Cassini Towers: Unitologist enclave of Titan Station

Cassini Towers was an apartment complex in the Public Sector of Titan Station, the orbital city better known as the Sprawl. Marketed under the tagline "Cosmic Views, Terrestrial Living", the complex housed the Titan Station Church of Unitology and served as home to the faith's higher ranks. When the Necromorph outbreak swept the station in 2511, the Towers became the site of mass ritual suicide, and Isaac Clarke crossed them on his way to a meeting with Daina Le Guin that proved to be a trap.

A Unitologist enclave#

Cassini Towers stood among the most notable structures of Titan Station's Public Sector, alongside the Titan Memorial Medical Center, the Titan Heights apartment complex, the Concourse shopping mall, the Titan Elementary School, the Solar Array, and the CEC facility. The complex belonged to the district residents called the Upright City, the upper half of the Public Sector that also held the Medical Center, the waste disposal area, the Church, and the Concourse.

Unlike Titan Heights, whose population was drawn from the station's general public, the Towers appeared to be inhabited mostly by Unitologists. Residence there carried status within the faith: only the higher ranks of the Church were permitted to live in the complex, and devotees such as Sally Hennen, likely a Vested member, made their homes in its apartments. The building itself was an advertisement for the religion it sheltered. In the open space between its two apartment wings stood four statues dedicated to Unitology, a large Marker statue set close to the window and, to its south, three masked Unitologist figures. Behind those three statues lay an entrance to the Titan Station Church of Unitology itself, making the Towers a threshold between the Sprawl's civic life and the inner precincts of the Church.

This elaborate statuary set Cassini Towers at odds with Titan Heights and the other districts of the Sprawl, where no such open religious display defined the architecture. The complex was also kept pristine and well maintained, a condition that later stood in sharp contrast to run down housing elsewhere, such as the Red Moon Apartments on Luna where Isaac Clarke eventually lived.

The suicide rituals#

The residents of Cassini Towers did not meet the Necromorph outbreak of 2511 unprepared. The text log known as Sally 3, written by the Unitologist Sally Hennen and left in her apartment for her younger sister Marion, implied that the people of the Towers were to some extent aware of the plans to sabotage Titan Station and had already begun their suicide rituals before the outbreak started. Sally had been notified by the Church that her "rebirth" was coming, and she asked Marion to join the rituals preceding a mass suicide in order to help Convergence happen, telling her to gather the rest of their belongings for the ceremony.

In the hours before the outbreak, Unitologists lit candles throughout the complex and covered its walls with graffiti drawn in Marker symbols. When the Necromorphs came, untold numbers of the faithful killed themselves, many in front of the Church and others inside the building itself, leaving the Towers littered with the bodies of those who had died according to their faith. Even the children's rooms bore the marks of that final night, with graffiti reading "God will save us" scrawled on their walls. In Sally Hennen's apartment, a lone woman's body was later found in the bathroom.

Isaac Clarke's passage#

During the outbreak, Isaac Clarke was directed to Cassini Towers by Daina Le Guin, who claimed to possess a cure for his Marker induced dementia and warned him that Hans Tiedemann wanted him dead for his connection to the Site 12 Marker. Daina guided him from the Titan Memorial Medical Center toward the Towers. Isaac attempted to reach the area aboard a tram from Titan Heights, reactivating a car that had been left dead on the tracks, but the tram derailed before it arrived and he was forced to continue on foot.

As Daina led him deeper and deeper into the Titan Station Church of Unitology, Isaac grew suspicious of her intentions and hesitated, believing the Church to be a dangerous place. His instincts proved correct. When he finally reached her, Daina revealed herself as a Unitologist who meant to capture him and use his knowledge to build new Markers. Before she could carry out her plan, an EarthGov gunship attacked, killing Le Guin and her associates while Isaac escaped. The same gunship had first sighted him earlier, as he crossed the main atrium of the Towers, though it had held its fire at that first encounter.

Isaac's flight from the Church brought him against an enormous Necromorph known as the Tormentor, a creature built from many corpses that seized him during his escape. After both were pulled out into open space, Isaac destroyed the creature by shooting a fuel canister drifting from the gunship's ruptured hull, and the blast sent him spiraling back through a window into the Cassini Towers. Making his way back through the apartment sector, he was contacted by Nolan Stross, who told him of the project that had exploited them both, and Isaac left the Towers to find him.

Destruction#

Cassini Towers did not outlive the station it adorned. When Isaac Clarke destroyed the Site 12 Marker at the heart of the Sprawl, Titan Station exploded, and the Towers were destroyed along with the Church they had housed and the district they had crowned.