Concent of Saunt Tredegarh

Tredegarh is a major Concent (walled monastic community) named for Saunt Tredegarh, a mid‑to‑late Praxic Age theor remembered for advances in thermodynamics. Counted among the Big Three, it currently hosts a Convox (large convocation) drawing Evoked (formally called out) Avout (monastic scholars) from many maths. Compared with the Concent of Saunt Edhar, Tredegarh is older, larger, and set in a milder climate with extensive gardens.

Setting and Surroundings

• Reputation and reality: Tredegarh was built somewhat farther from the great cities of the late Praxic Age and gained a reputation for isolation. Observers note that, in practice, it is closely ringed by Sæcular (non-mathic civil) estates and amenities, including arboretums and lawns around great old houses.
• Access: A busy aerodrome lies within an easy walk (about half an hour) of the Day Gate (daytime entrance).
• Grounds: Within the walls, broad lawns ramble among dowments and chapter houses; visiting avout remark on the variety of houses and styles gathered here. Plantations include page trees whose leaves are harvested in season.
• Extramural parkland: Beyond the walls, a glacis commonly used as a park has served as a nighttime depot for vehicles and staging during emergency movements.

Layout and Notable Features

• The Day Gate is exceptionally tall; an inlaid red-stone road serves as wayfinding for patients to the Physicians’ Commons (medical complex), which connects to service corridors, labs, and clinical rooms.
• The Mynster (clock-temple complex) stands at the base of the Precipice (granite cliff used as a clock). Over centuries, successive dials were cut higher into the granite; all still tell time. Bells ring from high on the Precipice, calling the community to auts, and a carillon there has been used to send coded signals (e.g., schedule changes) during the Convox.
• A broad plaza before the Mynster, at the foot of the Precipice, serves as a public staging area. During the Convox it has functioned as an open‑air refectory and muster ground, with amplified announcements and orderly distribution of items to large cohorts.
• Beneath the granite lobe, tunnels are described as storing nuclear waste; Tredegarh’s celebrated Inviolateness is attributed not to its walls but to a compact between the mathic world and the Sæcular Power (civil government).
• Avrachon’s Dowment houses a museum‑like collection of historical scientific instruments; during the Convox it serves as a host venue for a Plurality of Worlds messal. The dowment sits on a knoll with a wide veranda overlooking the grounds.
• Upper precincts atop the Precipice are commonly associated in local reference with the Thousanders’ math; visitors sometimes speak of billets “up on top.”

Organization and Daily Practice

• Institutional structure: Life is organized through dowments (endowed houses) and chapter houses (order’s house) rather than a single refectory.
• Dining custom: Meals are held as a messal (small formal dinner) in a messallan (private dining room), typically with up to seven diners; servitors (dining attendants) stand for service behind their doyn (senior sponsor/mentor). Each messallan has its own kitchen cooking only for that room.
• Specialized messals: Some messals are attached to specific dowments (e.g., a Plurality of Worlds messal at Avrachon’s Dowment) and may seat mixed groups during the Convox, with visiting avout sometimes serving as servitors to their doyns.

Role During the Convox

• Inductions: Inbrase (Convox induction aut/rite) formally enrolls arriving peregrins (avout on outside journey) into the Convox.
• Assemblies: Plenary (full assembly meeting) sessions convene in a vast nave capable of holding the entire Convox.
• Venue and staging: During the Convox at Tredegarh, the Unarian nave has hosted Plenary dialogs before thousands of avout and some Sæculars. Temporary newmatter scaffolds support a raised stage assembled from tubes and platform‑slabs, and a large speely projection screen shows a magnified live feed from a speelycaptor. Harsh lights mounted on scaffold‑towers and headset‑coordinated crew manage microphones and staging.
• Civil–mathic interface: Sæcular officials attend and confer at assemblies, and technical staff coordinate staging and recording alongside Tredegarh personnel.
• Health and handling: Temporary quarantine housing has been used near the Physicians’ Commons for biosecurity; Tredegarh personnel prepare “givens” (collected evidence) for safe transfer into Convox processes.
• Operational posture: At one point, all but Laboratorium and Messal were suspended while teams focused on modeling and analyzing the visiting starship, using Sæcular syntactic systems and mixed crews of avout and Ita.
• Open‑air logistics and deterrence: The great plaza has doubled as an open‑air refectory and distribution point for evacuation rucksacks and coded badges. Hierarchs used amplified sound to call avout by name while soldiers handed out the packs. Organizers described this visible readiness to disperse as a deterrence signal to would‑be attackers.
• Contingency planning: Risk‑mitigation planning called the “Antiswarm” prepares cells of avout—including Ita members—to disperse rapidly into the Sæculum while maintaining coordination over the Reticulum. Personal badges are intended to activate with rendezvous instructions if dispersal is ordered.
• Evacuation executed: When dispersal was ordered, controlled demolition charges opened multiple apertures in the outer wall to prevent bottlenecks. Badges lit up with maps and routes; sound trucks assisted those who had misplaced badges or rucksacks. Military medics moved through the crowds to aid anyone in distress, while squads from the Valers ran silent in support.
• Extramural staging and transport: The extramural glacis became a depot for drummons (covered flatbeds) running dark in widely spaced rows. Evacuees were routed to pre‑assigned vehicles for quick departures.
• Air operations: Aerocraft were observed landing on the tops of towers associated with the Thousanders, taking on people and materiel.
• Signal isolation during a sensitive exchange: In a messallan at Avrachon’s Dowment, the room was temporarily converted into a grounded‑mesh enclosure (a “Bucker’s Basket,” akin to a Faraday cage), and a cut audio feed ensured the conversation was not transmitted.
• Cell departures: Departing cohorts boarded commandeered coaches and military aerocraft in small, mixed cells, in line with the Antiswarm’s design.

History and Scholarship

• In messal discussion, Suur Moyra states that a Praxic‑Age concept for a star‑travel propulsion device was first envisioned at Tredegarh; she cites it while explaining why some recent hypotheses gained brief currency during the Convox. This is presented as attribution rather than as a detailed specification.

Precincts and maths

• Thousanders’ math: A crag-top precinct associated with the Thousanders above the Precipice. It is referenced as a likely billet for Fraa Jad during the ongoing Convox. Details remain limited and are presented as in-world references rather than confirmed features.

Status

Evacuation ordered and underway: Tredegarh has begun dispersing Convox participants in pre‑assigned cells by road and air, using multiple newly opened wall apertures, vehicle depots on the extramural glacis, and badge‑guided routing. Coordination remains orderly under on‑site personnel and issued badges.