Architecture od MC-1

[Bolt-01]

Just saw this on the FPI Blog. Thought some here may find it interesting.

Bolt-01

Link: http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/?p=5243" target="_blank">That's a big building that is...

[Richmond Clements]

Cool!
Nice link, Bolt.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I've always thought there should be some kind of article about the history MC1 architecture, maybe in a 2000ad special or something. Sort of like the magazine articles and reports that divide the chapters of Watchmen.
Was it just after Booth's spot of nuclear trouble when it all started changing, or before? I noticed cranes and construction work in the background of the post-nuclear scenes of Origins. What would you call the style? Pretentious names here please. Post-organic is my cringeworthy suggestion.

[Funt Solo]

The first JD RPG, or maybe the Citi-Block supplement, had blocks categorised something like:

Pre-Atomic
Post-Atomic
Post-Apocalypse

Also, there were "conapts", which were relatively low-level but modern block complexes.

The post-atomic blocks were stratoscrapers, and then post-apocalypse were even taller, with far more modern amenities.  More A/G chutes instead of lifts, that kind of thing.

The large black blob that denotes MC-1 really does encompass a large chunk of what's currently countryside in the US.  Whenever MC-1 appears, I guess it's easy to imagine it as "a large New York", and indeed - many creators do this.  Morrison had no idea of the scale of the city, and the movie had the Statue of Liberty within sight of a West Wall entrance.  

Also, MC-1 comes across as fairly flat, like Manhatten Island looks.  But MC-1 can't be that flat, can it?

What modern day cities does it encompass?  Which parts of the city actually have an undercity?  Are the various undercities connected?

Also, what's going on in the nuclear wasteland of the south sectors that suffered the total nuke out during the Apocalypse War?  Or the north sectors surrounding the North-West Hab Zone?  Why do we never see Hotdog Runs venturing into those areas?

Was the West Wall built up around the new borders of MC-1?  Does the NW Hab Zone have it's own wall?

...

[Funt Solo]

The geographical boundaries of the city don't stand up under any serious scrutiny:

http://l511124.cct.abertay.ac.uk/gfx/mc1map.jpg" />

http://l511124.cct.abertay.ac.uk/gfx/mania.jpg" />

http://www.great-lakes.net/lakes/basinMap2.gif" />

Fog on the Eerie 4 episodes (Progs 1037 to 1040)

[I, Cosh]

What modern day cities does it encompass?

I always imagined it being like The Sprawl: the Boston-Atlanta conurbation. No particular reason for that other than that I hadn't been reading 2000AD for long when I first read Neuromancer.

[Lobo Baggins]

What modern day cities does it encompass? Which parts of the city actually have an undercity? Are the various undercities connected?

New York (most Undercity set stories) and Washington (the White House appears in 'Out of the Undercity')  are the only ones we've seen in the strips - presumably there's Undercities in Boston and Philadelphia (the other two major cities in the area) too.

Mega-City One seems to engulf the Appalacian Mountain range, so presumably they were demolished  (by Terra-Meks) and used as building material.

There must be some sort of massive foundation structure built on top of the entire east coast which the Mega-City stands on top of (with the old cities in 'pockets'), which is why the City appears to be so flat ('they concreted over the old city and started again').

[JOE SOAP]

The air in the Big Meg must be really thin if buildings the size of the White House are over built by more foundations and humongous city blocks.

[House of Usher]

Irrelevantly, to bring up a very old point of Cursed Earth geography, I've just got my copy of The Complete Case Files v.2, and I'm reminded that Dredd's route across the Cursed Earth doesn't make sense. If Dredd sets out from, say, Ohio, he heads northwest across 4 states to reach Mount Rushmore in South Dakota only to turn around and head back southeast to get to Kentucky, crossing pre-Atomic War state lines 7 times unecessarily and adding days to his journey.

This means there was no need for Dredd's expedition to encounter the town of Deliverance, the Devil's Lapdogs or the mutants of Keystone City (who killed Judge Gradgrind).

You know, it looks very much as if the eccentric route was taken just so that Mount Rushmore could be worked in for the purposes of satire and adding some colour to the story.

[Steve Green]

This is covered by a panel in the first episode with Mount Rushmore.

They spotted the mistake, and the panel states that it was moved to just outside Mega City One.

[House of Usher]

Ah, you're so right! Funny that the mutants then decided to name their township after the city that used to be closest to Mount Rushmore in its original location in South Dakota. I guess they just had a great sense of tradition.

That's clunky narration all right - "carved into the rocks after the mountain was moved to just outside Mega-City One" - and there was me thinking most of the faces had been carved into the rock before I was even born...

I think I'll leave this ome alone now.

[House of Usher]

this one

[Steve Green]

No doubt it was severely damaged in the Atomic Wars, the remnants moved, then restored :)

I think that's about as retconny fanwankish I can get.

If only Pat's catholic monks had taught geography better.

Now... what were the whippersnappers going to be?

- Steve

[mogzilla]

i read somewhere that mega city two had been rebuilt after judgement day,is this true and why do we not see it ? also who was it populated by and do they have a judge force?

[worldshown]

It was supposedly rebuilt by Hondo-Cit as a venue for a Supersurf that Chopper participated in. But, as we all know, Chopper is dead, so it never really happened.