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Long Dinh's Ortingo

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A Dystopian World BuildingSea Level Rise ScenarioSetting:

The sea levels rose significantly (30-50m'), so the HCMC authority built a wall enclosing urban districts. However, the water levels kept rising, so the construction continued indefinitely, requiring an enormous volume of materials. Due to logistical challenges, the city was running low on construction materials, so they decided to use rocks and other underground materials right below the enclosed city. The AI-automated system was designed to control mining and construction procedures. Different robots controlled by the SYSTEM perform various tasks: study and evaluate mining sites, mining and extract materials, logistics robots, builder robots, and guard robots. The guard robots will eliminate anyone who poses threat to other robots, building processes, or crucial structures managed by the SYSTEM.

The city's citizens lived peacefully and were protected from rising sea levels by constantly rising walls. The Department of Climate Change had total control over the SYSTEM when needed, but it had been years since they had to perform any manual control. However, a tremendous solar storm struck Earth and disturbed most automated systems on the day-side of the planet, which included HCMC. The Department of Climate Change managed to take control of the SYSTEM and reboot it, but they failed to realize that many geological study data was corrupted.

When the SYSTEM returned to normal, the mining robots used corrupted data to find new mining sites, and they mined into Hydrogen Sulfide and Carbon Monoxides wells at many locations that should have been avoided. The gas was leaked all over the mines on the 7th level, killing any supervising humans there and slowly rising to the surface. It would naturally take a long time for gases to rise up to the city at dangerous concentrations, but the gases were partially sucked up through ventilation systems (the protocol was corrupted or due to human incompetence) and began infecting, killing humans at various locations (factories, infrastructure facilities). To stop the gas spread, the city activated valve closure that hadn't been used a single time since the SYSTEM was automated. One valve was jammed and sparked, burning the flammable gas. This entirely burned the 7th floor and sped up gas leakage. The city lost control over valves on that floor, and gases began rising to the city level through ventilation wells that cannot be closed. Normal citizens began getting sick, many elderly passed away, and fires were sparked in communities that were slightly lower than the others.

The city released an evacuation order and citizens were directed to leave the city within the walls to the floating city outside. The department of Climate Change was struck by fire, killing most of the leadership during their management meeting. Since the SYSTEM was controlled by biometric markers and digital keys that only the mayor and leadership of the SYSTEM had, their death meant no one could access the control room of the system anymore. The SYSTEM kept on mining, exposing more toxic wells, and building the wall.

The city was now covered in toxic air, burning and exploding at various locations. However, the SYSTEM maintained and rebuilt infrastructure that was under its control. The Federal Crisis Management arrived to analyze the issue, but only automated expeditions were executed without any prevention measures. The Federals concluded that the cost to stop the SYSTEM and make the city habitable again significantly outweighs any benefits the city would ever bring back to the state. However, they also noted that the city became a great quarry to mine rare minerals that were present in gas wells, so a conglomerate - VinCorp - obtained a license to mine those minerals in the city.

Most of the evacuated citizens settled down in the Outer City and built slums on the wall. They were soon employed by VinCorp, establishing the new main industry in the city: mining.

For the next decades, the SYSTEM continued mining and expanding the wall while the VinCorp profited from exposed mineral mines. Besides VinCorp, small illegal mining groups were trying to profit as well. Soon both VinCorp and mining groups were armed and had occasional clashes.

But soon things became complicated. The SYSTEM was approaching a magma body underground. It was unclear what the consequence would be if the magma body gets exposed, but the most possible scenario was an explosion or melting of the main pillars that keep the wall against water pressure. Either way, it would collapse the city wall and destroy the floating city. What would citizens of the floating city do to save their city?

A Dystopian World Building (post, 5 KB)

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