Domed City-states

The dome shields rose over the city-states like silent horizons; vast, translucent systems built for survival, not spectacle. Each was tuned to its environment: tempering heat, filtering polluted air, breaking storms, and regulating rainfall to measured levels. Coastal domes reinforced against floods and tsunamis, while deeper systems dampened tectonic shifts, absorbing or redistributing seismic force.

They sustained and defined the city-states.

Because the domes were also borders. Impervious and selective, those outside – the displaced, the distant, the unregistered. could stand at the threshold, see life within, but never cross without clearance. Overpopulation had made entry almost impossible, except for when it was a political tool.

Operated almost entirely by AI, the shields were adaptive, predictive, and ruthlessly optimised for cost.

They did not ask who was worth saving.

They simply preserved what was inside.