In the Bunker Era, most of humanity live in bunker cities hiding behind the four gas giants (incase of a photoid strike on the Sun). One of these cities, Space City Asia I, is a cylinder 30km long and has a diameter of 7km, with an interior surface area of 659km^2.
Asia I used to have a population of over 20 million, but currently has a population of 9 million.
Space City Asia I was one of the earliest to be built as part of the Bunker Project. It was a regular cylinder that simulated gravity with the centrifugal force generated by spinning. With a length of thirty kilometers and a diameter of seven kilometers, its usable interior surface area was 659 square kilometers, about half the size of ancient Beijing. Once, about twenty million inhabitants had lived here, but after the completion of newer cities, the population had decreased to about nine million, so that it was no longer so crowded....
North America I is another Space City in the shape of a sphere with a single miniature sun in the middle, and gravity the strongest in the middle and weaker at the edged.
The first was North America I, the closest city to Asia I. The main advantage of its spherical construction was that a single artificial sun at the center was sufficient to illuminate the entire city, but the disadvantage of such a design was obvious as well: The gravity changed depending on one’s latitude. The equator had the most gravity, which decreased as you went up in latitude. The polar regions were weightless. Inhabitants in the different regions had to adjust to life under various gravity conditions.
Buildings near the edge of North America I can be built as tall as 10km tall due to the low-gravity.
Cheng Xin saw that the buildings here were denser and taller, looking like a metropolis. At the high-latitude, low-gravity regions especially, the buildings’ heights were limited only by the volume of the sphere. Near the polar regions, some buildings were as tall as ten kilometers, looking like long thorns extending up from the ground toward the sun.
North America I has a radius of 20km (and thus a diameter of 40km) and a population of 20 million, making it the most populated of the space cities.
North America I had been completed early on. With a radius of twenty kilometers and twenty million inhabitants, it was the largest city by population. It acted as the prosperous commercial center for all the Jovian cities.
Most space cities of the Bunker Worlds have an equitorial ocean (with water from Europa), and circumnavigating these seas on boats is possible. Sometimes when the city has to engage in unexpected maneuvers, small scale flooding will occur.
Here, Cheng Xin got to see a splendid sight that was absent from Asia I: the equatorial ring-ocean. As a matter of fact, most space cities had ring- oceans of various widths, and Asia I was rather unique in lacking one. In spherical or football-shaped cities, the equator was the lowest point in the city’s simulated gravity, and all the city’s water naturally collected there, forming a sparkling, undulating belt for the city. Standing on the shore, one could see the ocean rising on both sides and dividing the “sky” behind the sun. Cheng Xin and Cao Bin took a fast boat and navigated around the sea —a journey of some sixty kilometers. The water in the sea came from Europa, clear, cold, and reflecting rippling light onto the skyscrapers on both sides. The dikes along the edge of the sea closest to Jupiter were higher, to avoid the water spilling out when the city accelerated during position adjustments. Even so, when the city had to engage in unexpected maneuvers, small-scale flooding would occur from time to time.
Europe IV is football-shaped and is 40km long. It has multiple artificial suns, one for each segment, and it's axis is one long building.
Next, Cao Bin took Cheng Xin to Europe IV, which sported a typical football-shaped design. Its distinguishing characteristic was the lack of a common artificial sun. Every district had its own miniature fusion sun, and the tiny suns hovered about two hundred to three hundred meters high to provide illumination. The advantage of this approach was that the weightless axis could be more efficiently utilized. The axis of Europe IV was taken up by the longest—or tallest—building among all the space cities. It was forty kilometers long and connected the north and south poles of the football. Since the interior of the building was weightless, it was mainly used as a spaceport and commercial entertainment district.
Europe IV has the smallest population of all the space cities (or at least all the large space cities) with a population of 4.5 million, and it is the wealthiest of space cities, with there being yachts in it's equitorial sea.
Europe IV had the smallest population of all the cities, only 4.5 million. It was the wealthiest city of the Bunker World. The exquisite houses illuminated by miniature suns amazed Cheng Xin. Each house came with its own swimming pool, and a few had wide lawns. Tiny white sails dotted the serene equatorial sea, and people sat on the shore, fishing leisurely. She saw a yacht sail by slowly, and it looked as luxurious as any yacht on ancient Earth. There was a cocktail party being held aboard the yacht with live musicians.... She was astonished that such life could be transplanted into the shadow of Jupiter, eight hundred million kilometers from the Earth.
Some space cities are built not fur human habitation, but rather for industry and agriculture. Resource I, for example is 120km long and 3km wide, and rather than rotating on it's axis it tumbles around its centre. Multiple space cities like this can be combined into crosses or stars.
There were some other cities with even stranger designs. Most of these were industrial or agricultural centers with no permanent residents. For instance, there was a city called Resource I. Its length was 120 kilometers, but the diameter was only three kilometers, like a thin stick. It did not spin around the long axis, but rather, tumbled about its center, end over end. The city’s interior was divided into levels, and the gravity at each level differed dramatically. Only a few levels were suitable for living, while the rest were devoted to various industries adapted to the different gravities. According to Cao Bin, near Saturn and Uranus, there were cities formed by combining two or more stick-shaped cities into crosses or stars.
The biggest combined city is in Neptunes shadow, and combines four space cities for a total length of 200km. These cities can uncombine in an emergancy (such as a Dark Forest Strike).
The biggest combined city so far was located at Neptune, where four of the eight cities were docked together along their axis of spin, forming a two-hundred-kilometer-long combined city. When necessary—such as when a dark forest strike alert was issued—the combined city could be quickly taken apart to increase the mobility of each city. People hoped that, one day, all the cities in each cluster could be combined into one, so that humanity would live in four complete worlds.
The space cities are in orbit around the Sun rather than around the gas giants they hide behind (so as to better protect them from a Dark Forest strike), and occasssionally they have to reactivate their thrusts and push away to avoid falling into the planets gravity).
One of the space cities in front suddenly emitted a blue light. It was as though a small blue sun appeared in space, casting long shadows of the people and spaceships on the plaza. Cao Bin told Cheng Xin that this was because the space city’s thrusters had been activated to adjust its position. The space cities revolved around the Sun in parallel with Jupiter, just outside its orbit. Jupiter’s gravity gradually pulled the cities closer, and the cities had to constantly adjust their positions with thrusters. This operation required a great deal of energy. Once, the suggestion had been floated to turn the cities into Jupiter’s satellites that would only shift into new orbits around the Sun after the issuance of a dark forest strike warning. But until the advance warning system had been further refined and proven to be reliable, no space city wanted to take the risk.
There are a total of 26 space cities in the Bunker World of Jupiter, with another 4 being planned for construction.
From here, most of the space cities behind Jupiter could be seen. She saw twenty-two cities (including the one she stood on), and there were four more blocked by the city they stood on. All twenty-six cities (six more than planned) were hiding in the shadow of Jupiter.
There are another 38 space cities in other Bunker Worlds behind the other gas giants; 26 behind Saturn, 4 behind Uranus and 8 behind Neptune.
Behind the other three gas giants were three more space city clusters, consisting of a total of thirty-eight space cities. Twenty-six were behind Saturn, four behind Uranus, and eight more behind Neptune. Those space cities were in safer locations, though the environs were even more desolate.
(All of the above is from Death's End)