Koblie did not arrive on the far side of the Moon looking for a skyline. It arrived looking for continuity.
That meant the first serious construction choice was obvious in retrospect. Build underground. The usual public imagination of lunar development favors exposed habitats, visible modules, and surface networks that photograph well. None of those priorities survive first contact with a real operating constraint stack. Radiation, impact risk, thermal extremes, and long repair loops make exposed infrastructure look decorative very quickly.
An underground foothold solved several problems at once. It reduced vulnerability to surface conditions, stabilized environmental control, and made every watt of power and every cubic meter of processed matter go further. Most importantly, it created a place where early industrial work could continue without forcing every system to fight open-surface volatility all day.
This decision also shaped Koblie culturally. Once underground systems become normal, the company stops thinking in terms of heroic outposts and starts thinking in terms of service layers, excavation depth, corridor resilience, and maintenance radius. The Moon becomes less a destination than a set of connected operating volumes.
That is why Koblie built underground first. It was not hiding from the surface. It was choosing the only form factor that made early off-world industry worth sustaining.