topopolis
Names: topopolismegastructureHeaven's River
First appears in Book 4: Heaven’s River, chapter 6 (6. The Search Expands)
Appearances
What you know
Book 4: Heaven’s River
- Ch 6The megastructure is a topopolis: a spinning cylinder fifty-six miles in radius wound three times around the star in a torus knot.
- Ch 8The topopolis has a non-rotating outer shell and a rotating inner shell giving 0.86 G, matching Planet Boojum, the Snarks' home world.
- Ch 8A branching river runs the length of the topopolis, keeping all land near water; the interior is divided into roughly 560-mile segments by ring mountains.
- Ch 8The topopolis was likely built by dismantling an Earth-sized planet, explaining the gap between planets two and three.
- Ch 8The topopolis has nine entrances, three per strand; only one is heavily used, apparently for Boojum system patrols.
- Ch 8The topopolis still runs like clockwork, so someone or something must be maintaining and managing it.
- Ch 11The topopolis space dock runs entirely on automatic, with service bots and no trace of living Snark staff.
- Ch 11The outer shell is a hundred yards of friable impact and radiation shielding; a magnetic rail ring links it to the rotating inner shell.
- Ch 12The Snark home world became unlivable roughly a few hundred years ago, based on radioactivity and fire tracks.
- Ch 14The topopolis's inner shell material is about fifty percent stronger, pound for pound, than Bob hull material.
- Ch 16Gilligan identifies hollow mountains at segment boundaries housing infrastructure, and a vacuum-monorail-like long-distance transport system.
- Ch 16Heaven's River has four rivers, alternating in flow direction, so travelers can go downstream either way by switching rivers.
- Ch 16Heat is extracted to the outer shell through an exchange that generates electricity, then radiated from cooling fins.
- Ch 17Heaven's River has a stationary regolith outer shell and an inner shell rotating at over half a mile per second, about ten yards apart.
- Ch 17Heaven's River has a radius of fifty-six miles, real weather, herds and flocks, and four rivers: Arcadia, Utopia, Paradise and Nirvana.
- Ch 17At a Heaven's River transit station, the front door has been welded shut, suggesting management is keeping the natives out.
- Ch 17Heaven's River has almost no mineral wealth, so metal is scarce; local cops carrying swords signals weapons are important.
- Ch 17The residents cannot access the megastructure's high-speed transport in any segment investigated so far.
- Ch 19Heaven's River has a pseudo-sun moving along its central cylinder, a twenty-one-hour day, and a weak hologram that masks the far interior.
- Ch 25Adjacent segments of Heaven's River alternate day and night cycles.
- Ch 25The general Quinlan population is pre-steam and pre-electricity; river mail would take about two weeks to reach Elbow.
- Ch 36A baffle around the central cylinder at each mountain boundary can seal off a segment and blocks light; segments alternate day and night.
- Ch 36The baffles may hold infrastructure reachable via struts from the central cylinder, adding possible hiding places for Bender's matrix.
- Ch 36Gilligan has located probable entrances to the administrative areas under the segment-boundary mountains, near the river shore.
- Ch 36Maintaining Heaven's River needs heavy surveillance, so the expedition members have likely been on camera and cannot avoid it indefinitely.
- Ch 37Mountain ranges circle the habitat every 560 miles, one day-length of the artificial sun, anchoring spokes to the central shaft.
- Ch 46The segment-boundary mountains are made of an engineered, pumice-like material colored to look like natural rock.
- Ch 50Bob describes Heaven's River as a rotating structure 100 henn in radius, built of 1,000-henn segments, generating .86 G.
- Ch 52Natives regard Heaven's River's gravity as one G.
- Ch 54Some segments of Heaven's River reportedly have different climates: cold ones with snow, a mostly-water one, and a dry one.
- Ch 61The night sky of Heaven's River shows constellations as the Quinlans would have seen them from their home planet.
- Ch 66Heaven's River was built by a Quinlan consortium as a refuge and second basket for the species.
Book 5: Not Till We Are Lost
- Ch 25Heaven's River towns are being rebuilt block by block with higher technology under ANEC's direction, with little Quinlan pushback.
Connections
- inEta Leporis
- containsSnarks
- created bySnarkspresumed builders
- includesArcadia River
- includesUtopia
- includesParadise
- includesNirvana
- containsGarack's Spine
- includessegment boundary
- related toAnecpresented it to the Quinlans as a gift, per legend
- containsThree Lagoons
- containsHalep's Ending
- includesGarack's Spine
- containsCedar Rapids
- containsGrendel
- includescylinder stays
- includescentral cylinder
- containsForest Hill
- includesUtopia Spoke
- includesNirvana Spoke
- led byAnecAI built to control, maintain and defend it
Key moments
- Book 4 · Ch 8Snarks discovered in the topopolis
SUDDAR scans reveal otter-like natives living pre-industrial lives along a river inside the topopolis, with exits apparently sealed.
- Book 4 · Ch 8Entry plan agreed
Garfield presents the Gamers' plan to piggyback a cloaked, thermite-rigged drone on a Boojum through the busiest topopolis entrance.
- Book 4 · Ch 11Drones piggyback into the topopolis
Cloaked drones ride docking Boojums into the topopolis space dock, narrowly avoid a maintenance bot, and slip into maintenance passages.
- Book 4 · Ch 11Breaking into the interior
The drones cross to the rotating inner shell via the empty Spin Transfer ring, defang the airlock alarms, climb the stairs and tunnel out beneath the transit station.
- Book 4 · Ch 11Spy drones released
Sparrow-sized camouflaged spy drones are released inside the topopolis to eavesdrop on the Snarks.
- Book 4 · Ch 12Natives named Quinlans
The Skippies' report reveals the natives call themselves Quinlans and their world Heaven's River, though history remains obscure.
- Book 4 · Ch 12Infiltration strategy set
The team agrees to tunnel through the outer shell, send one small team inside, and spread spy drones upstream and downstream to find leads on Bender.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Expedition enters Heaven's River
The four-manny expedition crosses between the shells, rides a mining drone to the inner shell one by one, climbs the stairs of a transit station and emerges into the habitat.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Will plugs the tunnel
Rather than join as a conspicuous five-person sabbat, Will returns his manny to the entry tunnel and plugs the entrance.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Bridget corrects the team's behavior
Bridget points out that Quinlans don't walk long distances upright; the team goes on all fours and takes to the water.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Swim to Garack
The expedition plays tag in the stream, then floats downstream into the village, where a sword-carrying cop warns them as sabbatarians to register or stay at transient hotels.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Bridget ends a brawl
When a brawling Quinlan threatens her, Bridget knocks him down, and the group takes a cramped four-bunk room at a sabbatarian hotel.
- Book 4 · Ch 48Bob crosses via the spokes
With Bender's matrix in his backpack, Bob uses Natasha's card to ride the Utopia Spoke elevator up and the Nirvana Spoke down, but finds his cards cancelled at the train station.
- Book 5 · Ch 25Theresa visits Heaven's River in a quinny
Using Bridget's quinny, Theresa joins Bob in Heaven's River, where they eat at a pub serving hamburgers and see towns being upgraded.