Read more: Civil Defence
The National Shelter Network (codename System 1, originally Project 433) is a covert federal system in Vekllei that provides hardened shelter infrastructure across all 83 constituent republics, varying in size and protection. Civil defence in the Commonwealth dates back to the years before the Atomic War in Oslola, and that catastrophe has left a deep impression on civil defence planning into the federal Commonwealth period. The current network was consolidated in the 2040s from earlier republic shelter systems and helped establish a single shelter system, bringing down the overall cost of shelters through economies of scale while also improving their signage and safety.
Unlike continental nations where populations can be evacuated inland, the Commonwealth’s small, often shallow island republics require hard in-place shelters able to sustain a population through an extended crisis. The scale of this infrastructure should not be underestimated – it amounts to nearly 35,000 individual shelters, with capacity for over 28 million people. The facilities are distributed so that they can be reached within 15 minutes, and they are multipurpose by design. In many republics, the shelter system is built into the underground metro network. A shelter typically contains components for air filtration, water purification, nonperishable food storage, medical facilities and sanitation for up to 90 days. They are usually powered by diesel generators, but the largest shelters of metropolitan Oslola and Kairi have their own reactors.
A distinctive feature of the shelter system is the frequent appearance of underground rail connections, sometimes as part of the metro network, other times as bespoke transit lines that connect major shelter complexes. At capacity, these tunnels can move about 2 million people an hour across 8,000 kilometres of tunnels. The true scale of the civil defence shelter network is unknown.
During peacetime, these mammoth underground complex serve a variety of useful purposes, including as storage facilities, evacuation points and training sites for both civil defence and military purpose. The Civil Defence Service conducts annual drills in November on a random day of that month. The shelter sites are also important parts of the emergency response infrastructure for many natural disasters common across the country’s volcanic and hurricane-prone islands, including recovery after tsunamis and storms.