But german is such a lyrical and flowing language! I mean, I love that song "Das Auffenshwienzerstu

[dolari]

All comics are pencilled. Crunch time starts when I wake up.

Here's something I was working on at the end of the day:



It's a terragened version of a city in one of my other stories. The idea being that the city started in one spot millennia ago, and never moved away. So the core of the city got denser and denser and taller and taller and the city spread out from the center, but still built higher and higher where they moved to. The top of the tower should be a little more pointy than that, but I think I broke Terragen by making it so high. :)

Millenia isn't a that long to build such a huge city. Rome is REALLY old and nothing like this. That's because this is the only city on the whole planet.

Just a little something to play with for a story I may not get to for YEARS.

Comments

[kengr]

Well, two factor will limit how tall things get in the center. First of all, you have to *remove* older buildings before you can add new ones.

Second, there are limits due to strength of materials. That's why you didn't get much more than a dozen stories (if that) before steel was available to build a framework that the rest of the building hung off of.

Before that the limits where the strength of the rock/brick at the bottom of the walls. It had to carry the weight of the stuff above it.

Heck, that one pyramid where the angle suddenly changes part way up ran into that exact problem, and it was essentially *solid*. Hollow buildings have it worse.

Anyway, even with structural steel you run into limits around 1500-2000 feet. And with the strongest material *possible* (buckytubes or diamond fiber composites). I'm not sure you can get above a mile or so.

So I don't know how tall that stuff in the center is, but unless it's got magic or antigrav, there may be problems.

And the plumbing is gonna be *real* interesting. :-)

Then again, whether or not you care to acknowledge physical limits is up to you. :-)

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

Well imagine the amount of human waste you need to remove from Coruscant daily. :) It's handwaving along those lines.

The idea being that it's Troy on a millenial scale, with inhabitants still living on top and building faster than parts are collapsing. It's prolly enginerringly impossible, but necessary on for the story. The weight of the tower is mentioned there are archaeological excavations going on at the bottom where layers of city are pressed flat. And that is a major part of the story.

The city is prolly 30 miles across, and the tower at least 5 to 6 miles high. Maybe it's stable like a mountain at this point, but since "the corporation" is alive in the tower, they'd shore it up good.

[kengr]

Well imagine the amount of human waste you need to remove from Coruscant daily. :)

Really good recycling...

The city is prolly 30 miles across, and the tower at least 5 to 6 miles high. Maybe it's stable like a mountain at this point, but since "the corporation" is alive in the tower, they'd shore it up good.

Ah. Well, for "mountain" type stability, you'd want to have the slope be shallower. And the "core" areas would be pretty solid.

Still, for a good story, you can cheat a llot.

Rather like my temptation to do a D&D or Traveller (or combination) campaign set on an Alderson disc... What keeps it the right shape? FM.
:-)