Engineers began construction on a project called NEOM, which was planned to be built on a 168-kilometer straight line – hence the nickname “Line”. According to the kingdom’s statement at the time of the announcement, the project will be completely vehicle-free and have zero emissions into the atmosphere.

Images released by aerial photography company Ot Sky show work has begun on the Line metropolis built as part of the NEOM development in Saudi Arabia.

Construction of “Lines”: watch the video

NEOM construction did not start smoothly

Drone footage shared by architectural publication Dezeen shows a massive construction site where dozens of excavators have dug a deep, long trench.

But much darker things are happening behind the scenes, which shows that the project is already off to a rough start.

Death penalty for refusal

For example, members of the Huweitat tribe have been sentenced to death by the state for refusing to leave their homes to drive development, human rights group Alqst reported earlier this month.

The Saudi government confirmed in early October that three tribal members had been sentenced to death by the country’s national anti-terrorism court for refusing to leave their homes when developers came to seize their land for a megacity.

The embodiment of a dystopian future

While such things are far from new for Saudi Arabia, it is particularly incongruous for the country to allow this level of human rights abuses when planning what Vice magazine calls “utopian fantasy.”

Aside from the glaring human rights issues, the project itself is, to say the least, utterly strange. Despite the extreme ambition, the concept also looks strange from a logistics standpoint: the planned height is higher than the Empire State Building, but the width is less than 213 meters.