# Hive City layout.



## CJ95 (Oct 8, 2014)

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?


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## LordNecross (Aug 14, 2014)

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.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

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.


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## Kravunhive (Apr 3, 2011)

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.


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## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

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.


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## el_machinae (Nov 17, 2014)

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.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Brother Lucian said:


> 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?



Brother Lucian said:


> 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?


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## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

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


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## CJ95 (Oct 8, 2014)

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.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

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.


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## wooday218 (Jul 22, 2010)

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


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## Tawa (Jan 10, 2010)

wooday218 said:


> 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.


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## friar76 (Jul 10, 2012)

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.


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## CJ95 (Oct 8, 2014)

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


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## Angel of Lies (Oct 10, 2011)

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.


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## Doom wolf (Oct 10, 2014)

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.


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

hailene said:


> 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.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

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."


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

@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.


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## Doom wolf (Oct 10, 2014)

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.


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

Shrug. Then it's not terribly worth caring about. And sorry OP, it doesn't really help you.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Doom wolf said:


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


What was retconned? I can't imagine the FW book being retconned this quickly...or by what.


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## CJ95 (Oct 8, 2014)

Kreuger said:


> Shrug. Then it's not terribly worth caring about. And sorry OP, it doesn't really help you.


No problem sir. I appreciate the multitude of views, but basically it comes down to the art and the novels not jiving with each other.

No biggie.


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## Fallen (Oct 7, 2008)

Pending on the size of the hive, one of the hives from the Guant's Ghosts (Vurndunium hive or some such? Verdun WW1?) are relatively small (like NYC/Tokyo/Mexico City/London size...well, probably of those added together) were they are sort of a play on today's cities, just once again on a more massive scale.

Some of these cities had a 40k equivalent to a medieval city/castle wall as well as a huge "force field dome" that would project up and cover the city from bombardments.

----

Then there are hives that the current population of earth could fit inside, with some amounts of ease pending size, and these I think are designed to be "larger than the imagination" where we cannot comprehend how VAST it actually is.

The best way for me to explain it would be to take your "downtown" or "commercial business district" or whatever it's called, and the surrounding area and multiply it by 1,000,000,000,000 (add or subtract the amount of zeros for own desire). I mean I personally view NYC as a "hive" since the idea that 9 million people living in that small of an area is not really imaginable for myself - it's a place that I see in movies, and is otherwise a dot on a map. Other people who live in highly dense places, hey look at those cities that I used as examples above, can reasonably see that better than someone who lives in a small town/city.

There could rather easily be a hive that on the "surface" or "top" is practically a green healthy looking area, because the actual "hive" is below, and if you don't look down travel there you will never know it existed; and the reverse is true.

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CJ95 said:


> No problem sir. I appreciate the multitude of views, but basically it comes down to the art and the novels not jiving with each other.
> 
> No biggie.


I am not sure if it is the fact that the "art work" and "novels"/"fluff" not gelling together, or if the artist's/author's take on the situation does not meet your standards. Like what Obi-Wan told us..."So what I told you was true... from a certain point of view."


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## Doom wolf (Oct 10, 2014)

hailene said:


> What was retconned? I can't imagine the FW book being retconned this quickly...or by what.


Of course.

What was retconned was the information about Necromunda, dating from the second WH40K edition, not the FW books.


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## CJ95 (Oct 8, 2014)

Fallen said:


> I am not sure if it is the fact that the "art work" and "novels"/"fluff" not gelling together, or if the artist's/author's take on the situation does not meet your standards. Like what Obi-Wan told us..."So what I told you was true... from a certain point of view."



Well, I'm only using the tools at my disposal. I read about hive cities and want to know what they look lik so I type it into google and almost without exception am presented with pics of great conical self-contained towers.

Ok cool.

I search for hive city maps and also am presented with cross sections of these conical multilayer constructs. The video game art for Armageddon 40k, the map of Helsreach in cluded in the novel....all agree...big enclosed cones.

Fine by me.

Now I'm not a fluff expert....maybe 15-16 novels under my belt, but so far none have described the above artwork. Maddeningly, the map of Helsreach included in the novel specifically contradicts what is described in the text.

I think I have run across one short story only that has followed the multileveled cone formula. Can't remember name at the moment.

In the end I don't care either way. I'm not trying to inject my standards one way or the other, but am merely trying to resolve the contradictions.

Thanks.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

If you're thinking about giant self-contained towers, I think the hives in _Sabbat Martyr_ fit the bill. There's not a lot of description on them, but I think they're towering towers.

The planet it was set on, Herodor, was a relative backwater. These hive towers were surrounded by more modest, normal city blocks.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

New York City is a city, not a hive. London is a city, not a hive. Bangkok is a city, not a hive. Mexico City is a city, not a hive. The conceptual point of a hive, where the Imperium is concerned, is that it's a *fundamentally dehumanizing* environment. People in the worst parts of Bangkok, for instance, are forced to deal with dire poverty and corruption. They're not forced to sustain themselves on the recycled protein that was once their neighbors, or work under conditions that are literally guaranteed to see them dead, in the name of a corpse God-Emperor. That's the point of the name "hive", after all: to evoke a dystopian existence where the value of human life is lessened.

Now, this environment could be a sealed dome that somehow encompasses an area the size of California. Alternately, it could be a series of gargantuan towers reaching so high that the planet's atmosphere can't sustain those in the highest levels. Or it could be piles of buildings built over piles of buildings built over piles of other buildings, where the bottom levels attain the status of an almost literal underworld. In truth, it could be any other sort of layout - it's really up to the author. The only real requirement, again, is that the hive is a horrid place to live for the vast majority of the teeming, oppressed masses.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

I disagree that a hive's...hive-iness is dependent on some sort of prerequisite level of misery.

Helsreach was a reasonable place to live, so it seemed, on the whole.

The lives of the people in Vervunhive seemed happy. Maybe not the richest...but certainly living in comfort beyond what almost everyone a couple of centuries could not imagine.

Herodor seemed a bit of a backwater (which is was)...but doesn't seem to be that brutally oppressive.

Unless you have some source that says otherwise?


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## Tawa (Jan 10, 2010)

hailene said:


> The lives of the people in Vervunhive seemed happy. Maybe not the richest...but certainly living in comfort beyond what almost everyone a couple of centuries could not imagine.


I think Gol and some of the other miners would like a word with you.....


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Tawa said:


> I think Gol and some of the other miners would like a word with you.....


They probably had a consistent source of wood, potable water, and a solid roof over their heads.

That's a win in my book .


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## Tawa (Jan 10, 2010)

hailene said:


> They probably had a consistent source of wood, potable water, and a solid roof over their heads.
> 
> That's a win in my book .


That would probably be luxury for the worker class of a hive


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

I think it depends on the hive.

Can't paint all hiveworlds with the same brush, I think.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

*hailene,*

My apologies for not answering you earlier; it's been a hell of a week!



hailene said:


> I disagree that a hive's...hive-iness is dependent on some sort of prerequisite level of misery.


On the one hand, I would argue that one doesn't need to qualify that the conditions that define a hive city are inimical to a decent life for any but the top strata of society.

But anyways, Games Workshop has done just that. From the latest Core Rulebook:



> The massive populations of hive worlds periodically become unmanageable, as the masses boil over against their constant repression. Such bustling mega-cities are always rife with anarchic and destructive forces that ensure only the hardiest can survive. Yet this too works for the Imperium, for their tithes supply rich sources of fighting men for the Imperial Guard.


The only other reference in the last two rulebooks to make a specific statement about the hives (beyond just their size and scale) is similarly negative:



> Examples of recovered STC template technology still being built and in use today include
> ... the Atmospheric Pumps that still keep the air (almost) breathable in even the largest hive-blocks.


Going back to the fifth edition? It's similarly dreary:



> Centuries of industrial production have left a hive world's surface inhospitable, with toxic fumes and parched soil. Each hive world is home to many hundred billion citizens, crammed into towering urban conglomerations, known as hives, ...


Where your specific examples are concerned?



> Helsreach was a reasonable place to live, so it seemed, on the whole.


I'm not sure why you think that a hive named after a mythological hell in a world that's practically unlivable, where existence is defined by quotas for war materiel production or serving as a soldier, would be a "reasonable place to live, on the whole." :wink:

Beyond those qualifiers, which can be found in a plethora of Games Workshop products, you have some helpful contributions from the novel _Helsreach:_



> “The air still tasted like a latrine, though. And it didn’t exactly smell any better. The joys of high sulphur content in the atmosphere.”
> 
> Excerpt From: Aaron Dembski-Bowden. “Helsreach.” iBooks.


And beyond that? Well, neither _Necropolis_ nor _Sabbat Martyr_ focus on the quality of life within Vervunhive or Beati City. If people don't seem ruthlessly oppressed or miserable, well, I'd chalk it up to the fact that their immediate attention is on waging a war against horrific enemies who want to see their bodies and souls corrupted and/or destroyed.

Bottom line, I don't doubt that there is some exception to the rule out there. There may very well be a hive city with tolerant rulers, great living conditions (albeit in a giant metropolis), etc. Within the context of 40k, of course, that exception would be like Alpha Shalish: an enlightened place doomed to a horrific fate. Either way, though, it's not the standard. The standard by which hive worlds and the hives that house their population is, unfortunately, a miserable one.


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