This is the description of my 'Rebel Headquarters', which is a city rather than a building. Rebel Headquarters was really just an island, surrounded by water with only bridges as the entrances. It wasn't only military, either. Men, women and children went about their lives in the towns on the outskirts and in the city itself. It was a booming epicenter for hospitals, schools and, of course, the headquarters that housed Shane Corbett and his family. Since it's not in context, Shane and his family can be ignored, but my first thought, while writing, was something similar to Manhattan, but with less city (if that makes sense?). Now I'm second guessing it. Any input would be appreciated.
I don't see why not. There was a time when even Manhattan wasn't city from edge to edge. There were farms and pastures though it may seem hard to reconcile that with the Manhattan we know now.
Works to me! I definitely saw trees and some green space when I read it. Then again, when I see island, I think rocky. So I also saw lots of cliffs... But that's just my silly brain.
Yes, I realize that. I was typing it and then realized exactly what it said... Then I left it, because I was having a brain fart.
Actually that sounds like the type of isolated city that could become the HQ for a rebel or subversive group. It's not the same thing, but Asimov often used small isolated planets with strange or foreboding climates as places where subversives could freely operate in his 'Foundation' series. The first Foundation was located on Terminus, which was a tiny single planet system in the galactic periphery with few resources. The site was selected due to isolation. In another book, a smaller rebel group was headquartered on a planet where the climate sucked so bad that all of the cities were in massive caves - which of course made it a great hideout for traders on the fringes of the legal system. Yet another rebel planet was a sparsely "rimworld" where one side always faced the sun and was too hot, one side always faced away and was too cold, and civilization only occurred in the "perpetual twilight" on where the light side met the dark. The point being that hard-to-access "islands" are often hard to control, harder to invade, and often go ignored due to their lack of strategic resources. Hence your rebel city with only bridge access sounds perfect from a defensibility standpoint - and if it's off major trade route and resource-poor, then it's exactly the type of place that incubates rebellions in the first place.
Think Tenochtitlan. The Aztec city surrounded by causeways and canals. Well defended and somewhat agrarian.
