From: "Marian de Haan" maya@multiweb.nl Subject: Re: [B7L] Domes
Its possible that most of a dome is underground, and what we see above is just the airvent sticking out. In which case they could be quite large. And the domes could be connected by underground tunnels, so one could
travel
from one to the next without the need to go "outside".
This fits in with my opinion of them.
'My' domes are on the scale of those in Isaac Asimov's book, The Caves of Steel - their cities were totally enclosed (presumably in domes) and were at the very least the size of our modern cities; some were stated as being much larger.
In the books, citizens were not exactly prohibited from going Outside, but had spent so long in their Cities that they suffered from agoraphobia; all but a minute percentage of them would feel physically ill at even the thought of venturing Outside.
Transport within the Cities (and between close-lying but discrete cities) was by a sort of moving pavement affair, which operated at varying speeds (up to around 70 miles per hour); one started with slow tracks and progressed up the scale to the expressways. There was also a system of tunnels for the exclusive use of emergency vehicles. Transport between distant cities was also possible, by the use of totally-enclosed aircraft - presumably operating under computer flight co-ordination.
The cities were stated as being multi-level (encompassing hundreds of levels); and being enclosed, one would have no way of knowing whether or not one was above 'ground.'
The citizens lived under a hierarchical system; as one gained in grade classification, one gained in privileges - private cooking, sanitation or entertainment facilities, for example.
The descriptions of the cities, and their (IMO) similarity to the domes in Blakes 7 was what made me interested in these books in the first place.
Wildean