The Principality Of Tantico Entry 36: The Rubic Incident: Nearing a Verdict!

[89James89 1,169]

Replies: Ellingtons Alive!

 

 

Aaron Graham: Thanks and I sure hope to keep going.

 

SimCoug: Yay go sc4 and I'm glad you like my creativity, thanks!

 

 

 

 

Entry 29

Welcome back to the our favourite principality. Today, contrary to last entries insinuations we take a break from looking at the Tantico Habour while they get final preparations going for stage two of the project. Today we instead take a trip to Ellington.

What with all the focus on Tantico Harbour you'd have been forgiven for forgetting about Ellington but its still here, plodding along slowly as Tantico City took most of the limelight with all its redevelopment.

Well no longer.

Apparently while they appear to have settled down with its population of 14,000 still making it the second largest settlement in the nation they were really saving. Saving for large amounts of developments it turns out and as phase one of the harbour redevelopment plan was finished Ellington Town Council announced its intention to build homes for 4,000 new residents bought in by continued immigration to the small nation.

Interested I set of to find out what they had planned.

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Fast forward to the end of the development and boy did they finish this fast. The type of housing may have had something to do with at your about to see though.

Firstly we'll take a look at this collage of suburban development, one of the two areas that the council had chosen for residential development. Situated on a strip of farmland on the east side of town this area was mainly cookie cutter housing for low wealth families with a few mid wealth homes mixed in. Also you can see several corner shops and small strip malls were also given the go-ahead to help serve the suburb and provide some more jobs for the growing population.

Now we move into town where most of the residential development has happened. Apparently time was of the essence when these were commissioned and so virtually the same building was chosen to replace most of the town centres two story family homes, you can see in the picture below construction crews hard at work on multiple apartment blocks at once.

This is what the area looks like at the moment. As you can see the same low wealth design was chosen due to its capacity for residents given its footprint. The council has admitted that this may not have been the best approach but it did get the job done. Apparently though talking to some of the residents things aren't all rosy in the packed neighbourhoods but overall residents are happy.

Also in this picture you can see the newly finished Ellington Central Hospital. With a growth of 4,000 citizens, the old clinic was way to overcrowded and plan were made to construct the hospital you see here. You can also see the north side of the town centre and commercial district including the Royal Ellington Theartre which we'll take a closer look at later.

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Before we do take a look at the theartre though I want to show you that development wasn't all residential. In what appears to be a imitation (though on a smaller scale) of Ferryside, Ellington Town Council had some of the money accumulated for the project put into redeveloping a small block of commercial on the edge of the bay into a larger waterside area with hopes of creating a place with an atmosphere similar to Ferryside.

Obviously as you can see in this collage it didn't work perfectly, as a number of less wealthy buildings opened up shop in he newly named Crossbay Point. Still, there are a couple of nice cafes here for a nice light dinner in the evening and a drink and apparently there is a number of more wealthy businesses looking into buying out the ones already there, though whether or not this is true has yet to be announced.

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The final image I've got for you today is the earlier mentioned one of the Royal Ellington Theatre. Owned  by the royal family and run by the Ellington Dramatic Society this theartre is the premier place to see shows in the nation.

Renovated and expanded, the older Ellington Drama House that had been showing productions since Ellingtons early day and had recently unfortunately fallen into disrepair due to the rising costs needed to retain the top theartre status in Tantico, what with new ones opening up in the centre of Tantico City. A favourite place of Prince Oliver when he was younger, he purchased the building upon finding out that it was scheduled for demolition.

Providing funds to enlarge and renovate the theatre as well as purchasing the plot of land across the road and developing it into a space for open air performances, the Prince assured that they continued producing the best shows in Tantico, personally attending every new show they put on and recently awarding it a Royal Seal (this only extends to the actual theatre, not the open air performance area, and means that the building is protected).

 As such (and along with the growth in the town and nation) the theatre has flourished and is sure to continue to entertain for generations to come.

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That's all for now though. Next time we will (probably) return to the harbour to see is any work has been done on stage two but till then enjoy these pictures of Ellington.

Jamie Felding

 

[Schulmanator 5,815]

Their careful planning for the future continues to pay off.

 

I wonder what's on at the theater...  I will bring my opera glasses and a bucket o' popcorn!

[Benedict 3,119]

There's an Ellington in Ellis Valley, too - but it wasn't as carefully planned

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

Schulmanator: Thanks and we hope it'll help out in the long run. As for the theatre check the poster out below for the show on at the moment.

 

Benedict: Yup there is indeed though I'd named this town before I saw that you had one in yours. I aslo wouldn't say it was well planned lol but thanks.

 

 

Entry 30: This and that.

Welcome back guys and girls and today I have a bit of a random update for you all covering several things across the nation. As such lets dive right in with a response to a reader who was curious as to what shows were on at the Royal Ellington Theatre.

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This is a copy of the poster that I've scanned and uploaded for you all showing whats on at the moment at the Royal Ellington Theatre. Apparently its a show called The Wolves Of Ellington. It's received pretty good reviews though I haven't seen it yet.

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Now we move onto looking at a data image showing the pollution surrounding the Tantico Harbour. This was taken at the end of stage one and as you can see shows that there is still a lot of work to be done in the area. The good news however is that the area around stage is a lot less polluted than the rest of the harbour so hopefully, continued redevelopment will mean that the pollution levels slowly decline.

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Now we'll take a look at the next stage in our attempt to reduce the pollution. The as of now complete stage two. As with stage one we've got several in progress shots of the harbour starting with this one of showing the area in question to be developed.

As with stage one, the area was then terraformed and land reclamation commenced enlarging the area that existed by a substantial amount.

After this the area had the roads paved and in this case, Harbour Park was also landscaped over several older factories and can be seen as the large square in the middle of the picture. The hope is that this will provide a nice area to eat lunch or just hang out as well as increasing the surrounding land values. You can also see the orange a blue building that marks the headquarters for the Tantico Shipping Company. Another fast growing corporation here in Tantico, based unsurprisingly on shipping out of the new seaport.

Finally after a large amount of hard work businesses moved back into the area.

As you can see its not got rid of all the dirty industry as hoped, but there's definitely an improvement and a greater mix of industrial uses on the land. Now all we need to do is finish the remaining five phases and we'll be set. For now though we move to Arlinbury.

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Now some of you may remember that Arlinbury was a rather landlocked but fast growing town situated in the south of the island. Given all the forests surrounding it and the reluctance of the town council to remove it all in the name of expansion, the town has become a bit short on space as you can see in the photo below.

It does have some nice landscaping though, landscaped and maintained by the locals, the most notable area is the old village green. Now a town though, the area is set to grow in the near future. Add to that the fact that Sustainable Forestry Inc has agreed to allow the town to buy water off it at a cheaper rate than normal, and they themselves have had plans for a railroad extension of Salems Mines line approved means the town is set to be Tanticos smallest settlement to grow upwards (at around 1,500 people before the pipes were laid).

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As for what it looks like now we'll take a look in the next update or two for now though we'll finish our 30th entry with a look at a national overview. As you can see the main island is continuing to spread outwards though this is still the only body of land claimed by the small nation to be settled. Hopefully though by the next time we show a overview the other bodies of land will start to show habitation.

Hope you enjoyed our 30th and rather random look at our small nation.

Till next time

Jamie Felding

[Schulmanator 5,815]

The Bureau of Feline Affairs  would like to present you with this flag:

 

 

And we would ask if your nation has considered building a Bureau of Feline Affairs Consulate to provide services and diplomatic contacts for its feline citizens.

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

Schulmanator: Thankyou for the flag, its very much appreciated. As for the consideration of foreign relations between our nations yes we have given it some though.

 

Below you will find the property we've converted and set aside as the Bureau Of Feline Affairs here in Tantico City. We hope its to your liking and we give full permission to use the two following images of your Bureau however you see fit (OOC: eg if you wish to post either of the two images below in your CJ go ahead). If you do not like these premiese then just let us know and we'll search out other options for your viewing.

 

We do ask though if its at all possible to set up a Tantico Foreign Embassy in Schulmania in the interests of furthering our two nations political relations?

 

Yours Sincerly

 

Hans Feron 'Diplomatic Minsiter to Prince Oliver.'

Entry 31: Politics and Arlinbury

Well toady were taking a look at Arlinbury as mentioned last time to see how its grown but first we have a special announcement.

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 Bureau of Feline Affairs

Link to Schulmania CJ on SimTropolis:

Recently we've been receiving diplomatic missions from Schulmania after a small inter dimensional portal was discovered several hundred miles off of the east coast of the island (OOC: rather far fetched granted but hey were on different planets). Under control of the Smearth National Alliance, the leading multi national organisation here on Smearth, this new portal has facilitated cross dimensional relations.

One such diplomatic mission was from the feline ruled nation of Schulmania. A curious nation indeed with their fascination with cats but still a friendly one and as such, a Bureau Of Feline Affairs was set up here in Tantico City to maintain and improve relations.

Below are some images of the actual building and grounds including the Feline Diplomatic Residence for traveling diplomats. As you can see it includes a nice gold fish pond and cat nip bush for the felines as well as a gazebo to sun themselves.

The we have another image below to give you an idea of where the residence and Bureau is located in terms of the rest of the city. Pretty central but not overly busy.

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Now for the second part of this small update, this time regarding Arlinbury. As you can see from the following photo's the area has indeed gone upwards, here we'll take a closer look starting with the centre of the town.

As you can see its got a few large retail stores, with the most obvious being the large office block that houses the town council on its top floors and several small stores along the ground floor. As you can see from this image though its definitely one of the greener towns here in Tantico.

Moving southwards we come to one of the largest urban parks in the nation, Arlinbury Green. Built to provide a large place of relaxation for the growing population, in keeping with the green feel the rest of the tree lined town gives. As you can see its a fairly popular place and slowly several of the residences around the green are being bought out by commercial business eager to take advantage of the daily crowds.

As for the large apartments though, this is the what the majority of Arlinbury's 4,300 residences live in. Not exactly the nicest looking buildings but they get the job done cheaply so were favoured by the council, reasoning that the large amount of green in the town would balance the not so nice buildings out.

Final image for now is this one of the growing industrial park outside Arlinbury. What with the large emphasis on green spaces here in Arlinbury, it provides a attractive place for hih tech businesses to set up shop and as such, the road into Arlinbury is lined by a number of high tech factories.

That's all for the images, though apparently the proposed rail-line from Arlinbury to Riverbend via Salem is in the final stages of planning and construction is set to start soon, which we'll be all to eager to cover next time.

Till then

Jamie Felding

[Dazzyls 576]

Like this update more than in the past.

 

Schulmanator and 89James89: Do you two have a deal or something?

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

Ultimate727: Thanks I'm glad your liking these updates more than the others lets hope that trend continues. As for us having something going on, not really. Its just that the Principality Of Tantico is expanding its political circle.

Entry 32: More Politics and Arlinbury

Welcome back and today we'll take a look at the completed rail expansion and the effects its had on both Arlinbury and Salem Mines. First however we have another nation join us in diplomatic endeavors. Please welcome the Kingdom Of Teddyland to our diplomatic folds.

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http://simmania.icyboards.net/showthread.php?tid=506

Located on the planet Earth, this nation is another that we've chanced upon via the wormhole here on Smearth. Warm and friendly to our exploration party good relations sparked up in much the same way as they had with the nation of Schulmania and ended up with another new embassy here in Tantico Town.

Located on what is now known as Embassy Estate, this building may not be as big as the Bureau Of Feline Affairs but its no less important in the good relations it helps maintain between our two nations.

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Moving on we head back to look at the construction of the rail between Arlinbury and Salem Mines starting with the plans.

This rail would be the first rail in Tantico to be majority owned and maintained by the TTD with a small part (namely the freight terminal by its headquarters) being paid for and maintained by the Sustainable Forestry Inc. Designed to help with freight shipping to the port of Riverbend, this rail extension is also a tester to see if it could have wide spread viability for the rest of the nation.

Anyway were focusing on this rail line at the moment not what implications it has for the future so lets move to Arlinbury and see what happened there starting with the detailed plans for the town.

As you can see these plans resolve around redeveloping the farmland next to the industrial park, replacing it with stations for both freight and passengers and then using the enclosed land to develop more residential areas for the growing population. Meanwhile, another freigth station and the train sidings would be located next to the headquarters of Sustainable Forestry Inc.

Fast forward a little bit and the area has been cleared and infrastructure laid out.

Even further along and we have this.

As you can see the line has been finished and people have moved into the area. True its still full of the same apartments that are rife in Arlinbury but its increased the population by over 1k so they do the job.

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Whilst all this was happening on Arlinbury's end, Salem Mines was having to do the same on its end. Below you can see the image of the area before the line was extended.

Now unfortunately, I was unable to get a hold of the plans for the expansion on this side of the line so we'll take a look at the finished work and then talk about it a little bit.

As you can see the line has been expanded through the industrial site and out the other side to continue into the neighbouring area of Wellridge. The rail sidings that did originally exsisted when the line terminated here, have been moved to a branch off line on the far side of the now enlarged industrial area and the old sidings turned into a small green area and another factory. The other affect of this was that the industrial area was expanded southwards creating more much needed jobs.

With the two ends of the lines finished the teams met in the middle of the Wellridge area to complete the track.

As you can see the area has undergone some terrain leveling to allow the trains to travel quickly without derailment risks. In light of this the land that was cut into by the tracks, has been shored up with trees and some surface lattice work to prevent the embankments from sliding onto the tracks.

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Well its been a little while since the line was finished and unfortunately, apart from the odd freight train taking wood up to Riverbend, the rail isn't used all that much. Maybe this will change as the area develop but for now the TTD have grown rather wary of further rail additions in the nation so all in all not the best addition.

Anyway, that was the coverage of the rail expansion for you. Not the best results but hey. next time we'll probably be looking at stage three of the redevelopment plan.

Till then I hope you enjoyed the rail update despite the results.

Jamie Felding

 

[89James89 1,169]

Entry 33: The Rubic Incident: Part 1

Breaking news!

Well guys I'm back again with some coverage of a nation wide incident that occurred several hours ago.

In the most bizarre series of events we've ever seen here in Tantico and probably here on Smearth it appears that our small nation has been transported to another world.........

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To make any sense of this we need to go back a bit an introduce you to a small black cube we found near the portal. Unsure of what this small cube was, it was handed over to our lead scientific mind Walter Rubic to study.

Unfortunately we soon found out at least one of the abilities of the strange black cube. Apparently one of his assistants reported that Rubic had been rotating the sides of the cube when a loud bang issued form it and the world turned black for a instance.

When his vision had returned he'd said that Rubic was no where to be seen and the former cube was now a smoking lump of black metal on the lab floor. Rubic's disappearance had startled his assistant but was nothing compared to what half of Tantico was feeling.

From what we can work out, it would appear that the black cube was made of the same substance as the portal was and upon finding some sort of key as such, it unlocked the abilities of the cube. Whether it was meant to happen this way no one can say but it appeared to rip the top half of Tantico out of existence and replace it in the same spot it would occupy in another world.

Luckily for us this happened to be a two way affair and the land previously occupying the space we now occupy also switched with us. it would seem however that the device was slightly faulty as instead of a clean switch in the south, it, in a sense tore at the edges and the land had been forced into existence on top of land already existing causing a large ridge to form.

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Amazingly enough though it would appear that there was no fatalities in this incident. A lot of minor injuries and several pile ups but other than that no one was seriously hurt either. It would appear, that nothing had really happened had the view form our windows not changed.

We are a bit worried about one of our coal tankers though, which had been caught in the middle of what appeared to have been the limit of the switch. This casued half of the tanker to be left behind and half brought with us. The crew has apparently managed to get to one of a larger number of small islands that have appeared in our new surroundings and are safe enough. (Luckily no one was half transported during the switch).

It would also appear that we were lucky to switch to the planet known as Earth. With our Teddyland Ambassador assuring us that were on the same planet that hes from, he has been instrumental in assuring that the slightly surprised governments of Earth haven't as of yet, thought to destroy us.

We have however been quarantined. No one in or out of the island until further notice. Not that that bothers us as were just as confused and worried as the governments themselves and are happy to keep ourselves on this small island chain for the time being.

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Speaking of which I should probably show you the island chain, or as much as we've explored so far.

(OOC: Linked due to image size (over 5mb)).

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/8458/udsl.jpg

From this satellite image you can see that our main island has almost doubled in size. You can also clearly see the ridge that was formed from the switch.

As for our actual place in the world it would appear that we are now situated west of a country called France and there town by the name of Brest. Apparently, if the dormant volcano islands to the north west are anything to go by, were also on a fault line, though small by the looks of it.

The climate is also much like the one we had on Smearth although its a bit warmer here and looking at the local flora much more suited to agriculture which is a bonus. With our lock-down situation and no surrounding trade partners we need to produce even more food for our citizens.

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All this brings you up to current times. At the moment were still in heated talks with the UN regarding our sudden appearance and the strange events surrounding it.

We have been allowed to contact the Kingdom Of Harnat, the original home of Prince Henrick, in regards to the missing half of the coal tanker and a expeditionary party that had been exploring inland of Tantico when the incident occurred.

All this I'll keep you up to date on and informed on as the news come in but until then.

Jamie Felding

(OOC: Bit of a far fetched and obscure update but I wanted to make Tantico and island and then decided while I was at it I may as well move it to Earth too as it'll be easier to incorporate other embassies and such.)

 

[Benedict 3,119]

A couple of interesting updates - nice work.

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

Benedict: Thanks I'm glad you enjoyed the far fetched nature of the warp to Earth lol. It's crazy but hey, at least it gives some explanation to the changes in the region view and also the fact that the nation is now on the planet Earth.

 

 

Entry 34: The Rubic Incident Part 2

Pedriana Plague

Well I'm back with the second part to our Rubic Incident. Currently talks have been ongoing regarding the state of welcome were too receive. So far no verdict has been reached but were relieved to know that we probably won't be 'terminated' (for lack of a better word).

Whilst they continue talks though the lock down on us is still in effect and as such we've been expanding our agriculture more and more to keep up with food demands, which, seeing as this lock-down doesn't seem to be likely to end in the next year, as Tanticoans are screened for viruses and any substances we may have brought with us that would adversely affect this new world.

Early on as the expansion to agriculture was decided on however we encountered a vast problem acorss the nation.

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Looking at this picture it appears another problem has arose from the Rubic Incident.

As you wont be able to tell from looking at the image but what I can tell you for sure is that a lot of these farms were smaller than the huge silos they appear to be now.

this seemed to have been brought about by another tiny pocket of the warp that tore, just as the land did below Oldwood. This seemed to have caused a number of farm buildings to be replaced by these large silos in the style of Pedriana's Plants farming company.

Now you would be forgiven for thinking that this was a good thing but no. The duplications seem to be rather unstable and as a number of them across the region proceeded to collapse it was decided that most of them would be torn down and the material used to replace them with the old farm buildings.

As such several months later this is what the area shown above looked like.

Now with the silos removed farming resumed on Tantico. unfortunately one of the side effects of the whole 'nation needing more food' issue was that the existing farms were pressured into using all of the land available to them to continue farming. This had then led to disputes over land borders and was beginning to cause real issues in some farming communities. As such the newly formed Tantico Agricultural Department (TAD) advised that treelines be planted along farm boundaries effectively creating a easily identifiable border.

Eager to end the disputes a number of farmers took to this idea and planted trees around their land. These two images below shows this happening in another part of the Oldwood area

As you can see, the affects of the Rubic Incident seems to have been more wide spread than we initially thought. Hopefully we've got no more surprises to come though, especially with the whole screening still going on.

Anyway that's all for this small update. I'll make sure to keep you posted on our political situation but till then.

Jamie Felding.

(OOC: Again a slightly strange update but I wanted a reason to have replaced a number of the Pedriana Plant's in the region and also add some beautification in the form of the treelines. It's going to take a while until I've finished the process with all the tiles but I think the effort is worth it.

 

[89James89 1,169]

Entry 35: Rubic Incident: Intermission.

Well guys apparently were not far off a conclusion to the conferences being held between our nation and the ones of this new world, Earth. However I thought I'd just bring you a couple of random images to break up the wait for the final verdict, each showing a different style in the nation.

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A more recent look at the football ground of Tantico United. Last time we were here this ground stood on the edge of the city and was surrounded by houses and several small shops.

Now however its a different story. With the games being popular the area around the grounds was eagerly snapped up by store owners and residential developers, redeveloping the area into what you can see today. A busy and lively area to spend time before and after the games.

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Getting a bit more quieter now we take a look at Chilton Cemetery as the suns setting.

A lovely suburban image, this shows what the ever enlarging suburbs of the city look like as redevelopment spreads outwards.

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Finally a coastline mosaic of the newest area of Tantico, Detnin Bay. Entirely rural with the exception of the small seaside village of Detnin, these farms were built in response to the growing food needs of the nation.

As you can see the village itself is rather small but has a large number of shops there. This is due to the new village becoming somewhat of a retreat for the urban dwellers with the quiet rural setting and the new view of islands off in the distance providing relaxation and intrigue for the Tanticoans (despite them not being able to sail or swim very far from the shore thanks to the quarantine).

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And that's all for this small update. Hope you enjoyed it and as ever I'll make sure to keep you posted as things develop.

Till then

Jamie Felding

[Schulmanator 5,815]

I like the stadium. But beware the earthlings!!

[89James89 1,169]

Replies:

Schulmanator:  Thanks, its becoming one of the 'places to be' here in Tantico. As for the earthlings, they can't be that bad can they? What's the worse that can happen. We've always got the Bureau of Feline Affaris to help us out of any situations we get ourselves into and you know how persuasive cats can be.

Entry 36: Rubic Incident: Nearing A Verdict

Well its with great relief that I can say that Earth has accepted us rudely barging into existence like this and the quarantine is soon to be removed. Apparently they're just finishing off final issues regarding our rights as a independent country and the question of whether we own any land as a nation, but other than that, its all good. In light of this, an emphasis has returned to continuing the Tantico Harbour Redevelopment Program.

As such this is what this entry focuses on. What is probably the largest reclamation so far in the redevelopment this area has given the cramped harbour some more breathing space and brought more larger but cleaner factories into the harbour.

As with stage two I'm showing a four stage time lapse of the redevelopment starting with showing  the area to be redeveloped.

Moving the old grungy businesses out we began filling in the water around the old shoreline, ending up with this, much larger area to work with.

Next up was the roads and parks. Funded by the Tensea Power Distribution company the small Tensea Green, can be seen here just before construction started on the surrounding factories.

Finally after a while the area was complete, larger cleaner factories having replaced the old dirty ones and empty spaces filled in with more parks in the hope of reducing the air and water pollution, the old industry created.

Finally for this update, here's a look at the redevelopment of the harbour so far, with the first three stages complete.

That's all for now though. Hopefully next time I'll be able to bring the update from a free and independent island nation, preparing its first steps into a new world.

Till then

Jamie Felding

[Schulmanator 5,815]

Good luck with the earthlings! And with that water pollution. I think redevelopment is the key here.

[Dazzyls 576]

 

 

 

I like the mosaic. How do you make one?

[Cris tantico 0]

Hello everyone