Skyscrapers in the background.

[The Wormhole]

^^If true, then shit farms sure got big in the future.

So I lost a comma. Big deal.

I'm always mmaking similar mistakes, though usually I catch it. Oh well, makes a nice joke.

I've always wondered what other cities on Earth look like in Star Trek's time. All we ever see are San Fransisco and Paris.

We see New Orleans in DS9.

We see the street outside Sisko's restaurant. The only cities we've gotten a decent look at are San Fransisco and Paris, even if those are just establishing shots.

 

[scotpens]

I've always wondered what other cities on Earth look like in Star Trek's time.

Probably like Shanghai looks today.

 

[T'Girl]

While the countryside does look like it could support traditional farming ...

Humans and Earth are at that time only about two hundred years separated from a major nuclear war.

Maybe they can't farm outside in the contaminated soil.

 

[Anduril]

While the countryside does look like it could support traditional farming ...

Humans and Earth are at that time only about two hundred years separated from a major nuclear war.

Maybe they can't farm outside in the contaminated soil.

True. But then again, I think that after they encountered aliens they shared their technology with us.

 

[Agent Richard07]

I'm glad they made San Francisco like it should be: a real city. Not Gene Roddenberry's lameass idea that all cities would be underground. Yeah, that'd be real fun, living in a damn cave...

I think the idea is that with cities being built underground, more of the natural environment above can be reclaimed. Personally, I think it's a good idea.

^^If true, then shit, farms sure got big in the future. What does each cow have its own apartment?

Greenpeace won!

That would probably result in healthier meat as well since the cows wouldn't be stressed out from being herded together in poor conditions waiting to die.

 

[T'Girl]

Do the cows spend all day on facebook?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Do the cows spend all day on facebook?

No, they just do this all day:

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I'm glad they made San Francisco like it should be: a real city. Not Gene Roddenberry's lameass idea that all cities would be underground. Yeah, that'd be real fun, living in a damn cave...

I think the idea is that with cities being built underground, more of the natural environment above can be reclaimed. Personally, I think it's a good idea.

Well of course it's a good idea *for the planet*. I respect the reasoning in that regard. But if the quality of HUMAN life is sacrificed, why bother? It's all well and good to protect the planet, but not at the expense of human life. People shouldn't be forced to live in dank holes in the ground just to protect the surface.

 

[Agent Richard07]

^ I'm not suggesting that people be forced into dank holes or denied the outdoors. It's just that humans take up a lot of the natural environment with sprawling cities and infrastructure. If most of that can be put underground, why not do it? Does a bank or a factory really need to be outside?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

People should still be allowed to live aboveground. A nicely tricked-out cave is still a cave (and could also be a prison as well). Perhaps businesses such as banks or factories could be underground, but not homes.

In the end, though, the underground is also part of the natural environment just like the aboveground is. If we're to scour the surface of the Earth clean of human habitation, why make the distinction between it and below ground? Hell, why not turn Earth into a giant theme park and exile all humans to space or other planets? Where does it end?

 

[M'Sharak]

If we're to scour the surface of the Earth clean of human habitation, why make the distinction between it and below ground? Hell, why not turn Earth into a giant theme park and exile all humans to space or other planets? Where does it end?

Not in an Avalanche of Hyperbole™, one sincerely hopes.

 

[scotpens]

. . . Well of course it's a good idea *for the planet*. I respect the reasoning in that regard. But if the quality of HUMAN life is sacrificed, why bother? It's all well and good to protect the planet, but not at the expense of human life. People shouldn't be forced to live in dank holes in the ground just to protect the surface.

H.G. Wells' vision of Everytown in 2036 wasn't a "dank hole in the ground." It was a clean, airy, spacious place with artificial sunlight and "properly mixed and conditioned air." To science-fiction writers and much of the public in the 1930s, the idea of living in a completely man-made, hygienic environment seemed pretty cool and futuristic.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ But now we know better.

Is there even enough room underground? For all the billions upon billions of people to have as much living and breathing space down there as we do up here? Go down too far and you start running into geological issues. Earthquake, for example.

 

[T'Girl]

Think of the Ocampa city, Kes's hometown seemed like a nice enough place.

Given how often the Earth gets attacked, a lovely DEEP domicile might be a good idea, could even protect you from a genesis torpedo.

 

[Arpy]

I'm all for living aboveground too, but not at the expense to the land I now enjoy. Say we start living for centuries and construction is easy. Foods cheap, jobs aplenty. A handful of centuries pass and we've got 100 billion people living...off-world. Here on Earth, the population is 300 billion. What does the world look like? Is it one big stretch mall? Old Navy after McDonalds after Haircuttery? Wall-E or Bladerunner? Coruscant's cool till you keep going and going and find more of the same cheesy metal towers and neon nightclubs.

I'd rather see megastructures in the air, rock, under and on water, in orbit and out in space. There is plenty of room for all life in the world.

 

[scotpens]

. . . Given how often the Earth gets attacked, a lovely DEEP domicile might be a good idea, could even protect you from a genesis torpedo.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVy0ZVQcl7E&nofeather=True[/yt]

. . . A handful of centuries pass and we've got 100 billion people living...off-world. Here on Earth, the population is 300 billion. What does the world look like?

Blade Runner.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'm all for living aboveground too, but not at the expense to the land I now enjoy.

Like I said, I am not opposed to saving and preserving the land, just not at the expense of the quality of human life. Humans should not - MUST not - be sacrificed for the good of the "environment".

Is human life, and the quality thereof, not important at all?

 

[Arpy]

I agree, but It takes forethought. You tell me: what do you do with 500 billion people? At what point do you say I'm all for growth but this is ridiculous?

Regarding Bladerunner, you can keep it. Hell, the reason it was always raining is the overcrowded planet of fools nuked half the population into the sky.

Thought: look at Coruscant. The planets gott trillions of people over thousands of stories of tin buildings overrunning all land sea and half the air. Mindlessly growing, it'd reach so high the buildings will rise to where there's no breathable atmosphere. It'll keep growing till it's so massive they'll need artificial gravity so that citizens aren't crushed under the wight of it's own mass. It'll be nothing but a massive gluttonous Borg cube.

 

[Timo]

Like Asimov explicated in some of his later Foundation books, a planetwide city like Trantor or Corusant would need to incorporate some "planetary functions" into its infrastructure. There'd have to be closed-cycle life support systems for recycling not just air and water but also vital basic minerals such as iron and phosphorus; massive heat transfer and dissipation arrangements; even mechanical arrangements to accommodate continental drift (or, if the planet has no continental plates, cooling shrinkage). Some of this would have to be installed already when the cities began to cover 10% or so of the surface, and that's assuming the cities were eco-friendly green wonders that didn't ruin the planet at 1% coverage already.

However, none of that is a reason not to do it. Having your city spread across the surface of a planet means having it situated atop a vast trove of raw materials, and a fairly effective heat source or heat buffer, at least in the short term of mere tens of millennia. It's fairly irrelevant whether you build up or down, as the city will soon start spanning several vertical kilometers anyway, and the life support requirements aboveclouds and underground are not that dissimilar. But of course building up will have its advantages in that the buildings will soon be rid of the troublesome atmosphere, and can more efficiently transfer materials and information with the outer space - or with each other, via aerial means.

And soon enough, such construction will require advances in materials tech that allow you to build beanstalks for efficient surface-to-orbit access. It might even be that the surface layer of cities may briefly shrink as industries and special functions crawl up the beanstalks, giving the planet an equatorial mohawk (and probably causing all-new climatological problems that call for climatotechnological solutions).

A few arcologies here or there on Iowan cornfields won't yet call for such engineering, though. They, too, will probably initially siphon other sorts of habitation off the surface, reducing urban sprawl. Although whether that will be in favor of wilderness and recreational spaces or intensive agriculture will depend on how the arcologies produce their food.

Timo Saloniemi