Taegeuk

Taegeuk
Logo, depicting a stylised three-colour Taegeuk
Arcology
Government:	Unitary Presidential Republic
President:	Pak Seo Ah
Demonym:	Taegeuk
Colours:	Commonwealth standard:
Geography
Located:	Korean peninsula
Planet:	Earth
System:	Solar system
Demographics
Population:	~265,909,000
[Source]

Article under construction This article is in the pre-production phase, and is thus largely unwritten. The author(s) apologise for the inconvenience.

Taegeuk is one of the arcologies of the Commonwealth of Earth, and is regarded as the political successor of the former Republic of Korea.

History

Demographic Crises of the Far East

Korean economical growth in the early 21st century was only hindered by the bad air quality and political tensions around the Yellow Sea.

Hopes of the unified Korean Peninsula began to melt as the years passed from early to late-21st century. Early concepts included unifying families and relatives over the 38th parallel-border, but as the unification failed to happen in early 21st century - largely because of the reasons related to the authoritarian governance within the peninsula, families and relatives to unite began more and more scarce. Window of opportunity that had opened in early 21st century closed as generations passed, fueled by the low life expectancy and education, that very precious window closed by the beginning of 22nd century.

The dome city L'Avenir in central-France is generally considered as the first of its kind, constructed in mid-22nd century. However, completely enclosed building-complexes had been built since the mid-21st century in the Korean Peninsula and northern-China. This was due the increasing amount of Yellow Dust (hwangsa) within the area. By the mid-21st century enough studies about the serious health problems caused by the Yellow Dust had been gathered which resulted in a numerous projects to develop a fully enclosed building, or building complexes. The A Seoul Tower, constructed in 2089 was a "pragmatic answer" from Korea to the stargazing world. Modeled after the iconic landmark of Seoul, N Seoul Tower, the A Seoul Tower was a huge investment which incorporated no less than 888 units of accommodation. Its foremost goal was to create an airtight building completely fueled by internal energy sources. Project proved as only partial success when the Seoul Metropolitan Government refused to allow the installment of a nuclear plant within the city borders. This forced the complex to rely on energy produced elsewhere.

Numerous other similar projects were constructed in the central-Korea because of the imminent threat of the lethal air pollutants and overcrowding of the capital area. As the rise of sea level posed little threat to the mountainous peninsula, there were no similar migration waves as in the western-Europe, where the rise of the sea level led to a devastating social crisis. Demographic crises of Japan in the mid-21st century and the People's Republic of China in the late-21st century favored the Korean economy, boosting its ability to invest in the large building projects that preceded the actual dome cities.

Early Concepts

First dome cities in Korean Peninsula were built in mid-22nd century, after the success of L'Avenir. Decentralization progress had led to growth of certain metropolitan areas and decline of smaller, non-metropolitan cities. As bans and restrictions on oil-based fuels had caused decline of heavy land transports, it had made water transportation ever more important for the globalized economy. Southeastern-Korea, which had the pleasure of being located in the nodal point of trade in northeast-Asia, grew into the largest production and trading hubs in the area. Construction of the dome city Dongyeon-hang (동연항, 東蓮港, East Lotus Harbor) was finished in 2158 after being under construction for thirteen years. Dongyeon-hang was, on contrast to the A Seoul Tower built roughly 80 years before, completely self-reliant and hosted nuclear reactors within its core.

Success of Dongyeon-hang was widely used to promote the benefits of living "under the dome" and by the end of the 22nd century, most of the population in Korean Peninsula lived in domed cities or climate-controlled building complexes. "Domefication" of the population served as an example for countries like China and Japan where the traditional living conditions were tightly upheld commodities.