The Forgelands Aquarium

Overview

The Forgelands Aquarium is a planned exhibition complex devoted to the aquatic world: warm and cold oceans, coral reefs, kelp forests, frozen seas, and the lightless deep. It is the companion project to the Natural History Museum of Biomes, focused entirely on environments that can only be experienced underwater.

Purpose

The oceans of the world are vast and almost entirely undocumented in the Archives. The Aquarium will change that. Planned exhibits include a walk-through coral reef tunnel, a kelp forest column rising the full height of the building, a frozen ocean gallery viewed from below the ice, and a darkened trench wing housing the deep-water exhibits.

Current Status

Planning stage. The shortlisted site is the coastline south of Scalloped Gulch, where a natural bay would allow part of the aquarium to be built directly into open ocean rather than simulated indoors. Glass production estimates have been forwarded to the Tortuga Foundry.

Field Notes

The technical challenge is water control at scale. Test builds will trial sectioned tanks with hidden drainage so individual exhibits can be drained and rebuilt without flooding the galleries.

One exhibit remains undecided. Whether to house an elder guardian, and what it would mean to keep one, is a question that has been deferred to a later field season.