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You are now <span class="mu-s"><span class="mu-i">Yino Val</span></span>. You are the son of the great Wrix Val, the previous Supreme Ruler, and yet despite this, you have no interest in rulership or politics. You are an artist.
You see the world differently. Not through your senses, but through your mind and creative vision. In the Hegemony, all careers and skills are given more credence- as long as a level of excellence and usefulness towards the State is maintained. In the past, long before you were ever born- artists, athletes, and many other creative pursuits were looked down upon or not paid or given much credit in society. Even those who could break records or totally redefine the visual and audio arts- titans of their time- were considered much less then basic business men. Only those who created things able to be exploited by the capitalist machine were value; slop for the masses. But even as a Hegemony artist, given a great degree of social position and wealth as a reward for your artistic excellence, you still have to find yourself tempering your ideas for your audience. Not out of marketability- but out of simple necessity.
<span class="mu-g">"...It will look like shit, Mann."</span>
"How dare you! Young one, I happen to quite enjoy brutalist architecture."
<span class="mu-g">"Yeah, you enjoy seeing it once in a while. You wouldn't be caught dead living in it..."</span>
Mann Yumm is the infrastructural head of the Hegemony, and the current "artist" creating the Great City- a megaproject beneath the oceans of the conquered and terraformed Swallia. By no means would you ever criticize him at his job. The city is built for scalability, designed to reduce waste and fit as many people as possible in comfortable and not too cramped quarters. You've seen the design documents. Currently, you are within one finished central chamber; which will later house the cityscape built within.
"You see- being able to see over a large area of the city at once will eliminate feelings of claustrophobia. Any extra space gained from a city filled with corridors and tightly packed chambers would be lost by a need for extra gardens and decompression space for its residents..."
<span class="mu-g">"Yeah, but you aren't considering the view itself; the colors, the contrast. Looking over a desert wasteland or a lush valley are two very different vistas..."</span>
Mann is good at his job. The city's design is magnificent. Billions upon billions of people will live here; but by no means will it feel overcrowded or like a "meat farm". Every amenity and public service is almost equidistant from every living space. Different housing classes are spread throughout; allowing residents to move up the social ladder with their achievements. Larger spaces for families and smaller for temporary residents. Chokepoints for security and vulnerable parts of the city's support and infrastructure, where as the main throughways of the city are broad and built for mass transit. It's great. But it's all gray.
