[RFC]Legacy Project Characters

[robkelk]

Still working on character updates, but those got me wondering... Warning, Rambling ahead.
Crystal Tokyo/Castle Magellan is a big floating moon-rock anchored to the surface of Venus with a tether, right? Now, I'm wondering if this thing drifts/tilts. I know that on bigger boats you don't notice it rocking unless something is really wrong. But this isn't a boat. It's more like a large stationary aircraft that floats in the atmosphere. But do changes in the wind affect the city enough to be noticed anyway? Or is it all mitigated by various safeguards?

Wind changes are definitely noticeable - one of the earliest Fenspace stories (which I can't find at the moment) mentions how difficult it is to dock at Crystal Tokyo because of them.

Then there's the architecture of the city itself. Space is at a premium in space, so I'd imagine that in some areas apartment buildings that reach almost all the way to the top of the 'dome' are common. On the other hand, some people may have made arguments that such tall building would either interfere with maintenance, or just be major eyesores. There might be areas where houses are deliberately designed to be low to the ground, with roofs that are flat. That way, you can take advantage of the extra space to stargaze, like a porch. Which, in a place with no/little weather that's located high up in the atmosphere, might be surprisingly popular, depending on the transparency of the dome. Or, maybe they have rooftop gardens.
Of course, it's very likely that both of these designs are in the city. As per your usual models, apartments are where people with lower incomes live, whereas 'flats' are where people with cash to burn live.  
I can't imagine very many people at all have yards, though. There might be a few 'real' houses with yards, but I imagine most of the greenery is in public parks. Of which, there are probably very few, although they are probably very popular. In 2014, what few trees are there, won't be very big at all. Baring biomods, of course. At an arbitrary guess, I'd say there are two, maybe three parks on Crystal Tokyo. A 'Royal Garden', likely located in or close to the castle, and the other ones being a 'Flats' park and an 'Apartments' park. Ironically, I'd think that the 'Apartments' park is likely the bigger of the two. Since there's more people crammed tighter together there, they probably have a much higher in interest in public utilties and more space to play with. The 'Flats' park, on the other hand, is probably smaller. I'd say that they're both about equal in terms of quality, just that the 'Apartments' one is likely larger.

Consider also that the patch of land that makes up Unreal Estate isn't a plane. Most of the industrial areas, and a few of the lowest-rent residential areas, are carved into the base rock of the habitat.

This is especially true in the Crystal Cities, where a large fraction of the rock's interior needs to be hollowed out in order to create the buoyancy chambers needed to keep the cities floating in the Cytherian atmosphere. Some people aren't going to be able to stargaze at home - they live underground, with more buildings outside their windows and rocky walls beyond those.

On the other hand, there will be greenery everywhere - it's part of the life-support system. (While the amount of plant cover that can be crammed into a Crystal City is nowhere near enough to be able to sustain a "natural" closed-circle air system even if every surface was covered with plant life, the plants that are present do provide some air-treatment to supplement the mechanical systems.) It's also something that's said to help people maintain their mental stability.

Now, I'd imagine that to reach most places you'd need to go on foot. Given the segments domes that make up the city, there probably isn't much 'air' traffic and there's probably always lots of people at inter-dome transfer points.

Definitely, yes. The life-support system can't handle cleaning the exhausts of more than a few internal-combustion engines from the air, so foot travel and electrically-powered mass transit are the common modes of travel in a Crystal City.

That said, there's probably a subway system that goes through the moon-rock. Which, again, I'd imagine is generaly crowded. Assuming the city is arranged in a rough circle, I'd imagine that the rails are layed out in a flattened figure eight, with seven stations. North, Northwest, Southwest, South, Southeast, Northeast, and Core/Central/Castle. 
The Core/Castle is likely the government district. Given the spiral layout of the city, I don't think I could really hazard a guess as to the where the other ones are, but I have an idea of what they might be. Again, there's the Flats and the Apartments. But given that this is the HQ of the Senshi faction, I'd imagine a strong military presence, so there's a military/Sammie district.

The Sammie's main fleet calls Crystal Hiroshima "home port," but there's at least an official Sammie presence in each of the Crystal Cities.

And where there's people, there's going to likely be shopping/dining/fun-seekers. So, that gives us an Arcade. I use that word, rather than Mall or commercial district, becuase I'd imagine that the Arcade would take more after the japanese model of a department store. That is, rather than the western concept of everything being spread out over an area, tall/deep buildings where each floor is something different. If I'm explaining it poorly, just think of it as a mall where rather than build out, people build up. Down on street level, you'll likely see a bunch of more small, shallow stores and shops. 
I also like the sound of 'Arcade' more that commercial district.

That's much like how I described (in passing) the retail district in Crystal Paris, with the "Crystal 109" department store modeled after Shibuya 109.

For food, I'd bet you'll see your standard fen hodge-podge of things. Mexican, chinese, japanese, italian- if you want it, you'll likely find it. But, there's probably a strong emphasis on fast food and take-out. Sit-down restaurants do exist, but I'd imagine them to be less common, and there's probably none at street level. And, on whatever side is closest to the Sammie district, there are likely to be bars. Which I'd imagine is like saying that you might hear loud noises close to a rock concert, but moving on. The popularity of crepes is off the charts.

Crystal Tokyo is a government town, though. The sit-down restaurants will be present, and some of them will be very good and very expensive – these are the ones that the diplomats and senior bureaucrats frequent, making deals while enjoying their dinners.

(Although, here in Ottawa, one of the restaurants patronized by the senior bureaucrats isn't particularly expensive – it's a small pizza-and-pasta place near the HQ of the largest government union. There should be at least one restaurant like this somewhere near but not in the capital district of Crystal Tokyo, although it doesn't have to be faux-Italian.)

Entertainment wise, the Arcade likely has, well, an arcade, with a great variety of Fen-original cabinets. King Of Fen is a mainstay, but DDR machines likely eat lots of credits everyday too. Touhou machines are probably pretty popular too, and there's a King of Fen machine with a dedicated Danmaku mod installed. There's probably alot of Noise Board (which I just made up) installed too, to eat up sound from surrounding machines. That way, you can actually hear what's going in your game, without having to listen to gunfire, screams of anguish, or the loud mish-mash of sound that you get when a lot of people are clustered together and playing around.

The most prestigious of the entertainment arcades would be the Crown Arcade, named after the one in Sailor Moon...

... And now I have to go to work... should I have just made a 'Let's Flesh Out Crystal Tokyo' thread instead? This stretched out a lot further than I thought it would. Originally, I was just going to wonder a bit about daily life in Crystal Tokyo.. and it bloated into this.
Ah, well. I had fun.

Don't worry - you've done more to describe Crystal Tokyo than any of the rest of us have!
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012