Episode 5
The creepy and satanic vibe of this video is appropriate, reflecting the nature of the dystopian secrets, the pain and suffering the city hides.
- M Luminoth
Episode 5
Welcome! It's another (hopefully beautiful) day in New Magnasanti and a time for another part of this interesting, if perilous, adventure. As no new entries (apart from the content recycled into the CJ format) have appeared for a long time, I believe you will like today's report which is a brand new part of New Magnasanti's story. Enjoy!
If you remember from last time, I have invited an external advisory firm to help me revitalize Magnasanti - "Vetinaris Clerk Urban Excellence Think Tank" (VCUETT). The amount of work continues to be so great that I simply need a few dozens of helping hands to wrap my mind around the city and the problems it has. One of the most valuable suggestions put forth by the VCUETT was to organize a new initiative named "Mayoral Meet & Greet".
The idea was to invite random Magnasantians to have a walk with me - their new mayor - through the city so I can better know the history of their home and themselves while they can learn about my plans and the, hopefully, brighter future that awaits them. I was really excited with this project so once an agreement to carry it out landed on my desk, I signed it, you could say, with both hands. Thus "Mayoral Meet & Greet" had become a fact.
After the residents selection process (which involved diving headfirst into a swimming pool full of numbered rubber balls) several lucky Sims have been chosen for the initiative and I spent a total of several days taking promenades across New Magnasanti in their company. These are the stories they told me during our meetings...
Citizen #1
Name: Stanislav Wilmot
Occupation: Police civil servant - monitoring specialist
Age: 45
The moment I saw Stanislav for the first time, I was astounded with... how old he looked. He had trouble walking, used a cane and was already balding at an age at which men outside Magnasanti were, so to say, taking hair for granted. Although I tried to hide my surprise, Stanislav probably knew what I was thinking and started a tirade about the weight of poor healthcare on the residents of Magnasanti.
I was curious to hear what Stanislav had to say about his work in one of the very institutions which held the entire city captive for almost 50000 years . "It's not that simple. You see..." he started and I soon realized that it was actually very complicated...
For untold millennia, as he informed me, people in Magnasanti were trapped behind a huge wall of concrete which separated them from the outside world and which has partially been toppled during the revolution. However, when the city had first started to grow, Imperar Omnika had maintained that he wished to construct a city of perfect efficiency and spatial distribution. The wall, according to him, was absolutely required to isolate Magnasanti from the outside world and even the view of it in order to maintain the city's pristine state and its success.
Of course, as the time flew by, the initial goal become twisted and retold every century until, by 4500 A.D. nobody was able to recall why the wall was there and whether there has ever been anything beyond it... Magnasanti has become the only reality that have ever existed.
However, by an incredible strike of luck, at the age of 20 when Stanislav visited one of the libraries in the city (one of the few entertainment facilities Magnasanti had) by accident, he found a couple of... postcards from some strange places that he had never heard of... Although the postcards were quite fragile and badly damaged, he could make out, what appeared to be, other cities imprinted on them...
Stanislav told me that he instantly knew these were genuine photographs of real places, because computer graphics and art were forbidden in Magnasanti as illogical and wasteful activities. There was no possibility of a forgery!
Stanislav has also told me that after he found the postcards he tried to find a job that could help him unravel the secrets of the mysterious places illustrated... By the word of mouth, his own research and... certain illegal activities, he found out that a handful of Imperar Omnika's trusted police members, have occasionally been sent on top of the Magnasanti Wall to ensure that the dreaded barrier is in shape good enough to keep citizens trapped in his "perfect" city.
As our "mayoral walk" drew to a close, Stanislav told me that he joined the police force in hopes that he can become one of the "trusted ones" who were allowed to climb atop that wall. As he said, at least once in his lifetime, he wanted to see the outside world with his own eyes. Perhaps spread the word of it further on or if not, at least fling himself from the top of the wall, knowing that he saw the most beautiful view he could ever hope to see after living his entire life in a lockdown...
Citizen #2
Name: Remedy Chellston
Occupation: Member of the R.E.B.U.I.L.D
Age: 25
Stiff upper lip and the poker face of a born warrior was what stood right out when I first saw this young, blond-haired rebel for the first time. Remedy has struck me as an exceptionally intelligent and brave soul. Just like Stanislav, by some cosmic miracle she managed to obtain the wisdom of the generations long gone and knew that better and more reasonable life has once been possible despite all the evidence contrary.
During our walk, Remedy told me that in R.E.B.U.I.L.D she played a role of the so-called "custodian" and she took care of the so-called "remembralls" - objects like Stanislav has managed to find... In other words, remembralls were proofs that the world outside the confines of Magnasanti still exists.
Remedy went to great lengths to explain the story of remembralls and her role in preserving them. She told me that at some point between 2300 and 3800 AD - during the most brutal time of opression in Magnasanti - then resistance movement had realized that victory against Imperar Omnika was impossible within any reasonable timeframe.
They determined that the only way to preserve the knowledge they had about their goals and the truth beyond the wall surrounding the city was by storing it in and conveying it through seemingly meaningless items. Like postcards, small pieces of embroidery, glass marbles etc. - anything that could point to creative thought, the little "imperfections" of life, or the world outside Magnasanti. As previously said, any items like these were considered wasteful and impractical in the mathematically and ideologically-perfect "utopia". Possession of such items was strictly forbidden and has sometimes been punishable with life in prison (as if being outside of prison in Magnasanti was anything better...)
The plan, Remedy continued, has been put into motion and the resistance movement has managed to frantically collect around 5600 remembralls. The resistance movement of old ceased to exist in unknown circumstances by 4000 AD but the remembralls survived. Scattered throughout the city, they waited to be uncovered by the future generations.
Remedy maintained that R.E.B.U.I.L.D has managed to confirm that the police forces of Magnasanti had a special unit which was involved in search & destroy raids against such items. In any case, out of 5600 remembralls, only 32... just 32 made it until today. I always knew that we have won Magnasanti back by a narrow margin. I just never realized just how narrow this margin was...
In any case, Remedy told me that her role was to take care of and relocate items whenever a police raid was imminent. As a young person, she still had enough health and mobility to be able to outrun and outsmart most of the cops. However, as she defeatedly admitted, she "failed" two remembralls during her career. Were it not for the revolution, she would have spent the next 27 years in prison... In most cases - a life sentence given the average life expectancy in New Magnasanti.
During our walk, the rebel took me to a rather regular, abandoned block of apartments which, as I have learned, had contained all of the surviving remembralls.
As she informed me, the building we have entered was R.E.B.U.I.L.D's former headquarters. Several armed guards have greeted us and one of them have led us to the main "display room" in which I was allowed to take a photo of some of the surviving items. Other items, as the rebels had informed me, were in a very bad condition and efforts were ongoing to preserve them. I have managed to closely inspect each of the available objects and did not know what to say. These, by our standards, were perfectly mundane objects... decorative espresso cups, small toys, artificial flowers, glass marbles or even hairbands with plastic "jewelry" pieces. None of these objects really stood out but they still had a near magical significance to the Magnasantians...
* * *
The first session of the mayoral "Meet & Greet" has been an interesting but also overwhelming experience. I returned to my office in the early evening and slumped into an armchair located next to my desk. Looking at the nightly sky and an overwhelming, darkening jungle of old, rundown sky-rises I tried to gather my thoughts, trying to decide what to do with this city next and how to help the brave but downtrodden, people unlucky enough to call New Magnasanti their home. I decided to put any big changes off for the time being and determined that it was already too late to take any reasonable decisions.
The next day, however, I came to the conclusion that there is at least one good idea that I can quickly bring to life. Namely, turn the old R.E.B.U.I.L.D HQ into the "Remembrall Museum" in which all of the New Magnasantians' precious objects could be protected and put on permanent display. As a testament to the citizens' resilience and hope and a warning for the future generations...
Although not really visible from the bird's view, the old R.E.B.U.I.L.D HQ has thus been surrounded by friendly greenery and became a significant part of the New Magnasanti's history. I even found some time to plant first-in-ages, free-growing trees in a different area of the city...
Before I called it a day, I also removed seven city jails from New Magnasanti as the number of criminals continues to steadily drop. It was sure a welcome sight for any New Magnasantians like Remedy who either served or faced a threat of serving most of their lives behind bars during the old regime...
This is how New Magnasanti looks like by the end of today's episode:
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