Mirabella - first colony of the Holy Islamic Star Empire

[needgames 0]

Mirabella

Mohammed Youssef Taraoui looked out of the window. The blue and green sphere he was looking at became bigger and bigger fast as the shuttle hurried towards it. The drone next to him, which had had the audacity to have itself called All is One uttered some squeaking noises. Mohammed agreed with it. “Yes, it looks a lot like Earth,” he said. This was a bit of a strange ascertainment, coming from him, Mohammed thought. After all he had never been to Earth. In fact, he had no memories at all from before three days ago, when the God is Great, what was the name of the mother ship that had brought them all here, had opened the incubation chamber in which he had grown and matured, and had awakened him. But the Artificial Intelligence the God is Great was, had imprinted the image of Earth on his mind while he was unconscious, so he knew exactly what it looked like. This was probably so different from how All is One experienced it, he thought. To the drone it must be like just a few weeks ago that the mother ship broke orbit around Earth, since it had been inactive for almost the entire journey. And it had been a long journey, like four hundred years, give or take. All is One was one of the very few sentient entities on the God is Great that could actually say to have been there when it started.

The sphere turned into a landscape as the shuttle made its way from the mother ship to the surface of the planet. A nice estuary in a temperate region had been found to start colonizing this new world. Construction had begun two years ago, when Mohammed was still in his deep, undisturbed slumber, and was mainly done by drones. Recently the first humans, eighty of them, had been awakened and now they were living their lives in this strange unfamiliar place. Mohammed was going to lead them, in their struggle for survival. Approaching from the night side of the planet Mohammed saw dawn breaking on his new home, the wonderful sight of Mirabella, first colony of the Holy Islamic Star Empire.

Mohammed’s first day in City Hall was a tough one. All is One brought him up to speed. He found out that Mirabella, tough being a small village on an alien world, did quite well. With just eighty residents it already made a monthly profit of 1584 bucks, and in the two years of its existence it had already amassed the incredible amount of 48,000 of it in its treasury. In total there were five businesses, and it’s most profitable one contributed 100 bucks in taxes per month. Mirabella was supplied with energy from a coal factory. And to the needs of the residents was tended by one grocery store and one medical office. On the downside, residents still had to burn their own trash, and attractiveness for tourism was poor, according to his personal drone, but Mohammed thought that that was not a surprise, since Mirabella was the first city to be established here. Finally All is One informed him that 45% of the people were Blue Collars, that 35% were Fringes and 20% Have Nots.

Yet Mohammed’s career as the mayor of Mirabella started out with a big problem. Now that he had taken residence in City Hall Blue Collars and Fringes alike thought it was time for establishing a family restaurant, so they could go out in the evening and enjoy a good meal, and lighten up their day. So Mohammed had to convince them that it was still too early for such a facility in their little village, since it was never going to be profitable with so few people around to make use of its services. Grudgingly everyone agreed, but not after solemn promises on his behalf to found one as soon as it was feasible.

Mohammed concluded his day with a walk through his little village. He was tired, but he could still admire the beauty and tranquility of its streets. He was especially taken with the blue collar houses, as they lay silently in his first night on this for the most part uninhabited planet. It was strange, he thought, this huge world and just one small village with people on it. He looked at the stars he had come from and thought that God is Great was really the proper name for the vessel that had brought them all the way here.

[DanWalker8 3]

heheh I had a CJ named mirabella too! this one is better than mine though Good story i love the creative writing aspect

[gml_josea 2]

City Life eh? This is gonna be interesting.

[Zarp 0]

Nice new story! Very creative the new world idea, I hope this CJ will be as good as the other one, or even better!

Congrats on a nice start =D

[smx 0]

nice cj, the first pic looks very good. we dont have much city life cjs so this is a good idea

keep it going

[needgames 0]

That's great, DanWalker8, that you think my cj about Mirabella already is better than yours even after the first update (is it an update when it is the first one?). Looked up your Mirabella cj. Sorry that it didn't work out that well. Nice cj though, made me smile. Must be fun to have a more than six hundred years old city. My oldest city in SC4 is a bit more than a hundred years old. Anyway, if you like the story and the creative writing aspect, then stay tuned, there will be more of that.

Thanks gml_josea for the comment. Hope you will like the rest of this cj. It'll be City Life al the way.

Hey Zarp, glad you like the start of my little story. I hope you like this cj as much as my previous one. Personally I'm quite happy with how it comes along.

For the time being episodes will come on a weekly basis, smx, so stay tuned. For me, in a way, it is nice to make City Life cj's, since there is no competition, so no one can be better than me. I know the second pic is not all that well, but I promise there will be improvement. Glad you like the cj.

[jacqulina 162]

great start my friend and great story too,wonderfull work and pics

[needgames 0]

Thanks, jacky, glad you join us again on this new adventure.

[needgames 0]

The Journey

Construction of Mirabella was underway for four years on the day Mohammed paid a visit to the mothership. As mayor of the city he had his privileges and the possibility of paying the God is Great an occasional visit was one of them. On the way up All is One filled him in on the most recent stats about the colony. It now counted 128 residents. In spite of the addition of two small fire stations and one waste drop-off center it still made a monthly profit of about 1500 bucks. The helicopters of the fire stations covered the whole area the city now occupied. “That’s a good thing,” Mohammed said, “that gives me a good feeling of security.” Then All is One reminded him that having a waste drop-off center was very nice, but that it would only store waste for a while and that it was really necessary to work on ways of actually getting rid of the waste. “Yeah, yeah,” Mohammed replied irritated, “I’ll get to work on that soon enough.” All is One went on to annoy Mohammed by telling him that since he started leading the colony only one business had been established, while on the other hand he spend lots of money on communal services. “Don’t you worry,” Mohammed replied, “more businesses will be established soon enough. I thought it all through. These services are an investment in the future, and let me remind you, I got all of Mirabella serviced by just one grocery store and just one medical office, so you shouldn’t question my ability to plan ahead.” All is One squeaked scornful and went on his merry way by giving Mohammed some more boring information. As it turned out the number of Blue Collars had risen by 22%, while the number of Fringes had dropped by 14%, and that of the Have Nots by 8%. “That’s because we invested a lot in communal services, which require a lot of Blue Collars,” Mohammed said. Then All is One paid Mohammed a compliment, indeed, for his great ability to save lots of money, since Mirabella’s treasury had risen to 86,000. “That’s a good end for a perfectly annoying conversation,” Mohammed said, “luckily we have reached the God is Great. Let’s hope she’s in a better mood than you are, All is One.”

Curiosity was the reason why Mohammed wanted to visit the mother ship today. All he had to know to run the colony was imprinted on his mind before he woke up, but Mohammed still had many questions, and until a library was established on the planet, the only way to get answers was to directly interface with the artificial intelligence on the God is Great. He did spend hours wandering through her memory cores and learning as much as he could in one day. On the way back All is One luckily left him sit quietly and stare out of the window, because Mohammed was tired and had a lot to think about.

At dusk that day Mohammed made a stroll through the little village Mirabella now was. Thoughts of everything he had learned today filled his mind. It was all just too big and too complex to fathom at once, so it took him a couple of blocks to organize his thoughts.

There had been great excitement on Earth in the year 1512 when the first planet that could sustain human life was found orbiting the star Mira. Developments in scanning and measuring technologies had allowed for determining atmosphere composition, temperature and humidity of planets a long distance away. Soon it was found that planets friendly to life were scarce. But when one was found immediately the Holy Islamic Star Empire was founded and its headquarters was located in Mecca, the capital of the United Federation of States of the True Faith. Primary goal of the Star Empire was to spread the faith amongst the stars, to begin with Mira Prime.

The first thing the newborn Empire did was to review all research of the past few centuries into interstellar travel. It was determined then that it was very unlikely that something like subspace or hyperspace would indeed exist. No one had ever found proof of that and it was commonly seen as one of science fiction’s fables. Also the existence or possible creation of wormholes was deemed to be part of mankind’s fantasy. So out of the window went the idea of faster than light travel, and the leadership of the Empire thought their life had become a lot more complicated.

Research into more conventional engines was started and of about five different possibilities an engine was chosen that was driven by nuclear fusion. A reasonable percentage of the light speed could be achieved this way. But still a trip to Mira Prime would take a couple of centuries.

Then there were a couple of options, but they were al rejected. First there was cryogenics, but it was found that though it was easy to freeze people it was impossible to get them back to life. This could be done with single celled organisms, but not with beings as complex as humans. Secondly there was hibernation. Science had been successful in getting people into such a deep sleep that all body functions would tremendously slow down, but still four centuries would be a very long time, and probably by then their bodies would have deteriorated so much that they would not be able to perform the hard work needed for building Earth’s first colony in outer space. Also, in order to have sufficient genetic diversity so that a viable community would spring into life at least 250 people would have to be transported, which would require a very large ship and that was a big drain on limited resources. This was also part of the reason why the third option was rejected: a generation ship. This would entice a large group of people just departing and living the rest of their lives on the ship, and after them their children, and then the next generation and so on until the destination was reached. Besides the large ship problem it was also deemed a big risk. Who knew what next generations were going to do with the ship? People are unpredictable, after all, so the chances of success for such a mission were very slim.

Luckily developments in the fields of artificial intelligence and robotics had gone very fast. It was possible now to create machines that actually had a consciousness, could think much faster and better than humans, and could perform any task a human could possibly do, and more. And since it was possible to freeze single celled organisms and get them back to life it was decided to send a ship run by drones and other intelligent machines, carrying a precious freight of millions of human eggs and semen. Upon arrival the machines would create actual humans out of these, in special incubation chambers. Millions of humans could be transported this way in a relatively small craft. And since it had become possible to establish a direct connection between the brains of artificial intelligence and humans no resources had to be allocated to raise and educate the children. All they needed to know could be transferred over the years to their brains so they’d wake up ready to get to work on the construction of the colony immediately.

Of course it might have been that Mira Prime was already inhabited by intelligent beings. No signs in the form of radio signals or any other signals were found, so it was very unlikely a technologically developed civilization was found there. So the God is Great carried a fair arsenal of weapons to subjugate any life form of a lower level of development than humans. Special programs were uploaded to the ship’s brain in case it had to create soldiers for this purpose, and moreover, in the event of a too powerful resistance, to create diplomats and missionaries. In case everything went wrong the drones of the ship could mine some asteroid or planet to make new deuterium and helium for its interstellar drive. The ship then could on its own search for another nearby inhabitable planet to go to, or it could just return back to Earth. But all of this turned out to be unnecessary, since the ship only found plants and animals on Mira Prime. That was big luck indeed, Mohammed thought.

[jacqulina 162]

great story my friend,i love the close up pics,excellent work

[waldner 0]

Very nice!

[homeandaway 1]

interesting! - an impredictable story with stunning pics!, very hetrogenous!

[Godzillaman 21]

The sidewalks are huge!!! Great looking city there.

[Zarp 0]

Hey!

The story is great as always, but I think you're lacking better pictures, I know it should be hard to find good enough pictures on a yet small town, but well.. bring the best you got! =P

I was wondering if that could actually happen in the future, who knows? A planet with life-conditions very similiar to the Earth has been found recently =O

[needgames 0]

Thanks, jacky, I'm glad you like the story, and the pics.

Thanks, waldner, I'm glad you like it.

Thanks, homeandaway, I'll try to surprise you again with more unexpected twists and even more amazing pics.

Thanks, Godzillaman, I'm glad you like my little village. The sidewalks are huge, indeed. They get smaller when you upgrade the roads to highways. It's not like you have to demolish buildings to do that, like in SC4.

Hey Zarp. It's great you like my story. Yes, ofcourse, in a small city there is a smaller chance of finding stunning pics. These are the best I could find. But I noticed they look better in their original size, instead of these small ones, so I made it so that you can now click on anyone of them and then you will see a larger version of it. It also helps a lot if you watch the dark pics in a dimly lit room. And don't worry, there will be big metropolis pics later on, just wait and see how the city grows.

That's a future I'm looking forward to, when mankind colonizes other planets. I hope it will someday happen. I guess, if we don't destroy ourselfs with nuclear weapons and we get climate problems under control, there is no technological reason to prevent us from doing it. The question is whether we want to invest in it. Personally I would say we should start by terraforming Mars. That's a project they can offer me a job on. That would be great, if like a thousand years from now Mars would have a breathable atmosphere, and seas and rivers, villages.

[Zarp 0]

Uh im 15 years old, still I dont think I will live long enough to watch men habitating new planets, but maybe, who would say men would reach the moon in old 1940ies? :

That would be pretty interesting to watch, indeed.

[needgames 0]

I think we'll see people going to Mars in this century, possibly the establishment of bases on the moon and Mars. Yet, I don't care so much about whether something will happen in my lifetime. I like to think about things that exceed the span of one lifetime. The grand picture of mankinds progress, that's what interests me.

[jacqulina 162]

looking out for your next update my friend

[Vanasonic 49]

Wow, I've got City Life as well, and your pictures throw my cities pictures off the table. You've got a more text than my CJ which is a good thing for people who like to read. Nice update!

[belfastuniguy 18]

Well now this is interesting. I like the story and use of city life.

Great work so far and I shall be returning.

[needgames 0]

Hey, jacky, thanks for visiting. The next update will be released soon and will tell more about how things came to pass.

Heheh, Xperian, did beat you at City Life then, didn't I. Your cj though looks really good. You do things with SC4 I could never do.

Thanks, belfastuniguy, you're always welcome to visit again.

[Artman94 2]

oh wow - I've always wondered how City Life is! Pics are great!

[needgames 0]

Thanks, Artman94. Now you know what City Life is like. There will be plenty more pics in the future.

[needgames 0]

The Revolution

Two years later early in the morning Mohammed found himself again on board of a shuttle on his way to the God is Great. All is One paid him some compliments. Mohammed had invested in the economic development of Mirabella. In total there were now eight businesses. Mohammed complained that it didn’t show in the financial figures, because still the monthly profit was at roughly 1500. All is One argued that this probably was because costs for electricity production and waste disposal had risen. “What kind of drone are you,” Mohammed said, “if you can’t tell me for sure.”

By now Mirabella counted 164 residents, according to All is One. The number of Fringes had risen by 10%, while there were now 7% less Blue Collars than two years ago and 3% less Have Nots. “We invested a lot in Fringe businesses,” Mohammed said, “I don’t know why, because they pay less taxes then Blue Collars, but we did anyway.”

Again All is One pointed out that Mohammed’s best quality was that he could save money. The treasury was now filled with 116,000 bucks. “We will need that money in the future,” Mohammed said, “and thanks for being in such a good mood today.”

“And can you enlighten me on some other point, All is One,” Mohammed asked, “Why was there a fight the other day on the street between some Fringes and some Blue Collars? I don’t remember anything about the possibility of having conflicts in our city. Did the Artificial Intelligence leave something out when it prepared me for this job?” All is One didn’t really answer that question. All it said was that City Hall was supposed to solve any conflict that might occur. When Mohammed tried to get more information out of it and asked what that actually meant, All is One avoided answering by suggesting that it might be a good idea to give the people some entertainment.

Mohammed hated it when his drone was being secretive and stubborn at the same time. So he decided to not talk to it anymore for the rest of this trip and just look out of the window. The shuttle just took off and Mohammed saw how nicely the first small residential buildings fitted in with the rest of the city.

Late in the evening Mohammed returned to Mirabella. He felt a bit light in the head after a long day of wandering through the memory cores of the God is Great. Apparently there had been a big war on Earth some 700 years ago. And he learned that Islam had not always been the one and only religion, and that, at the time, there had even been lots of people who believed in nothing at all, except for the superiority of the human brain in understanding the universe. Mohammed was baffled. Never had he questioned the existence of the one God who was everything, and never had he questioned the righteousness of the true faith.

The end of the era of the disbelievers had started with a bombing of two towers that were like the holiest of the holiest to the secular world. Terrorism it was called by the disbelievers, and the most powerful state on Earth at the time, along with its allies, declared war on it. Over the years many more so called terrorist attacks followed and in the end the western world succumbed, accepting Islam as the one and only religion. The United Federation of States of the True Faith was born some time after that. And with the most powerful technologies of the world now in the hands of Islamic leaders it didn’t take long before the rest of the world had to accept the one and only faith.

Yet Mohammed wondered a bit, not out of disbelief, but out of curiosity, what the world was like before the revolution. As night fell the shuttle landed at City Hall. Mohammed could now really use a good night’s sleep. Maybe his dreams would help him get a grip on all he had learned today.

[Barook 0]

Oh, so we won after all? Yay us! ;p

Why do I have a feeling that they might break apart?

[Zarp 0]

wow

oriental owning ocidental? that should be fun to watch, even tho im ocidental =[

[needgames 0]

Hello, BlackBarook1, I'm glad I could give you this feeling of final victory. We'll see whether it will last.

Glad you like it, Zarp, not a future I'm particularly looking forward to, but, well, I can't help it.

[Barook 0]

Originally posted by: Zarp wow

oriental owning occiedental ? that should be fun to watch, even though I'm occiedental =[

quote>

What does occiedental mean?

[needgames 0]

Occidental means 'from the western world'.

[penguin007 27]

Wow this cj looks great. One of the advantages of city life the amount of angles you can get for pics

Will