I've always enjoyed your worldbuilding pieces, giving us a feel of how these characters live. I see that with each city, there's always a story to tell, like in real life.

Yeah, at least with DeviantArt, there are options for landscapes and scenery categories... Fur Affinity is furry/character centric... 😅 From what I've seen, the scenery category is basic!

Thank you very much! They really are a welcome change of pace from the usual art I do, and I can always go back later and add a character to the scene to give a bit more depth to both the character and the environment... [X].

True, back when DA had categories, there were several possible categories for this sort of art. FA does have the option to set medium and category, but it feels weird leaving the species and gender blank. I suppose it could be possible to have a city that, one way or another, did become some sort of sentient entity... there's an idea to play with sometime, but would such a thing have any concept of "gender"?

It's dependent on the individual situation, likely. Given that it's not uncommon for AIs or sentient objects to be given a gender (see Knight Rider and Christine or Herbie for examples), despite this only being an "academic" thing. It makes that which inherently lacks such a thing become more intractable to those who are used to people having gender.

The "any" category is also typically used when there's multiple characters. So, I'd say that "any" would generally work for environments and inanimate objects, barring one's personal vehicle. I know some people who get a bit hung up over thinking of their car/truck as a person, to the point of insisting that it has a specific gender. So, that may also be a factor if an inanimate object were to come to life.

If the city were not interested in communicating with its inhabitants and saw them as an infestation, for example, then it may not even bother with giving itself a gender. The machines from Maximum Overdrive and the sentient electricity from Virus are good examples of this. Similarly, some AIs may find gender a quaint concept. The 2008 Knight Rider continuation series poked a bit of fun at this concept. Which, all of that again, would go back to "any".

So, yeah. Unless the mind of the whatever decides to have a gender, "any" works well enough.

It is hard to explain, but I do like to give thought to how to make "fantastic" concepts make sense in reality, and something I gave thought to for a concept that I have never properly pursued is how a computer or a robot could occur naturally--could a combination of physical factors come together to create something like a computer or an artificial intelligence, even if the factors were highly improbable? My thoughts on that subject could be applied to the "sapient city" concept as well, assuming the city wasn't designed to be "smart" by its creators in the first place. Could a city, with all the electronic infrastructure in place, just sort of use that as some sort of neural net? Could an intelligence emerge organically from suitable circumstances? It's definitely something that may be worth playing with, although in a universe where a city could be built with AI already in place, such a concept might seem redundant or overly convoluted vs. just having a government build a self-maintaining, self-regulating city (and all of the stories that could emerge from such a concept).

This is an odd tangent for sure, but it is something I've noticed as a bit of a limitation to this site's categorization system--but ultimately irrelevant as well, as the "species" and "gender" categories can be effectively left blank by choosing the "any" option, while "digital art" and "scenery" describe this sort of art accurately enough anyways.

The idea of a neural net arising from a form of distributed computing (albeit unintentionally) could theoretically happen, depending on the tech level. Say, for example, that the city has various automated systems, which individually don't have any real AI. But, the individual machines and the network they rely on for instructions may be tied into a central computer, so that things like traffic lights can be adjusted to clear the way for an emergency vehicle, or set to all red in an area to stop traffic for wreck cleanup or road construction. Automated street sweeper A gets hit by a car, sends out signals to the network, which adapts and notifies the proper individuals to respond. Now, if enough of these linked systems get powerful enough, it could form an AI of its own. Which, no one would be thinking of because individually, the systems lack the computing power. But when they're all linked and talking to each other, boom. You've just created a Geth.

Reminds me of the original Flashback.

Imagine what it'd be like to live there.

Noisy and crowded and hot, with a distinct chance of getting hit on the head by objects falling from flying hovercars and hoverbikes above. Danajarba's natural resources were depleted by thousands of years of civilization and they switched to nuclear, renewable, and fusion-based energy generation centuries ago, so the air is fairly clean and litter/trash aren't much of an issue thanks to extensive recycling programs at least! The primary concern for air quality actually comes from sand and dust, so you may want to bring a face covering on windy days anyways.

I exaggerated the criminal nature of the Jeroban quite a bit by focusing primarily on criminal characters of the species, so aside from the occasional petty theft, pickpocketing and open use of drugs and other intoxicants, it would probably be relatively safe for the most part even in the poorer areas.

Well, I imagine anyone looking up scenery-themed art here probably won't specifically search for it by things like species or gender that much anyway.

Very true--it just feels strange leaving those categories blank. I have a feeling there's not a whole lot of people specifically seeking landscapes, scenery and environmental art anyways, and they are of more interest to those following an artist as bits of that artist's world-building and storytelling than as something someone would really search for.

Love the look of this, dude!

Thank you very much!