Neil wrote: <If we posit an average population density of perhaps 1000 people per square kilometre (possibly a bit low, if anything, especially if you include the vertical dimension), and a dome radius of say 10 km, then we have a dome population of about 350,000.>
Have to admit, my mental picture of Dome life is very influenced by scenes from books like 'Mothers and Daughters' by Elena Bonner: 1930s Russia, families being stacked into apartments (the quality and above all size of which are definitely based on rank) with one or two rooms apiece. It's actually very difficult for someone like me, who's lived since childhood in a small Australian city with the quarter-acre blocks and masses of open space to imagine, but these sort of stories do help.
<You can pack a lot of people into a small space.>
Which brings up the point of how much room people wouls have been allowed. We have (as alwasy) precious little evidence, but it appears that both Blake and Avon at least lived alone, and even in TWB, the rebels who actually speak seem to be lone family members, there's no spouse/sibling with Ravella when she and Blake leave etc. From non-Dome indications, family life in the Federation is often rare or disfunctional (the number of single-parent households).
This could have an impact on the way Our Heroes act and speak, those layered, defensive speech patterns and oblique verbal sparring that are such fun to untangle and decipher. If you're packed into 'buildings' with masses of other people, are nevertheless essentially alone, and living in a threatening environment to boot ... you'd learn very fast *not* to say what you actually mean too clearly.
JMHO.
_________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.