Ainkien: The Underdiscovered Country

[knarfmo 0]

The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn

No traveler returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Hamlet, Act III, Scene I

Shakespeare’s Hamlet describes the future and his uncertain destiny as the undiscovered country. To refer to the future as a place is not extraordinary because the passage of time is a journey like that of from one place to another. Hamlet’s lament also describes human nature to stay within one’s comfort zone in an attempt to avoid the uncertainties of the future.

This city journal is the story of Ainkien, the Undiscovered Country. I have been working on Ainkien’s story for half of my life, when I first started scribbling the designs of the capital city on paper with coloured pencils.

In college, I was part of the last class to ever study manual cartography. Ainkien presented a good subject for pen, ink and mylar:

I have tried to recreate portions of Ainkien in SimCity, but it wasn’t until SimCity 4, with its advanced features and customized content, that I was able to create a satisfactory electronic simulation of my own private nation.

I will use this city journal to not only take you on a tour of Ainkien, but to share its story as well. I hope for it to be as interesting as a DK Eyewitness Travel Guide, but I fear that a more realistic expectation is that it will waver between sounding like a high school geography textbook and a bad real estate classified ad.

Here begins the story of Ainkien…

The best place to start studying Ainkien’s brief thirty year history is in The Ainkien Museum, which lies just east of the University of Ainkien – Newcastle in the Arts District. The museum, whose architecture is based on the Radcliffe Camera at Oxford University in England, has a diverse collection dedicated to North American and Ainkienian History as well as Native American and classical archaeology.

Ainkien is the product of unlikely circumstances, surprising the world community that a tiny independent nation was carved out of the Midwest United States. Simply put, Ainkien was founded to be a social, political and economic laboratory for several western powers. Its implementation was a result of the confluence of both conservative and liberal political power in several western powers and private financing unrivaled by any previous public works project. It is a country with mysterious beginnings, designed to help industrialized countries to create better futures for themselves.

What the powers behind the development of Ainkien did not anticipate was that this laboratory experiment was doomed to not fulfill its original mission. Ainkien would not be the future of the rest of the world.

Ainkien would be extraordinary. It would be the future of itself.

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Reality Check

I intend to offer additional insights and information about my city journal in the reality check section.

Let me give you some background on my Ainkien region. I use the NAM, Raphaelninja's mod to bring in tons of money, and many, many lots and BATs too numerous to credit. I say thank you to everyone who has contributed to Ainkien through their continued customized development of SimCity 4.

I would like to thank the authors of several city journals that have inspired me to do my own: PaleTexan (Vicivitas and Carthage), Louisville327 (Adventures in New Urbanism), and especially Frogface (Thames). I also got the idea for a locator map from another city journal that, regretfully, I cannot remember. Thank you, whoever you are.

Another note: I like flags. You may be wondering what the deal is with the green and orange Union Jack. The flag of Ainkien has the shape of my favorite flag, the British flag, and my favorite colors, green and orange. It is not some sort of British/Irish political statement. If I start sharing the flags of Ainkien you will find many variants on the Union Jack. There is a story behind the Ainkien Jack I hope to include in this city journal.

A final thought: Ainkien evolved from a paper creation, and sentimentality has constrained my creativity in SimCity 4 to some degree. I am sharing a largely finished product, but all comments and questions are welcome.

[Dsrwhat316 12]

very nice start to this CJ! i like the hand-drawn map you made.

btw: the shortcut for taking pictures in SC4 is CTRL+Shift+S

great work!!!

[Kwakelaar 92]

Nice start for a new CJ, great presentation, just enough details to be interesting to read. I think I will follow this one.

[choco1 4]

Great start, looks nice. I will watch out for more.

[Alkaola 18]

yes really nice start indeed !!! I like those seasonal trees very much , can't wait for more

[Micah 16]

Great start. Keep it up!

[mayormommy 8]

Interesting start - and the pictures are quite pretty! Must be nice to see a place you've imagined for a long time come to life.

[Fabiocb 1]

nice start and interesting so far.

 

 

[r0g3r 1]

Very nice so far.... with all the planning behind this, it should be really interesting to see how it turns out.

[ericenders 0]

quick ? for you if you dont mind....

 

what photo editor are you using to make your CJ look so good as far as your banners and such?

[Singletrack 0]

This looks wonderful! And since it is just starting, I don't have to look through countless pages before I feel qualified to comment.

[knarfmo 0]

Thank you everyone for your support as I begin this city journal!

Dsrwhat316: thanks for the info on the snapshot shortcut. I tried querying the Simtroplis forums to see if anyone had mentioned this in the past but came up with nothing. I've misplaced my SC4 manual, and the one I downloaded from www.simcity.com didn't have the shortcut keys. You've cured my frustration in trying to find this.

Mayormommy: I've had fun recreating Ainkien in SC4, although I can't do everything I did in my paper version. I did make a version of only Newcastle in SimCity 2000 and was able to fly through it in Simcopter. That was a cool experience to really see it in 3D at eye level. It's funny that you mention the pictures being pretty - I'm afraid that my two teaser shots contain most of the greenspace in Newcastle, so I guess this is the city making its best first impression. As my next entry will show, Newcastle is the inner city, and it's densely populated (actually all of the settlement in Ainkien is quite compact).

Ericenders: I had planned to use Adobe Photoshop Elements for my graphics, but I'm using my laptop and have limited software. I'v found that I could do some easy graphics in Microsoft Powerpoint! I import a screenshot and send it to the back of the slide. I then export the slide as a .jpg, and use Microsoft picture manager to shrink the file to the acceptible size. For the very first picture, I used Crayola Colored Pencils and Mead Art Paper

I'm hoping to post another entry this weekend. Maybe even tonight if I can get it written.

[oroen 0]

Nice first presentation... I like the hand-drawn map. MoDOT eh... should be interesting to see how a professional city planner does some idealistic things with the game... although if you're interested in New Urbanism, it won't be idealistic for me... but I'll follow this CJ anyway...

[knarfmo 0]

Paris, France 1969

Andrew McAllister moved quietly around the table filling water glasses with ease and grace. The customers could not tell that he was a relatively new waiter, and they would be surprised to learn that he would not spend the rest of his career serving diners at Paris' prestigious Cafe Remoulade. McAllister had just finished his undergraduate work in politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University, and would return home to Boston in the fall to study international law at Harvard. He was spending his summer working in the Paris restaurant to improve his French and to see how the international elite conducted business over lunch.

Occasionally he would serve a group of customers who seemed to be working intently on a business deal or venting their feelings about things were messed up by their current government. Today he had one of these groups, which consisted of three men and two women. They were conversing in English. What caught his attention was a comment from one of the women, a British woman with reddish blonde hair. He heard her say:

You'll never find a place to establish an independent nation on this continent, no matter how small that country may be - at least on this side of the Iron Curtain. I suggest you speak with the Canadians or Australians.

McAllister was dumbfounded by this statement. These people didn't seem like Basque separatists or Communists looking for a breakaway province to start a revolution. Why are they trying to find a place for a new country? he thought to himself.

Curiosity made it was hard for McAllister to not be an imposition on the customers, but like all good waiters he successfully stayed in the background. Unfortunately he never heard anything more that would clarify exactly what these people were up to. By the end of the summer, he had forgotten the conversation.

Ten years later Andrew McAllister, this time an attorney working for the United Nations, would be actively involved in framing a constitution for a new nation carved from a large farm in the central United States. One evening while he was in the thick of this project, he looked up from his papers to watch a television news story announcing Margaret Thatcher as the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. She looked vaguely familiar to him.

Andrew McAllister was a very intelligent man, but he never made the connection to the Cafe Remoulade in 1969.

***

I am taking you on a tour through Newcastle's West End today while we discuss the history of Ainkien. You will see that there are some ties between our simultaneous visual city tour and the written historical account, but I'm afraid that I will require your patience while I ask you to focus on two diverging subjects at once. In fact, I hope that you become accustomed to it, as it will be the general structure of this journal. Historians often credit the Ainkien's beginning to a think tank of social scientists whose enthusiasm sold the concept to key political leaders. Eventually known as the Ainkien Experiment, it would be among other things, a testing ground for reformist policies in the western democracies. The advantage to politicians would be that they could test the policy and use Ainkien as an example for how the policy would work in their own land. If the policy failed, they could ignore it without any political cost at home. More importantly, the think tank said that private donors had formed an organization called the Ainkien Foundation to fund the entire project.

By late 1971, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development established a founding committee for the new microstate that would be responsible for implementing the project. The founding committee consisted of representatives from the participating nations of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Australia, Sweden and Denmark and representatives of the private donors to the Ainkien Foundation. Today these nations, along with several others, all maintain their own embassies to Ainkien on Newcastle's West End.

It was the source of Ainkien's funding that makes its beginning so mysterious. The private donors wished to remain anonymous - and they have successfully remained anonymous to this date. While it is known that there were 11 donors to the foundation, the more critical fact is that only 3 of them provided 97% of the project funding. These three major donors became known as the Triumvirate, and it was clear that they controlled the 11 Foundation votes on the founding committee. It is unclear as to whether the members of the triumvirate were individuals, corporations, or combination of the two. The representatives on Founding Committee who represented the Ainkien Foundation came from a variety of academic and non-profit organization backgrounds, and they were all loyal to the secrecy of their patrons. It was known that three of them represented the Triumvirate, but no one has ever been successful in concluding which of the eleven these representatives were. It was the Triumvirate who, through their representatives on the Founding Committee, insisted on the name Ainkien for the new country. The Triumvirate also specified a generous amount of funding for Ainkien's educational system.

Three of the founding nations suggested sites for possible development of Ainkien. All of the sites were of sufficient size and suitability, and, based on preliminary discussions with the property owners, were for sale for the right price. Canada had a small island off the coast of British Columbia it could offer. Australia had small group of islands 400 miles due east of Tasmania (in this case the Australian government was the willing seller). The United States had two possible sites: a ranch in Wyoming, and a large farm in Missouri on the Kansas border. The Triumvirate favored a situation where Ainkien would have some cross border interaction with a neighbouring country and thus preferred one of the United States locations. The United States also favored one of its locations, presumably to retain some control over the project. Australia was upset that its site wasn't chosen, but when the Wyoming rancher backed out of discussions, the Ainkien Foundation bought all three remaining sites.

In the "Surf and Turf" Compromise, all three sites would be available for the Ainkien Foundation's use. For the moment, however, the Founding Committee selected the Missouri farm to be the home of the undiscovered country.

 Negotiations between the United States and the Founding Committee were underway by 1976, and the idea of a new independent nation being carved out of the belly of their nation was not sitting well with the American public.

Andrew McAllister, a young attorney with the United Nations who moderated the negotations, suggested a series of terms that would ease the concerns of the American people and seal the deal with the US government: 1) Ainkien would join NATO, thus entering into a mutual defense pact with the United States. 2) If Ainkien ever established a military, it would submit to the command of a US military general 3) The United States would reabsorb Ainkien 100 years after the signing of an independence treaty unless it chose to extend or remove this requirement in the meantime. As an additional incentive, the Ainkien Foundation offer $100 million for public improvements in southwest Missouri to compensate the local governments for lost their tax revenue.

 

On May 25th, 1977, the United States and the Founding Committee signed an independence agreement in Saint Louis, Missouri. The Treaty of St. Louis was drafted by Andrew McAllister with input from all concerned parties, and followed the conditions he had worked out in the negotiation process. Construction of Ainkien would begin immediately, with the date of Ainkien's independence set for November 13th, 1981. Because independence would coincide with joining the NATO alliance on this date, Ainkien's national holiday, Alliance Day, is celebrated every year on November 13th.

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Reality Check

• The name Ainkien is derived from two sources. The first is C.S. Lewis' Narnia, spelled backwards, which is Ainran. The second is the last name of J.R.R. Tolkien. When you combine the first syllable of the former and the last syllable of the latter, you get Ainkien. If you could query on one of the skyscrapers in the financial district, you would also find the corporate headquarters of Ainran Electronics.
• The Triumvirate and Ainkien Foundation comprise a plot device to simply say that money is no object in Ainkien's story. It's my fantasy, and I'll spend all that I want (thanks to Raphaelninja's mod). I deal with lack of funds enough as it is in my real job.
• Some of you who are really paying attention may have noticed that the signing of the Treaty of St. Louis occurred while most of the world was preoccupied with the theatrical release of Star Wars.
• Most of the people in the story of Ainkien are fictional. Occasionally there will be a real person (i.e. Margaret Thatcher) doing fictitious things. I'm only going to include famous people in the story when you'll know better than to believe what you read about them. Don't worry - Arnold Schwarzenegger won't become prime minister or anything.

[jacqulina 162]

very nice start love the presentation,great pics too

[+Guest]

haha, the thing that sticks out to me is Newcastle i live near Newcastle (UK) so this will be something to see how it develops, keep the work up

[knarfmo 0]

TC 13 - This Newcastle is indeed named for yours. Nearly all of my ancestors were European, but the only branch of my family that we have traced to Europe came from northeastern England. I've named several communities in Ainkien after towns were my ancestors came from. In addition to Newcastle, you may recognize Hetton, Teesdale and Durham later on in my city jounral.

[soldyne 111]

utterly gorgeous!  it looks so relaistic.  I want to start my own city journal eventually too, but after seeing this one I dont know if I have the time or picture editing skill to create something on this level.  your work is both inspiring and at the same time depressing.  I want to make my own CJ but it wont be at all close to being this good.

great job!

[SamFlash 0]

Wonderful job.  Obviously a lot of thought and planning went into it.  Great pictures also.

[Kwakelaar 92]

Beautiful and interesting update.

[Fabiocb 1]

nice update, it seems to have a lot of development, but one question don't you have traffic problems and about your commuter time/abandonment?

[MasterPlanMan 1]

Looks promising so far but... your sloping of roads and streets could use a little work. With some improvments here and there this CJ could evolve into someting special!

[knarfmo 0]

Newcastle, Ainkien: November 8, 1990

Fatima Najef loved having a Monday off. She had spent Saturday and Sunday working a long shift as a physician in the urgent care unit at Gladstone Hospital. It was unusually warm for November, so she opened the doors of her apartment balcony and looked over the city. She noted the banners on the streetlamps announcing the upcoming celebration of Alliance Day on the 13th and looked down at Akhdar Primary School where her son Tariq went to school. Fatima wondered what Tariq would be learning today and if he would do well on his math quiz today. As she went to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee and handful of almonds, Fatima remembered her days as a school girl in Cairo, and how Tariq's education was so different from her own. With her coffee cup in her hand, Fatima returned to the balcony and wished that she could catch a glimpse at her husband Mujid's office building in the Financial District. But there were many tall buildings between their apartment and his office, so she once again relied on her imagination to be imagine what a family member would be doing at that moment.

Fatima met Mujid in London while she was in medical school. The move to Ainkien gave them an opportunity to start in a new place with abounding opportunities. Newcastle was a small city that felt like a large one. She noted the growl of a bus' diesel engine on the street, and noted to herself that buses sound the same in Cairo, London and Newcastle. Her thoughts on three continents were suddenly interrupted by a flash like a red cloud, a slap of heat against her face like a leather whip, and finally the sound of a great boom accented with the sound of breaking glass. Everything then went dark.

***

Newcastle's East End and the History of Ainkien

While the last entry focused on how the idea of Ainkien came to be, this entry focuses on how the country of Ainkien came to be. While we discuss, at length, this part of Ainkien's history, I will take you on a tour of Newcastle's East End, the more densely populated part of the City. In addition to neighbourhoods and districts in the City of Newcastle, the East End includes the independent cities of Bristol and Haverford-Graves.

Planning for Ainkien began almost immediately after the North American site was selected. The Founding Committee expanded its purview to become the Board of Directors overseeing the funds of the Ainkien Foundation. The newly formed Board divided itself into three groups which would carry out the work of developing Ainkien into a new nation. The first group, the Provisional Parliament, would be responsible for drawing up a code of laws and system of government for the pending nation. The second group, the Society Committee, would be responsible for recruiting and screening applicants who would become Ainkien's citizens. Finally, the third group, the Community and Regional Planning Committee, would be responsible for designing Ainkien's geography, developing its architecture, and fostering its economic development.

The Community and Regional Planning Committee had a significant challenge in that Ainkien was a physically small country and there was a need to protect the natural environment to the greatest extent possible. One of the stipulations of the Treaty of Saint Louis was that Ainkien's development would include compliance with the United States' National Environmental Policy Act. To this end, Ainkien's planners made account of key natural resources that would need to be preserved. Urban development would be dense and compact, with well defined urban growth boundaries. The nature of the development would promote the use of walking, biking and mass transit instead of private automobile.

The Community and Regional Planning Committee had a significant challenge in that Ainkien was a physically small country and there was a need to protect the natural environment to the greatest extent possible. One of the stipulations of the Treaty of Saint Louis was that Ainkien's development would include compliance with the United States' National Environmental Policy Act. To this end, Ainkien's planners made account of key natural resources that would need to be preserved. Urban development would be dense and compact, with well defined urban growth boundaries. The nature of the development would promote the use of walking, biking and mass transit instead of private automobile.

From its inception, Ainkien was planned around the broad geographic framework of a major metropolitan area serving as the capital of the country (this would become Newcastle). In addition to the great metropolitan area, Ainkien would have two main regions outside the Newcastle metropolitan area. The north region would feature Ainkien's second largest city (Ashington) and an array of small cities, towns and villages in the countryside. The south region would have the third and fourth most important metropolitan areas (Birmingham and the Green Valley Town Area), whose combined population would come close to that of Ashington's. Like the north, the south would also have smaller towns.

Three construction camps would provide bases of operation for the 34 construction companies working on Ainkien's construction. The majority were at Camp Bristol, which would later become a city of the same name. The first buildings in Ainkien were built in Bristol and are still in use today, making Bristol the oldest city in Ainkien. Camp Durham served as the base of operations in the south, and is now one of the municipalities that comprise the Green Valley Town Area. Camp Cires served the north. Cires was a temporary camp that reverted back to agriculture once Ainkien's north was just more than half than complete. This three-pronged effort was used to lay out basic infrastructure and to get the basic community development of Ainkien established. More permanent construction companies established themselves in the industrial districts to provide for Ainkien's construction needs in the later part of national development and for ongoing projects.

Planning, engineering, architectural design proceeded rapidly. The goal was to have settlement of Ainkien at 30% by the effective date of independence. Of special concern was the need to have the major institutions, including the Parliament Building, finished in time for the independence celebrations.

The Provisional Parliament was tasked with setting up a national government structure that struck a balance between representing the various regions of the small country, versus providing for proportional representation of the population on a national level. To this end, it was decided that Ainkien would be comprised of five counties. These counties would be the intermediate level between the federal and local governments. As required by the Ainkien Experiment, local governments would be structured so that there would be an emphasis on regional coordination and local decision-making. There would be many municipalities and school districts for a country its size. While this would not necessarily be the most cost efficient approach, it would bring government decision-making closer to the population and afford citizens more opportunities to participate in government.

The Provisional Parliament was tasked with setting up a national government structure that struck a balance between representing the various regions of the small country, versus providing for proportional representation of the population on a national level. To this end, it was decided that Ainkien would be comprised of five counties. These counties would be the intermediate level between the federal and local governments. As required by the Ainkien Experiment, local governments would be structured so that there would be an emphasis on regional coordination and local decision-making. There would be many municipalities and school districts for a country its size. While this would not necessarily be the most cost efficient approach, it would bring government decision-making closer to the population and afford citizens more opportunities to participate in government.

The Society Committee had both the most difficult - and easy - jobs of all. The Ainkien Foundation outlined the guidelines for the demographics that needed to be recruited to Ainkien, so the Society Committee had the clearest sense of direction of the three groups. Ainkien had already generated enough interest that by 1977 there were hundreds of thousands of inquiries from people around the world wanting to live in the new country. The problem for the committee was that the supply and demand of people did not match. Many of those wanting to move to Ainkien were from developing nations, while the Ainkien Experiment required that Ainkien society be a mostly Western, developed society. The Ainkien Foundation also required a diversity of socio-economic backgrounds and lower income groups that would be hard to recruit. This mismatch of supply and demand, coupled with the practical need of providing for people in high demand occupations, made for great difficulty in creating Ainkien society. In response, the Society Committee included members of non-profit organizations and churches to mount a grassroots recruiting effort.

Three new members of the Society Committee included Anglican Bishop Edmond Gardner of Adelaide, Roman Catholic Archbishop James DelVecchio of Boston, and Lutheran Bishop Erik Christiansen of Copenhagen. These three church members initiated a grassroots effort in congregations around the world that was successful in recruiting residents to Ainkien who met the needs of the Ainkien Foundation. The three clergymen also recognized the need for people of non-Christian faiths to live in Ainkien and the need to develop a moral society that embraced diversity. As a result, they worked with leaders in other denominations, religions and activist groups to recruit citizens. The result of their efforts is that Ainkien resembles the diversity found in many Western nations today, although demographically Ainkienians tend to be more religious and educated than there Western counterparts.

Tragically, the three clergymen died in an auto accident while driving to Bristol from a meeting in Camp Cires. The members of the Ainkien Foundation, presumably with the support of the mysterious Triumvirate who funded Ainkien's development, wanted to honor the three clergy. They were in the process of designing the national flag, and prior to the accident, they had settled on the colours: green for harmony with the physical and natural environment, white for peace and clarity, and orange for energy and human advancement. The Board had been deliberating on using three horizontal stripes, similar to the flags of Germany or the Netherlands with Ainkienian colours. After the death of the three clergy, the Board adopted a flag that would be composed of three separate crosses, representing the three churches of the three clergymen, into a Union Jack style flag utilizing Ainkien's colours. The use of the flag would pay homage to one of Ainkien's key founding nations, Britain, and it would provide opportunities for flags of local political subdivisions to reflect the national flag. Those involved with the Ainkien project felt it was a fitting tribute to the loss of the leaders of the Society Committee as well as a fitting symbol for the new nation. The British Queen sent a letter to the Ainkien Foundation stating that the British people were flattered by the use of the British Flag as a model for the Ainkienian Flag. Ainkien's flag became known as the Green Jack. When critics started using the term Greenjacker as a derogatory reference to Ainkienians, the Ainkienians embraced the term with humor and claimed it as their own.

After the celebrations of independence on the Alliance Day, Ainkien quickly became an international leader of the small countries and participant in the stage of world politics. Ainkien made gains on the international politics front through the formation of the Lilliput Games, an Olympics style event for the world's smallest countries. This eventually became the Lilliput Community, an organization that allowed the small countries to pool resources and political influence for common benefits. Ainkien also eventually developed a small but lethal military force. National. Ainkien's military consists of mainly of peace keepers and special forces. Under the terms of the Treaty of Saint Louis and the UN Charter, Ainkienian forces have joined in numerous peacekeeping operations as well as NATO operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Ainkien also participated in the first Gulf war, but the Prime Minister, in collaboration with Canada, refused to participate in the second Gulf War, a matter of some continuing controversy with the United States.

Tragically, the three clergymen died in an auto accident while driving to Bristol from a meeting in Camp Cires. The members of the Ainkien Foundation, presumably with the support of the mysterious Triumvirate who funded Ainkien's development, wanted to honor the three clergy. They were in the process of designing the national flag, and prior to the accident, they had settled on the colours: green for harmony with the physical and natural environment, white for peace and clarity, and orange for energy and human advancement. The Board had been deliberating on using three horizontal stripes, similar to the flags of Germany or the Netherlands with Ainkienian colours. After the death of the three clergy, the Board adopted a flag that would be composed of three separate crosses, representing the three churches of the three clergymen, into a Union Jack style flag utilizing Ainkien's colours. The use of the flag would pay homage to one of Ainkien's key founding nations, Britain, and it would provide opportunities for flags of local political subdivisions to reflect the national flag. Those involved with the Ainkien project felt it was a fitting tribute to the loss of the leaders of the Society Committee as well as a fitting symbol for the new nation. The British Queen sent a letter to the Ainkien Foundation stating that the British people were flattered by the use of the British Flag as a model for the Ainkienian Flag. Ainkien's flag became known as the Green Jack. When critics started using the term Greenjacker as a derogatory reference to Ainkienians, the Ainkienians embraced the term with humor and claimed it as their own.

After the celebrations of independence on the Alliance Day, Ainkien quickly became an international leader of the small countries and participant in the stage of world politics. Ainkien made gains on the international politics front through the formation of the Lilliput Games, an Olympics style event for the world's smallest countries. This eventually became the Lilliput Community, an organization that allowed the small countries to pool resources and political influence for common benefits. Ainkien also eventually developed a small but lethal military force. National. Ainkien's military consists of mainly of peace keepers and special forces. Under the terms of the Treaty of Saint Louis and the UN Charter, Ainkienian forces have joined in numerous peacekeeping operations as well as NATO operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Ainkien also participated in the first Gulf war, but the Prime Minister, in collaboration with Canada, refused to participate in the second Gulf War, a matter of some continuing controversy with the United States.

During the prelude to the First Gulf War of 1991, a small group of Middle Eastern students planted a bomb on a Newcastle Transit Bus, intending to inflict damage at Parliament Hill, which was preparing for Alliance Day festivities. Instead, the bomb went of early in the largely Muslim neighbourhood of Akhdar. Five people were killed and dozens were injured. The group claimed to target Ainkien because it represented all of the tyranny of the West. The event triggered outrage throughout the world, but unified the Ainkienian people and gave them their first true sense of patriotism common good. At the time there was a widespread belief that the students had assistance from the Iraqi government in carrying out their terrorist attack. When the coalition of the First Gulf War began its liberation, Ainkien's elite Harrier fighter group, the Flying Dragons, escorted the first bombers to military targets in Iraq. Later it was learned that the students were part of an isolated group not affiliated with any government or known terrorist organization.

=======================================

Reality Check

I wrote the first version of the terrorist attack story in 1995. I envisioned an event whose emotional impact would be just as devastating as its physical impact. I imagined what it would be like for Ainkien to mourn its losses while dealing with its anger about an elusive, underground enemy. Considering what has happened in the world since the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, I find it ironic and disturbing that I imagined a society coping with the same kind of event that has been replicated in reality too many times, most notably in New York, London and Madrid.

[knarfmo 0]

Fabiocb: I have several areas in Ainkien where the traffic is horrendous. This has never seemed to cause much of a problem with abandonment. I've made other regions and cities where this has been something of a problem, and I've found that it occurs in my more American-suburban style cities than more densely populated cities like those in Ainkien. I think the generous transit (bus, train, light rail) systems help. I plan to do an entry on this city journal about transportation, so maybe I can elaborate on these things.

Masterplanman: Ainkien was one of my first cities in SimCity 4. I've learned alot since then, but I'm still struggling with alot. It's only been the past few weeks that I learned that I could terraform with roadway segments. I've never been pleased with the slopes on the southside neighbourhood, but fortunately for me the rest of the region is mainly flat. Ainkien is pretty much a completed work, so other than tweaking things I'm giving everyone a tour of the region, warts and all.

Thanks for the comments!

[Mikeaut1 261]

Very nice! I love this city journal, its gonna go far! I like how you edit the pictures. Great work!!

[knarfmo 0]

A non-update update...

 

Where have I been?

 

This City Journal has not been forgotten. I have been in the process of updating my region's cities with seasonal trees, some new structures from the NAM, and I have even completely rebuilt some cities (though with the same original conceptual plan). I want to do some region-wide views, and this has hindered me from making any updates this month.

 

I'm hoping to get some extra time over the long weekend to proceed with this city journal. Now that I've explained Ainkien's history, you can expect the remainder of the city journal to be more oriented to graphics rather than text.

[mtbrocket 2]

Good start.

-Dan

[knarfmo 0]

An Update

I have been working on a new nation-wide aerial photo, which included grooming the cities for the big family picture.

Finally, it is complete:

Using the aerial photo: I have also created an Ainkien National Map that shows the county boundaries, names of cities and towns, and several key geographic features:

I plan to have the full update entry that I promised last weekend out very soon. We will be visiting Canterbury County.

[jacqulina 162]

another fantastic update coming on well

[sloppet 3]

cool nice start!