Noctowne is a small industrial town on the west coast of Canada, in northern British Columbia. It is riddled with various oddities, of almost every variety. It took center stage during several disasters which severely damaged the town, and for its allowance of corporate control in public services. It has been often villainized by liberal news outlets for its allowance of “corporate exploitation of psychological conditions” and for the aforementioned selling of necessary services.

It is home to one of the larger ARCO Complexes, and in recent years has been heralded by economists and right-wing politicians as an example of “industrial excellence in an increasingly service-oriented age”.

• 1872 - Anglican missionaries colonize region, named Eliza's Arm after the reverand's wife Elizabeth McGunn
• 1917 - Eliza's Arm Post Office opens.
• 1921 - Silver mining begins across the shore.
• 1927 - Mining begins to stall due to legal concerns.
• 1933 - Eliza's Arm Steamer Landing begins operation.
• 1965 - Large mining settlement established by industrial mogul. Originally built for 1.2k people.
• 1969 - Lead and magnetite begins mining in ernest. Large deposit of Gadolinium discovered.
• 1979 - First reportings of strange insomnia percentage per population. Settlement renamed Noctowne.
• 1985 - Town census reveals population has 30% insomnia
• 1990 - Insomnia rates as high as 38%. Eliza's Arm is mostly a ghost town.
• 1993 - Town expands 24/7 business licenses to be default. Noctowne becomes a hit camping destination.
• 1996 - 45% of town business are open during the night and day.
• 2001 - Massive explosion at local coal plant results in town blackout.
• 2002 - Environment Energy Initiative begins construction on solar plant. Frequent brownouts now occur.
• 2003 - Construction on mountainside wind farms begins. Brownouts infrequent.
• 2010 - Energy levels restored, town in serious debt from construction
• 2015 - Town reaching breaking point, population declining severely
• 2017 - The mayor fails re-election for the first time in Noctowne history
• 2018 - Megacorp ARCO makes deal with municipality.
• 2019 - Zoning for ARCO approved; old Eliza's Arm settlement is purchased.
• 2022 - First ARCO power plants go online, town power revitalized
• 2024 - ARCO Noctowne Development and Research Complex begins construction
• 2026 - ARCO Complex development complete
• 2027 - Canadian government approves ARCO's Circadian Examination and Work Transfer program
• 2028 - ARCO begins offering employees transfers to the Noctowne facility at higher pay and uniquely tailored working times
• 2030 - Town population highest it's ever been. Town seeing 'golden age'
• 2031 - Insomnia at 52%

• Noctowne Public Library
• The Nightwalker Bar
• Riverside College
• ARCO Noctowne Development and Research Complex
• High Park
• Hillside Medical Center

Noctowne has been plagued by problems, odd statistics, and scientific confusions since its inception. Though some problems have been solved, other have merely been compounded over time, like the aforementioned insomnia.

Noctowne is home to many businesses and people that work on rotating hours. Almost every business has its own unique times, as the town is home to many people with varying wake cycles. This is actually incredibly natural for the police force and hospital staff, as they often work rotating shifts anyways. However this has required many other businesses to adapt to strange times, and having people come in at various stages of the day.

Though Insomnia is as high as 52%, an additional 21% of the town suffers from various circadian rhythm sleep disorders. This is not including the various insomniacs who have treated their disorder by adopting alternative sleep patterns. In total, recent studies showed that only about 25% of the town follows a regular 09 00 - 17 00 work day, with the rest having a wide variety of personalized schedules.

This, surprisingly, has not done much damage to the town's economy, as the problem being widespread has lead more businesses to take advantage of the situation, and use these irregularities to their advantage. Restaurants can often stay open constantly, providing a steady stream of revenue. After the town was upgraded with full DSL internet connections, the town also found itself in a good position to outsource work to other countries, where the irregular sleep cycle may in fact line up with another time zone.

Another strange property of the town is its widespread magnetic interference. The town is pockmarked with tons of crustal magnetic anomalies, the majority of them occuring in the eastern and western mountains, and north of the river. Because of this, using a compass in the town was often an ineffective way of orienting oneself. The majority of the town was built inside the central crevice, though expeditions using yards of rope were used in the early days to map roads.

GPS has become the major way to navigate in town, with compasses essentially becoming even less frequently used than normal. With the advent of satellite imagery and aerial observation, the magnetic anomalies have been fully mapped, however local reports often disagree with the findings. The most difficult part is that these reports are often themselves conflicting, and infrequent enough that a large scale observation has not been conducted in years.

“Ghost hunters” have on occasion flocked to the town, claiming the magnetic anomalies are either manipulated by the dead, or could be trapping spirits and preventing them from leaving. There has not, however, been any conclusive proof of this.

Recently the town has gained popularity among both ornithologists and photographers for it's unusually high population of Corvus compared to most other birds. Various ravens and crows form large flocks in the outskirts and forests of the cities. Over the years, several citizens have filed complaints with the city of being stalked, harassed, or even attacked by these groups of crows. However, the events are rare and police investigations have usually revealed something unsavoury about most targets of the birds.

Local legends have began to surface about the crows being the real protectors of the town, watching over it in night and day. As much as this can be chalked up to superstition, during a study in 2002, in which several local college students set up cameras to monitor the crows, found a startling discovery. Whenever they watched a tree overnight, the crows would refuse to gather in that tree for at least a week, or until the camera was removed, whichever took longer. Two of the students reported seeing a raven sitting outside their window, early in the mornings.