Monday, July 23, 2007

AtB: Olympus City

-- Under Construction --
This article is a work in progress. I will keep it as an active post to encourage discussion on the subject of a such a location in AtB... Comments and questions are encouraged.

Premise: Somewhere in the world there stands one of the great architectural achievements created by mankind in the pre-Death era, Olympus City. A lone tower that rises over a thousand meters above the surrounding landscape and housing an entire city with a population of approximately 110,000 -- 80,000 humans plus 30,000 mutant animals, numbers that are strictly controlled by the Land Management Authority.

Olympus City is a self-sufficient biosphere which is able to provide food, power, work and recreation for it's population from within. And, like an ant trapped in amber, the city and it's culture have not changed much - if at all - in the decades since the big-death.

LIFE IN OLYMPUS

Mutant Animals:
Since things have not changed much since the big-death, the city still uses EEG's to create highly evolved animals to act as a working (slave) class which supports the human population. Most of the humans pay little or no attention to these mutant animals or how they are treated by the system. In fact many of the animals, once they have reached the end of their useful life cycle are recycled for food and other goods (feathers, furs, etc.). This has unfortunately led to the occasional small group of rebel mutant animals that escape the system to hide in the forgotten parts of Olympus City, only to be hunted down and eliminated.

Xenophobia: The threat of plague which destroyed humanity is still used to keep people from leaving Olympus, and to keep them from letting outsiders in. However, occasionally, someone will escape the city to explore the world outside. Anyone caught entering (or attempting to enter) the city from the outside are tracked down and terminated.

Population Control: Since space, food, and power are finite within Olympus, a strict population policy of one-for-one (one death, one birth) is maintained. This has also led to a health policy that dictated that if a citizen becomes to ill, they will be terminated before they become to much of a burden on the system. As well as maintaining strict criminal punishments (banishment and executions) to minimize its prison population.

Government: In practice, Olympus is a communist society governed by a computer (Zeus) with only minimal human involvement. Since most manual labor jobs are held by the mutant animals, and administrative jobs handled almost exclusively by the Zeus and it's subsystems (all named after the Greek pantheon), there are no taxes and commerce is conducted on a credit and barter system. This leaves the cities inhabitants to live in a seemingly Utopian environment.

Law Enforcement: Since crime in Olympus is kept to a minimum - by keeping the population entertained and removing most stress inducing stimuli - there isn't much of a call for law enforcement. However, there are still the occasional crimes of passion and mutant animal incidents which require the continued presence of a policing organization.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Megastructures in AtB

Remember the movie "Logan's Run" (the movie, not the novel) where the survivors of a holocaust live in a gigantic domed city?

How about the Tartarus and Daedalus arcologies from Masamune Shirow's "Appleseed" (manga and movies).

Well, imagine if structures like these existed in the ruined world that is AtB. While online recently, I came across information on a mega-engineering project that Tokyo has interest in called "Sky City" (see picture). It would stand 1000m tall and contain residential, business, and commercial space. There's even green space (parks and rec) on each on the platformed levels.

Very cool, though I don't know if I'd want to live in one personally. Kinda makes me think back to the 1987 Dr. Who story, "Paradise Towers":
The Doctor and Mel visits Paradise Towers, a apartment complex in the 21st century. Only to find the apartment building has become rat-infested and ruined and Paradise Towers is inhabited by The Rezzies, elderly women who are cannibals, The Kangs, gangs of teenage girls, Pex, a cowardly warrior who claims he is the local hero, and The Caretakers led by the Chief Caretaker whose job is to keep the apartment complex in order. But the Doctor and Mel find everyone in Paradise Towers are being killed off one-by-one by the robotic cleaners, only to discover the culprit is Kroagnon, the building's award-winning architect who plots to rid Paradise Towers of all those who live within it.

The possibility of a Sky City (or some other mega-structure), maybe a floating man-made island resort megaship, a space elevator, or a trans-Atlantic transit tube, still existing somewhere in the world of AtB really makes my imagination run wild. Especially if they are still in use...

More info on Sky City: