History Main / AbsurdlyCoolCity

* Most cities in ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'' could count, although most of the Martian cities are in various states of decline, but New York takes the cake. It's in many ways the same as our universe's New York in 1938, only with even more money thrown into it and enough sky traffic to make it feel like [[StarWars Coruscant]].

[[caption-width-right:350:San Antonio, Texas during Christmas. ]]

In fictional settings authors often decide to make great cites for their work. In "classic" sci-fi the city served as a common trope to be used to represent whatever society that existed. They, when animated, drawn or otherwise shown a DesignStudentsOrgasm usually occurs. This comes in two flavors and is often the capital of TheFederation, TheAlliance, TheEmpire, or TheRepublic. Is usually a CityOfAdventure.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' has quite a lot. Eldar cities and the Dark Eldar capital of Commorgah are both very impressive (the former are CrystalSpiresAndTogas style cites housed inside Craftworlds, spacecrafts the size of small moons, the latter is a [[EvilTowerOfOminousness Dark Towers and Spikes]] style city located inside the Webway). Humans have numerous heavily populated worlds with impressive looking cities, but the grand price goes to Holy Terra, seat of the Imperium. The Imperial Palace alone covers most of what used to be Eurasia.

* New Mombasa from ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}''.

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'''s [[http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Stratos Stratos City]]: CrystalSpiresAndTogas for everyone! ([[FantasticRacism Except Troglodytes.]])
** [[TheFederation Starfleet's]] own capital, [[http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/San_Francisco San Francisco]] (the actual capital city of the Federation is Paris, but San Francisco was seen quite a bit more, and at times played host to non-Starfleet governmental functions).

* ''Webcomic/{{Drowtales}}'': [[http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?order=chapters&id=5 Chel'el'sussoloth]], [[MeaningfulName literally means]] "City of light in the darkness". For LonelyRichKid Ariel, it's a fantasy world beyond her wildest dreams, to GenreSavvy {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Lirel, it's a WretchedHive that also has CrystalSpiresAndTogas... perfect for having AHellOfATime.

[[caption-width-right:350:San Antonio Texas during Christmas. ]]

* Zaofu in ''Series/TheLegendOfKorra'', a city made entirely of metal. The city is made to look like a congregation of Lotus flowers, that stay open in the day, but are closed by night.

** TheFederation's own capitol, [[http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/San_Francisco San Francisco]].

[[caption-width-right:350:SanAntonio Texas during Christmas. ]]

* [[TheMightyThor Asgard]].

* Vampire New York as seen in DayBreakers. While it's the exact opposite of "shiny", the sheer infrastructure of adapting the biggest city in the world to Vampires gets it put in this category. Besides, Dark ''is'' shiny [[HumansThroughAlienEyes for vampires.]]
* Themyscra of Franchise/WonderWoman. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Themyscira-floating.jpg Just take a look.]]

* The titular MegaTokyo.

* Any city level from RatchetAndClank. You'd think those guys were architects.

* Trantor from the {{Foundation}} series. It covers all the planet, it's the capital of the galactic empire, and continues many kilometers underground.

* Sternbild City, a three-leveled city decorated with several Statue-of-Liberty-sized monuments from ''TigerAndBunny'' is also a nice example.

* New Krobuzon from ChinaMieville's [[Literature/BasLagCycle Bas Lag]] trilogy.

* And the major cities of VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft: Silver Moon, Undercity, the Exodar, Dalaran and Shattrah.
* TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} has quite a lot. Eldar cities and the Dark Eldar capital of Commorgah are both very impressive (the former are CrystalSpiresAndTogas style cites housed inside Craftworlds, spacecrafts the size of small moons, the latter is a [[EvilTowerOfOminousness Dark Towers and Spikes]] style city located inside the Webway). Humans have numerous heavily populated worlds with impressive looking cities, but the grand price goes to Holy Terra, seat of the Imperium. The Imperial Palace alone covers most of what used to be Eurasia.

* New Mombasa from {{Halo}} 3.
* The Human City from Film/TheMatrix. It's a virtual merger of several real-world cities.
* The city in ''Film/BladeRunner'' is certainly '''Dark and Gritty''', as depicted in fanart [[http://site.jacobcharlesdietz.com/the-work/gallery-3/2019-post-alley here]] .

* ''{{Drowtales}}'': [[http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?order=chapters&id=5 Chel'el'sussoloth]], [[MeaningfulName literally means]] "City of light in the darkness". For LonelyRichKid Ariel, it's a fantasy world beyond her wildest dreams, to GenreSavvy {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Lirel, it's a WretchedHive that also has CrystalSpiresAndTogas... perfect for having AHellOfATime.

* "''Ubiquitos''" (mostly known as 'The City') from ''MirrorsEdge''. See also AsceticAesthetic and SceneryPorn.

* The eponymous ''Film/DarkCity'' is a SceneryPorn-tastic, GermanExpressionism-inspired, AlwaysNight CityInABottle.

* The titular CityOfEmber.

* Dresediel Lex from''Literature/TwoSerpentsRise''. Floating skyscrapers, giant black-glass pyramids for office buildings, zombie street cleaners, and goddesses hovering over every poker game.

* Zaofu in ''Series/TheLegendofKorra'', a city made entirely of metal. The city is made to look like a congregation of Lotus flowers, that stay open in the day, but are closed by night.

** The Crystal Empire, whose crystal street layout is actually an enormous accumulator array to collect love and camaraderie from the city's inhabitants and feed it into the city's central spire to be weaponized.

* Cloudsdale from ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', a hovering (and possibly mobile) city made almost entirely from clouds and rainbows and featuring a weather factory.

* Atlantis from ''StargateAtlantis''. [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas Crystal Spires]] on hyperdrives.

* The Citadel from ''Franchise/MassEffect''. It's [[RuleOfCool a giant space station.]] Just [[http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Citadel check out its page]]. It. Is. Awesome. [[spoiler: Of course it was made by crazy Robo-Cthulu death farmers. But that's beside the point.]]

* New Krobuzon from ChinaMieville's [[Literature/{{Bas-LagCycle}} Bas Lag]] trilogy.

* The titular Film/{{Metropolis}}. It borrows from HGWells ''Literature/TheTimeMachine'' and has a shiny Art Deco city on top and a gritty worker's city under the earth.

* "Ubiquitos". Also known as 'The City' from Mirror's Edge. See also AsceticAesthetic and SceneryPorn.

* Gotham City from ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'', epically [[NoMansLand post-earthquake]] when the city looks like a mash up of the 1930s, Gothic London and a Modern city.

* Dentech City from RockManEXE. The fact that EverythingIsOnline compounds this. And its virtual counterpart Navi City which '''is''' online.