Under Ocean Cities

[garrowolf]

A part of my Fusion Age game involves underwater cities along the continental shelf ala Seaquest. Now I have some good images and ideas for the ships, mostly from Deep Angel and Seaquest, but I need some good images for the under ocean cities. The surface is suffering from a nuclear winter and most of the people were shipped off to a partially terraformed Mars or the the undersea nations. I want whole cities and not just a few habitats. Basically this should be the height of the underwater city. After this tech level it will less needed.

Any suggestions?

 

[Gilladian]

What tech level is Fusion Age? I'm not familiar with it.

Also, are you talking domed or otherwise sealed cities of air-breathers, or cities where the inhabitants have been altered to breath water?

 

[knightofround]

I'd definitely recommend checking out Atlantis from the TV series "Stargate Atlantis". Its the best representation I've seen of a submersible city.

If you're into comic books, definitely check out some of the old Aquaman series.

Another good idea is not to limit yourself to cities built underwater. There is simply not a lot of fascination in underwater cities, Seaquest is the only prominent one. But there *is* a lot of interest in cities built to function in a vacuum (outer space). And they share much of the same concerns of underwater cities. Such as maintaining pressure, obtaining supplies and air, and the need to be able to handle structural problems much more quickly and efficiently than "normal" cities.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

This link may help you track down some images by providing terms to pump into a search engine:

Underwater Base - Television Tropes & Idioms

The one in The Spy Who Loved Me is less a city and more a base, but it is pretty cool.

 

[garrowolf]

The Fusion Age is from my Nexus d20 system. It is the age after Cyberpunk but before Gravitic. Check out the link in my sig for more details.

I am looking for images mostly, I have the technology and ideas worked out but I want to be able to show the players a few images so that they feel like they are in the setting more.

I am using some of the ships from Atlantis but I didn't see any bases on that site. If you did then please tell me. I've been trying to find some images of bases from Seaquest but I can't seem to find any. Short of getting the DVDs and taking screen captures I'm not sure where to get any.

I don't like Domed Cities so the bases would be mostly like space stations underwater. I have imagined several as being similar to the Saucer Section for a Galaxy Class Starship. Basically have several of these together inset into the rock connected together. You have lots of windows but in a huge number of rooms and not one large one.

 

[Haxor295]

also, look up the video game 'Bioshock' and 'Bioshock 2' they are both unerwater, but their tech level isnt that high.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Some thoughts:

A few will be normal cities but under domes with tubes connecting them. See BioShock for images.

Next will be those that are based off nature, bubbles on bubbles (think soap), each holding a building.

Then you have hives, these are just moduler parts that are just added and stacked to each other. Most of these will be industry complexes.

 

[SKyOdin]

Well, I have never seen it myself, but I am aware of an anime called Mars Daybreak that is based around the idea that somehow Mars was turned into a waterworld and everyone lives on a mix of surface cities and huge underwater cities.

If you want any inspiration for underwater vehicles and warfare, the anime Blue Submarine No. 6 is pretty good. I can only remember small undersea bases from it though, so it I am not sure if it would help with the undersea cities thing.

As a note though, underwater cities are very likely to be spherical, domed, or maybe triangular or pyramid like in shape. Such structures are much stronger than more complicated shapes and structures, and would be a necessity to protect against the massive pressure of the ocean depths. The pressure issue is significantly greater undersea than in space, and undersea cities don't have the concerns of gravity or radiation, so I can't see undersea cities and space stations sharing many design elements in common.

EDIT: By the way, what is Deep Angel? I never heard of it before, and Wikipedia didn't have anything on it (searching for it got me an angel-fish, logically enough).

 

[garrowolf]

Interesting point about the pressure dictating the design. I'm going to have to think about that for a bit. The pyramid design is based on gravity as the primary pressure. The pressure in this case would be from all sides. Spherical would be a good one. hmm.

Deep Angel was a setting that was based on supercavitating submarines and underwater jetfighters. Apparently it fell apart was was dropped. They created a lot of neat images and designs for it. You can find it in the Internet way back machine.

Here:
Deep Angel - Introduction

It's a cool setting.

 

[garrowolf]

Okay I've got a lot done on my Fusion Age setting. You can see it here
Fusion Age - Nexus D20 Wiki
check out the pdfs of images for a lot of it.