Ohttrazdbarh

Ohttrazdbarh (Praeta: Eight-Ring City), is a planned fortress city of Ransenar, established in the county of Holwinn, on the northern shore of the Red Elwynn, in the fifth month of 1710 AN. The city is to be formed of an outer defensive wall with eight flaktower bastions, three concentric belts of industrial worker habitation rings, an inner defensive wall with four citadel ziggurats, a concentric ring of mixed commercial premises and middle class residential habitation, a concentric ring of upper class habitation blocks, and the "Centrum Bastion" housing an arsenal and command & control facilities for the Grand Army of Ransenar as well as offices for the municipal authorities of the city.

The area of the city's jurisdiction borders onto that of the bailiwick of Cabbagefall in the Imperial County of Shireroth. One advantage of the placement of Ohttrazdbarh is its position watching over the riverine trade proceeding up the Red Elwynn from Musica to Shirekeep.

History

The site of a Ransenari garrison since mid 1677 AN, the advantageous position of the location that would become Ohttrazdbarh was known to the Lord Chief Steward of Ransenar, and the Lord Protector before him, as it ensured a corridor of unbroken communication between Goldfield and Shirekeep. The original cantonments, formerly occupied by Home Service regiments of the Army Department of Holwinn on rotation, was evacuated and the site levelled during the fourth month of 1710 AN.

On 7.VIII.1710 AN work began on the foundation pit at the point where the Centrum Bastion would eventually be constructed. Surveyors and engineers from the Honourable Company quickly noted the high water table of the marshy alluvial floodplain and forwarded requests for drainage and pumping equipment to the authorities in Goldfield. Revising their initial estimates, the surveyors recommended that an area of eighty square kilometres be drained and excavated to a depth of eight hundred metres. Once the excavation was completed, the foundation pit was to be walled with concrete to the thickness of eight metres and a series of permanently manned pumping stations to be constructed at the bottom layer of the pit. Over these would then be built the arcology structure that would house supporting infrastructure organised in the Kalgachi manner around a central core housing the key power generation and utility system control stations for water and sewerage. Proposals to cap the area contained within the foundation pit by the means of a prestressed concrete dome were rejected out of hand as being beyond the means of any known technology available to man. It was eventually decided that the intended subterranean structures would be covered by infilling of the foundation pit as each layer, building back towards the former surface, was completed.

In spite of some doubts as to the scale of the works, and continuous discussion between the project principals about how to present the proposals for approval by the Ransenari Congress, the excavation of the foundation pit continued through the fifth month of 1710 AN quite unimpeded by these considerations of practicality.