The Temple

Lore & Background

The Temple stands at the elevated heart of New L.A., its broad terraces and towering columns setting it apart from the more utilitarian dwellings and workshops of the surrounding districts. Unlike the organic, scavenged architecture that characterizes much of Grounder construction, the Temple carries a deliberate formality—wide staircases, symmetrical facades, and a central chamber designed to amplify the voice of whoever speaks from its raised dais. It is a building meant to be seen from every angle, a constant reminder to the populace that the City's hierarchy is as fixed as the ground beneath their feet.

In the City's political culture, the Temple is where the Governor and the council convene to issue judgments, receive delegations, and conduct the rituals that bind the various tribes under a single banner. Sky People brought into the City are often led through its corridors as a form of spectacle, their unfamiliarity with the space underscoring the power dynamic at play. Characters such as Octavia and the various Governors who hold power in New L.A. are intimately tied to the Temple, using its authority to legitimize their rule or to stage confrontations that ripple outward into the wider Grounder world.

As the series progresses and the City's internal politics fracture, the Temple becomes a contested space. Alliances shift, leadership changes hands, and the building that once symbolized stable order becomes a site of tension, betrayal, and upheaval. Yet its physical presence remains constant—a stubborn, unyielding structure in a world where everything else is burning, shifting, or falling.

In Their Own Story

The stairs were wider than I expected. Each step swallowed the sound of my boots, and by the time I reached the upper terrace, the wind off the valley had filled the colonnade with a low, hollow hum. The dais was empty. The chairs flanking it—carved from something dense and dark—were arranged in a half-circle that made you feel small no matter how tall you stood. I could smell oil and old wood, the particular mustiness of a room where many people have argued and few have slept. Through the open arches beyond the dais, the rest of New L.A. spread out in a patchwork of rooftops and smoke, and somewhere down there, a crowd was waiting to hear what would be said from this height. I sat. The silence was louder than any decree.

Reader's Guide

You reach the Temple by climbing the central thoroughfare of New L.A., the wide avenue that splits the city's districts and funnels every footfall toward its base. The approach is deliberate: a long, gently rising walkway lined with low walls and carved markers, designed so that by the time you crest the final step, the full weight of the structure is above you. The facade is broad and symmetrical, its columns thick and slightly fluted, giving the impression of hands cupped around a secret. The stone is a warm grey-brown, worn smooth in places by years of palms and shoulders.

Inside, the ground floor opens into a vast hall with a vaulted ceiling. The light comes high and slanted, cutting through the air in pale shafts that make the dust look like slow snow. The council dais sits at the far end, raised three steps, with a single chair and a long table. The walls are bare except for a few carved bands—geometric, repeating, almost musical in their rhythm. There are no windows at ground level; the space is meant to feel enclosed, contained, a body with a single open mouth.

The upper terraces are where the real business happens. From there you can see the entire city spread below, the river bend, the distant tree line. Characters who hold power in the City—Governors, council members, Octavia in her various incarnations of authority—conduct their most sensitive conversations up here, where the acoustics carry a whisper across the colonnade. The terraces are open to the sky, and on certain evenings the light turns the stone gold and the whole structure looks less like a building and more like a held breath.

Over the course of the series, the Temple's role shifts. Early on it is a symbol of stable, if rigid, order. Later, as the City fractures and external threats press in, it becomes a site of confrontation—doors forced, alliances broken in its hall, the dais occupied by new hands. The architecture doesn't change, but the meaning does. What was once a throne room becomes a war room, a courtroom, a stage for betrayals. The people who pass through it change too: Sky People who once would have been led in as curiosities now walk its floors as equals, or as enemies. The Temple endures. The city around it does not always.

Did You Know?

• The Temple's architecture is deliberately more formal and symmetrical than the rest of New L.A., visually signaling its role as the seat of the City's hierarchical authority.
• The structure serves as a recurring stage for political confrontations, making it one of the most frequently visited locations in the series' city-based storylines.
• The Temple's elevated position and open upper terraces give it a commanding view over the rest of New L.A., reinforcing its function as a place where power is literally looked down from.
• As the City's internal politics evolve across the series, the Temple transitions from a symbol of stable governance to a contested space reflecting the broader fractures in Grounder society.