Dreddverse Map

[Funt Solo]

Oh - thanks for the reminder about the Big Smelly being the Ohio river - that's why Pittsburgh is important - it's the start of the Ohio, which then travels west (and out of the city) - which is how Dredd and McGruder sneak in during Necropolis.

I've got two aspects of lore that I need to keep in mind, geographically:

1. Erie (on the southern shore of Lake Erie) needs to be out of the city. (Fog on the Eerie)
2. The city has to encompass Pittsburgh (because of the Big Smelly).

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Follow here, if ye dare, my tale of mapping woe...

1. I chose an equirectangular projection vector map of the world, but I had to add the lakes myself:




2. The Cursed Earth (prog 81) with my red annotations:


3. The Judge Child:


4. JD Mega-Special #1 [vague]


5. Shamballa (701) - Ranson didn't like placing cities on coastlines - so quite abstract.


6. Map from online:


7. JD RPG (Mongoose):


8. Another vector map project from someone a few years ago:


9. Based on Bob's Law (from prog 355):


10. My current fitting:


11. With meta-sectors overlaid:

[Funt Solo]

For the idea of a linked-up Undercity, this uses NASA's "earth at night" map to show us the light pollution (which also shows us the centers of population, and how the various parts of the Undercity might link up, or not):

[The Legendary Shark]

Maybe something catastrophic happened to MC1 while Dredd was faffing about in the Cursed Earth.

[nxylas]

I think Mega-City One is a bit like Craggy Island, in that its boundaries expand and contract according to the needs of the story. Unlike Craggy Island, though, its west side seems to have expanded, rather than fallen into the sea.

[Lawman of the Present]

I'm inclined to agree with your suggestions, my headcannon has been that the Undercity comprises an array of domed/capped off areas that the Meg has grown around, and eventually on top of. These may be loosely connected via other sewers, caverns or foundations. But how the city forms around these domes isn't clear.

I guess it's a bit difficult to imagine how mega structures might work over uneven terrain. Visualisations of MC-1 tend to err with the suggestion of a completely flat base - we see flat, stepped layers bur rarely inclines, unless it's an elevated roadway - so exactly how stacked blocks would maintain form atop natural hills, cliffs or even mountains remains to be seen. I almost want to see an horizontal cross section of the city to see how it's constructed atop the land.

The height of the Undercity has varied over the years, from only the upper floors of the WTC removed, to something a few stories high with entrances directly onto the lower building rooftops. I guess this lends credence to the idea of a dome, or of various different sections.

[GoGilesGo]

Another marker to consider is Cincinnati.

About 300 miles West of Pittsburgh. Similar to Erie, the city "took two close hits during the war".

Of interest to MC-1 but not under their jurisdiction. 

Featured in Progs 1371-1373

[Dash Decent]

The logic of the Undercity gets a bit strange when you consider sea level

Perhaps rising sea levels due to climate change led to the building of sea walls.  The walls then became one side of the 'box' built around and over (part of) the old city.  The sea walls were built sufficiently close to the coastline that we don't see any real change in the shape of the continents on future maps.  Also, the top/'lid' to these boxed-off sections provides some of the nice flat base that gives MC1 it's very even surface.

And yes, I realise how totally ridiculous that would all be given the scale of it all.

[The Legendary Shark]

I often wonder about First Contact with aliens - was alien technology used to build MC1? Maybe we should get the descendants of Erich von Däniken on the case...

[Proudhuff]

I'm inclined to agree with your suggestions, my headcannon has been that the Undercity comprises an array of domed/capped off areas that the Meg has grown around, and eventually on top of. These may be loosely connected via other sewers, caverns or foundations. But how the city forms around these domes isn't clear.

I guess it's a bit difficult to imagine how mega structures might work over uneven terrain. Visualisations of MC-1 tend to err with the suggestion of a completely flat base - we see flat, stepped layers bur rarely inclines, unless it's an elevated roadway - so exactly how stacked blocks would maintain form atop natural hills, cliffs or even mountains remains to be seen. I almost want to see an horizontal cross section of the city to see how it's constructed atop the land.

The height of the Undercity has varied over the years, from only the upper floors of the WTC removed, to something a few stories high with entrances directly onto the lower building rooftops. I guess this lends credence to the idea of a dome, or of various different sections.

I always think of the Undercity a bit like under the oldtown in Edinburgh, bits built, used, sealed up forgotten then built on by new generations. Then someone rips out a fireplace...

as an aside I have been told by a cooncil ex-employee that there is a very very corroded iron beam that holds up a very prominent tenement building, but its two stories underground in a basement arch so no one takes ownership of it... only a matter of time  and that big bank building on The Mound, moves downhill about an inch a decade.
 

[Proudhuff]

Thanks, Funt... or Linton?  I like to think that it's your surname, and your first name is Geoff.

The Geoff Linton?

THE LINTONATOR? wow, yah, yah, you Edwardian cockerel you!
well done on the cartography, perhaps we should get these on pencils cases yah yah...

[Funt Solo]

I always think of the Undercity a bit like under the oldtown in Edinburgh, bits built, used, sealed up forgotten then built on by new generations.

That's how I envisaged it - rather than dome off a big city, you just build enormous foundations, and the base of your block becomes the ceiling of the undercity. Then someone builds a block next to that one. Then someone builds a tween block plaza. You can imagine these city-bottom areas becoming more and more blocked off from sunlight until they're entirely shut-in - an organic, gradual process.

I reasoned my way out of rising sea levels by having the various nuclear explosions causing global cooling and reversing the global warming we're currently experiencing. (And they said nuclear wars were bad! Yah.)

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Another marker to consider is Cincinnati.

Thanks - noted.

[Lawman of the Present]

The original Undercity concept was very much a network of sealed and abandoned subway tunnels and passageways. I imagine this much like the WW2 shelters beneath UK cities (like the Anchor Exchange in Birmingham) or the Paris Catacombs.

Even Las Vegas has, if I recall, effectively an Undercity - giant spillways in case of flooding that have become home to a large homeless population.

I guess the concept has been exaggerated and expanded over the years to include the entirety of Old New York, oddly stuck in the 80s despite being part of the city proper until decades later. Hey, maybe it's a timeslip caused by radiation?

Ties in I suppose with the gradual retconning that the Meg was no longer intentionally constructed in the 2030s, but formed of urban sprawl to be eventually isolated by the nukes.

The Undercity is a great location and definitely an interesting idea, but one I would like to see a little more world building devoted to.
_ _ _

As an aside; Batman: Arkham Knight has a believable Undercity on Founder's Island. The new developments have been built on a platform atop and through the old buildings.

Then we have Futurama which seems to have borrowed quite a lot from Dredd's world, with a mutie-inhabited Old NY.

[Funt Solo]

Mole People - Living in the Tunnels Beneath New York

Artists who lived in a secret room inside a working mall, for four years.

[Dash Decent]

Artists who lived in a secret room inside a working mall, for four years.

...running a secret faction of ninja Judges.

[AlexF]

Credo!, this is another astonishingly thorough piece of work. Get it published in the Megazine, and it ought to prompt reams of story ideas!
We've had plenty of tales set in the radiactive wastes of teh Cursed Earth, but not enough, I feel, in teh bombed-out sections of Florida. Might there not be even one part that survived the Apocalpyse War, with mutant Judges running a small city sector... perhaps using mutant alligators and living in a swamp-base..? Or, you know, DisneyWorld..?