Habeed
04-30-2007, 04:00 AM
Yes. The backstory is that our character arrived via plane crash. That means that the dome is located at less than 100 feet beneath the ocean. (well, at least the top portion...maybe the character's cockpit happened to sink near a lock at the top of the dome)
The city could be pressurized to the air pressure at about 100-200 feet under the ocean. Scuba divers can handle this all the time, and I think you can be rapidly compressed to the pressure at 50-100 feet without too severe a case of the bends. I know after a sudden pressurization, coming back to the surface could be fatal, but the character could plausible survive.
The water conditions are described as icy, so the city could be on the seabed somewhere in the arctic. There's literally millions of real world possible locations, where the water is murky enough that no-one could see it from above.
As for secrecy, I estimate a domed city half a mile across might cost about what a nuclear powered aircraft carrier costs. The Ronald Reagan cost about 4 billion dollars. According to Forbes.com, 200 billionaires have the net worth to afford this in the present day. I am sure there were lots who could have afforded it in the 1950s and 60s.
Even if the city leaks, it does have a working power source. The lights work in the screenshots. An automated nuclear reactor or a geothermal engine could supply this power. I'm sure near iceland there are lots of suitable underwater locations. If the power source is working, then an automatic pump could be adding more air to the city's dome and pumping the water out. There could be a snorkel somewhere on the surface (Sealand is a real life offshore platform made during WW2) hidden in the structure of an offshore platforn.
In terms of building materials, to withstand the water pressure at 100-200 feet the city would have to be built about as well as the hull of an aircraft carrier or Liberty ship (a cheap type of ww2 freighter). Easily doable in the late 50s, early 60s.
The place could have been built by the Soviets, perhaps in return for a European billionaire's fortune. They would have built an entire town in secret, full of workers who are not allowed to leave. In a giant dry-dock they would have built the dome, then flooded it and towed it underwater to the installation point. A nuclear "test" could have then obliterated the evidence on the surface.
The soviets would then have murdered the workers. Both secret towns and mass murders like this actually happened. The soviets detonated hundreds of nuclear warheads during their reign.
So, while it is UNLIKELY that something this big could be kept a secret, it is definitely possible. It is a difficult engineering challenge, but still quite doable even with 1960s technology. It might not be a very GOOD solution (the city has rusted and leaks in the game), but it would work for a while. It's also not likely that the game's protagonist could survive a crash into deep arctic water in just the right location...but also possible.
The reason underwater cities do not exist in the modern day has nothing to do with engineering, but because they would cost far too much to be practical. You could never gain enough dry 'land' underwater to make up for the construction costs. (MUCH cheaper to get more usable land almost ANY other way, from artificial islands like in Hong Kong and Japan, to irrigating a section of desert (Los Angelos) )
The city could be pressurized to the air pressure at about 100-200 feet under the ocean. Scuba divers can handle this all the time, and I think you can be rapidly compressed to the pressure at 50-100 feet without too severe a case of the bends. I know after a sudden pressurization, coming back to the surface could be fatal, but the character could plausible survive.
The water conditions are described as icy, so the city could be on the seabed somewhere in the arctic. There's literally millions of real world possible locations, where the water is murky enough that no-one could see it from above.
As for secrecy, I estimate a domed city half a mile across might cost about what a nuclear powered aircraft carrier costs. The Ronald Reagan cost about 4 billion dollars. According to Forbes.com, 200 billionaires have the net worth to afford this in the present day. I am sure there were lots who could have afforded it in the 1950s and 60s.
Even if the city leaks, it does have a working power source. The lights work in the screenshots. An automated nuclear reactor or a geothermal engine could supply this power. I'm sure near iceland there are lots of suitable underwater locations. If the power source is working, then an automatic pump could be adding more air to the city's dome and pumping the water out. There could be a snorkel somewhere on the surface (Sealand is a real life offshore platform made during WW2) hidden in the structure of an offshore platforn.
In terms of building materials, to withstand the water pressure at 100-200 feet the city would have to be built about as well as the hull of an aircraft carrier or Liberty ship (a cheap type of ww2 freighter). Easily doable in the late 50s, early 60s.
The place could have been built by the Soviets, perhaps in return for a European billionaire's fortune. They would have built an entire town in secret, full of workers who are not allowed to leave. In a giant dry-dock they would have built the dome, then flooded it and towed it underwater to the installation point. A nuclear "test" could have then obliterated the evidence on the surface.
The soviets would then have murdered the workers. Both secret towns and mass murders like this actually happened. The soviets detonated hundreds of nuclear warheads during their reign.
So, while it is UNLIKELY that something this big could be kept a secret, it is definitely possible. It is a difficult engineering challenge, but still quite doable even with 1960s technology. It might not be a very GOOD solution (the city has rusted and leaks in the game), but it would work for a while. It's also not likely that the game's protagonist could survive a crash into deep arctic water in just the right location...but also possible.
The reason underwater cities do not exist in the modern day has nothing to do with engineering, but because they would cost far too much to be practical. You could never gain enough dry 'land' underwater to make up for the construction costs. (MUCH cheaper to get more usable land almost ANY other way, from artificial islands like in Hong Kong and Japan, to irrigating a section of desert (Los Angelos) )