Fan-fiction: Hyperstructures, Buildings of tomorrow, today! Options

[Svea Rike]

Hi, I’m Adrian Freeman, the most famous British television presenter ever. And that’s saying something. You are watching the Knowledge Channel at eight-o’clock on Saturday, meaning you must be watching Hyperstructures! On this episode, we’re going to look at some of the most mind-boggling engineering projects throughout the 21st century and the repercussions they had. Step in to the elevator; we’re going up!

HYPER TALL

HYPER AMBITIOUS

HYPER EXPENSIVE

HYPERSTRUCTURES

I’m standing in front of the Silver Swan Supertall Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, the tallest and largest casino in the world. It has just been opened after over twenty years of construction. It was envisioned by the multi-billionaire Matthew McAllen in the early 20s, who wanted to outdo every other casino in Las Vegas. The construction was disastrous. Poor organization, minimal workforce and with the economic crash following the Global War on Terror, construction effectively stalled until it was picked up again ten years later. Now, thousands of tourists flood the gates eager to waste all their money on the one-armed bandits. I’m feeling like spending some money myself, in fact.

[Montage of walking around the place - Adrian eats an ice cream]

Mm. Constructions like the Silver Swan have been planned and attempted for many decades, even so far back as the end of World War II. Joseph Stalin, wanting to show the Moscovian’s he’s boss, wanted to construct a megatall mausoleum of himself with a fifty-foot tall statue of Lenin on top. Such a building would have been impossible to construct back then – and it was – but nowadays whipping up a new building is as easy as – well, as eating an ice cream. Now okay that might be an overstatement but today in Moscow there really is a large hyperstructure, the Bol’shoy Dvorets. It was built on orders by the newly inaugurated president Nikolai Suvorov, who wanted to show the people Russia could come out of a crisis stronger than ever. Initially construction went on slow as the workforce was not yet fully convinced Suvorov was the right deal, but eventually with some help from Europe in the form of money the construction started. The building was completed in 2038, six years after it was planned to be complete. Over 600 meters tall, the building has a massive statue of the Russian bear, and inside there’s everything from a shopping mall to residential space to offices and even a night club if I’m not mistaken.

[Adrian tries to dance in the casino but fails horribly and walks outside]

Now of course building structures like these you’re going to face problems. Most prominently cost. How much money does it take to build something like this? Five billion? Twenty billion? Well, the Silver Swan took an astounding fifty-five billion dollars to construct, and if I’m guessing right Mr. McAllen is nowhere near getting that money back. But anyway, fifty-five billion is nothing compared to what China attempted in Saigon in ’36. After forcefully invading South-East Asia and creating the so-called Greater Asian People’s Alliance, the benevolent ministry in Beijing wanted to give their newfound subordinates a gift – in the form of a kilometer-tall skyscraper in the middle of Saigon with the words ‘Peace with China’ inscribed in Mandarin letters on top. Suffice to say, the Vietnamese were not thrilled.

[Pictures of Chinese structures throughout the 21st century]

China has had many ambitious engineering projects. With the New Revolution in 2017 China was transformed from a communist state to a booming capitalist economy and it is showing. In little over ten years China’s most down-trodden cities were transformed from backwater ghettos to sprawling economic centers all over the country. Hong Kong even built a floating arcology in the South China Sea where currently two million people live. China has plans for thousands of these arcologies at sea to spread out their increasingly growing population. One could even say Singapore is today one giant arcology as skyways, walkways, hanging motorways and all sorts of connections, self-sustaining energy sources and the complete abolition of ground-based roads turned the city into a green, highly expensive paradise.

[Cut to Singapore – Adrian is standing on a skyway made of glass]

Oh what’s this? Am I floating? No, I’m just standing on the Singapore SkyWalk, a large bridge connecting the tallest skyscrapers in Singapore. It’s made entirely of graphene, a super-strong material that’s still thinner than paper, making it 99% transparent. But don’t you worry, this SkyWalk could hold a tank and not budge. Walking out on this thing is a dare as it seems you’re walking on thin air. In fact, there’s absolutely no reason for this SkyWalk to exist, the engineers that built it just want to show off! Could you believe that? But nonetheless graphene, carbon-fiber, nano-carbon and other ‘wonder-materials’ have been used for construction projects ever since they started mass production in the early 20s. One such project is the Juan Pedro City-Building outside Sao Paulo in Brazil. It is still under construction but the arcology is expected to hold up to five million inhabitants, and more such projects are planned by the South American Pact to disperse their population just like China. However, in South America you’ve got little space to build especially with the Amazon rainforest now off-limits for any deforestation work. These arcologies must be big enough to accommodate the population of a small country, expanding the footprint is impossible and going upwards would be too risky with their soiled ground. So, the Brazilians simply build it downwards!

[Cut to Adrian in Sao Paulo]

Just several miles north of Sao Paulo is the Juan Pedro construction site, but we can’t go there. The SAP are very cautious about schematics espionage and thus only allow select engineers to observe the blueprints and all workers are exchanged every two days. Juan Pedro is built inside an old quarry and it’s planned to extend further down, utilizing geothermal energy as a power source. The arcology is connected to the earth around it with large coil springs that dampen the effects of earthquakes should one arrive. It’s an ambitious project but they have been attempted before. The Mexico Ground City finished construction in 2037 with the help of the North American Union, and is located in the middle of Mexico City. There have never been an official term for buildings going into the ground, but earthscraper, groundscraper or just downscraper are most commonly used. The soft soil of South America coupled with their mountainous geography and plenty of quarries makes earthscrapers ideal for relocating their population.

Now of course, accidents to happen. One of the biggest engineering blunders of all time has to be the Chicago Spire. It was a planned 900-meter tall building in Chicago but it never went off the drawing boards in the early noughties. However it was later picked up by a Spanish entrepreneur whose name we shall not say. He made the unfortunate decision of restarting construction during the economic depression following the war. At that time resources were hard to acquire so the Spaniard looked to more… shadier markets. The new materials were difficult to work with as they did not stand to code, and production costs were immense. The Spaniard ordered his workers to cut corners in order to save money, which did not end well. The structure proved too unstable and when a particularly strong wind hit the building right after it reached the 500 mark it collapsed, killing 24 workers and injuring hundreds other. But that does not even compare to the unimaginable disaster of epic proportions known as the Great Middle Eastern War.
[Cut to Adrian standing in front of a construction site in the desert]

After the tragedy that was the Global War on Terror the war didn’t really reach an end in the Middle East. Iran and Saudi Arabia were having at it and tossing nuclear bombs around like they were baseballs. It was the biggest nuclear exchange in history, and currently the only one if we exclude the dirty nukes the GLA acquired, and it saw the destruction of countless marvels of engineering. The radical fundamentalists controlling Iran saw the United Arab Emirates and Dubai to be a scorn to the Middle East, and ordered its destruction through nuclear weapons. The entire city was laid to waste, the tallest structures in the world reduced to ash and millions of people were killed. Luckily, that was the only major destruction event as sane generals in the Iranian army managed to prevent further nuclear attacks on cities and simply tossed them into the desert. Mecca and its grandiose clock tower was spared and now sits safely in a protectorate of the Middle Eastern Council. Dubai is currently being rebuilt, as we can see behind me, and the World Island is now the final resting place of two million.

But tragedies aside, skyscrapers are not the biggest things built by mankind, no. If skyscrapers go up in the sky, earthscrapers go into the earth, then seascrapers must go into the sea of course! Built through a cooperation between Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, Pacific City – imaginative name, I know – is the world’s first free-floating city in the middle of the ocean! Well, not the middle it’s located several miles south of Rennel Island, but it’s impressive nonetheless! Pacific City is a top-class luxury resort that doesn’t even cost more than your average charter holiday. It has eighteen hotels in varied price ranges, beaches made of artificial sand, seascrapers that go into the ocean and a marina with space for hundreds of private yachts. There are even plans to include a full-fledged airport. Yes, an airport on water, how crazy is that?! But anyway Pacific City is currently the number one tourist resort across the world and more than 10 million visit it each month.

[Cut to Adrian on top of a skyscraper]

Oh dear, it looks like our time is up! Get it? Up! Okay I’ll stop. Remember to tune in to Hyperstructures again next Saturday, same time, same show! And I’ll see you all at the bottom of this scraper, because I’m going bungee jumping! Good bye!

*****
I tried to find pictures to fit but I couldn't find any, not even on Google Images. I did find some on DeviantArt that could fit but I didn't want to steal their designs. But anyway I hope you liked this insight into the engineering world of Rise of the Reds.

[Svea Rike]

Ah Jesus Christ! I accidentally posted FOUR threads! Please please delete the other three!

EDIT: Ah thank you!

This post has been edited by Svea Rike: 27 Nov 2014, 16:47

[Serialkillerwhal...]

This sounds RIGHT out of discovery channel.

[CheoRock]

Nice work. And btw, you still can use the stock images in dA, most of it are licenced for free non commercial use.

[BlackRangerXIII]

Interesting Fan-fiction
The writting Reminds me of the Nazi German buildings from Wolfenstein the New Order (BTW a Great game)

[Svea Rike]

Thanks guys!

@CheoRock: Yeah I'll look into that, thanks.

[X1Destroy]

in the form of a kilometer-tall skyscraper in the middle of Saigon with the words ‘Peace with China’

Now this is the most absurd thing to ever happened since the majority of people here are pretty hostile against the Chinese, but it's a mod of an illogical game set in an alternated universe so let's go along with it.

Very nice fan fic, BTW.

This post has been edited by X1Destroy: 1 Dec 2014, 20:35

[Svea Rike]

Yes but remember Vietnam is under GAPA's control here so they basically forced it up.

[Omnius64]

Good Fic, Svea Rike..