What TLs you need to have and sustain a ecumenopolis

[Crzyraccoon]

So I got my world building hard hat on and I plan to make a fantasy/supers game set in a world covered by a city, now inspiration comes from the plane Ravnica from Magic the Gathering and just the love of having adventures in massive cities which I have played but never runned.

Now have a world would require high TLs in fields which I assume would be Agriculture, Architecture, Civil and Production.

I'm think of having this world set in a baseline of TL4-5, TL8-9 or TL10 but with the splits that have this world able to be a ecumenopolis.

This world may be part of a shared universe so that it be important to list these higher TL splits.

Taking from Ravnica, it seem TL4 with some guilds being at TL1-3 and others being at TL5-6 and even one with TL11 biology (Simic).

[Phantasm]

Ah, ecumenopoli... very hard to figure out, even harder to sustain. Examples in sci-fi are Geidi Prime (Dune), Coruscant, Nar Shaddaa (both Star Wars), New Detroit (Wing Commander: Privateer), and arguably Cybertron (Transformers).

First, you need a food source able to feed several hundred billion people. Importation of food isn't going to be enough. You'll probably want food vats, with plant and animal matter grown from stem cells, which is experimental at TL8 and apparently mature TL9. Entire localized megalopoli on the planet could be dedicated to doing nothing but growing food for the rest of the planet's populace.

Socially, burial is nigh impossible in such an artificial environment. I imagine that cremation will be common, perhaps including an undercurrent of Soylent Green, with the dead being processed into food. Whether the Soylent Green angle is public and socially acceptable, hidden and scandalous, or hidden but no real outrage should it be revealed, is entirely on the feel you're going for.

Just my $0.05 worth.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Ah, ecumenopoli... very hard to figure out, even harder to sustain. Examples in sci-fi are Geidi Prime (Dune), Coruscant, Nar Shaddaa (both Star Wars), New Detroit (Wing Commander: Privateer), and arguably Cybertron (Transformers).

There's a very good fantasy one in Walter Jon Williams's Metropolitan and City on Fire. And of course the classic SF one is Trantor in the Foundation stories.

I think GURPS Thaumatology: Urban Magics has a couple of paragraphs about the topic. And GURPS Fantasy has a short discussion of the benefits of casting plant and weather spells ceremonially, with the aid of the 100 adults in a village, for getting good food output.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Whether the Soylent Green angle is public and socially acceptable, hidden and scandalous, or hidden but no real outrage should it be revealed, is entirely on the feel you're going for.

Mmmmm... soylent green... glalalal....

[Genesis]

Of course, it also depends on just how dense you want your city-planet to be. An entire world coated with an evenly-dense suburban carpet would still house tens or hundreds of billions of people, and there'd be plenty of green space nonetheless. It'd just be carefully managed and manicured green space.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Crzyraccoon

So I got my world building hard hat on and I plan to make a fantasy/supers game set in a world covered by a city, now inspiration comes from the plane Ravnica from Magic the Gathering and just the love of having adventures in massive cities which I have played but never runned.

Now have a world would require high TLs in fields which I assume would be Agriculture, Architecture, Civil and Production.

I'm think of having this world set in a baseline of TL4-5, TL8-9 or TL10 but with the splits that have this world able to be a ecumenopolis.

This world may be part of a shared universe so that it be important to list these higher TL splits.

Taking from Ravnica, it seem TL4 with some guilds being at TL1-3 and others being at TL5-6 and even one with TL11 biology (Simic).

A magical ecumenopolis could be arranged by GATES. Both to bring the food in and to arange transport around the planet. The bad neighborhoods would have the bad climates. Meanwhile Vertical Farming is close to viable now. With small amounts of magic or a touch of supertech it's possible. Beef would vanish from the diet (or be a rare dainty), animals that breed well in pens would supply the meat and milk.

[dcarson]

That is LOTS of people. If the current world population lived at Hong Kong densities it would all fit in Texas easily. Asimov had 45 billion on Trantor which gives a density like England. Lots of city but hardly no open land. Given how deep/tall he made the levels you would have to wander miles to find another person. So maybe less land area then Earth and the oceans are the food source?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Ah, ecumenopoli... very hard to figure out, even harder to sustain. Examples in sci-fi are Geidi Prime (Dune), Coruscant, Nar Shaddaa (both Star Wars), New Detroit (Wing Commander: Privateer), and arguably Cybertron (Transformers).

First, you need a food source able to feed several hundred billion people. Importation of food isn't going to be enough. You'll probably want food vats, with plant and animal matter grown from stem cells, which is experimental at TL8 and apparently mature TL9. Entire localized megalopoli on the planet could be dedicated to doing nothing but growing food for the rest of the planet's populace.

Socially, burial is nigh impossible in such an artificial environment. I imagine that cremation will be common, perhaps including an undercurrent of Soylent Green, with the dead being processed into food. .

Using the deceased as feed stock for the vats would be taken for granted if spoken of about as often as we speak of animal excrement's role in growing plants. A city that spans a planet's land surface can not be run sentimentally. It has to recycle...everything. Unless you've got a lot of Food college magicians.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by dcarson

That is LOTS of people. If the current world population lived at Hong Kong densities it would all fit in Texas easily. Asimov had 45 billion on Trantor which gives a density like England. Lots of city but hardly no open land. Given how deep/tall he made the levels you would have to wander miles to find another person. So maybe less land area then Earth and the oceans are the food source?

In many Star Wars sources, Coruscant's population is often given as "an estimated one trillion". I'm not even going to guess what the population density planet-wide is like.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

In many Star Wars sources, Coruscant's population is often given as "an estimated one trillion". I'm not even going to guess what the population density planet-wide is like.

If you assume the same radius as Earth, you have a surface area of ~200,000,000 square miles. That sets a minimum of 5,000 per square mile. That's in the neighborhood of third world hellholes like Helsinki, Honolulu, and Montréal. Of course that's a minimum; if some of the planet is ocean, glaciers, mountains, and the like you'll multiply by a small number.