The whole installation from the air at golden hour: a granite mountain on a desert coast, its sculpted portals and ridge turrets, earth-covered shelters and vertical-lift pads dispersed across the plain, and a sea channel cut into the rock.

The opening shot's first frame: a sculpted relay satellite over the dawn Earth, the desert coast, the mountain and its sea channel far below.

TAPROOT

A base that needs nothing from outside cannot be cut off.

OrbitA relay mesh, laser-linked in orbit and down to the ridge. The fall begins here.
The surfaceShelters, vertical-lift pads and photonic collectors, spread wide. Everything up here can be replaced.

The installation from the air: the mountain, its ridge turrets and portals, and the dispersed surface base on the plain below.

Cut the lines

What stays on the surface

Everything that can be replaced stays up here, spread wide. Lose any one piece and the base still flies.

2075. Every aircraft has a hardened shelter or a cavern bay. Robots refuel, inspect and patrol; decoys share the pads. The ridge carries only what has to see the sky.

Today. A 2025 report counted more than 650 hardened aircraft shelters at Chinese bases within reach of the Taiwan Strait, while the US had added two in that area since the early 2010s. The Air Force's Agile Combat Employment already spreads units across many smaller sites around an enduring base.

A base of today is fed by six lines from outside, and every one of them is a way in.

The grid. In February 2024, CISA confirmed that Volt Typhoon had held hidden access inside US energy networks for at least five years.
The fuel. In May 2021, ransomware shut Colonial Pipeline, the largest US refined-fuel pipeline, from the 7th to the 12th.
The water main. The same intruders had held access inside US water systems, CISA found.
The fibre. Chinese state hackers known as Salt Typhoon breached at least nine major US telecoms, among them AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.
The food. The Pentagon's FORTRESS plan asks major bases to hold out 90 days without outside help; reporting on it does not say how they would eat.
The supply chain. In 2020, a backdoor in SolarWinds Orion software reached thousands of organisations, the US government among them.

TAPROOT has no lines to cut. Each one is a loop inside the mountain.

Into the rock

Hundreds of metres of granite over everything that cannot be replaced.

The ridge. Sensor masts, beam directors and laser terminals: the only part that has to see the sky.
Cavern hangars, 45 metres down behind paired blast doors, where the wingmen wait fly-ready.
Galleries, 120 metres down: driverless carriers, maintenance shops, and munitions in separated chambers.
Mid-depth, 300 metres down: water, food, air, care and the training floor.
The deep core, 600 metres down: command, compute on steel springs, and the power gallery.
The waterline, 650 metres down: a sea portal and a covered pen, where uncrewed hulls load under the mountain and leave unseen.

The energy field at sunset: sculpted photonic collector petals tracking the sun across the plain, rectenna masts among them, a low hardened fusion hall beyond and the mountain behind. — The energy field: collector petals, rectennas and the fusion hall.

A technician walks through ripening wheat under the beamed-power field, slim rectenna canopies standing over the grain. — Grain grows under the power field.

The fusion plant close up on the coast: a long, low, ribbed ceramic hall set into the rock, one engineer on the road beside it. — The fusion hall: sculpted, hardened, silent.

Power

Power is made on the plain and in the rock, and carried below on cables kept colder than ice.

2075. Photonic collectors track the sun across the plain, a beamed-power field sends energy down to rectennas, and wheat grows in the light between them.

Today. MCAS Miramar can already cut its whole station off the grid and run for 21 days on its own gas, landfill gas, solar and diesel. Eielson Air Force Base has asked for 5 megawatts of baseload that runs independently of the grid.

Small plants in separate bays. One strike takes one plant, not the grid.

2075. Compact fusion halls sit low and hardened on the coast. Their power runs down to the deep gallery on superconducting cables, and their waste heat warms the galleries.

Today. Project Pele is a microreactor of 1 to 5 megawatts that ships in 20-foot containers; its fuel reached Idaho National Laboratory in November 2025, with electricity as soon as 2028. The Army's Janus program has agreements for more than 20 microreactors on its bases, the first running by September 2028.

At sunrise a technician kneels by a long water bed at the mountain's foot; its lid is raised and the water it drew from the night air runs down the inner face into a channel. — The beds give up the water they breathed in all night.

Water

Water is pulled from the night air, made from the sea and kept in a lake inside the rock. Every litre is cleaned and used again.

2075. Water beds drink from the air all night and give it up at sunrise. Seawater is made fresh on the base's own power, wastewater comes back to drinking standard, and no tower on the skyline gives the supply away.

Today. Since 2017 the Army has set a floor of at least 14 days of energy and water for critical missions. Its Net Zero Water pilots showed what that takes: meters, leak sensors, recycled effluent. At one depot, six leaks were losing about 90,000 gallons a day.

Hardened air intakes on the ridge at dusk: long ribbed louvres set into the granite, a faint mist drawn in through them, two people on the path above. — The mountain breathes in through hardened intakes on the ridge.

Inside a gallery, a woman walks beside a tall pale wall that the air flows over; the wall cleans it as it passes. — The walls clean the air as it passes.

Air

The mountain makes its own air. Intakes on the ridge breathe in, and the walls inside clean it.

2075. The intakes draw air down the main shaft. Walls in the galleries take out the carbon dioxide and the dust, oxygen is split from the base's own water, and the doors can stay shut for as long as it takes.

Today. NASA's Advanced Oxygen Generation Assembly is due to launch to the International Space Station in 2026, to make oxygen there for at least three years.

Terraces of tomatoes, fruit and greens under a ribbed rock vault, a woman crouched at a bed and a robot arm working the row beside her. — Terraces of fruit and greens under the rock.

A fish tank in the rock, its water piped up to green growing columns; two technicians watch the fish. — Fish water feeds the plants; the plants clean the water.

A dim fermentation hall of tall sculpted vessels with round windows, a technician lifting a sample of pale protein powder. — Protein grown from air and electricity, in the dark.

A cook tastes from a long counter of different trays while robot arms prepare more behind her. — Supper is cooked, and no two trays are the same.

A small cabless carrier rolls down an empty lit gallery with the night watch's supper. — A carrier takes the night watch its supper.

A dozen people eat together at long tables in a planted hall under the rock. — The night meal, underground.

Food

Food is grown, farmed and cooked inside the mountain.

2075. Fruit and greens grow on terraces under the rock. Fish water feeds the plants, and the plants clean the water for the fish.

Today. Plenty opened its first strawberry farm, an indoor vertical farm, in Virginia in 2024.

Protein from air and power, and a kitchen that cooks for each person.

2075. In the dark, microbes turn air, water and electricity into protein. Supper is cooked to what each person needs that day, and a carrier takes it down the gallery to the watch.

Today. Solar Foods began commercial-scale production of Solein, a protein made from air and electricity, in Finland in 2024; its next plant would raise capacity from 160 to 6,400 tons a year.

The recovery hall: a long vaulted gallery of processing vessels, green growing walls at the far end, one person walking the floor. — Every waste stream is broken back down.

Pale fertiliser granules pour from a chute into a hopper, the farm terraces rising in the light behind. — What was waste falls as fertiliser for the farm.

A brine hall where seawater has given up its water: pale salts in a basin, racks of recovered metal stock, a technician at a console. — The sea gives water, and what is left becomes metal.

A technician sorts the wreckage of downed drones on a long bench while robot arms feed it to a furnace. — The wreckage of the swarm becomes tomorrow's metal.

The spoil hall: broken granite from a new cavern rides conveyors past robot arms, is crushed into gravel and fine sand, and a gantry prints it back into wall, one engineer walking the floor. — The mountain is rebuilt from the rock taken out of it.

Return

Nothing leaves. Waste is broken back down into fertiliser, water and metal.

2075. Every waste stream goes to the recovery hall. Solids fall as fertiliser for the farm, the sea gives up its water and leaves metal behind, the wreckage of an attack is melted into feedstock for the factory, and the rock cut from a new cavern is printed back into its walls.

Today. On the International Space Station, NASA's Brine Processor Assembly lifted total water recovery to 98 percent, up from 93 to 94 percent.

The dark factory: a long hall in near darkness where machines build a wing spar, only the orange process light glowing. — A wing spar made with no one there.

Machines cut a new cavern into the mountain, a gantry and boring head in the dust, one engineer watching from a rail. — Machines extend the mountain.

Two people watch a crack in a concrete wall fill and seal itself. — A crack in the concrete seals itself.

A multi-limbed maintenance machine swaps a drive unit out of a carrier in the depot. — A part is changed before it fails, and no one had to ask.

Making

The base makes and repairs what it needs.

2075. A dark factory prints parts with no one there. Machines cut new caverns, concrete heals its own cracks, and a machine replaces a part before it fails.

Today. A forward-deployed US Navy maintenance team in Rota, Spain, cut repair time by 80 percent using additive manufacturing.

The medical bay: a doctor sits and listens to a patient resting on a sculpted bed. — A care bay that listens.

The pharmacy: a technician checks a slim display beside a compact synthesis line of small vessels and reagents. — A pharmacy that makes one dose.

A woman watches a bone graft grow inside a clear block lit by a line of blue light. — A graft grown in light.

Care

Medicine is made on site, for one patient at a time.

2075. A care bay that listens before it acts, a pharmacy that synthesises one dose for one patient tonight, and a bone graft grown in light.

Today. DARPA's MASH programme is developing robots that find and stop internal bleeding with little human supervision, aiming to keep a casualty stable for up to 48 hours. Work under its Battlefield Medicine programme suggests a small, flexible platform can make a drug end to end.

The training floor: people climb a raw rock wall, another runs in a sealed lane, one recovers in a pool of water. — The training floor, live and its synthetic twin. Move across it to compare.

The training floor, live and its synthetic twin. Move across it to compare.

The watch comes off duty and sits in a row on a stone bench, eyes closed, breathing together. — The watch comes off and breathes together.

One person floats in warm dark water, a thin ring of amber light around the pool. — Floating in warm dark water until the edges go.

A person asleep in a dark, cool sleeping alcove cut into the rock. — The watch sleeps cold and dark.

Body and mind

People here are trained, rested and kept whole.

2075. The training floor puts stress on people on purpose: raw rock to climb, and a synthetic hall joined live to allied bases. Every run is scored and replayed.

Today. In Valiant Shield 26, in mid-2026, live pilots, simulators and computer-generated forces fought one scenario across Guam, Japan and Hawaii, with drone wingmen and tracking satellites in the loop.

After the watch, recovery is part of the work.

2075. The watch breathes together as it comes off duty. One person floats in warm dark water until the edges go, and the watch sleeps cold and dark.

Today. The US Army's Holistic Health and Fitness system treats sleep, nutrition and mental readiness as part of a soldier's training, alongside physical fitness.

The compute core: tall sealed modules under a ribbed vault, glass halls along one side, an engineer at a console on the floor. — The compute core, its halls on steel springs. The rock moves; the halls do not.

A black rock tunnel lit only by one warm pool of light around a single engineer walking its length. — The mountain is lit only where someone is.

The command table in the deep core: a round table showing the sea and the coast, an officer and her team standing around it. — The command table: an officer makes the decision.

Intelligence

AI runs every loop and looks after every person. Mostly you see it only in what has already been done.

2075. Sealed compute modules fill a ribbed vault in the deep core. Each hall stands on steel springs, so a blast or a tremor passes under the racks, and its twin stands behind a pillar of rock.

Today. In June 2026 AWS and Anduril answered the problem of cut links with a data centre built for a single forward node. Retired Swiss alpine forts already hold data and archives. Cheyenne Mountain keeps fifteen buildings on 1,319 steel springs, so a blast or a tremor passes under them.

A light that follows one engineer down a dark tunnel. Software prepares the decision; an officer with the authority makes it.

2075. The galleries stay dark until someone walks them. In the deep core a small, calm team stands at a sealed table, and a cut link slows the network without blinding the base.

Today. The Pentagon's joint all-domain command and control reached a minimum viable capability in February 2024, and one retired Air Force general puts what it still lacks in three parts: a backbone that moves the data, AI that turns it into something useful, and a commander with the authority to act.

On the ridge at dusk every beam-director turret has turned to the sea; a thin laser line shows where it crosses the haze, and a few people stand by the masts. — Every turret on the ridge turns to the sea at once.

From orbit on the night side, a sculpted sensor satellite watches a glowing thread cross the Earth below. — The first warning comes from orbit.

A line of faceted satellites over the curve of the Earth; one has gone dark and the rest re-aim around it. — A satellite goes dark; the constellation re-aims around it.

A bodyguard satellite turns its aperture on a hostile spacecraft above the Earth's limb. — A bodyguard satellite turns on the machine that killed the node.

At dusk an incoming drone swarm drops into the sea line by line below the mountain's lit galleries, people watching from the quay. — The incoming swarm drops into the sea, line by line.

Shoreline microwave arrays risen from flush cells in the rock, heat shimmer off their faces, a crew standing back on the rocks. — The shoreline arrays rise from flush cells.

The base's own swarm comes home to the seaward cliff, where hundreds of hexagonal niches set into the granite hold drones charging between flights, larger aircraft in armoured bays below and three people watching from the ridge path. — The base's own swarm flies for minutes, then roosts in the cliff to charge.

The great portal at dusk: two people watch the armoured doors close, a single line of light left in the seam. — The great portal closes, once.

After the attack: the sea is still, the ridge dark and quiet, a few lights on in the galleries and people on the quay. — The sea is still; the ridge is dark and quiet.

Under water off the coast, a fine blue-green line reaches through the murk from a seabed emitter to an intruding submersible. — Below the surface, a blue-green line finds the intruder's eye.

On the seabed below the waterline, a disabled uncrewed submersible lies on the sand while patrol hulls pass overhead. — Below the waterline, an intruder lies dead on the sand.

Defended

Depending on nothing does not stop anyone trying. No dome: five layers, from orbit to the seabed, each threat sent to the cheapest one that can stop it, and a person approves.

OrbitSatellites see first and cue radar and passive sensor masts on the outlying hills.
OuterInterceptor cells and megawatt-class beam directors on the ridge, for what flies fast and far.
SwarmHigh-power microwave emitters round the pads and portals. Nothing is seen at the emitter; a group of drones simply drops. The base's own swarm roosts in the cliff between flights.
InnerShort-range laser turrets and interceptor cells set flush in shelter roofs and portal faces; then earth-covered shelters, blast walls, decoys and mesh canopies, and finally the mountain itself.
SeabedSensors and uncrewed hulls on the approaches, and a blue-green laser that finds an intruder's optics under water.

Today. Iron Beam, Israel's 100 kW class laser, went operational in December 2025 as one layer beside Iron Dome, not a replacement for it. The UK puts the cost of a DragonFire shot at about £10. In October 2026 four directed-energy systems went on trial at five US bases to learn what they cost to run day to day.

The first warning comes from orbit, and the constellation holds when one satellite is lost.

2075. When a satellite goes dark, the rest re-aim around it, and a bodyguard satellite turns on the machine that killed it. Beam directors on the ridge reach for cruise missiles, fed by the base's own power; weather, line of sight and dwell time keep them one layer of five.

Today. A presidential executive order in January 2025 launched Golden Dome, and Lockheed Martin aims to test a space-based interceptor in orbit by 2028.

ContactDrones come in low off the sea. The microwave layer drops them together; lasers take the rest.
DoorsThe aircraft are already inside. The blast doors close and the mountain's own air takes over.
Inside, nothing stopsBelow, the carriers keep moving and the lights hold. The base wins by not breaking.

Today. On 1 June 2025, Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb launched drones from trucks against four Russian air bases, and satellite images confirmed strategic bombers destroyed in the open. Aircraft parked outside are the first thing an attack like that finds.

The seabed is the fifth layer, and the shore is where land meets it.

2075. A blue-green line finds an intruder where the water carries it. On the shore, one lane runs from test road to ramp, surf, shallow basin and sea pen: robots drive in, hulls come out.

Today. The US Navy's Lanternfish 2026 exercise focused on protecting undersea infrastructure from uncrewed vehicles. In August 2026, Marines at Camp Pendleton tested uncrewed systems that work from very shallow water up to the beach, among them an amphibious robot built for the surf zone.

One organism

Every loop feeds another, and together they keep running when cut off.

PowerFusion on the coast and power in the rock feed one microgrid, and every loop draws on it.
Heat and waterThe compute halls' waste heat drives the water plant. The water comes back to cool them, and feeds the farm.
ReturnWaste becomes fertiliser for the farm; wreckage becomes metal for the factory.
IntelligenceOne shared layer reads every loop and links up to the mesh.
Cut offThe link drops. The base keeps its power, its air, its food, its water and its thinking.

Power plants Project Pele, 1 to 5 MWe in 20-foot containers. Army Janus, more than 20 microreactors, the first by September 2028.
Microgrid MCAS Miramar islands its whole station for 21 days.
Intelligence layer CJADC2, a minimum viable capability since February 2024.
Satellite mesh The SDA transport layer, 126 satellites planned, laser crosslinks still maturing.

Tap a loop to see what it feeds.

The same template in a land of mountains and snow: sculpted portals in a snowy ridge, two people in graphite uniforms looking down at a carrier. — The same loops in mountains and snow.

An outpost on the Moon: two people in sealed pressure suits walk from a sculpted portal toward ribbed collector fins, the Earth over the horizon. — And on the Moon.

A town of 2075 on a green coastal hillside: low timber and stone halls with planted roofs, terraced farms, people walking and small carriers on the paths. — A town that grows its own food and makes its own power.

A city at dusk on a river delta, built as self-contained districts, each with planted terraces, farm halls glowing green and lights coming on district by district. — A city where every district feeds itself.

The blueprint

What works inside one mountain works anywhere. Out by sea, up the shaft, into the mesh: this base is one node of many.

2075. A satellite mesh laser-linked in orbit and down to the ridge, buried fibre between hubs, and one shared intelligence layer every site feeds and reads. If one goes quiet, the others carry its work.

Today. The Space Development Agency's data-transport layer is planned at 126 satellites; the first 42 launched in late 2025, and the laser crosslinks between them are still maturing.

Many doors, one core. Close any entrance and every level is still reachable.

2075. The same template cut into a snow range: several portals instead of one gate, and a shaft from bottom to ridge carrying lifts, power and air.

Today. Cheyenne Mountain keeps a command centre under about 1,800 feet of granite, in fifteen buildings that stand on 1,319 steel springs behind blast doors weighing 25 tons each. Norway's Olavsvern reached deep-water docks inside a mountain through a 3,000-foot tunnel. Sweden's Muskö shelters warships, offices and a hospital under granite.

Where nothing can be shipped in, the loops are the only way to live.

2075. An outpost on the Moon runs the same power, water, air and return loops, with everyone outside in a sealed suit.

Today. NASA, the Department of Energy and Idaho National Laboratory are developing a lunar fission reactor of at least 100 kilowatts, due ready to launch by early fiscal 2030.

Machines carry the routine. People keep the authority.

2075. In a town the same loops feed, power and clean up after people who never had to build a base. Cabless carriers run the paths; a small crew supervises.

Today. The Army is prototyping leader-follower autonomy for its logistics trucks, which could reach the fleet from 2027. The Navy ordered 30 production medium uncrewed surface vessels in September 2026. The Air Force's drone-wingman readiness unit will keep its aircraft fly-ready and fly them as little as possible.

In time, a city where no district depends on a line that can be cut.

2075. Every district has its own farm halls, its own power hall, water crowns on its roofs and a recovery hall at its centre.

Today. In 2024 the Department of the Air Force set a target of new microgrids at 16 bases by fiscal year 2030.

The film

The whole installation in 90 seconds, one day from dawn to dawn: from the relay satellite through the cloud to the plain, down the shaft to the farm, the cable gallery and the lake, the watch at rest, the command table, the ridge at dusk as the doors close once, the wreckage made into metal, the satellites at night, and the town, the city and the ridge at the next dawn.