Cities in Cyberia

There are a total of eleven Cities in Cyberia. Of the eleven, eight of them are considered 'major' cities, whose areas are each larger than 5000 sqmi, and the remaining three are considered 'minor' cities due to falling under that threshold. All eleven recognized cities share one thing in common with each other, that being the fact they all were and still are formed around a central military base. As of the most recent census of 2200, the total city population, i.e. the population not living on a military base, totals about 519,493,500. Major cities in Cyberia average around 63 million inhabitants, not including those located inside of each city's respective military base. For the minor cities, this number shrinks to an average of 5 million. The largest city by far, the City of Overcast, holds at least a third of the entire off-base population in Cyberia.

The Antarctic State's cities are extremely large when compared to most of the world's cities. The average land area taken up by a city in the AS is about 7856 sqmi, with some of the major cities clearing over 10000 sqmi. Even as big as they are, major and minor cities alike have very high population densities averaging 4700 /sqmi altogether. This can reliably be attributed to multiple factors; but among them, keeping exposure to the frigid climate to a minimum is the most often cited as the reason why things are built so close together.

Similar Beginnings
All cities, major in minor in Cyberia are either built surrounding a major military base, or are otherwise very close to one. In the past, there were only military bases, housing military personnel, as opposed to civilians. As more and more civilians came to Cyberia for one reason or another, they needed a place to stay other than a military base, thus they set up around the outskirts of bases, and have expanded massively since then.

Building on Ice
It is no secret that all Cyberian cities are either entirely or mostly built directly atop the extremely vast ice sheets that cover more than 98% of the otherwise rocky continent of. Cities do not experience significant drift or other such long-term movement in any axis, despite being built on ice. The Unitary Government of Cyberia assures the public that the placement of all cities on frozen water is ensured to be completely safe for the practical future, due to a number of under-ice infrastructural accommodations and maintenance of those accommodations.

The government greatly prefers not to disclose these accommodations and how they work, citing that they could become military or terrorist targets in the event of a conflict. It is for this reason that the safety infrastructure and how they work is often mythicized by the public or otherwise made into conspiracy theories.

The most credible sources of information regarding under-ice infrastructure, including that which claims to originate from the ASC Department of Infrastructure, corroborate the notion that the cities and the ice that they are built on are anchored to the existing continent below through a vast array of barely flexible metal posts.

City Infrastructure
City infrastructure since the nation's official beginning in the early 2010's has been built with expansion in mind. Most infrastructure such as roads, subways, utilities, and others, were built to be relatively easily serviced, added to, and even replaced if needed in the uncertain future. That being said, city infrastructure was also consistently overbuilt to carry more capacity than they actually needed, in the pursuit of accommodating unexpected growth or rerouting. Overbuilding is most apparent in the road systems of cities, where lanes are wide and there are many of them stretching in each direction. Common tales revolving around the start of the road, freeway, and highway systems suggest that Cyberian roads were express-built for the mass-transit of heavy military vehicles, which given the enthusiasm surrounding militarism in the country, may very well be true.

The roads in Cyberia are somewhat known for implementing speed limits differently than the majority of other nations, as there exist common speed minimums as well as speed maximums, as opposed to only the latter.

All cities have above- and below-ground rail traffic systems for all kinds of transport. Extensive subway tunnels carry electric magnet trains filled with civilian passengers to and from destinations, while above-ground railways are generally used for commercial and military movement, which also connects between some cities.

Energy in Cyberia comes mostly from nuclear fission reactors, and otherwise majorly from inexhaustible energy sources such as wind and solar energy. The same fission reactors also supply cities with the majority of. Automotive and aircraft fuels are still in use, however they are wholly synthesized.

Building Regulations
Building code regulations of note mandate the heating of publicly-accessible places (such as stores and other buildings) to a room temperature at or near 16 °C for adequate health and safety. Regulations also expect residential complexes to have a certain level of soundproofing in walling preventing the passage of nuisance noise between rooms or apartments. This soundproofing must effectively attenuate any noises below sixty decibels.

Whereas in the past, the majority of light fixtures used in a nation's lighting shown a dull yellow/orange light using incandescent bulbs, nowadays LEDs and high color temperatures such as daylight/overcast (6000K-9500K), and color rendering indexes of 70-98 are exceedingly common in the Antarctic State.

Polar Night & Midnight Sun

 * See Also: Polar Night, Midnight Sun

All Cyberian cities experience polar night in the winter months (roughly November through February), and midnight sun in the summer months (roughly March through September). That is, the cities annually experience periods of 24 hour days with the sun above the horizon, and periods of 24 hour nights with the sun below the horizon and a dark sky.

Articuno
Articuno is quite an important city in terms of commercial air travel. It is the hub for most if not all air traffic that goes cross-country, most long flights taking a single stop in the city before continuing on elsewhere. Its airports are very busy day in and day out, where planes of all kinds take off and land one minute apart from each other at the least.

Aurora
Aurora is the only major city in &mdash;west of the &mdash;which makes it an important hub for supplies and resources for the other, minor cities in the West Antarctic area.

Avery
Avery is a major city closest in proximity to the. Its military base, Druzhnaya, is connected directly to the ice beach, while the city proper is built just behind it.

Decatur
Decatur is a major city that shares similarities with Articuno, in that it is important for air travel; however, Decatur is popular for air travel for a different reason. Instead of being used as a hub, Decatur gets so much air traffic because of the fact that it is relatively difficult to reach via ground vehicle. Interestingly, Decatur is known to be the coldest city in Cyberia, even colder than the popular assumption that is the South Pole. Even before the formation of Cyberia, the area around Vostok was known to be coldest place on Earth at -89.2 °C. Since the establishment and subsequent population of Decatur, this temperature has risen several degrees centigrade, however it still remains one of the coldest places on the planet, largely due to both its elevation and location so far inland from the shores of Antarctica. This can and will cause frostbite in unprotected, non-furred people in under thirty seconds.

Glalie
Glalie is a major coastal city whose military base is much farther outside city limits than any other city. It is because of this separation that Glalie is often regarded as the city with the least military presence, whereas most other cities have some kind of inherent interwovenness between civilian and martial.

Kherson
Kherson (pronounced: CUR-sun) is one of three minor cities within the country. Kherson is the home to Castle Lemarchand, the headquarters of the ASC Department of Justice. Thus, it is here where servicemen and servicewomen are flown when they are obligated to make an appearance at the courts-martial. Kherson is known to have a high concentration of law schools.

Koorif
Koorif (pronounced: COO-riff) is a minor city that is actually best known for having control of the most Antarctic mines out of all of the cities. It is also here where the most processing of raw ores is done for the benefit of the government. Its primary purpose was to serve as a hub for more than six relatively nearby resource mining operations, including at least one offshore platform, all of which are organized and managed mostly by Koorif's own central military base.

Nova
Nova is a major city named after a shorthand nickname for its military base, Novolazarevskaya. On a map, Nova is generally misinterpreted as the most "northern" of all the cities, which can be technically true depending on the year, due to the movement of the. In the modern day, Nova is actually the second most northern city, after Texas.

Overcast
Overcast is a major city, and by far the largest of all Cyberian cities. It is named after its near-constant cloud cover spanning across almost all of its area. Overcast is home to slightly more than one-third of the entire civilian population, and is also home to the largest military base, Ramiel. Being the largest city, as well as the main base of the ASC Department of Defense, Overcast is well-known for having the highest concentration of military power, plus the highest concentration of company headquarters. Overcast is perhaps best known for being the "Silicon Valley of Cyberia", as it is indeed the capital of bleeding edge technology in the country, in part due to it being the city in which the Defense Department's Research & Development Division is headquartered.

South Pole
The South Pole is a major city that is located directly at the Geographic South Pole. It is best known for having the largest crop-rearing facilities and crop processing/packaging facilities, all of which are owned and operated by the ASC Department of Agriculture. The outskirts of the South Pole are one of the coldest places on Earth, with temperatures ranging between -28.4 °C and -59.8 °C throughout the year. The latter can and will cause frostbite in unprotected, non-furred people within thirty seconds.

Texas
Texas is a minor city named after the dissolved state of Texas that was a significant part of the old United States. Its main base is the home of the ASC Department of Foreign Affairs, whose mainland location closest to is conducive to facilitating foreign relations with the neighboring continent.