Port Seastone, Crystal County, TX

[kujoe 0]

This is my very first CJ, and I'm probably not near as good as some of the ones I've seen, but I've decided to make a CJ here to possibly increase my creativity and get some constructive criticism from you guys. So please feel free to give me better ideas and suggestions. I'd like to make this CJ almost interactive, almost let you guys help form the story. So here goes...
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We begin in the year 2000 when Mr. Schaffer inherited tons of land from his now deceased Grandfather. Mr. Schaffer wasn't sure what to do with all that land. He thought about living on it, but he liked being around people. Then randomly a friend of his said, start your own city in Texas!

Eureka! That was it! Mr. Schaffer was gonna start his own township within Crystal County. Crystal County happens to be the biggest county in Texas in SimNation. Port Seastone would only be one tiny part of that County. Mr. Schaffer proclaimed himself Mayor Schaffer, and drafted city incorporation documents, yet with the provision that he could never be ousted from office, and that the city would be run like a business, with each city council member being a shareholder. This happened because Mayor Schaffer didn't want to let the land fall into someone elses hands. He vowed to do his best to be just and fair.

However, soon Mayor Schaffer realized he didn't have much capital to start building with, so he found a big company that was willing to invest $500,000 to get him started. The only condition was that Mayor Schaffer allow them to build an industrial park in the city for whatever use they saw fit.

With this money Mayor Schaffer hired a private construction company to build the first power plant and roads in the newly founded city.



and a closer view:

[kujoe 0]

To bring people to Port Seastone, Mayor Schaffer begain advertising in News papers all over SimNation, that land was cheap and so were utilities, all you had to do was get here.

Within a few months a few farmers moved in and started some modest farms.



These farmers were then closely followed by migrant workers who setup some shanty homes just north of the farms.



Since this is an entirely new economic system, people had to revert to the ancient ways of the barter system and trade goods and services instead of paying each other with money. The workers were allowed to keep 10% of the crops to feed their families in exchange for their work.

Mayor Schaffer offered a temporary provision to power the entire village for 10% of all business profits carried within city borders until a better arrangement can be made, and the people can pay their taxes and utility bills.

[kujoe 0]

Mayor Schaffer soon realized some flaws in the barter only system. Some of the farmers started overworking the migrant workers without compensating for overtime.

Mayor Schaffer decided then to pass the first city law. He ordered that each company pay their workers with cash, and keep strict account logs for tax reporting purposes. This led to many people burying their money in mayonaise jars in their backyards. All over these neighborhoods the yards started to look more holey than swiss cheese. But it was a short term solution.

However Mayor Schaffer realized that we needed a better boost to the economy so he approached the same big company as earlier that gave him the first $500,000 investment to start the city. He asked this company to hurry up and build their industrial park, and made a further request, he asked that they also build a commercial shopping center so that the people would now have a closer place to shop for needed goods and services.

The big industrial company known as Vu Industries first built the commercial district since it would be quickest.


Once they were done building the commercial district they moved on to build the industrial park. Vu Industries decided to build next to the ocean front to provide for future expansion of a seaport if the need should arise.


The industry complex provided mostly farming goods and textiles. However the people soon became suspicious that other activities were taking place in the complex. They soon noticed that a guard station was placed at the only way in or out of the industrial complex.

The people also started to notice some weird smells and sounds coming from the east, which is where the complex was. A few migrant workers asked questions, after becoming sick, but they were never heard from again. One time however one of those workers washed up on shore, and it was suspected that he may have been a victim of foul play. However it was almost impossible to prove since this small city has no form of police protection, which also meant that they did not have forensic technology either.

The worker was buried, and the village people became even more suspicious of this new secret industrial complex. They entreated Mayor Schaffer to do something, but the mayor simply stated that his hands were tied, due to a contractual agreement that they be allowed to build their complex.

Many of the village people began to form an activist group against the industrial complex, meeting regularly on Wednesday nights in each others homes discussing ways to deal with this alleged secret complex.

[kujoe 0]

Meanwhile... amongst all the conspiracy theories and other political events the mayor seeing that the village has gotten to a fairly comfortable size decided that the people finally needed a public water system. They could no longer rely on their backyard hand pumped wells, especially since the water had taken on a new taste, and color.

Many suspected the new water problems to be coming from the east... at that secret place...

So the mayor made a quick hasty budget decision and got a few buddies together and built a cheap cost effective older styled open top water tower. Someday it would be replaced with a better one, but for now it would work.

Water tower construction begins:


The completed Water Tower:


The mayor shortly realized the mistake he made in having an open-topped water tower. He has to go check the chemical PH levels of the tower and drop in some chlorine and flouride everyday since kids like to sneak to the tower and drop in for a quick swim.

[The boy formerly known as Evil Muzz 27]

It is nice and it looks kind of rural. I like the sort of feel it has. In future I would suggest not posting a few pictures per post and just post one big update. I don't understand why people do that. It looks good just now, keep it up!

[ar3man2005 0]

it look nice...And i saw you use some new bat, which just come out by this morning ~~

[ExiL3 10]

yeah, very nice. keep it up, and take your time on the developement, be creative, plz don't rush. Thumbs up!

[ILL Tonkso 1,239]

Keep at it and this could become a realy nice CJ

[kujoe 0]

BREAKING NEWS!!!


8:38 AM: Mayor Schaffer has just informed us that a fertilizer plant in the south section of the industrial district has just exploded moments ago! I hope everyone is ok because we don't currently have any fire protection in port seastone.

9:12 AM: We've just received home video of the explosion happening from an anonymous SimCitizen, apparently the plant that blew up was one of the main sites where some alleged illegal secret activites have been taking place, that have been making sims all over town sick.



9:50 AM: We've just received aerial photos of the plant burning from a new helicopter from our sister station in nearby Pleasentvalley. If this is truly a fertilizer plant it makes sense that this fire would be burning so long even after a total explosion.



11:24 AM: We have yet another aerial view from our sister stations chopper 9, apparently the fire has finally burned out and we can now see the rubble. It looks like a total loss folks.



Stay tuned and we'll give you all the latest info as it comes in. We'll stay with this story and follow up as we get further updates from our sources. We'd like to find out the cause of this fire as much as you do.

Sim's have been calling for fire protection for a while, but the mayor has been saying it's not in the budget. However unfortunate that this incident is, maybe it will show the Mayor how badly we need a fire department in Port Seastone.

Thank you for tuning in, we'll now release you back to your regularly scheduled program. We'll see you for the 6 o' clock news.

[kujoe 0]

Hmm... I'm not sure what I did, but it seems that my gazebo's and flower gardens don't show up properly anymore. Any clue on how to fix this anyone?

By the way, thank's everyone for the compliments and suggestions! I really hope to make this as fun for you guys as it is for me.

If anyone wants to give any building or planning suggestions or offer some mods/props/bats/ or whatever then please by all means comment here

This is just as much for you as me! I need the experience.

[RadioheadFan 1]

OK dude, it's a good start, but I have a few suggestions(only 2 actually). First of all, like Evil Muzz said, you should combine all your updates into one big post next time, I think you quadruple posted and that's not a good thing for the bandwidth. Second of all, it looks like you plop all your houses, whether it be R$ or R$$. I would suggest growing the Maxis lots, because in the photos, the R$$ house didn't even have a backyard, and neither did the poor Sims. But anyways, this could be a really good CJ. Keep it up.

RadioheadFan

[GAT-X105 3]

Actually it looks to me like his detail is set to Low. Turn it up, and you'll see the props again.

Anyway, I like it so far.

[juantrev 0]

cool breaking news effects.  I especially like the Sony TV set we see it on...

[kujoe 0]

Date: 3/5/2005 9:52:56 AM
Author: RadioheadFan
OK dude, it's a good start, but I have a few suggestions(only 2 actually). First of all, like Evil Muzz said, you should combine all your updates into one big post next time, I think you quadruple posted and that's not a good thing for the bandwidth. Second of all, it looks like you plop all your houses, whether it be R$ or R$$. I would suggest growing the Maxis lots, because in the photos, the R$$ house didn't even have a backyard, and neither did the poor Sims. But anyways, this could be a really good CJ. Keep it up.


RadioheadFan

quote>
Actually everything is growable other than the civic buildings. I was having a problem not being able to see my gazebo's and park stuff too, so maybe the other person was right, maybe my settings are set to low. I'll try to increase them and see if I can see the details again.

Also I was making shorter posts cuz I wasn't sure of the rules and how long they could be. Next time I'll just make longer posts. I'll make a post everytime I finish playing for the day.

[kujoe 0]

Date: 3/5/2005 12:49:16 PM
Author: juantrev
cool 'breaking news' effects. I especially like the Sony TV set we see it on...

quote>
Thanks, I spent about an hour making those last night on my photoshop.

Edit: Oh btw guys, I found out I switched to Hardware mode for rendering and it set everything to the lowest setting, so my city detail was really low. The above pics could have been much better had I fixed that sooner. Sorry. From now on the pics will be better

[Mdz1001 0]

A post can be as long as you want, it's double posting we don't like. Use the EDIT button to add more if you can't get it all in one shot. Also, turn your graphics settings up, it makes your cities look much nicer.

[kujoe 0]

A few weeks after the explosion it seems that many Sims are suspicious that the plant explosion was caused by some secret testing of some highly illegal, and highly explosive chemicals. Ever since that one plant was destroyed the water has cleared up a bit and part of the sky's around the city are not as weird smelling. However if you get closer to the industrial complex you can still smell some of it.

Many Sims angry at the potential dangers of the complex, and the possibility of a bigger explosion, demand fire protection. Many other sims are saying that a conspiracy surrounds this fire and start to speak out about how if we had a fire department, fully equipped with a fire marshall and fire investigators that problems like this wouldn't arise, and that if they did, there could be a full investigation to hold someone accountable.

Meanwhile under much pressure from the citizens, the mayor starts to promise that he'll do what he can with his limited resources to attempt to start an investigation.

However, once Vu Industries found out that the mayor was promising an investigation, they hurridly brought in literally thousands of their own construction workers and within a matter of only 1 month built a brand new avenue linking the town with nearby rockville. Vu Industries also hurried and built a Mansion for the mayor and a new more modern housing complex nearby.

The new avenue:


The new housing complex and mayor mansion on the avenue:


Meanwhile Dr. Vu secretly hopes that these kind gestures will help to quiet the town and stifle the investigation that the mayor has promised.

But the exact opposite happened. The citizens started to accuse the mayor of taking a payoff and this strengthened their resolve to push for an investigation into the operations at the industrial complex.

The mayor assured the people that he had not been bribed and decided to show his good will by proposing a bond package to immediately start construction on a new Fire Department.

There were 2 choices, go with the immediate cheaper and quicker option for a Fire Department with a max capacity of 2 Fire Trucks, and support crew, or go with a slightly more expensive and somewhat more complicated option of a larger medium sized Fire Department that could hold 4 fire trucks and support crew. The added benefit is that it would also have a wider service area, and could also house the offices of the fire marshall and investigators.

The small town voted 96% in favor of building a fire department. As for their choices in size, 68% voted for the larger medium sized fire department.

Construction began immediately, and this pleased the people because they started to feel that maybe the mayor had not been bribed after all.

Construction begins on the Fire Department:


The new Fire Station a couple of months later:


The mayor also decided that it was time for the city to have a bank. So he called around at all the financial institutions he could find to attract their services to Port Seastone. Yet it was not a bank that decided to move in, it was the Crystal County Federal Credit Union. Even better! Better interest rates, and no fees!

Shortly after the Fire Station was built the same crews didn't have to go far, the new bank would be built next door.

The bank construction:


The completed bank:


Since the city finally had a better way to control it's financial matters, the mayor took it upon himself to propose the first motion of business now that the city had it's own official bank account. He proposed to the city council that they contract a private company to handle a small meager bus system in Port Seastone. The bus company, called Tri-County Transportation, already provides bus service all over Crystal County and 2 other surrounding counties. As such it would only cost a meager amount to hire their services, and the bus rates should cover that cost.

The proposal in front of the City Council for a bus contract passed in a 4 to 2 vote.

The first bus stop in town:

[kujoe 0]

Does anyone have any suggestions so far? Or anything they'd like to see built? Or how about any storyline ideas? Building ideas? Anything?

I'm completely open for any suggestions.

[ar3man2005 0]

VERY COOL ....and FUNNY for a Break NEWS !!

GREAT WORK!!! 

[kujoe 0]

Big update coming tonight I promise!!

[tommy_toon 0]

hmm . . . i wonder what the investigations going to say . . .

[kujoe 0]

dang, I didn't have time to make the update tonight. I'll get to it as soon as I can though, i promise.

[jacqulina 162]

great cj

[kujoe 0]

Thanks everyone for the compliments, here is another update!

Thank you for watching KSIM News. Your reliable news source. Our top story today: Have you been plagued lately wondering what to do with your trash? Do you burn it? Bury it? Ship it elsewhere? Well we no longer have to ask ourselves those questions. Yes, today the first trash trucks rolled into town today to pick up our trash at the side of the road. In an exclusive contract with Vu industries, Mayor Schaffer proudly claimed today Port Seastone Clean up day. Sims gladly picked up trash from their yards and sidewalks and neatly stuck it in trash cans by the side of the road for trash trucks to pick up.

Trash on streets:


Trash service finally:


Also today in the news, as we can see from our chopper cam, the local fire marshal has started an investigation into the explosion 2 months ago at vu industries. It looks like he may have found something more though, as it seems he's called in a squad car from the CCSO as backup. As of yet the Fire Marshall and Sheriff's office are not revealing what they've found, but things seem to indicate it was a pretty big find. The mayor stated: I promised an investigation, and it's begun. As of yet, I can't give you anymore information. He declined further comment.



1 month later:

Much to the dismay of the children of Port Seastone, and thanks to state funding and construction workers, tomorrow will mark the first day of school. The state graciously built over the past 6 months a new elementary school, and High School. In the new subdivision on the west side of town. The new facilities also include state of the art computer labs that will enable students to interact online with students all over the country. It will also enable them to use the internet for many educational purposes.

First elementary and middle school:


First High School:


In related news, this also marks the completion of the new west side subdivision next to the schools, progress was slow going, but with the state dedicating funds and workers to the construction of the schools, the mayor was able to use the cities resources to work solely on finishing up the new west side sub-division and industrial park.

The initial sub-division clearing:


The first lots available:


How it looks today after completion:


The intial lots for sale for the new industrial park:


1.5 months later:

In other news, the new Port Seastone Hospital has opened it's doors today after a major outcry from the population. Many proponnents, of the building of the new hospital, claim that many of the citizens that died in the past from mysterious causes, could have been saved had we had proper medical facilities. When asked for comment at the ribbon cutting the mayor pointed out that we're lucky to have a hospital this early, stating: we're still relatively young compared to other cities. Most don't have medical facilities this early. Thanks to private funding we've been able to open the doors at the Port Seastone Medical Center. It may be small, but rest assured, it does have updated equipment. The only thing we don't have is a trauma center. But once we get big enough we'll be able to build a bigger hospital.



6 months later:

Due to necessity, and a recent increased spike in pollution affecting our water supply, the Mayor and city council was able to get a federal grant from the EPA to build a new state of the art Water Treatment plant.


Today the plant is finished:


Also, recently by popular demand, a new House of Worship was built in the west side sub-division and seems to be running smoothly. Sims are glad to not have to meet in tents outside anymore. As a kind gesture to the city, the church has also funded a new cemetary built just south of the new sub-division.

The new house of worship:


The cemetary:


Also, demand for housing has increased drastically forcing the new sub-division to expand


Because of such rapid construction growth, A new construction company called Dunston Construction Inc. has setup a facility in the southwest part of town.


4.5 Months later
Due to an increase in crime level, and the need for law enforcement presence the Crystal County Sheriff's office has decided to build it's first ever full capacity Headquarters in Port Seastone. Effectively making this city the county seat. This new facility will also be providing the entire county's new 911 emergency service.

If you look closely you can see them talking about a case they're working on, I wonder which one?


2 months later

The Crystal County Amber Alert system has been activated. Denise Kroger, age 32 who works at Vu Industrial complex as a shipping clerk has been reported missing. She was last seen driving home from work Monday. She drives a late model green volvo with Texas license plate number 5TK-4B3. Witnesses say she had a disagreement with her boss shortly before going home. If you have any information on the disapperance of this woman please call the crystal county sheriff's office, the FBI, or the state police right away.

In other news a body has washed ashore. Just east of the Chucktern Farm. A spokesman for the CCSO (crystal county sheriff's office) said that it was of the late Henry Doubleton. Henry Doubleton also used to work at the Vu industrial complex. He was a truck driver. Police are as of yet unsure if the 2 vicitims have any connection since a big portion of the city works at that industrial complex. If you have any information regarding this man please call the sheriff's office. As we know more, KSIM TV will let you know! Stay tuned!

1 week later
POLICE MEMO!
To all officers:

Please note we have received some new evidence in the ongoig vu industries investigation. These pictures could possibly prove vu industries of illegal smuggling, toxic dumping, and kidnapping activities. Please take note of these new aerial photographs smuggled to us by an anonymous source. Be on the lookout. We must find these locations as soon as possible.

A dumping facility being built and completed, hopefully this is not where all our city trash ends up:



A port for smuggling, if you look closely you can see some wanted felons and smugglers, it seems they've taken up kidnapping too. And this could also possibly be the reason our unusually high street drug market.


It seems the port was so popular with the black market that it recently had to be expanded.


End Document. For your eyes only!

1 more week later


This just in, police have begun raiding vu industries!


Apparently with some new evidence, the sheriff's office and the city fire marshal have cracked their case. Somehow with the help of informants they found the locations of a few illegal activities sponsored by Vu industries. You don't want to know where our city trash has been going.

Denise Kroger was found slightly dehydrated in a back room of the office complex that the police raided. She was immediately rushed to the hospital for observation, but doctors say she'll be just fine. She's resting with her family tonight.

When asked for comment Mayor Schaffer simply said: I promised the people I'd get to the bottom of this. I've authorized the proper agencies to seize all assetts of Vu industries in Port Seastone. It's a mess out there, but I assure the people we will not stop, until it's completely cleaned up. There will be 3 shifts day and night to make sure that work is being done 24/7. There was a lot of illegal operations out here, and unheard of toxic pollution levels. This will be cleaned up, and we will once again be the cleanest city possible in port seastone! I personally am overseeing the re-distrubution of all the assetts of Vu Industries.

The Next Day
The people were so delighted with the mayor's hard and honest work, and the fact that there has finally been some closure with vu industries, that they decided to throw a celebration for the mayor. One young citizen described him as the father he always wanted.



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Comments, suggestions, story ideas anyone? Keep checking back cuz there will be more updates!

[ar3man2005 0]

Very nice....a lot of detail, I like it...and the breaknews alway have something comeup new!!
Nice...I like the pic which those car are lighting~ Nice

[kujoe 0]

Just to let everyone know, i had to send my laptop off for repair, when it comes back i will be able to give some more updates.

[bobinator 0]

Looks awsome! could we see a region view please?

[college_emt_dinger 0]

looking quite good so far, I especially like those flashing lights that you have there....nice job!

[oroen 0]

Exciting, intriguing! I like how you planned out your residential subdivisions near the schools, which is very often the focus of suburban neighborhoods.

[kujoe 0]

Just to let you guys know updates should come soon again. My laptop was repaired and things are back to normal.