Building a Sci-Fi World for The Shushan Citadel
Every novel takes place in a designer world created in the imagination of the writer. Creating a fictional world, be the setting elaborate or simple, treacherous or safe, is an amazing experience. Some of my created worlds become so dear to my heart I find myself revisiting them.
Such is the case of The Shushan Citadel. I love the setting because of its three amazing subterranean havens: a citadel, an abbey and an indigenous settlement.
Prior to the Desolation, the planet experienced elevated temperatures and violent weather anomalies due to global warming. North America contributed to the situation through its outrageous waste of natural resources, unbridled consumption of food and material goods, and callous polluting of Mother Earth.
But because of its geographical positioning, the Great Lakes Region is spared the extensive drought, famine, and despair suffered elsewhere. It is therefore inevitable that less fortunate countries would cast their envious gaze upon this land of plenty, prompting the construction of underground cities in Michigan and Ontario to defy terrorism. Two of these cities, DúndirkaNoka and Abbey Trádún, seek only peace. The third, at Shushan, plots to conquer the other two.
Set 1: Shushan
At the time of the Desolation, Shushan is a functional underground city laid out as two massive caverns, their walls embedded in earth’s natural rock. Pedestrian walkways, passenger tubes, air scooters, and various service vehicles join the caverns. Water is supplied by natural underground springs, energy produced by sun, wind and waste. An illusion of outdoor vastness is programmed in both caverns through wispy clouds in blue skies by day, and twinkling stars and moonlight by night. Breezes with the scents and sounds of nature add to the realism.
In the Mountain Cavern, doorways lead to shops, houses, or walled gardens. Incorporated in the layout are parks, playing fields, ornamental lakes, and an atrium shopping mart. The Hospitality Cavern, originally designed for tourism and entertainment, is comprised of villages, spas, and inns. Sites are reached via the Ride, which can be programmed to provide a serene tour or a thrill experience. Ride cars move on air currents over monorails. In thrill mode, cars splash through waterways or lift off rails to zip across lofty spans onto adjoining tracks. Village themes include Victorian Village, Old Wild West, Ghost Town, New York Chic, Greenwich Village, and Country Market.
Five years after the Desolation a fortress rises above the underground city. Within the Citadel’s formidable walls, the residence of Ahasuerus resembles a medieval castle, magnificent to behold from air and breathtaking at ground level. Its marvellous gateway is framed with slender turreted towers offset by larger polygonal towers guarding four corners of surrounding curtain wall. Massive oaken doors open into a huge entrance hall. The foyer’s curved concrete walls are pierced by narrow windows, which splash bands of stained glass colour upon polished marble floors. A circular stone staircase climbs elegantly upward toward a skylight high above. Once a visitor moves beyond the entrance hall, the medieval castle disappears and, as if by magic, a futuristic palace appears.
Guests are led into the soaring foyer where they are fitted with numbered wrist bracelets, escorted through an archway, and invited to sit in lounge chairs. The chair train then moves into an atrium, crosses a bubbling stream, and winds through pleasant gardens up a sloping path to the guest suites. The path divides, delivering women to the west wing and men to the east wing, their rooms assigned according to bracelet numbers.
Set 2: Abbey Trádún
Situated on an island, Abbey Trádún is a double monastery, meaning it has both nuns and monks. The semicircular apse of the beautiful stone basilica faces east in the traditional way. Attached to the basilica’s north side are four rectangular cloisters with enclosed gardens, three for monks and one for retreatants and guests. On the south side are two cloisters for nuns, one for families and one for students. All of this is designed to sink into rock vaults blasted into the earth, leaving only its roofs flush with the surrounding terrain. A large courtyard on the abbey’s west side is surrounded by a high stone wall which continues around the abbey forming a protective ring. Built into the northeast section of the inner wall is a hermitage.
The courtyard contains several small outbuildings along with benches and trellises dispersed along paths that wander leisurely through abbey gardens. Irrigation is automatically controlled by a system that draws water from Georgian Bay as soil conditions demand. Beneath the courtyard, eco-rooms house animals and plants. A secret maze of tunnels, conference rooms and vehicle hangars lead underground from the abbey to the waters of Georgian Bay.
Set 3: DúndirkaNoka
When Dragonflies from the citadel fly over DúndirkaNoka, pilots observe a model of indigenous life before white settlers arrived. Conical birch bark tipis, domed wigwams, and summer lodges encircle a large central manor. Lodge coverings made from moose or deer hides, bark or brush, are arranged over a conical framework of poles. Stacked near the summer lodge are several Algonquian birchbark canoes. There are also winter lodges, semi-subterranean, wood framed, earth-covered dwellings capable of providing warmth under most extreme conditions. Propped against a winter shelter are snowshoes, toboggans, and dogsleds.
Commonly called Noka, which means Bear in Algonquian language, the settlement had been an internationally recognized centre for preservation of indigenous language and culture. Prior to the Desolation, students came from near and far to spend a week or two living above ground in the wigwam community. Invited medical personnel made annual retreats to prepare for the initiation ceremonies of first, second, third and fourth order of Midewewin, medicine man or woman.
At the entrance of the manor’s long lane are two stone bears, one threateningly upright with fierce eyes and an open mouth exposing vicious teeth. The second bear is on all fours, its gaze focused and still, its nose raised searchingly. Within the manor is a central great hall, pine walls reaching to a lofty ceiling constructed like an inverted canoe. The hall is surrounded on three sides with service rooms on lower level and bedrooms on the upper. The lower level contains learning rooms, a spirit room, eatery, food storage and preparation rooms. Circular stairs rise from two sides of the lower level to an upper balcony fronting bedrooms and overlooking the great hall. Noka’s subterranean centre is accessible only to First Nations people and a few non-natives who have earned honorary membership. In Noka’s underground city are magnificent biology facilities and university dedicated to agriculture, herbology, veterinary medicine and fine arts. Every known species of Great Lakes plant, animal, insect and aquatic life is represented in huge subterranean conservatories and farms.
Stay tuned next month for a continuation of our Sci-Fi world in The Dúns.
Happiest of New Years as you step bravely into 2025!