The Palace of Time (Palazzo del Tempo; officially the Ministry of Temporal Diramations) is the monumental seat of the Prefects of Time in Uchronic Paris. In this uchronic Belle Époque time travel is a transit to be administered, and the Palace administers it.
| Type | Place |
| City | Uchronic Paris |
| Era | Belle Époque; present cycle |
| Notable official | Don José de Iriarte |
| Spanish entry | Palacio del Tiempo — sede de los Prefectos cronos |
Description
The building holds chronological archives on each floor; Prefecture of Time offices divided by department (present, past and future diramations, special paradox cases); waiting rooms for Cronoboys awaiting validation of passage; and minor tribunals for chronometric disputes.
Operation
Its doctrine is that administering is not prohibiting: the Prefecture does not prevent time travel, it regulates it through fee, registration, receipt and verification. The Cronoboys pay with their bodies, aging in proportion to the journey; the Palace collects in records, as every trip is registered. Its tasks include:
- registering transits: each Cronoboy receives a single passage, with no refund and no return to earlier youth;
- settling minor paradoxes, such as two versions of the same traveler coinciding;
- coordinating with foreign chronomatic bodies: the Prussian Inevitables, the Time Bandits and others;
- keeping the chronological archives.
Staff
- Don José de Iriarte, Subprefect of Time, “the one in the wheelchair”: validates journeys without judging their morality, issues passage receipts and files minor paradoxes.
- Prefects of Time: the collegiate body; individual names are not recorded.
- Archivists of time: subordinate staff keeping the travel records.
- Minor chronometric tribunals: administrative justice.
Role
The Palace maintains the difference between clandestine and administered chronomancy. While it operates with public authority, Parisian time remains administrable; if it falls, chronomancy turns wild. In places where time travel is banned outright, such as Torregrises, chronomancy operates clandestinely and with savage consequences.
Relationships
- Operates in the imminence of the Temporal Apocalypse of 1889.
- The Circle of the Serpent operates across its apparatus.
- It records, without managing to contain, the chronomantic line of Paulus of Alexandria.