Mystery Man

Followers 0

Entry posted by HalcyonSpirit · April 16, 2009

234 Views

Comrade Thomas, leader of the small village of Vascrenard, hit the ground running in his bid to quickly establish the town as an industrial stronghold. An engineer at heart, he knew the initial stages of Vascrenard's development would be absolutely crucial to its survival. His home country would need proof that the town was viable before they would truly support it. Even if he were to convince the government to support them, any supplies would need to come by sea, and by relatively small ships for quite some time. The more northern location of the valley also caused him worry, since winters could be brutal and any supply shipments could be delayed by ice. He would need to make sure the town could survive even without outside help. Achieving both viability and survivability at the same time would be extremely difficult. Mayor Thomas immediately called a town meeting to decide on a course of action.

"We should focus on making the town profitable," one advisor commented. "If we do that, we'll have a constant supply chain from our homeland and we'll never have to worry about providing for ourselves again."

"And if the supply chain is broken at all? What then?" another advisor asked curtly.

"We'll make sure we always have emergency resources on hand if anything were to delay shipments. It'll never become a problem!"

Mayor Thomas noted that the residents attending the meeting seemed to largely be in agreement with that idea. He knew it was a foolish line of thought and needed to put it down quickly. "And if our government decides not to fund us even with our profitability? Or if our government, for whatever reason, can't fund us anymore? What then?" The looks everyone was giving him were that of slow realization. "Right, we'd have to go back. Leave this place behind. I don't think anyone here wants that. Let's focus on actions for our survival first."

Pointing out that single fact turned the public's opinion in his favor, and it was soon decided that the logging industry would be beneficial for their survival if things went bad. More residents were recruited for logging work, and the logging sites became even more active. Logs that escaped from truckbeds and railcars soon became a common site on the shores of the bay.

The farmlands were next on the list. While Mayor Thomas knew that the valley would not be able to support enough farmland to feed the current population, let alone the immigrants still to come, the food they could provide meant that much less needed to be shipped from overseas.

At the same time, a new area of houses for arriving immigrants was laid out beyond the farmland. Whenever the main industrial sectors were constructed, the factories would need workers immediately, so having that workforce already there would make it much easier to get everything up and running. The new citizens of Vascrenard arrived late at night, thus bringing about an unusual midnight rush hour as they traveled to their new homes.

Mayor Thomas realized that the possibility of nighttime shipments in the future was quite high, and so a lighthouse soon became the centerpiece of the bay area.

Several months passed. It would be some time before there was enough material to resume construction of new buildings. Money was also tight, and some people were beginning to grumble about the lack of services like basic healthcare and schools. It was then that Mayor Thomas was approached by one of the residents. He was an older man, easily in his sixties. He invited the mayor to his house for lunch to speak of matters concerning the town. When he got there, Mayor Thomas took one look at the man's house and realized just what kind of person he was.

Over lunch, the man explained how he wanted to live in Vascrenard for the rest of his life, and would devote his financial wealth to making sure that happened as long as the town agreed to having some limitations placed on it. A compromise to benefit both parties. The mayor wanted assurances of his sincerity, however. The man, unfazed, sent out a request for a shipment of materials the very next day. A month later the ship arrived, and the materials unloaded.

The materials were for an extension of the railways to the new residential community and, more significantly, a new natural gas power plant! The town had been straining the portable geothermal generators for quite some time, and so the new power plant couldn't have come soon enough.

The town advisors, seeing this and having been briefed by the mayor about the deal, practically forced the mayor to sign the deal before he could even have a chance to go through the formalities involved. At the same time, new shipments were finally arriving from the homeland and new factories began churning out products for use by the town. A landfill was finally zoned due to the rapid increase in waste products building up in the town from the new factories.