Thirteen Factories

The Thirteen Factories are a network of factories affiliated with, but not part of, Ouroboros, under supervision of Professor F. Novartis.

Background
The Thirteen Factories, also known as Workshops, are specialised in the research and development of radical orbment technologies that have been around since antiquity. The network operates outside of normal society, often making use of the black market, underground connections or secret organisations. Collectively, the network's level of technology eclipses anything on the 'surface' level developed from groups such as Zeiss Central Factory, the Epstein Foundation, The Reinford Group or the Verne Company. It is speculated that the workshops make use of sleeper agents, blackmail, secret divisions and espionage to gather information and technology from existing facilities, a discovery Alisa Reinford later validated.

A common misconception is that the Thirteen Factories are part of Ouroboros. In fact, the network combined might be a larger organisation than Ouroboros as a whole. It is known however that the 'Professor', F. Novartis, Sixth Anguis of the society acts in the capacity of some sort of overseer, and that Ouroboros pursues the development of orbal technologies. the Gordias class was said to be of particular importance to their plans.

The workshops are known to be behind the mass production of Archaism s, which are deployed en-masse by Ouroboros or exported to other nefarious organisations and black markets. Replication and adaptation of ancient technologies such as the Gospel, the largest flying battleship ever produced, TheGlorious and the production of the immensely powerful Aion units are all within the remit of the workshops.

List of known Factories
Although having a huge impact on the events affecting the Zemurian continent, relatively few factories are known at this point.


 * Black Workshop

Located deep underground in the mountains of North West Erebonia, the Black Workshop is the name the Gnomes took following their disappearance from the world stage. They are led by the persona Black Alberich. Descended from the ancient Zemurian civilisation that centered upon Lost Zem and the power over physical forms, the descendants of the gnomes displayed an intuitive mastery of mechanics. The Black Workshop is separated into three major divisions; Biological research, including Homunculi and monsters ; Archaism development, including combat shells and combat drones; and Weaponry, which handles creation of various S-rank weaponry employed by leading Jaeger corps worldwide.

Other technologies created by the Black Workshop include the Cradle technology stolen by the alchemists, contributions to the gospel used by Georg Weissmann (as well as his Combat Shells), magic knights and Zauber Soldats, Leviathan units, the fake Salt Pillars and modified Tuatha De Danann. It was here that Millium Orion and Altina Orion were manufactured. The sniper rifle used by Crow Armbrust to assassinate Giliath Osborne also originated from here.


 * Doll Studio

Located in the mountains of Crossbell, the Rosenberg Studio is the newest addition to the Thirteen Factories. It is run solely by master artisan Joerg Rosenberg who makes use of doll-like automatons to run the facility. Joerg himself is noted to be unparalleled in the fine tuning of doll archaisms, and it is he who performed the maintenance upon Pater-Mater following Renne's break from the society. The underground of the factory is known to be filled with deadly traps and obstacles, with Rosenberg noting anyone infiltrating 'would die'.

The Rosenberg studio is responsible for the mechanical features of the Arc en Ciel performance, as well as the famous series of Rosenberg Dolls. the body of Lapis Rosenberg was manufactured here.


 * At least 10 others

In addition, facilities for manufacturing archaisms have been discovered across the continent, which may or may not be considered part of the larger network. This includes the cloaked Lakeside Laboratory in Liberl, associated with Ouroboros before being taken over the the ZCF, and the underground factory discovered and destroyed in North Ambria by Class I on their field study in S.1205. F. Novartis has also made use of existing Reinford facilities during his work with Elysium, having made extensive modifications to serve his purposes.

Trivia

 * Although the network is called Thirteen Factories, there are supposedly only twelve factories in the network.
 * The Thirteen Workshops have also been referred to in the Doll Knight series of books in Gagharv, most specifically those in Weltluna. This series of books would return in . here, the character harlequin references that the 13 factories will come after Pedro after hearing what he has done.