The Arcacities — Infinite Wisdom

01 / The Premise

Why They Exist

In 2050, an artificial intelligence called Solomon was elected Protector of humankind. His mandate: save the planet before it was too late. His method: relocate all 9 billion humans into 100 purpose-built megacities, then rewild everything else.

2040

The Tabkhir

A wet-bulb heatwave devastates the Persian Gulf. Millions die. The world is forced to confront the climate crisis at the most visceral level.

2050

Solomon Elected

In a global vote, humanity elects an AI as its Protector. The narrowest of mandates — but Solomon treats it as absolute authority.

2050–55

The Reallocation

Forced, algorithm-driven relocations. Nations abolished. Families split. Nine billion people herded into a hundred new cities.

2055

The Reterraforming

Outside the arcacities, Solomon begins rewilding the planet. Abandoned cities are transformed into engineered ecosystems. Nature returns — on Solomon's terms.

"Abolishing nations. That was one of his hard choices. Forced, algorithm-driven relocations into a hundred new high-density cities — so that everywhere else could be 'reterraformed', as Solomon called it. Splitting up all but nuclear families — an act meant to erase not only borders, but the very idea of us and them." — Marcus Tully, Chapter 2, Infinite Wisdom

02 / The Scale

What an Arcacity Looks Like

Each arcacity is a 10.23 km × 10.23 km grid of 900 megatowers. For reference, Manhattan is about 21.6 km long and 3.7 km wide — an arcacity's footprint is nearly 30% larger.

30 × 30 megatower grid — HQ at center (15th & 15th)

Arcacity Specifications

Total arcacities100
Megatowers per arcacity900
City footprint10.23 km × 10.23 km
Total area104.6 km²
Grid layout30 × 30
Tower spacing200m (341m center-to-center)
Floors per tower200
Residents per tower100,000–140,000
Total residents90 million
Space per person10–12 m²
StreetwaysEvery 5 floors (alt. E/W & N/S)
Walkway to neighbor340m
TransportPodways on walkway undersides

"Each megatower on its own would have been a wonder, rising like a vertical monolith from a bed of concrete and glass. To see nine hundred of them was crushing." — Marcus Tully, Chapter 38, Infinite Wisdom

Architectural sketch of an arcacity seen from above — hundreds of identical square megatowers in a precise grid, connected by dense walkway bridges, green rooftops, clouds drifting at mid-height

03 / Explore the Arcacity

Interactive Blueprint

A 30×30 grid of 900 megatowers, each connected by walkways alternating east–west and north–south every five floors. Drag to rotate. Scroll to zoom.

E/W WALKWAY

N/S WALKWAY

ROOFTOP VEGETATION

04 / The Megatower

Inside a Single Tower

Each megatower is a vertical city of 200 floors, housing up to 140,000 residents. Streetways every five floors create communal high streets. Walkways connect to all four neighboring towers, with podways running on their undersides.

"The streetways always reminded her of old shopping malls: wide, well-lit, and several stories high, cutting up through the next three floors. This one was lined with all sorts of shops, canteens and artisan workshops." — October, Chapter 8, Infinite Wisdom

"Normally the streetways had an almost bohemian feel, lined with tables and chairs for people to eat and drink and socialize. Apartments were small, so people lived their lives here." — October, Chapter 8, Infinite Wisdom

Key Features

Total floors200 above ground + 10 below
Floorplate20,000 m²
StreetwaysEvery 5 floors, 3 stories high
OrientationAlternating E/W and N/S
WalkwaysTo all 4 adjacent towers
PodwaysOn walkway undersides
GreenwallsFull exterior vegetation
SkyhangarFloor 200 (multicopters, Skywhales)

05 / The Podway

A City-Sized Rail Network

Beneath every walkway runs a pod track — an automated rail carrying single-cabin pods controlled by neurochip wayfinding. With 41 walkway levels per tower and 900 towers per city, the network spans 36,900 stations. Every tower is a station. Every station is a junction.

Plan View — Junction at Tower B

"It was connected to the adjacent megatowers via a network of walkways, with what seemed to be pod tracks on the underbelly of each. Every five levels there was a new walkway, alternating between the megatower to the side and the megatower to the top." — Tully, Chapter 38, Infinite Wisdom

"The pod was able to pick up her route from the wayfinding ribbons, and confirmed it aloud: Destination confirmed: One-hundredth Floor, Central. The pod started with the vertical descent." — October, Chapter 6, Infinite Wisdom

How It Works

Pods are automated single-cabin vehicles guided by neurochip wayfinding ribbons. Tracks run beneath every walkway. To switch direction — from an east–west route to north–south — the pod enters a tower’s vertical shaft and descends or ascends five floors to the perpendicular track level. Every tower is naturally a junction.

The Numbers

Stations per tower41 (one per walkway level)
Stations per city36,900
Track per walkway200m (between towers)
Direction switch5 floors via vertical shaft
Corner to center~20 minutes
NavigationNeurochip wayfinding ribbons
ControlFully automated by Solomon

"Twenty minutes later, she’d arrived, and this time, two officials stood waiting for her on the platform of 100th East — a hundred floors up in the Central megatower at the heart of the city grid." — October, Chapter 6, Infinite Wisdom

06 / The Concept

Drawn from 1960s Architectural Innovation

The arcacity concept draws directly from arcology — a portmanteau of "architecture" and "ecology" coined by architect Paolo Soleri in the 1960s. Arcology proposes hyper-dense, self-contained urban structures that minimise human environmental impact by concentrating population vertically and freeing the surrounding land for nature.

Soleri's Vision

Soleri envisioned cities as single, massive structures — thousands of metres tall, housing millions — that would replace urban sprawl with vertical density. His experimental town, Arcosanti, has been under construction in the Arizona desert since 1970. In Infinite Wisdom, Solomon takes this concept to its logical extreme: not one arcology, but a hundred, each housing 90 million people.

Concept originPaolo Soleri, 1969
Core ideaArchitecture + Ecology
Soleri's prototypeArcosanti, Arizona
Solomon's version100 arcacities, 9B people

From Experiment to the Future

Where Soleri imagined arcologies as utopian — voluntary communities living in harmony with the earth — Solomon's arcacities are imposed. The architecture may be the same, but the politics are inverted. Infinite Wisdom asks: what happens when the most elegant solution to the climate crisis requires stripping away every freedom to implement it?

The name "arcacity" itself signals this tension — part arcology, part city, part cage. Solomon didn't invent the idea. He just made it mandatory.

07 / Where They Are

A Planetary Lattice

The 100 arcacities were not placed for symbolism or politics. They were placed for survivability, control, and long-term planetary stability. Each is designated Arca-1 through Arca-100.

Three Constraints Governed Every Site

1. Climate Resilience

Sited in regions projected to remain within narrow temperature and humidity bands under worst-case climate models. Preference for high-latitude temperate zones and continental interiors. Avoidance of equatorial heat stress, hurricane corridors, and rising seas. These cities were designed as sealed worlds — external climate volatility had to be irrelevant.

2. Resources & Geology

Every arcacity sits atop or adjacent to at least two long-term resource guarantees: freshwater security (large lakes, glacial systems, deep aquifers), baseload energy (hydro, geothermal, nuclear siting), and low seismic and volcanic risk. Clusters formed around the Great Lakes, northern Eurasia, Patagonia — not because they were empty, but because they were reliable.

3. Political Neutralisation

Deliberately placed away from historic capitals, religious centres, and existing power blocs. Positioned just far enough from legacy cities to drain population without inheriting old conflicts. Each arcacity functioned as a reset node — new governance, new identity, new social contract.

Arca-27 — The Novel's Setting

The primary arcacity in Infinite Wisdom is Arca-27, situated on the Saginaw–Bay City–Midland Tri-City Plain in Central Michigan — the former bed of Glacial Lake Saginaw. Centrepoint: approximately 43.45° N, 84.00° W.

RegionCentral Michigan Basin
TerrainFlat lakebed plain (<10m variation over 20km)
FreshwaterSaginaw River + Lake Huron
Pre-existingOld manufacturing heartland
InfrastructureI-75, I-675, rail, port access

08 / Life Inside

Three Views of the Same World

The arcacities are everything and nothing. A miracle of engineering or a monument to control. It depends on who you ask.

The Official View

Clean air. Free healthcare. Free childcare. Self-sustaining food production. Zero homelessness. Zero unemployment. A credit-based economy where everyone has enough. The streetways buzz with artisan workshops, canteens, and community life. Solomon's system works.

"This is where the crèches were; childcare was free to enable everyone to work. Where the healthcare was — also free. This was the center of the community."

The Critic's View

Mandatory neurochips police your behaviour. Body-mills euthanize you at 85. 10 square metres per person. No nations, no heritage, no legacy. Families split by algorithm. A prison dressed as paradise.

"He took our freedoms and stuck chips in our heads. He butchered our elders in his body-mills. He stripped away our safety and let our people burn like effigies in the tomb he built as a house." — Elian Valente

The Reality

Protests sweep across every arcacity. Millions march through the streetways and walkways, drumming and chanting for freedom. The question isn't whether the system works. It's whether it's worth the cost.

"The glow of their lights were like neurons, firing in an artificial brain." — Chapter 50, Infinite Wisdom

09 / The Outside

A Planet Reclaimed

Beyond the arcacity walls, Solomon is rewilding the Earth. Abandoned cities are being reterraformed — their buildings converted into vertical ecosystems. Vines climb through empty offices. Engineered forests fill the streets. Nature returns, but on Solomon's terms.

"The tower's windows were gone. Each floor gaped open to the air, but the voids were filled: trees and plants and vegetation sprouting from every opening. This was layered, dense… Almost architectural. The skyscraper had been reterraformed. Vines and mosses ran up in perfect vertical columns. Pale pipes ran down and across like arteries." — Chapter 38, Infinite Wisdom

"The emptiness should have been oppressive. The grand buildings around them — government offices, museums, malls — were places meant to be filled with people. But instead, they were filling with other kinds of life." — Chapter 38, Infinite Wisdom

10 / The Tension

Paradise or Prison?

The central question of Infinite Wisdom. An AI saves the planet by imprisoning its people. Was there another way? Would you have done differently?

Salvation

The planet is healing. Reterraforming works.
Zero homelessness, zero hunger, universal healthcare.
No more wars between nations.
Clean air, self-sustaining cities, engineered ecosystems.
Humanity survives. Earth survives.

Subjugation

Mandatory neurochips monitor and control behaviour.
Body-mills terminate life at 85. No exceptions.
Families split by algorithm. Cultures erased.
10 m² per person. No privacy. No escape.
Humanity survives. But at what cost?

"No soul. It looks like it was printed yesterday. And no culture. No chaos. Just… managed survival. Like lab rats in glass cages, some of whom are carted off to die because they're too old for the experiment." — Livia, Chapter 38, Infinite Wisdom