How futuristic IS the EVE universe?
This is such a large topic that I don't even know where to starter. The question is...what are cities like in EVE? Are they the sort of post-contemporary things that feature in certain chronicles, or more exotic, sci-fi creations? Opening up The Burning Life, we have the following for the Gallente and Caldari respectively...
Gallente[spoiler]The refuge was a wonderful city, not the largest on Gallente Prime but sizeable enough that it could house several spacious layers, complete with full infrastructure on each: housing, transportation, even woodland carefully grown to match the architecture and the pathways of the streets. A latticework of life and activitiy.
It was an expensive place, particularly for those who chose to reside in its uppermost layers. The population was a pyramid, with tens of millions making a living further down, whittled down to only a few million in the median layers, and a single million or so at the top. There was no social segregation: if you could afford to move up, you did, and you bought with you whatever lifestyle you chose.
The largest buildings pierced the skies, their spires glinting like rainbows. Architecture here followed the crystal style so favoured in the richer parts of the Federation. Below then, near the ground of each level, the local planet's flora took over, covering not merely the safety gaps between the buildings and nearby roads, but every other hole that could be seen. It was not possible to see down with the entangled branches, the creeping vines, the great bushels of flowers sprouting from all manners of surfaces. A careful eye could spot that some of these plants were not natural neighbours, and that, in fact, they had been genetically modified to form symbiotic relationships, resulting in a natural, sweetly scented web of illusion that gave the constant appearance that the only thing beneath the pedestrians' feet was the soft moss of nature.
The streets themselves, spacious and clean, were pristine in design and appearance. They doubled as scaffolding for the skyscrapers and were thus connected to each side of every building. The general attitude among the denizens of this city was that personal freedom, in whatever interpretation one lent it, trumped all reason. It was considered normal to have people wandering in on the ground floor of every building even if they had no business there, for no other reason than curiousity and, possibly, some need to have a definitive solid structure holding them up for a while. The streets were translucent synthetics with an unscratchable varnish, but the buildings, for all their crystalline exterior, were very much solid brickwork and metal.
The culture was another thing entirely.
As Heci and Ralea passed through the streets, they saw everything one could think of seeing in a world that had all it wanted. Nowhere else were there greater human modifications on display; nowhere was there a higher density of information effulgently broadcast from countless sources. Other senses were assaulted, too: in the grand flora that surrounded every street, embedded launchers would send out wafting puffs of spores that, when inhaled, would carefully enhance longings and emotions subject to the inhaler's location. A journey past a travel agency would find the traveller suddenly excited for adventure; a walk near the matchmaking agency and adult toy boutique would set off several glands that had not entirely expected to go into full operation; and the gods of New Eden help anyone walking past a chocolatier.
Safety limits were, of course, strictly enforced - the keyword was 'enhance', not 'induce' - and any corporation whose advertisement assaults became too intense for the population to handle would find themselves booted down a level, where the natural light was a little murkier, standards a little lower, and the competition all the more cutthroat.
Heci allowed their journey to veer towards the level's mildly seedier areas. There was nothing dilapidated or all that dangerous this high up, but the sleaziness was nonetheless quite detectable, overlaid on certain buildings and structures like an oily patina. Lights took on a redder quality, and the emotion spores became all the more singularly focused.
They stopped near a store whose volumetric ads, slowly revolving like glittering ice circles around its building, promised entertainment quite unlike anything else the viewer had seen...[/spoiler]
The above paints a far more futuristic picture of the Gallente Federation than any previous piece of PF IMO. Caldari next...
Caldari[spoiler]The city was a beehive, locked and structured into compartments that themselves resolved into smaller sections, all with sublevelled chambers that made the outside feel as if the smallest unit might hold a city of its own.
Not all parts of the metropolis were like this. Some areas were almost blank: covered over a transparent shield that looked down on nothing but rocks, sand, stone and the odd circle of grass. As for the rest there seemed, to Ralea's outsider eyes, no difference between a business district and a leisure one, just as she would be hard-pressed to judge the function of individual buildings from their construction alone. It was clear that just as much thought had gone into the aesthetics of buildings as into the peaceable gardens.
Ralea and Heci angled their way past right corners, walked down streets straight as lines, and eventually found themselves in front of a building indistinguishable from its neighbours. It had shaded glass walls mounted on metal scaffolding, and rose at least thirty storeys high.
Once they'd gone inside and travelled thirteen floors up, they found the corridors were all of metal and glass. The cubicle walls glimpsed in the distance had felt shading not unlike the grey windows of buildings. Even at this level, Ralea felt she was walking through, if not the streets below, then a replica in miniature. Conformity and equality were hand in hand, all the way down.
They wove their way through the angular maze...[/spoiler]
The Gallente like ice and crystal, and the Caldari like sand and stone. The Gallente like towers, circles and spirals, the Caldari like low-rises, squares and lines.
However, there is a description of a Gallente city in Methods of Torture that sounds rather contemporary and not very futuristic at all...but obviously in a place as diverse as the Federation, it varies...
[spoiler]It had been raining for a while. The weather in this hemisphere of the planet was usually pretty rough. It was now night-time, and most everyone had retired to their warm, safe beds. Outside, steam rose from grids in the gutters, and the rain pitter-patted on stone.
From somewhere came the round of rapid, splashing footsteps.
***
Sebastian ran and ran. His lungs burned, every drawn breath feeling like fire coursing down his throat. His head throbbed, his sight was going increasingly blurry and his legs felt numb from exhaustion and cold, and still he ran. He entered an alley and sprinted through, turned again, another alley, sprint and turn, taking a zigzag path without looking back.
At last he came to a stop, at the end of a cul-de-sac with a wooden fence. He leaned against the fence, hands above his head, gasping for air. The rain pounded him mercilessly.[/spoiler]
Wooden fences! Then a futuristic Gallentean subterranean city (Seyllin I)
[spoiler]Leave it to Federation terraforming expertise to create a living, breathing world beneath the surface of an inhospitable planet. In the mined excavation sites where thick veins of precious ore once lay, intersecting caverns big enough to house capital ships were now illuminated in gentle cycles with artificial sunlight; water ran in streams and falls throughout a cityscape that was equal parts lush vegetation and stylish living quarters; atmosphere scrubbers worked with the ecosystem to recycle air and push a comfortable breeze throughout the miles of interconnecting city blocks and work centers.
The ambitious subterranean project did as much for the science of transforming worlds as it proved that the mining industry was core to the identity of the nation. In all, four main cities would be constructed: Loadcore, Metal City, Southern Cross, and Valimor. Braggs Seyllin died before the last of these could be completed, but his legacy was already established. At the time of his passing twenty years ago, 8 million people lived on TLXX-01. By the time the planet was rechristened Seyllin I, more than a half billion called those underground caverns home. These were thriving, pulsing cityscapes interconnected by magrail systems that spanned around the entire planet. Peak production for most of its natural resources was fast approaching, but the economic and cultural significance of Seyllin to the Gallente Federation would last long after the last chunk of ore was recovered. [/spoiler]
Anyway, what do people think? Do Amarr cities that expand over large areas have divisions of Holder, Commoner and Slave? A citadel area that makes the Holder's territory, encircled by the Commoner districts, then encircled further by the Slave districts? What about Minmatar? A complete mess, all jumbled up, where an extremely rich family would live in an apartment block right next to a slum? As we can see, there is a diverse range of rather contemporary-sounding cities, then ultra-futuristic metropolises (the Gallente may be the master city-builders, if only because they love aesthetic).
Some artwork pictures...
A nullsec inner cityAmarr metropolisA Gallente "ground level" city
