribution lines that deliver precise amounts of water to experimental plots
• Mobile Laboratory: A platform atop the elephant can be reached by internal staircase, providing observation points for researchers
• Symbolic Presence: It dominates the Southern Fields landscape, a constant reminder of the pre-collapse world and humanity’s capacity to recreate lost things

The elephant is covered in decorative panels featuring murals of pre-collapse ecosystems—forests, grasslands, wetlands in their full complexity. It moves slowly, deliberately, on tracks hidden beneath the landscape. When it moves, it is a sight that never fails to inspire awe.

Attached Facilities:

• Seed Archive: A climate-controlled vault housing preserved seeds from pre-collapse species. Some are thousands of years old, maintained through magical stasis fields and biological preservation techniques.
• Hybridization Lab: Where crosses between old varieties and new cultivars are engineered
• Fermentation & Processing: Where harvested crops are transformed into stable foods, medicines, and dyes
• Field Journals & Records: Meticulous documentation of all experiments, failures, and successes spanning decades

The Experimental Farms

Organized by ecosystem type and research goal. The diversity is deliberately maintained:

The Grassland Plot: An attempt to recreate prairie ecosystems, with native and hybrid grasses of varying heights, root systems designed to restore soil stability. In season, it’s a sea of golden stems.

The Forest Section: Smaller trees and understory plants arranged to mimic the complexity of pre-collapse forests. It’s dense, shadowed, and remarkably peaceful. The decomposition of fallen leaves is carefully monitored for soil health restoration.

The Wetland Simulation: Carefully engineered to maintain standing water and marshy conditions, with plants that thrive in such environments. Amphibians have been introduced. Insects are abundant.

The Agricultural Zone: Where utilitarian crops—grains, legumes, root vegetables—are tested for yield, resilience, and nutritional value. This section is more regimented than the others, organized for efficiency.

The Orchard: Fruit and nut trees in various stages of maturity, from saplings to established producers. The variety is remarkable—apples, pears, cherries, walnuts, and species that have been selectively bred for post-collapse climate conditions.

Papi’s Farm & Working Relationship

Located within the Southern Fields network but maintaining a degree of independence, Papi’s farm is a smaller, family-operation focused on practical food production. Papi maintains close working relationship with Dr. Petrova’s initiatives while retaining autonomy.

Sweet Tea has connections here through family ties—a place where urban chaos and agricultural rhythm intersect. The farm represents continuity, family history, and the possibility of building community outside the more abstract governmental structures of central New Vedard.

Greenhouses & Controlled Environments

Multiple greenhouse structures dot the Southern Fields, each maintained at specific conditions:

The Humid Tropical House: Maintains heat and moisture for species requiring such conditions. The glass often fogs from inside, creating an effect like perpetual mist.

The Dry Climate House: Low humidity, bright light, sparse watering. Contains drought-resistant specimens and species from pre-collapse desert and semi-arid regions.

The Temperate House: Moderate conditions, designed to protect species while allowing seasonal variation to occur naturally.

The Experimental House: Where Dr. Petrova tests the boundaries—attempting to grow specimens in conditions outside their historical range, developing entirely new cultivars through rapid generation cycles.

The People

The Southern Fields attract a particular kind of person:

• Restoration Botanists: Scientists dedicated to reclamation of pre-collapse flora
• Agricultural Engineers: Those who design systems to maximize efficiency and sustainability
• Idealists: Individuals who believe the world can be made beautiful and productive again
• Farmers & Gardeners: Practical people who work daily with soil, water, and living things
• Artists: Those inspired by the Fields’ beauty, often documenting through painting, sculpture, or music
• Researchers from Elsewhere: Scholars visiting to study Dr. Petrova’s methods and collaborate on projects

The population is smaller and more diffuse than in central New Vedard, creating a different social dynamic—quieter, more contemplative, more connected to natural rhythms.

Atmosphere & Seasons

The Southern Fields’ character shifts dramatically with season:

Spring: Explosive growth, overwhelming abundance of flowers, daily changes visible to the eye. The air is thick with pollen and potential.

Summer: Peak productivity, fields at full height, intense green. Work accelerates—harvests, processing, documentation of results.

Autumn: Harvest season proper, the landscape taking on golden and amber tones. The Robotic Elephant is particularly active, moving between zones. There’s urgency mixed with celebration.

Winter: Fields dormant, many greenhouses operating at reduced capacity, focus shifts to indoor work and theoretical planning for the next year’s experiments. The landscape becomes more sculptural, form evident without the obscuring layer of growth.

Philosophy & Purpose

The Southern Fields represent a particular vision of post-collapse recovery—one that prioritizes restoration not for nostalgia but for practical survival and spiritual renewal. Dr. Petrova’s philosophy is that by restoring the ecosystems that pre-collapse humanity destroyed, the current generation can atone and create conditions for genuine long-term sustainability.

This is not entirely uncontroversial. Some city officials view the Fields as an impractical aesthetic indulgence when so much work remains in maintaining the urban core. Others see in the Fields a beacon of what’s possible—proof that reclamation is achievable, that the world need not remain a ruin.

Connection to the Party

For Sweet Tea particularly, the Southern Fields represent something profound: family history, connection to practical reality, and a reminder that civilization extends beyond the politics and intrigue of central New Vedard. Papi’s farm is where earth and ancestry intersect.

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The Southern Fields are a slow revolution. While the rest of the city hustles and politicizes, here the genuine work of restoration happens—one seed, one season, one experimental success at a time. Dr. Petrova’s 80-foot elephant stands as both monument and tool, a bridge between what was lost and what might yet be recovered. In a world of stone spires and political intrigue, this is where hope gets dirt under its fingernails and proves itself capable of growth.