Future Architecture

[fiat_knox]

Futuristic Mega-Projects by Shimizu​

Some wonderful examples of Shimizu's mega-architecture:-

Lily Pad Cities:-

Mega-City Pyramid, capable of housing up to a million people:-

Magnificent architecture for the future. And these are so easy to insert into any high - tech Traveller future world.

Imagine one of those lily pad cities, grav-supported, TL 15, hovering in the high - altitude breathable atmosphere region of a Class D atmo world, floating above the 10 km of dense featureless white clouds, or a mostly underground moonbase built on and inside the largest vacuum world of a system with no planets with atmospheres.

 

[BlackBat242]

And some here complain that large-scale populations on "non-earth-like" planets are unrealistic!

All of these designs can be adapted to hostile planets, given TLs of 12+.

And the TL of the inhabiting population can likely be as low as 8 and still maintain them for a long time, since most of the materials & equipment can be manufactured at a lower TL than it took to invent them.

 

[ShapeShifter]

Much more palatial than the dingy, inflatable tents in The Winds of Gath!

 

[saundby]

Much more palatial than the dingy, inflatable tents in The Winds of Gath!

Sure, but you've got to be "roughing it" when you go experience The Wonders of Nature on some backward little planet. And I don't think you'd find enough starving Travellers to man-handle a megastructure like these out into the woods, either.

 

[far-trader]

And some here complain that large-scale populations on "non-earth-like" planets are unrealistic!

I think the argument is more along the lines of "Why would 50 Billion people live on a tiny airless world when right next door (a paltry few parsecs) is an un(der)inhabited standard terra prime garden world?"

No one is arguing high tech couldn't support billions on said vacuum rock, you just have to wonder at the quality of life.

Then too, while I have no problem imagining FIFTY THOUSAND or so of those mega-pyramid cities being built in the far future for that Pop A, I still wonder, why would they be built on that airless lump of dead rock instead of the nearby garden world?

It's more a question of why would said hell world come to have a population of 10s of billions while said paradise is still un(der)inhabited.

Personally, I'd never "want" to live in one of these imagined "perfect" cities. No matter what kind of world it was on.

 

[rancke]

And some here complain that large-scale populations on "non-earth-like" planets are unrealistic!

What I complain of as unrealistic is having exactly the same population distribution on "non-earth-like" planets as on Terran-norm planets. And the same distribution on worlds with corrosive and insidious atmospheres. And on desert worlds and waterworlds.

All of these designs can be adapted to hostile planets, given TLs of 12+.

Yes, but it costs more.


Hans

 

[fiat_knox]

I think the argument is more along the lines of "Why would 50 Billion people live on a tiny airless world when right next door (a paltry few parsecs) is an un(der)inhabited standard terra prime garden world?"

No one is arguing high tech couldn't support billions on said vacuum rock, you just have to wonder at the quality of life.

Then too, while I have no problem imagining FIFTY THOUSAND or so of those mega-pyramid cities being built in the far future for that Pop A, I still wonder, why would they be built on that airless lump of dead rock instead of the nearby garden world?

It's more a question of why would said hell world come to have a population of 10s of billions while said paradise is still un(der)inhabited.

Personally, I'd never "want" to live in one of these imagined "perfect" cities. No matter what kind of world it was on.

Probably many answers exist to that population disparity issue:-

1. The money's in the Pop A world. Some mineral, something about its strategic location on a major trade route or some other financial reason puts the Pop A airless ball of rock right where people need to be to seize the opportunity to make hideous amounts of money.

2. Stable Population. It might be a Pop A world, but most of that population could be in transit, hopping from one star system to another; the population could have taken into account Travellers and general wanderers along with the resident population.

3. Authoritarial Fiat: Somebody wants it so. The low pop garden world is their private property and playground, and nobody's allowed there without a damned good reason. One hundred billion - plus sets of feet marching up and down would stamp all that lovely grass out of existence. Let them stay locked up in their big glass pyramids. "Get off my lawn!"

4. Some other reason, which you'd leave for the player characters to figure out (just as soon as you've figured it out for yourself).

 

[aramis]

you left out the "north korea" reason: the government has convinced them the rest of the universe has it worse off than them, by deceipt, treachery, and blocking off-world commo.

And also left out the "Can't afford to move" motif; if you move to the new hab, you get to take everything; if you go off world, you can't afford much more than passage, so which are you gonna do when the current hab is overfull; besides, you can arrange for a job and do the interview for that on-world move....

I think people underestimate the actual costs of interstellar travel; it's not something Joe and Josephine Normal are gonna be able to do, and the rich are not likely to ship Mr & Mrs Normal anywhere unless they are criminals.

 

[rancke]

1. The money's in the Pop A world. Some mineral, something about its strategic location on a major trade route or some other financial reason puts the Pop A airless ball of rock right where people need to be to seize the opportunity to make hideous amounts of money.

"There's something valuable there" is always a good explanation. So is the ever-popular misjumped-ship-set-up-a-colony-that-survived. The major trade route really depends on the rest of the universe, and sometimes it raises the question "how come the world at this trade crossroad doesn't have a sizable population?"

2. Stable Population. It might be a Pop A world, but most of that population could be in transit, hopping from one star system to another; the population could have taken into account Travellers and general wanderers along with the resident population.

I won't say flat out that this one would never work, but... where are all those people coming from and going to? Who is paying for the humongous passenger fleet needed to shift all those people, and why? And why do they happend to stop over at the crappy world instead of the nice one next door?

3. Authoritarial Fiat: Somebody wants it so. The low pop garden world is their private property and playground, and nobody's allowed there without a damned good reason. One hundred billion - plus sets of feet marching up and down would stamp all that lovely grass out of existence. Let them stay locked up in their big glass pyramids. "Get off my lawn!"

That only works if you have someone to be the somebody. That is, someone with not only the desire but also the power to make people keep off the lawn. If there's one thing history teaches us, it's that there's no shortage of people who don't respect their neighbors' property rights. The Imperium can serve that purpose -- for worlds inside the Imperium's borders. But how do you explain that low-population garden world in with the minor independent clan control in the Hierate? A garden world is a tremendously valuable asset. For someone to allow such an asset to lie more or less fallow, said someone has to be rich enough to be able to afford to keep it untouched and unexploited.

But the real problem, as I've indicated above, is that while you can usually come up with an explanation that works for any specific world you pick, you can't explain why there are exactly as many high-population hell-holes as low-population garden worlds as any other kind of world you care to mention.


Hans

 

[Blue Ghost]

The ocean one reminds me of one of Paolo Soleri's original arcologies. Novanoah or something like that.