Does Not Illustrate: City Planet

RE: Parks and such

Central Park is considered as part of New York. Those flat expanses of metal surrounding Iacon, Kaon, etc. are not considered part of the cities proper. As for things underneath surface-level on Cybertron, how much of that is actually artificial? Natural tunnels made of metal aren't that much of a stretch, considering that metal-based lifeforms are there. And in some versions, Cybertron does has seas and mountain ranges. Although I can't find much about the version pictured there (the War for Cybertron/Transformers: Prime/Aligned version).

There's this drawing from David A. Hardy's Galactic Tours book, as a suggestion:[1] It's supposed to be based on Trantor. His site says that we're allowed to use his drawings for non-commercial educational sites (which presumably includes TVT) as long as a notice and link back to it. Also, another drawing of Trantor, [2] but a lot of the structure is covered by clouds.

I have to admit, it's hard to find planets that look more artificial than Cybertron. With a view from space, it's hard to tell between "naturally"-occurring metallic structure and actually artificial ones.

edited 7th Nov '12 10:29:04 PM by ThatHuman

Perhaps something less an example and more an illustration? Something similar to this SimCity Societies cover◊, of course preferably without the title in the center. That would be instantly recoqnizable as "planet covered by city."

I'd point out that Cybertron's uninhabited areas are ALSO cities (Admittedly ruined ones). Like the Sea Of Rust◊. And those "flat expanses of metal" on the image are clearly not so, they are covered in clearly visible lines, lights, and different shades that show that while they may look flat from space, they aren't and are more like densely built agglomerations.

edited 8th Nov '12 6:35:46 AM by CobraPrime

Well, ruined cities are not the same kind of environment as populated areas. Ecumenopolis means "planet that is entirely metropolitan", not "planet entirely covered by buildings". And I think the Rust Sea being a ruined city doesn't apply to all versions. But Fall of Cubertron is more relevant to the picture here.

Anyway, even if those expanses of gray could be artificial, (but who knows if those lines weren't natural...?) they don't indicate "city", usually. The areas surrounding a city are not actually treated as part of the cities, as far as I can tell. And anyway, Cybertron is just really far from being a standard example. Having ecumenopolis stretch to "planet covered by structure" is a bit of a stretch, especially if some of the structure is non-metropolitan (i.e small towns, rural area, "wilderness").

tldr; Cybertron is not really a "standard" example of ecumenopolis, so it's not the best example to illustrate one.

edited 8th Nov '12 1:36:49 PM by ThatHuman

But the trope isn't named "Ecumenopolis".

edited 8th Nov '12 1:55:45 PM by AnotherDuck

"Sometimes referred to as a planet city, world city (..), completely urbanized world, omniopolis / omnopolis, or ecumenopolis."

The page outright says that City planet=ecumenopolis. What do you think the description mean by"this is sometimes referred to as an ecumenopolis"? Would you say that the Wikipedia page for "Tiger" isn't about Panthera tigris just because the title is "Tiger"?

Saying that X is an alternate name for Y indicates that Y=X.

edited 8th Nov '12 2:11:44 PM by ThatHuman

It does not say it's an exact definition. "Sometimes referred to as" means it's a synonym, not that it's exactly the same. Besides, an abandoned city is still a city. Going with those large cats, I would say that while a black leopard is sometimes referred to as a panther, panther doesn't mean black leopard. Point is, you're going by the outside definition of a synonym, so you're neither using the trope definition nor the trope name.

I don't think the trope is as narrow as you claim it to be, and I think it's pointless to continue this discussion.

Now, I wouldn't mind a better image, but I've not seen one that's even the same quality, let alone better in this thread.

Throwing this◊ out for consideration...honestly, I think this has been an insanely nitpicky process.

I can only speak for myself, but I don't parse "Geometric patterns of lights" as "cities". No objection to the current pic here, but I would like to see something more like the Simcity pic if we can find a good one.

Google image result

edited 10th Nov '12 5:08:30 PM by troacctid

Heh...that's certainly unambiguous.

That Dev Art pic is the best so far. If we can get permission, I say go with it.

Didn't Fast Eddie say non-copyrighted fan works (ie, Deviant Art) are fair game?

For the sake of basic courtesy, at least, if we know who the artist is we should at least attempt to obtain its permission first. TVT has a very particular CC license, after all, that we don't want to impose unnecessarily.

I like 26-1 and 18-3 as back-up choices.

Agree that using without asking when we know who made it is very impolite.

The DA pic is an original piece and not a fanart like the Shadowcat/Colossus pic that was being discussed in that thread. We definitely need to get permission.

Interesting distinction: the DA artist who made the Shadowcat/Colossus image is violating copyright themselves. Those are not their characters.

So, has anybody asked for permission? I have a Deviantart account I don't actually use for anything, but I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to say...

I just did...hopefully he'll get back to me soon.

Clock is set. I never heard anything from the dA artist.

Welp, GIS gives another option.◊ Dunno if it's copyrighted.

^From where did you grab it?

ETA: Found it myself: [1]

edited 12th Dec '12 7:03:06 AM by SeptimusHeap

Well, scratch that. Seeing as it's sold, using it looks to be a no-no.

GIS gives a lot of options, but most of them are stock photos for sale, so using them seems unlikely. I found this◊ on impressive magazine. The artist is Alexey Brin, according to this.

Clock's up; locking for inactivity/lack of consensus. No action is to be taken based on this thread.