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Urban Worlds

Source Galaxy Exploration Manual pg. 89
Most inhabited planets contain at least one or two pockets of truly urban areas, but some settlements or even entire worlds consist entirely of this sapient-constructed biome. The most common fully urban worlds are those built in the harshest reaches of space, where a manufactured atmosphere and metal walls provide the only livable refuge in deep space or orbiting other celestial bodies. An otherwise-unlivable chunk of rock can become a thriving metropolis with enough applied ingenuity.
Larger worlds entirely consumed by sprawling urban landscapes typically reflect a populace’s technological advancement and preference for the comforts of society over the planet’s rough natural environment. Such technological dominance can interfere with the world’s natural resources, weather, and habitats, possibly leaving a world in a dire situation if they still rely on those resources but haven’t adapted ways to compensate for their absence. The natural environment may fight back against the urban development, resulting in swaths of urban areas suffering floods, blizzards, earthquakes, and sandstorms—or simply being overtaken by the constant, rampant growth of flora. Urban worlds may exist purely due to the creative tenacity of the universe’s cultures as their technology expands to be able to create non-naturally occurring planetoids set into rotation around a sun.

Archives of Nethys

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Urban Worlds