Coruscant, from the Star Wars films, which resembles in many ways a major Directorate city.
Olympus Mons is the name of a massive building in the center of the Palantine, the main city on the Directorate's capital planet of Kaliban IV. Olympus Mons is the largest free-standing sentient-made structure in the known universe: a huge skyscraper about 10 kilometers high, more than nine times the height of the Burg Khalifa (currently the tallest building in the world). The monolithic size of the building is made possible only by an intricate system of gravimetric and energy screens, which serves as a defense mechanism as well as allowing the huge structure to stand. This spire is the political heart of the Directorate and is extremely well defended, even capable of resisting an orbital bombardment for a limited period of time.
Function[]
Olympus Mons is the political center of the Directorate. The three constituent assemblies of the Directorate Parliament meet in a huge, inverted-dome chamber underneath the building, while the thousands of delegates live in its towering walls for the duration of their terms. The Office of the Prime Consul, the Directorate's Head-of-State, is located in an expansive suite of chambers at the apex of the spire. This building also houses the upper-most tiers of the Directorate's expansive bureaucracy.
Appeance & Defensive Systems[]
Olympus Mons is ringed by a heavy military presence - infantry, fortifications, weapons emplacements and armored fighting vehicles. The spire itself is shrouded in extremely powerful shielding, making a conventional ground-side siege all but impossible. The huge tower is built from a forboding, angular, concrete façade with a multitude of small, tinted windows, vaulted square arches and monolithic ridges. However, this heavy, industrial façade hides an intricate array of automated defensive systems and anti-aircraft weapon emplacements. Large railguns housed in underground firing pits spaced around the grounds about the spire also provide capability to cripple any starship small enough to enter planetary orbit and attempt a localized bombardment of the premises.