Atlantean Architecture

Fiction Menagerie Phase 2
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Background:

  • The Atlanteans benefited from the baffling and enigmatic technology of the people called the Stone Builders - the same people who built the city in the Antarctic where Pyrrhus built his base
  • Though they didn’t understand how it functioned, they were able to exploit some of it to manipulate stone and water, including regulating water pressure
  • Thus, some of their designs can and should look like they violate conventional physics, because they do

Cities:

  • The biggest unit of Atlantean construction is the city
  • Cities are built buried beneath the oceanic crust, often between 5000m - 8000m below sea level - but some can be much deeper
  • The goal of Atlantean city construction is stealth - they wish to remain undetected by other living beings
  • They harvest energy from nearby volcanic vents
  • Mass-transit tubes connect different cities together
  • At the upper level of each city is a cave system (natural or artificial) called the attic, where air-breathing creatures (like humans) dwell
  • The rest of the city is called the agora, and is meant for Atlantean occupation

The Attic:

  • Natural or artificial cave systems, located at the uppermost part of the city
  • The interior height of the attic varies widely, but can be anywhere from 10m to 100m
  • Numerous “airlocks” are drilled through the rocky floor to connect the air-filled attic with the watery part of the city below
  • It’s possible to break through the seabed and into the attic without flooding it, if you’re careful (this is how the Menagerie strike team got in)
  • Within the attic, the Atlanteans constructed human-type buildings - multiple floors with stairs connecting the levels, walls and ceilings, the whole bit - to let humans live comfortably
  • Some Atlantean buildings extend up from the water-filled city and into the attic, and have interiors that can accommodate both air- and water-breathing occupants

The Agora:

  • A large open cave, filled with low-pressure sea water
  • Stalagmites, stalactites, and rock columns fill these spaces, and are either hollowed out to make living spaces, or have enclosed spaces attached to them
  • In a ring around the agora, homes and dwellings are carved into the rock - the open central area is for places of business, common areas, and other kinds of shared spaces
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Atlantean aesthetics depend on where you are.

Attic buildings:

  • Meant for human habitation, so built along the usual vertical-box-with-floors concept
  • With no wood, synthetics, or other weird materials to use, they’re built out of… rock. Yaay
  • That said, the Atlanteans do apply pigments & color to these buildings for the comfort of the human occupants
  • There’s no sunlight, so chemical or bioluminescent light sources are everywhere
  • Because rock doesn’t produce very much bounce, anywhere that’s not in direct light is in deep shadow, if not actual darkness
  • In short: high contrast, uniform textures, plant hues as the color palette

Agora:

  • To human eyes, this is all dark and gloomy and blue-black, but Atlanteans see differently
  • Navigation is three-dimensional, so no “floors” or “levels”
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