I've shamelessly stolen the Dominions series' concept of a deep-sea-dwelling civilization moving to shallow coastal waters to more clearly observe the stars. The players are going to venture into a sunken city and eventually discover the observatory, but I'm struggling to imagine what the structure would look like. A telescope would be a bit impractical underwater. Some kind of magical lights projecting a star map on the dome?
Any ideas or suggestions to find inspiration?
>>96377235
Maybe the sci fi inhabitants have the resources to terraform and prefer to do so due to taste / autism. The terraforming isn't as efficient, but it's luxurious. It's a giant art project, like a garden or a bonsai tree, meticulously planned rather than constructed for maximum efficiency.
Or maybe they terraformed a planet for >>96389682 inhabitants that wouldn't/couldn't maintain the technology to keep a station habitable. Lots of sci fi settings have "ancients" or "precursors" that terraform planets so that cavemen can live there. Sure you can have automated maintenance on a space habitat, but a well-terraformed planet takes much longer to fail.