The Camerata are a group of four powerful and influential individuals in the city of Cloudbank. Established by Grant Kendrell, the group circumvents the official administration and democratic nature of Cloudbank, in order to establish some form of stability in the ever-changing city.
History[]
The Camerata was founded by long-time friends Grant Kendrell and Royce Bracket, with the group initially being Grant's idea. The group was always intended to be very small, with Grant's Function Files describing its ranks as "never meant to exceed a number to be counted on one hand".
They would later be joined by Asher Kendrell, who met Grant by interviewing him regarding Cloudbank's largely undocumented history, and Sybil Reisz, whose reasons for joining the Camerata are unknown. Asher would use his work writing for the OVC to cover up the Camerata's actions, while Sybil acted as a spy gathering information on the group's targets.
The group used the Transistor to "integrate" various individuals of influence, with the Traces of integrated individuals increasing the Transistor's functionality by giving it new Functions. By the time of the events of the game, the Camerata had only been integrating victims for presumably about 10 months, with a memo from Royce dated 08-21-66 listing Niola Chein, Wave Tennegan, Maximilias Darzi, and Shomar Shasberg as potential targets. This memo also indicates that their primary targets were "subjects of a certain status, whose utter disappearance could be explained away".
Events of Transistor[]
Shortly prior to the events of the game, Red became target of the Camerata per Sybil's nomination. Though Sybil had previously been loyal to the Camerata, being described as doing her job "to perfection", her nomination of Red as a target was in truth an attempt to get rid of Unknown, who she believed had been turning Red against her. Sybil evidently lied to the other members that Red would be alone in the Empty Set on the night of her assassination attempt, with her Function File indicating that there was "an 85% chance she falsified this claim".
While Sybil's plan to have Unknown take the fatal blow in Red's place succeeded, Unknown's lack of data caused the Transistor to severely malfunction, teleporting Red and Unknown's body to Goldwalk along with the Transistor. The Transistor's misplacement caused The Process to go out of control, with it beginning to revert the city to a blank slate, destroying Cloudbank and killing its citizens.
After Red's failed assassination, the Camerata dispersed, with the Kendrells going to Bracket Towers, Royce returning to Fairview, and Sybil apparently remaining at the Empty Set, where she would become infected by The Process.
With Red now in possession of the Transistor, she would make her way through Cloudbank in an attempt to get revenge on the Camerata for Unknown's death. Upon returning to the Empty Set, she was confronted by and defeats Sybil, who had been entirely transformed by The Process. Red later arrives at Bracket Towers, where Asher communicates with her via Terminals throughout the building. The Kendrells both take their own lives before Red can reach them, with Asher releasing a public confession to the Camerata's crimes before he does so.
Red then returns to the processed Goldwalk, where she encounters Royce's Proxy, which he uses to communicate with her as he leads her to his studio in Fairview, so that she may return the Transistor to its cradle and stop The Process. After Red returns the Transistor, however, her and Royce are transported to a location apparently contained within the Transistor, with the only way for one of them to escape to be if the other is integrated. Red defeats Royce here, leading to his death.
Members[]
Trivia[]
- The group's logo appears to represent the Transistor resting in the Cradle, with a diagonal line touching their intersection point and emerging as part of the Process.
- In an early version of the game, the Camerata was composed of five people instead of four.
- The group's logo resembles the electronic symbol for a NPN bipolar junction transistor.
- The group's name is a reference to the Florentine Camerata, a real-world group in late Renaissance Florence.[1] The Florentine Camerata were a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals that would meet to discuss trends in the arts, who were highly critical of the contemporary music of their time and believed that the improvement of music would improve society as well.
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