u/ColinSearleAuthor

I'd like to show a location in New Toronto. Specifically, one below the city.

The main characters in my series operate out of a location called 'The Village', an independent settlement of 'undocumented' people living off-grid, outside the United Earth Federation's control. There are hundreds of similar settlements scattered throughout the bowels of the New Toronto megastructure, some criminal, some not. This one is probably the most well-run.

Around 400 people, plus robots and drones to help keep things running. Hardscrabble and DIY, but functional. Like the habitat above and around them, the Village maintains everything its people need to survive: synthetic food production, traditional livestock farms, water reclamation, power generation. Everyone works, including the children once they're old enough.

Power comes from a crashed spacecraft that hit the city several levels up and came to rest in the concourse below. The Villagers hijacked its intact reactor. They maintain a vehicle fleet for underground expeditions and a standing militia.

How do 400 people stay hidden when they're this exposed? Holo-generators projecting a massive field of collapsed rubble over the entire settlement. The Federation has abandoned large swathes of the underground and has little reason to investigate. The Village is built at the outer edge despite the risk — vitamin D exposure from the habitat's artificial sun, and basic sanity.

Daily threats: Nanophage sufferers regularly escape into the underground and have to be dealt with. Salvage parties go out constantly to scavenge technology and parts to keep everything running.

The settlers are outcasts and castaways, people who chose the Village over life under the Federation and its feared Church of Social Compliance. Newcomers are rare and heavily vetted. Once you're in, you don't leave. But most agree: life here beats the surface, unless you're wealthy enough for it not to matter.

What would this place feel like to live in, and what would make you leave?

It's a dome arcology, current as of 2263. The surface of the Earth is a blasted post-nuclear hell-scape, but through sheer grit, determination and some sketchy alien tech, we've managed to build mighty dome-cities over some of the ruins. This particular dome was the first to be constructed, which is why its got a space elevator (we did a lot of this from orbit or beyond, after the war).

The locations are callouts of distinct locales that the characters visit throughout the story. New Toronto is part of a cluster of domes in the region, but is the largest by far.

The top surface of the city is where the majority of the population lives, but the underground is an immense network of transit-ways, recycling facilities, power generation, water renewal and criminal hideouts--plus the remains of the old city beneath. It's got all the hallmarks of cyberpunk megacities and sci-fi megastructures that everyone knows and loves. It even has a lake (though its more of a giant reservoir).

What would you guys add or change, if anything? Much appreciated!

(From: The Call of Abaddon)