[CJ95]

Most of the images I see online of Hives tend to be of monolithic spire-style constructs that seem to indicate totally enclosed systems with limited...if any....exposure to the outside environment.

The best analogy I can think of is that of a huge starship buried nose first into the ground and having its citizens living on its various artificially illuminated 'decks'.


However, in most of the fluff I read, descriptions of Hives seem to indicate grand open-air avenues, chases across roof-tops and exposure to sunlight and open air. (polluted or whatnot)



Just wondering what peoples thoughts on this was.

open or enclosed?

 

[LordNecross]

I think it varies drastically from planet to planet. I usually view it as cities stacked on cities. Think futurama new new york times ten, and more dense and with gothic architecture.

However I also see them as massive dome like cites, or underground cavernous cities. It just depends. However we can always assume the upper echelon of the city has the most open air access, if any.

 

[Vaz]

There's no definition of a Hive City. It's however you desire it to be. Being inside a closed system brings its own difficulties.

 

[Kravunhive]

As others have said it can vary from planet to planet. I think the open aired city type would be more favorable as this would allow city expansion in any direction possible. If a hive were enclosed behind adamantium walls it wouldn't leave much room for the population to expand, causing overcrowding. Of course the Imperium being the Imperium it could either build a new hive, or cull or conscript the excess population.

I've been trying to design a hive city for a piece I'm writing, it's really had to imagine how a complex city structure would work. The best way I can imagine it is this.

 

[Brother Lucian]

Most hive cities is on Death worlds, and thusly you want them to have total enviroment protection. Look at Necromunda, the ecosystem is completely destroyed. Ash wastes outside the Hives.

Also, conditions depends on where you are in the hive. The higher up, the more it improves. But also remember that hives is enormous, containing blillions of human beings. Most Hivers have never seen the outside of the hive, or the upper levels, it being their entire world.

 

[el_machinae]

What you're thinking of is called an arcology, I think. A hive city is like a super-robust city that then decided to build extra pedways between buildings, and then businesses on top of the pedways, and then residencies on top of the businesses. Then new pedways were built between the businesses. Then some bureaucrat decided to build an arcology to replace part of the city. And then shantitowns were built onto the outside of the arcologies, and they needed their own pedways. etc.

 

[hailene]

ost hive cities is on Death worlds, and thusly you want them to have total enviroment protection

Ehhh....what? Since when?

Could you provide a source?

Look at Necromunda, the ecosystem is completely destroyed

While Necromunda's atmosphere is indeed destroyed, but when has it ever been referred to as a death world?

 

[Brother Lucian]

I think that came out wrong, I meant the enviroment on hive worlds is generally destroyed and inimical to unaugmented human life or mutants

 

[CJ95]

Semi-resurrecting my own thread...sorry.

I am still having a huge problem with hive cities.

While I have not read a huge ammount of books, those I have seem to almost universally reject the so called 'environmentally sealed' spires we see in all the artwork.

From the open aired grand parade in the Eisenhorn novels to my current read, Helsreach, all talk of open topped city walls.....huge open highways and open rooftops, and multitudes of civilians...who supposedly have never seen the sun....under exposure to air attack.

I'm not criticizing the books....Helreach in particular is an awesome read, but maybe the authors are having the same trouble as I am visualizing a completely enclosed cityscape.

For instance why does Grimaldus worry about the exposure of his food and water supplies to air attack if it could just be taken 'indoors' and protected by kilometers of outer shell and city structure? This is on Armageddon a world that supposedly you can't breath the air right?

Why also does Helsreach need city walls when, by definition, a hive city is nothing but one huge outer wall stretching to the clouds?

I guess my minds eye isn't up to the task of conjuring up the closed environment, I keep coming up with a mix of blade runner and coruscant instead.

 

[hailene]

There's not going to be a one size fits all.

Different planets will have different needs. Even the hives on each of the planet may differ.

 

[wooday218]

I imagine hive cities like the new judge dred film,towers stretching up to the sky , supports to reinforce hence the towers start to turn into spires higher they get,lots of these towers cramped

 

[Tawa]

I imagine hive cities like the new judge dred film,towers stretching up to the sky , supports to reinforce hence the towers start to turn into spires higher they get,lots of these towers cramped

I'd imagine the Armageddon spires to have started like this.

 

[friar76]

Have a look at the depictions of the hive cities on armageddon on the RTS WH40K armageddon game on Steam. Some of the artwork depicts what I saw as hive cities on that planet.

Whereas on other, more verdant planets, like Calth ( pre- atrocity) and Macragge are more open, with large avenues and boulevards, with parks, meeting squares and generally more aesthetically pleasing vistas (IMO).

Like all have stated before, it all depends on the demands of the government, the type of planet, possible threats to the populace and needs of defence. If you are on a death world, you wouldnt want open areas, just more barricades and point defences.

 

[CJ95]

I've seen the art for WH armageddon, and while cool, it does not remotely jive with descriptions like in Helreach.

 

[Angel of Lies]

The upper layers of a Hive City are exposed to open air, grand boulevards, and so forth. This is typically were the better off citizens end up. The total enclosure system probably begins a few levels down where land value plummets.

The way I have always thought about Hive Cities is that they were built up into the sky by a number of highly influential, but there are only so many of those. The vast sum of humanity is poor and therefore they can only go one way -- down. The deeper the level is the crappier the surroundings, the poorer the infrastructure and so forth.

Most books I've read tend to focus on the better(ish) parts of the Hives because that is where the movers and shakers are. Admittedly one does wonder how the system would even work since people typically develop something to get away from the more crowded or terrible neighborhoods (or in 40k case Level), so one would imagine that the highest spires and the deepest levels is where the more powerful would be with the rest of humanity living in hell in the middle.

But that's just how I see it.

 

[Doom wolf]

Sometimes, I thought that the first Hive city were some ancient Arcologies dating from the dark age of technology. Then the population grow and new space had to be made, piling layer upon layer of new zone upon themselves.

But that's just a POV, I think upon almost 20000 year of history, Hives worlds could have a lot of variations in their constructions.

If not, I love this illustration :

It's the hive sibellus, not the underhive, obviously, but it give a real impression over a huge and technological, yet overcrowded city.

 

[Kreuger]

While Necromunda's atmosphere is indeed destroyed, but when has it ever been referred to as a death world?

While I'm but necessarily agreeing with the other guy I'll point out that "Necromunda" essentially means "death world." The early GW authors were geeks and wordnerds. And in many places in the earliest fluff the GW authors used names and descriptors which borrowed from our own philology and language history, sometimes as jokes sometimes for added flavor.

Necro is from Greek for corpse and less well known is that mundus is a Latin noun for world.

 

[hailene]

Hrm...it's more likely it's referencing Necromunda's near-destruction during the Great Crusade. The Imperial Fists were unable to save the dozens of planets that the Continuity controlled (the human empire that ruled Araneus Prime--now known as Necromunda) from unknown alien invaders. At great cost, the Imperial Fists were able to halt the aliens, but not before every other former Continuity planet was lost with thousands of Imperial Fists and billions of human lives. Araneus Prime's surface was also "riven by unnatural fire, its world-city cracked and rendered to dust and ash, from which the shattered roots of its great towers rose like broken death".

Araneus Prime new name of Necromunda "echoed with a world brought to the threshold of death but that still lived."

 

[Kreuger]

@hailene when is that fluff snippet from?

I ask because Necromunda has been one of the worlds mentioned in 40k since the early days, I believe even Rogue Trader era, long before later authors amplified the history of the world.

Though hey, I could be wrong because it is definitely a hive world and planets aren't usually classified both ways.

 

[Doom wolf]

It's coming from one of the Forge World Horus Heresy book.

In that, you're both right (And wrong...) since GW retconned in a relatively quite obscure and lately produced text.