A Tarvenhive update

I was just pondering...

Metros going up already exist. They kind of go diagonal, but not as extreme as we'd imagine, just going up subtlely right?

What if we take this to the next level and let metros travel up/down in spirals? This would of course be over a larger area of the city since otherwise people would all get superdizzy.

Another idea might be that the metros kind of work with the rail on top, kind of like this.

Yet another source in inspiration might be the cities on HAWKEN, this indie game coming out soon.

Could you provide some more info on Tarvenhive? How big is it in total? What's its population? Is it the capital? etc etc etc.

Metro lines and other sorts of trains are not limited to being exactly horizontal of course but the limits on how rapidly they go up or down are quite shallow.  Few railways have slopes steeper than about 1% (1m change in height over 100m length), and although metros probably have slightly higher limits they are still going to be pretty shallow.  Really steep railways use cogs and ridged rails to haul the trains up.    I did think about something like that to allow the trains to go up more steeply but the thought that occurred to me was that the floor of the train would be sloping at the same angle as the incline if the train was also designed to run flat and that would be really annoying for the passengers!

I did also think about spirals, but the problem there is the amount of the city you have to cross in order to go up.  It would make journeys really slow and use up a lot of space.  Having the rail above the train works if you have single carriages, like your picture, or like cable cars in places like Switzerland.  There are also suspended monorail systems with long trains like this one in Japan, but for full these I think there would be the same problems with steep slopes.

Although I'm planning the dominant modes to be largely horizontal and largely vertical, this being such a huge city I'm sure there will be some other lines that work differently and some that are diagonal.

In terms of general details Tarvenhive is about 100km in diameter out to the edges of the 'Skirt' region.  The central part in which you'd find the vertical lines is about 25-35 km across, outside this it is more like Manhattan.  The total population is just under 1 billion, with 650-850 million of those living in the central region.  In the central region that gives you something like the entire population of Europe living in an area the size of Moscow (though stretched up over 4.5 km).

Tarvenhive is supposed to be a relatively typical hive on Tian (Merenas sub-sector capital).  I have been thinking about the capital city a bit as well though, and what that would be like, I'm thinking of having it as part of a 'mountain chain' of 4 or 5 hives with a combined population of 10s of billions.

Dragon Lord

I just realized this little thing...

Yes, you want to connect various parts of the hive to one another. But at the same time you want to keep the population under control and limit the mobility of the lower classes.

In countries such as Nicaragua this has been done by building vast freeways that cut through the city, connecting the business center to the airport and villas of the elites. The poor will have a hard time moving out of their barrios because of the highways running around them.

I can see something similar happening here. You would have metrolines connecting the rich areas to the business centers and what not. Then also have metros/cars/whatever connected between specific poor areas and the rich areas. Not so that they can all mingle and have fun, but that the workers and cleaners and such can work in the wealthy ones' houses. This type of infrastructure would be heavily regulated.

The poor areas are not that well connected to one another. This is partly done to control the population's mobility, but also since it would be irrelevant to connect all these areas to one another if you only want workers to work in the interest of the elites.

I know exactly what you mean.  In fact I seem to remember you mentioning it somewhere else previously and I thought it was a good idea.

I was also thinking that there would probably be some element of poor factory workers for example, living in housing provided by the factory owners that is adjacent to the factory.  As well as helping to keep the lower classes under control it would also reduce the need for transportation.

That has been very much on my mind when thinking about the vertical lines in the Hive Proper because of course in the central parts of the Hive there is a very strong vertical wealth gradient and the nobles of the upper hive are not going to want the lower hive dwellers to be able to get into their domain.  It is one advantage I think of the gradual-growth/city-of-towers style I am going with for Tarvenhive, in that in the upper reaches of the hive the towers narrow and separate so there are a lot more gaps between them and fewer interconnecting bridges etc.  So if you want to move between the spires it is much more efficient to do so via air, but of course only the rich can afford air-cars.

Although a good amount of movement limitation can be done simply in the organisation of the Hive infrastructure I also suspect that there would need to be some element of requiring authorisation to enter certain areas.  This could quite easily be done if everyone has ID cards that contain some information about their status.

Dragon Lord

Classes would be strictly separated. Workers have no access to the higher levels. This could partly be done by ID cards, but more likely with implants that work in a very similar way.

The higher classes live higher up in the hive, which is crealy separated from the rest of the city. Very effective and impossible to penetrate infrastructure connects these elite areas from stuff like space ports and what not.

The elites' servants might live in a "sub-perifery" surrounding the upper hive. Their movement would be even more regulated than that of the lower classes. They would move in guarded transports, almost as if they are prisoners.