The Arla Dam was conceived in mid-2628 as an exohuman sixty-megawatt hydroelectric project on the Arla River, intended to supply power to tiered Energy Redistribution Nodes downstream in the Asari Region. By June 2629 the reinforced concrete embankment rose to 60 % completion, with transmission corridors surveyed toward Hope and New Kourou. However, fierce disputes over water rights with the Honga Tribe — and the outbreak of the Great War — forced work to cease. Turbines were never installed, leaving the dam as a hollow shell and a monument to Beta-Age ambitions cut painfully short.
Dam Type: Gravity-arch concrete embankment Dimensions: 120 m crest length, 35 m maximum height Reservoir Capacity: 1.2 × 10⁶ m³ (planned) Intake Works: Three reinforced portals (unfitted) Spillway: Side chute carved into bedrock (incomplete) Transmission Corridor: Surveyed right-of-way to Tier-2 ERN sites, pilings in place but no cabling installed
Steel rebar protrudes from half-cured concrete buttresses, and wooden scaffolds slope down into the muddy river trench. Survey markers—blasted granite pillars etched with glyphs — dot the reservoir basin, their cuts still fresh. Engineers’ tents cluster on a gravel bar, stove-smoke curling into misty dawn air. The roar of diverted rapids echoes against the dam face, punctuated by the ring of jack-hammers and the hiss of pneumatic drills. Beyond the site perimeter, jungle vines begin reclaiming cleared slopes, and the distant clatter of Manual Labor Bots hauling stone clods reminds visitors that even this grand vision was tethered to raw sweat and frontier grit.
Now silent, the dam stands half-built and moss-covered: concrete terraces cracked, rebar rusted. Water seeps through unfinished joints, spilling in narrow waterfalls over algae-stained walls. A single collapsed tent frame lies tangled in reeds, and the survey pillars sag under creeper vines. The air is still except for the low rumble of the Arla’s current through the spillway chute. Rust-scarred guard rails lean at odd angles, and occasional scavenger parties—Outlaws or curious expeditions — leave beaten tracks in the silt. The abandoned powerhouse cavern echoes with dripping water, a hollow testament to dreams drowned by war and politics.
The Arla Dam project embodied the Human Settlement Plan’s late-Beta Age push to diversify Exohuman energy beyond Quantum Fusion Batteries. Funded by the Trade Guild of New Kourou and backed by settler councils in Arla Town, Hope, and New Kourou, it promised clean power for agriculture, mining, and emerging towns. Disputes erupted when upstream farmers and the Honga Tribe claimed ancestral water rights. Negotiations collapsed as the Great War began, and resources were diverted to military fortifications. Post-treaty, the dam site was formally abandoned — pillared as a “non-essential project” under peace accords — and has remained untouched ever since.
Beta Age Hook
Gamma Age Hook
Known Sites in the Asari Region: