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Description

Hefestia: Industrial colony, attempted utopia and ticking timebomb.
61o South, right in the middle of nowhere, in the great plains where winters are long and wind never stops, inside an active volcanic caldera, an empire spared no expense in order to build a great city.
This doesn’t seem very practical, but their reasons are sound. In this energy poor world, the only way to smelt large amount of metal ore is by using enormous amounts of electricity, which can only be produced cheaply in places like this.
There are other geothermal spots, but this one is the best on this continent. The great river crossing it allows large ships to reach it from both the south-western colonies and the fertile lands down north, and further away, after crossing the ocean, to the mainland.
Its isolated location also helps to reduce tensions with the neighbouring countries, as well as legitimating the claim to an enormous tract of land.

But building a city like this from scratch would be no easy task. Tens of thousands of people would have to be moved, fed and housed there. Winters there can be unforgiving. Freezing to death and mass starvation are real threats there. And these people wouldn’t be the typical pioneer. Engineers, technician and industrial workers would have to be convinced to leave their comfortable homes and leap to the unknown, to the other side of the world. That place would have to be something desirable, a dream.
That place would be Hefestia, where new, more egalitarian and meritocratic ideals would be combined with the latest advances in technology. It would be a jewel, a shining beacon of hope that would show the world the superiority of the Salaian new way of life.

...

Drawn with a pencil and painted with Photoshop.

Description

Hefestia: Industrial colony, attempted utopia and ticking timebomb.
61o South, right in the middle of nowhere, in the great plains where winters are long and wind never stops, inside an active volcanic caldera, an empire spared no expense in order to build a great city.
This doesn’t seem very practical, but their reasons are sound. In this energy poor world, the only way to smelt large amount of metal ore is by using enormous amounts of electricity, which can only be produced cheaply in places like this.
There are other geothermal spots, but this one is the best on this continent. The great river crossing it allows large ships to reach it from both the south-western colonies and the fertile lands down north, and further away, after crossing the ocean, to the mainland.
Its isolated location also helps to reduce tensions with the neighbouring countries, as well as legitimating the claim to an enormous tract of land.

But building a city like this from scratch would be no easy task. Tens of thousands of people would have to be moved, fed and housed there. Winters there can be unforgiving. Freezing to death and mass starvation are real threats there. And these people wouldn’t be the typical pioneer. Engineers, technician and industrial workers would have to be convinced to leave their comfortable homes and leap to the unknown, to the other side of the world. That place would have to be something desirable, a dream.
That place would be Hefestia, where new, more egalitarian and meritocratic ideals would be combined with the latest advances in technology. It would be a jewel, a shining beacon of hope that would show the world the superiority of the Salaian new way of life.

...

Drawn with a pencil and painted with Photoshop.