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Episode 40 – Ham Solo and Chewbarker
Craig-Abcvs posted a City Journal entry in Cyanos: Ice, Wind and Fire
Episode 40 - Ham Solo and Chewbarker -
Episode 39 – Lode Bearers
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Episode 37 - Machinations
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@TheMurderousCricket, @TogaMasterJohn, @carlosmarcelo, @mitsos, @Chappington, @raynev1, @TG24, @Golan0, @whiteshark365, @CaptCity, @MissVanleider, @ByeByeBayou, @Dead_End and @Kuba138, thank you for your likes, comments and follows Time to begin the construction of a new solarpunk city, this time named Olivia-4. Olivia-4 was supposed to be another linear chain city, just like the previous ones, with only 2 road connections. However if you see closely at the east part of the city, you'll find a third road connection too. Olivia-4 is going to be connected with 3 cities, with Hazelfield already being one of them. This city is going to have many futuristic surprises. See the wavy street? Notice that the main road is expanding into an empty area? In the next entry you'll see why. We have the roads, we have the magnetic railroad, so now it's time to prepare the ground for our city. For once again, no excessive terraforming. Just let the landscape as it is. This is also a good time to build our public transportation systems, with bus stops in every corner and underground pods stations in the main roads, which will be expanded later. And now we can plant our trees... ...and begin the construction and the landscaping of the area. Right now the town has some parks, some neighborhood mini farms, a vertical farm, a market next to it... ...a police station, a fire station, a clinic which expands underway as well, a primary school, a secondary school, a library, a museum, some playgrounds... ...a college and a lake. But this is just the beginning. How the town will like is something we'll see in the next entry. And let's not forget the landscaping, making the area as beautiful as possible. The construction has begun. Sims are coming to the town to build their houses and infrastructures, but we have to wait to see how Olivia-4 will actually look like. The only thing I can say for now is that after taking those pictures I made some progress and many things has already been changed. This teaser is a little small because, as I said before, Olivia-4 is going to have some really cool futuristic surprises. Can't tell what, can't show you now, just be patient. Right now I'm reading and making some homework for my postgraduate studies, but hopefully the next entry will be ready soon. See you there
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@Michi, @AtkinsSJ_, @Dead_End, @Dominic1 , @Sinister, @ThizGamer24, @TogaMasterJohn, @TheMurderousCricket, @luklitzke, @mitsos, @ByeByeBayou, @chick3n, @carlosmarcelo, @Chappington, @MissVanleider, @CaptCity and @Golan0, thank you very much for your comments, likes and follows I'm participating in a program of postgraduate studies about environmental technologies and politics, which means more time for studying but also better cities, because I can use and apply some of those new knowledge to my incoming towns. I already have some neat plans for my future cities, so watch this space Now, hopefully you wear pajamas and have some hot chocolate, because we're going to visit Hazelfield at night. This time I don't have a lot to say, so just enjoy the pictures. All AI-controlled transportation systems are in 24/7 service. No matter when and where, you can always take the train or the subway pods to go wherever you want. And yes, some of the benches have neon. We're in the future, we want unnecessary but cool Tron-styled futuristic stuff There is still some activity in the night. Many people prefer to sleep, but others are what we called them "night owls", who prefer to sleep at day and get active and productive at night. We need both day and night people, so mocking night owls is bull crap. James Rolfe, the creator of Angry Video Game Nerd, has something to say about it in his You Know What's BS series. Warning, lot's of bad words What? No lots of light? Well, yes. The more trees you have to hide them, the less lights you see. After all, don't you hate it when you try to sleep and some external lights are disrupting you? Humans need sleep, but robots, drones and AIs doesn't. If you need something you can still get it even late at night. Make your order and a drone will bring to you whatever you need. Just respect the owners and don't wake them up. Unless they don't sleep too. Insomnia? Don't worry. Take your time to enjoy the night view of the forest from your apartment, or visit the forest and go stargazing. Be careful though, you don't want to disrupt a bear or fall and break a leg. As we said before, robot's doesn't sleep, so they can keep the factories and laboratories ruining even in night. The machines do all the job, so humans can enjoy the night however they wish, like having conversations and swimming in pools. Daytime can be very busy. This is why some people prefer to pray at the church late in midnight. Cyan Tron-like lighting. Welcome to the future Wanna play chess and feed the ducks in 3:00 am? Go ahead. Meetings in 2:00 am? Why not? This is why we invented artificial lighting, to expand our circle of activities and do whatever we want whenever we want. Fountains of clean water in night. A beautiful sight to see and a wonderful sound to hear. Now that Hazelfield it done, we can keep expanding our futuristic solarpunk civilization... ...by building a new town, which is coming with a neat surprice. See you there
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@TogaMasterJohn, @tomz16, @korver, @Schulmanator, @mitsos, @Kloudkicker and @ByeByeBayou, thank you very much for your likes and follows. I'm deeply sorry for the lack of new entries since January, but real life can be so annoying even (or, especially) during lockdowns. I also wanted to take my time and use it as an opportunity to improve my mayor skills and raise the bar, by making the next town even better and more detailed than ever. Hopefully I've achieved it. The next town is named Hazelfield and is south to Everret Green. It's on a mostly flat area, so building a big town here will be very easy. The regional magnetic railroad is already crossing the area, so let's build a main road next to it. And yes, there is a good reason why I made a specific, flat building block right in the middle of the town. Building a big town is very easy, just fill the entire area with roads and buildings. But this was not my goal when I started the construction of Hazelfield. My goal was to do something better, to build a big and unique town, one that would be an evolutionary step of the green futuristic towns already existed in Fairview, while still following the aims and philosophy of the region. In this case, an ecological octagonal town of the future! Octagonal cities sounds awesome on paper, until you give it a try and attempt to build them. Then it's pain in the butt, because you'll need a mathematical formula to make the necessary calculations to build the octagonal city, and even then is almost guarantee you're gonna mess things up. 7 years ago I discovered that the best formula to will help you making almost perfect octagons is s/1.4, where s is the length of the octagon you want to build. Example below. If you want to make your own octagonal cities, give this formula a try to calculate the diagonals and don't forget to make the rounding. Oh, and keep an eye for any miscalculation results. Making the octagon is only the one half of the challenge. Filling the octagon is the second half. I tried to come up with a beautiful and futuristic layout without disrupting the landscape too much, and I think I've got it. The overall design and the general idea behind the octagonal shape of Hazelfield is based on an actual concept, more information of it coming in the next entry, when the city will be ready. Don't worry about the roads, most of them will be replaced by streets. These are just placeholders that function as guidance map and as a way to make our road network smooth enough. Now it's time to prepare our landscape for our urban infrastructures, by "terraforming" our area to make small flat terraces. We don't want to flat the entire area, but we don't want to just blindly build stuff to make a chaotic ugly mess either. We want a middle ground, there the town is developing nicely while respecting the environment. Every city needs power, food, water and trash management, and Hazelnuts is not an exception, with all the necessary facilities being outside of the town. We have already build solar plants and wind generators, so let's try something different for once and pick a different type of energy source, geothermal. Hazelfield will be running with geothermal energy, and in our next entry we'll learn more about this type of energy and its fully potentials. Sims need food, but why wasting too much land and resources while polluting the environment with pesticides, when we can grow our food inside tall skyfarms? A new generation of waste disposal is in our hand, this time based on advances in genetics to manage garbage. How? Next entry. At first in this area is where I was thinking about building my skyfarms, until I discovered a small dent in this area. So I expanded this dent a bit and turn it into a small lake for Hazelfield's water needs. More of it soon. Now that we have all the above needs covered, it's time to prepare the town by planting trees, replacing a large portion of the roads with humble streets... ...and building a tower in the middle of Hazelfield! Remember when we had to built individual police stations, fire stations, schools and hospitals? Not in this town, and maybe not anymore. Instead, we'll be using the Small City Facilities Central made by @happyapple to pack everything under the same roof. Now, I'm sure that some of you will find a tall tower in the middle of a small town unrealistic, but A) it's based on an old Japanese concept, more info about in soon, and B) are you still obsessed with realism in a futuristic landscape? I'm sorry that my towns doesn't have castles and coal power plants And of course let's not forget the abundance of bus stops, underground pod hubs and magnetic train stations, so our Sims could go anywhere they want without the limitations of cars. Everything is set, so it's time to remove the rail tiles and fill those gaps with zones, parks and other stuff. The problem is that in many cases I just couldn't came up with something good, and I don't know how the town and its needs will evolve during the development. Will my Sims need more houses that I've zoned? What about the rewards? If I cover all the gaps, I will probably face a situation where important improvements are required, but no empty space to do them. So I think it's better to fill some gaps, let the town go, and fill the rest of them as needed. Some work has been done though, such as lakes, paths, and tons of diagonal parks made by @mattb325 In Everret Green I tried to make a landscape as realistic and detailed as possible. But since my terrain mod changes per month, I'm going to paint the landscape based on those changes this time, hopefully to get an ever better result with even more details. The construction of Hazelfield was a heck of a challenge, and it's not finished yet. I hope the next entry will be ready faster than this one, where the town will be fully finished and we'll take a tour in it. See you there
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@korver, @mitsos, @rivit, @Kloudkicker, @Nero55, @TogaMasterJohn, @ByeByeBayou, @mrsmartman, @Schulmanator, @ulisse and @mattb325, thank you very much for your likes, comments and follows, as well as your wishes for my birthday. If you have found any idea, discovery, technology, invention and solution, please let me know and I'll include it to Fairview A new town is under development, but for now let's have a last look at Everret Green, this time at night. I remember myself as a student of Technological Educational Institute of Ionian Islands in Zakynthos. One night I waked up in the midnight for some reason and I decided to just hit the road and start walking in the streets of Zakynthos City. It was so quiet, so peaceful, so beautiful. I had a feeling so unique that I always try to capture it in my night pictures. I hope you share the same feeling with me right now. And speaking about feelings and decisions... Today, more and more people agree that the modern inhuman way of living, being always on-foot to work for the rest of your life in an endless sleep-work-repeat circle, it's detrimental for our physical and spiritual health. But by having a different way of thinking and acting, we could be the masters of our life and live however we wish. In a society where money -or any kind of trade- doesn't govern us anymore, where there would be no trace of modern society's narrow-minded rules and perceptions, people will not feel the need to be so obsessed with tracking the time and chasing the clock, and they'll just live, discover, enjoy, relax, think, create, explore and communicate. The entire day and the entire night will be theirs to live. This is why Everret Green and the rest of Fairview is so quiet and so busy at the same time, having its own lifestyle. While some of the machines and robots are still working, many people prefer stargazing, having some peaceful walks in the streets of the town, playing games with their friends, or just sleeping. Here are some examples of night freedom. A basketball match at 1:00 am. With no criminals here and without any reason to wake up early, you can spend your entire nights outdoor. Heck, you can even sleep on one of the benches and nobody will disturb you. A tennis match at 2:00 am. Don't worry, all buildings are sound insulated, so nobody's sleep is going to be disrupted. Look at the cultural museum of the town (the domed buildings next to the police station) and you'll see some kids playing with the fire hydrant at 3:00 am. All cars here are equipped with computers and sensors, so if they see a kid they'll immediately stop. You don't need to wait for the daylight to go wherever you want. Just pick the magnetic train or the underground pods anytime you want to. Or, go out and explore the forest of Everret Green, admire the beautiful owls, watch from safe distant animals like bears and deer, let the moonlight illuminate your way, feel one with the nature. Always with caution. Oh, by the way, Everret Green and the rest of Fairview region celebrated the New Year's Eve last week. Not with firework displays, though. While they're spectacular, fireworks have a tremendous impact to the environment. They pollute the atmosphere, they produce a lot of noise, and they can even kill dozens of birds and other animals. And of course since they are for just a single use, we don't need to mention how wasteful they are. This is why Fairview celebrated New Year's Eve with drone displays, like this one happened in Solvag in 2019. Everret Green deployed hundreds of drones up the sky, all controlled by the central Artificial Intelligence of the town, providing a beautiful display of different colors and shapes. Those drones are propelled by ion engines to minimize noise pollution, are equipped with sensors to detect and avoid any flying animal like bats and owls, and their lights are bright enough to perform a spectacular show without contributing to light pollution. And unlike fireworks, drones can be used again and again. Why noise and violent explosions, when you can have futuristic and humble dancing lights? Some of you might ask if this entry is supposed to be a festive one. Well, yes, but in my way. Today is Theophany in Greece, a Christian feast day that celebrates the revelation of God incarnate as Jesus Christ, and thus the final day of our festive period. So party time is over, but not without a final wish to all of you. I'm not here to wish you have a happy new year. I'm here to encourage you to build the happy year you all deserve to have. 2020 sucked, so let's give our best selves to make 2021 suck less. There's still a pandemic out there, so stay safe, trust science, put a mask, wash your hands, do the vaccine (don't worry, it will not turn you into zombies), and protect your family and friends. Be the hero you always needed
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@mitsos, @ulisse, @mattb325, @ByeByeBayou, @mrsmartman, @Schulmanator, @Manuel-ito, @Raymond7cn and @TogaMasterJohn, thank you very much for your likes, comments and follows I was born in 14/12/1984 and I've been a Simtropolis member since 13/12/2008. Yes, I tried to coincide them when I was singing up, but I missed it for a day . Anyway, being 36 years old and a Simtropolis member for 12 years (which membership covers the one third of my life! ) is still a big day for me, so let me celebrate it by giving you a gift. A very special entry of my city journal. What makes it special is the amount of time and details I put on our new town, including a more realistic (I hope ) and with more variant landscape. The two previous entries had only two kind of flora, the Maxis deciduous trees and the @Pegasus pines. Those trees are back, but this time we'll also have bushes, flowers, other small flora, rocks, logs, and even dead trees. From now I'll try to make my landscapes more detailed and realistic and I think I'll need your help to do that. Consider it a team project Now, let's go back to Fairview and meet our new town, Everret Green. Named after the German word eber which means "wild boar", Everret Green is right next to Daphnerose, and its layout, which is a mix of organic and grid style, makes it look more like something between a triangle and a heart. Don't forget that the shapes and the layouts of our towns are shaped by the topography of the local landscape, in order to reduce their environmental footprint and even make good use of the local environment. Why removing a river, when you can let it work for you? Why fighting something, when you can use it for your benefit? And this is the transportation map of Fairview, with Dawnville, Daphnerose and Everret Green for now. I use the Transportation Map Modd For Color Blind by @BannanaPeppers, because I like the bright colors and the addition of the streets on the map. For now the only transportation systems we have are the main road (yellow), streets (white) and the magnetic railroad (blue). And of course the flexible underground pods system (more for it soon), which is obviously absent from the map. No avenues, no highways. As you can see, I've expanded the magnetic railroad to the rest of the part of the region which is going to be colonized (purple), because building the railroad at the same time with the towns increases the probability of making a huge construction error, leading to a big mess. This is why it's so important to think forward and plan ahead, as I said before on our previous entry. And, this is it. Welcome to Fairview once again. Welcome to Everret Green. A small town of the future, with advanced computers, Artificial Intelligence (AI), holograms, vertical farms, flexible public transportation systems, 3D printers, solar-powers smart homes, and a lot of trees everywhere. Who said that the cities of tomorrow should be like Night City from Cyberpunk 2077? Let's get closer. That's a lot of trees, don't you thing? So many tall trees that you need to see the town from every angle, or else you'll miss so many small buildings overshadowed by pines and redwoods. But look more carefully. This time you can also see a lot of flowers and other details outside of Everret Green. Just like in Dawnville and Daphnerose, not the entire area has been colonized and developed. A very large part of it is part of a hill and a large body of water, so the only way to colonize it is by excessive terraforming and natural destruction, which is out of question. There is no reason to do that. We don't want to choke nature. We want to coexist with it. We want islands of civilization in a vast ocean of wilderness, instead of the opposite one. We want cities to think, nature to breath, and animals and humans to be free. Besides, don't you love it when you can get out of your house and explore the forest, smell the flowers, breath some fresh air, feel the grass on your feet, watch the bears from safe distance, listen to the birds, sit on a rock to think, and just relax under the shadow of a tree? Of course spending time with friends in cyberspace and having fun with holographic games and virtual shows are always welcomed, and Fairview has something for everyone. But nothing beats the joy of feeling one with the nature. Let's go now even closer and have a better look at Everret Green's districts. This is the main, central area. This is where all the civic services, the spiritual temple, the central computer, the skyfarms, the domed parks, and most of the commercial and industrial buildings are located. This is one of the two mostly residential areas, with the water tower, the mayor's house and some shops and offices. And here is the other residential area, with some shops, factories and trail paths. Ready for a little tour to Everret Green? Alright, let's go. First, let's explore the central district of the town, at which we'll find so many things to see, so we'll need to stay here for a while. When entering the town from Daphnerose, the very first thing you'll see is the very first commercial tower in the region, located at the central commercial zone of Everret Green. This zone provides most of the goods and services that the citizens need, and you can get them on foot, with bicycle or any other futuristic personal transportation system, by bus, by your electric and autonomous car, or by the underground transportation network. You can hit the road or the street, or the trail path you can see behind of the tower, that connects homes with shops and provides a neat way to walk and go exercise. You can also see some small parks at some of the sides of it. Alternative, if you're sick or out and about, just check their cyber-shops and make the order. Soon, a drone with small ion engines (more info for it soon) will pay a visit at your house or wherever you are right now with whatever you have ordered. The workers at the tower must have a very beautiful view to the Fairview forest Another view of the central commercial zone. Here you can see some homes, a part of the magnetic railroad, and the trail path of that area. Trail paths are not uncommon. They're a more healthy and eco-friendly way to move around, decreasing the need of cars. Look closely under the elevated magnetic railroad and you'll see a trail path too, with some bikers riding their bicycles, while having an AI-controlled magnetic train traveling right above their heads. More and more jobs in Fairview are under the guidance of Artificial Intelligence and operated by robots to free men and women, to liberate them from enforced servitude and slavery, to allow them pursuing the meaning of life and higher things and ideals, and live a life rich in spiritual and physical experiences. Who said that the meaning of life should be working on a boring and meaningless job? And another view of the trail path. We can also see here a domed park, the police and fire stations and the cultural museum of Everret Green. We'll be visiting them very soon. Right next to the commercial zone is the primary (or "elementary") school, using augmented reality holograms and interactive tele-education systems, not only to fill the children's minds with up-to-date and free-from-bias knowledge with fun ways, but most important to teach them how to think, how to use their mind to become active and responsible thinkers, instead of passive and irresponsible idiots. As Jiddu Krishnamurti said, "education is not only learning from books, memorizing some facts, but also learning how to look, how to listen to what the books are saying, whether they are saying something true or false". Next to the school is the Everret Green's library, which has both physical and digital books for everyone to read. Digital books are always available at the Cybernet (the future evolution of the Internet) and can be downloaded and stored even in a small nanochip, so an entire and always up-to-dated encyclopedia of knowledge, full of images and interactive multimedia, can fit on your little finger. However, physical books have not been thrown away. They are always kept and stored safely like a treasure, as a heritage for the next generations to enjoy them. Each library on Fairview has its own collection of physical books, so not all of them are in one single building. For instance, Daphnerose's library has plenty of old astronomy and science fiction books (like A Brief History of Time and The War of the Worlds), while Dawnville's one has a great collection of environmental books and fairy tales (like Silent Spring and Aesopica). Books are a link of the evolutionary chain of information. From genes to brain, to books, to computers, to who know what's next. But books are here to stay. Even if something apocalyptic happens and all advanced technologies fails, the heritage of the books will still stay alive, functioning as storehouses of our past memories and future visions. Recipes that, if used wisely, can change the world. Besides, nothing can beat the smell of an old good book Another view of our educational and commercial corner. From here we can also see some homes, the spiritual temple, the central computer, the clinic, the domed parks, the two skyfarms, and a small part of our main industrial area. And another view of this area. Look closely and we'll see a small trail path between the homes and the factories, and the secondary (or "high") school. The black building is the secondary/high school, that teaches more sophisticated things to teenagers. Now, we all know that a human's brain become more and more capable of understanding more advanced concepts as it grows up, so we tend to teach very simple things to our kids when they're very young. However, children are smarter and more capable to learn more sophisticated concepts and ideas than we believe. Jacque Fresco can gives us an example of how to teach a little babe to use buttons and switches to communicate with his parents. So with the right tools and strategies of actual, honest and scientific education, even the youngest children can learn everything. Heck, we can even teach general relativity and quantum physics to a babe! And I'm not kidding! So, if a modern baby can learn quantum physics and general relativity at the kindergartens of today by books, what a teenager of the future, with access to interactive tele-education, holograms, robotics and quantum computers, can learn at the secondary/high schools of tomorrow? We can't even imagine! But what we should imagine and hope is learning not only how our world and ourselves work, but also how to use those knowledge to better themselves and become free thinkers, questioning the authority, and protecting their minds and souls from the darkness of fear, hate, control, power lust, and stupidity. And the secondary/high school of Everret Green, which is just next to this domed playground with the small basketball court close to it, can help with that. Dawnville and Daphnerose have plenty of open space parks, but Everret Green is the very first town in Fairview that introduces enclosed domed parks. Originally made for the Martian colonies, those parks (like this one on the main road and right next to the covered by the trees clinic) provides an alternative, safer, and more technological way to spend some time relaxing and having some fun. Having their interiors warm in winter and cool in summer, those parks provides a nice place to sit and talk to somebody, have a picnic or play a game, all in a controllable environment, instead of being exposed to the elements of nature. Kids can play football without losing their ball every single time, and adults can telework there without having the wind blowing their recyclable papers all the time. It's even possible to have an underground enclosed garden right under of a domed playground. Those parks are also equipped with very realistic holograms, so they can also be used for festivals or outdoor gaming. You can't fly a kite or feed sparrows inside of those parks, but you can do other things. For instance, imagine yourself being a kid, paying a visit to the domed park, only to find one of your friends having a hologram of the Solar System inside the dome, calling you to play the astronauts. You agree and the entire interior chances into a virtual spaceship or a planetary surface. Have fun Hmm, I wonder how playing SimCity, Super Mario or Doom would look like in those domed parks And this is the Everret Green's central computer, with a small domed garden right next to it. You've read before than human brain is more sophisticated and flexible that we usually tend to think, but the world and the systems that consist of it are so complex that even the most advanced biological brains can't deal with all of this information and calculations. It's just too much. This is why we need each other, but sometimes even that isn't enough. What we need is a powerful ally, an assistant. And there is no better one (aside from each other) than Artificial Intelligence. The central computer of Everret Green houses a sophisticated AI, that replace most of the mayor's work and brain power with electronic equipment and a network of quantum computers, which examines and manipulates multiple concepts at the same time, and gives instructions and solutions far more efficiently than all of the city advisors together. This is the beginning of Cybernation, the linking of computers with robots, AIs and other automated systems, that coordinate most of the machinery and equipment that serve Everret Green, like the magnetic train we saw before. And to ensure the efficient operation of the city’s various functions, all of the processes and services are equipped with electronic environmental feedback sensors. These sensors are coordinated with redundant, back-up systems that operate in the event of failure or breakdown of the city’s primary systems. And the aim of this powerful tool is not to control the citizens by telling them what to do and what to think, but to help people (including the mayor and the advisors of the town) to make better decisions based on actual data, while liberating them from filthy, repetitious, boring, dangerous and mind breaking jobs. Why working hard, when you can work smart and with friends, both physical and digital? Cyberpunk paints a horrible future with a very high technological level but also a very low spiritual one. Solarpunk totally disagrees with that, but it's not the total opposite of it. It's not about high spirituality but low technology. It supports that a responsible use of a high technological level should be used as a powerful tool to live in harmony with nature and obtain a high spiritual level for everybody. New technologies can increase free time, unlock the mysteries of the Cosmos, and bring people together in a big global family. Temples like this one provides a quiet place for everybody to pray, to medicate, to let her/his spirit relax and relief. Those temples doesn't belong to any organized religion, so don't be surprised if you find Christians and Muslims pray together like friends. Religion fundamentalism has no place here. Next to the temple we'll find the town's clinic, equipped with futuristic technologies like robotics, tele-medicine and genetic therapies, to cure the body, the vehicle of the soul. We don't know what exactly the soul is, but one day we'll find the answer. Let's hope that we'll use this knowledge wisely and responsibly, to improve our life and help each other, physically and spiritually. Of course we can't talk about spirituality with empty bellies. We just can't. Food is vital, but the modern ways of agriculture doesn't have the high efficiency and the low environmental footprint we need to feed the people. The ordinary flat farming belongs to the past. What we need is vertical farming. Vertical farms, like this one, are indoors and provide a fully controllable environment to the plants, without being exposed to illnesses, pests and bad weather. The plants are planted at the outer part of the levels of the building to receive enough sunlight from big enough windows. When necessary, the entire levels can rotate to ensure that the plant will keep receiving all the light they need. Robots and drones of different sizes can test and grab fruits and vegetables, and move them where they’re needed. The AI of the skyfarm collaborates with the vertical farmers and the AI of the central computer of Everret Green, to provide and receive feedbacks, and manages all the variables of heat, light and water, continually optimizing, and even learning by itself, how to grow faster, bigger, better crops. Nothing is wasted here. Water lost by transpiration is recaptured and reused. Since all the action takes place inside a tall building, vertical farms can be constructed even in the middle of a city, and produces better fruits and vegetables while using 95% less water and 99% less land. All the above, while using solar energy from a big panel the farm has at its roof. Another view of the skyfarm. Look closely and you'll find buzzards flying around above our green futuristic town. By the way, there is also a building in between of the domed playground with the basketball court and the main road. I have no idea what this building is suppose to do and I plop it just to feel this gap, so feel free to give it a purpose and imagine what this building could be. And look. Another trail path Across the main road are the police and the fire stations, keeping Everret Green safe and secured. Today we still need the police to keep the peace, but police brutality and racism is the last thing we need. This is why more and more people suggest to defund the police. But defunding the police doesn't mean eliminating the police, that would be catastrophic in a modern society than actually allows and even encourages crime. It means a reassessment of law enforcement methods and priorities, emphasizing accountability, enacting reforms ("He who opens a school door, closes a prison" as Victor Hugo said) and redirecting resources where appropriate, thereby refocusing (and even increasing the efficiency) on the mission to help and protect. In the future, with so many radical changes in our social and technological structures that are going to be happening, with a complete redesign of our culture and an immediate upgrade of our way of thinking (because even the most stubborn ideas can't last forever), nobody will have reasons to kill, steal and sell drugs, nor will be there homeless people and terrorists. In the future we are right now at Fairview, the police of Everret Green and the entire region doesn't have the role of the boogeyman, but the role of the rescuer, the diplomat, the advisor, the friend, the cool big brother who helps his family. Somebody you can trust, like a close friend and family member. And if we take this trail path... ...we'll find the cultural museum of Everret Green, where local artists can put on display their creations and talk about them. Those creations can be anything, from paints with natural colors to sculptures made by nanosynthetic materials. If we keep exploring the central district by going south this time, we'll find the industrial zone of Everret Green. Robots and 3D printers, all directed by AIs and human technicians, produces a variety of useful goods, such as tools and furniture. All the factories at Everret Green are efficient and environmental friendly, creating useful items without using too much resources and without producing smoke and waste. The industrial zone also houses small laboratories and warehouses, and there's also a second skyfarm, this one made to experiment with new technologies and goals, such as using aeroponics to produce high quality vegetables that taste amazing while eliminating all plant stress. At the outskirts of Everret Green, where nature meets civilization, we'll find small natural parks, tables for relaxation and picnics, parking lots for the citizens' electric autonomous cars, free-for-use cabins, and observation towers which can be used as fire watch towers and bird watching platforms. In this picture you'll also see a bus stop. One of the many we have here. There are plenty of bus stops on Everret Green, just like at the rest of Fairview, providing faster and safer transportation means while reducing the need of car. And, of course we'll have picnic tables in high tech industrial zones too. Workers need some rest too, you know. Another corner of the industrial zone, with an observation tower, warehouses, artificial photosynthesis laboratories, and a research antenna for studying the impacts of 7G to the local natural environment and public health under the most strictly standards. So far so good. By the way, 7G is the new generation standard for wireless communication technologies, which are even faster and with even larger range than 6G, even to the point of supporting extra-planetary communications with Lunar and orbital colonies, and even paving the road of researching Nicola Tesla's ultimate vision, wireless transmission of electric energy. Let me put it this way. If 5G was about high speed streaming of information and Internet of Things, and if 6G was about holograms and machine-to-mind interactions by satellites, then 7G right now is about global electric network and Earth-to-Moon communications. This is not the end however. A new generation, 8G, is right now under development, that aims to make possible new applications in Earth-to-Mars communications and even the under-development concept of cybernetic brain-to-brain telepathy for the new generation of cyborgs! Of course we have cyborgs. We're in the future! Most of the subway stations are located on the main road and at the magnetic railroad stations, but there are also 3 of them at the very outskirts of Everret Green, all of the next small parks like the ones we saw before. Those specific stations have a beautiful earthy color and design, and their base is surrounded by stones to make them blend with the natural environment, thus reducing the visual pollution they might cause. We'll find the rest two of them as we keep exploring the town. Oh, speaking about subways, don't expect big ordinary trains like those we have today. The subway trains of Fairview are more like personal rapid transit units, pods that work like taxi-train hybrids. In other words, imagine this... ...but underground. Let's go now to the west district of Everret Green. This area is mostly residential, with only a few shops and a couple of laboratories. As you can see, this area follows a more organic layout instead of grid, with smooth curves and diagonal streets. Sadly there are very few diagonal fillers to cover the jagged sidewalk, and non of them can be used on sloped terrain without having overhanged props diving below or flying above them. But this area also has some extra trail paths for walking and cycling. Don't you love it when you're going to your job or a friend's house on foot, surrounded by so many pines and redwoods? Not all of the homes are next to the streets. Some of them are in the middle of the trail paths. This is the second outer subway station, surrounded by rocks at its base and having right next to it a small park with a simple parking lot. This industrial building is a high enthalpy wind tunnel. Those buildings are used for the measurement of the aerodynamical behavior of spaceships during the re-entry in the atmosphere. For the wind tunnel experiment, a piston builds up a high pressure that is supposed to burst a metallic plate with a predetermined breaking point. Due to the shape of the wind tunnel, the shockwave that is created when the plate bursts is transformed into a uniform stream. When this shockwave reaches the model of the spaceship, it is possible to run a laser measurement for the tenth part of a second in order to study the aerodynamics. This wind tunnel is extensively used for fundamental and applied research applied to planetary atmospheric entry, such as fundamental research of high enthalpy fluid dynamic phenomena in non-equilibrium flows, plasma dynamics, experimental data base on planetary atmospheric entries, aerodynamic and aerothermal behavior of probes and models, and atmospheric entry of space debris like asteroids and other space junk. All those researches can then be used to provide useful improvements in safety and efficiency to interplanetary spacecrafts, hypersonic passenger airplanes and commercial spaceplanes. By the way, fancy playing some tennis? Let's go now to the second residential zone. We can get there on foot, by bicycle, by car, by bus, by subway pods, or by magnetic high speed trains. Just like every town we have visited, Everret Green has two central train stations. These are not simple stations, though. They're transport hubs that includes train station, subway pods station and bus stop, all at the same building and under the same roof. By the way, look closely and you'll find bikers moving around at the trail paths right under the magnetic rail tracks. So take your bike or the train... ...follow the tracks... ..and now you're at the other residential area. This area also utilizes a grid style of street network with bus stops in every intersection, and has so many tall trees that can cover entire houses, thus providing some extra privacy to the residents. Just like the rest of the towns at Fairview, all houses at Everret Green are made by synthetic materials with memory characteristics (no more bricks and cement), follow the modular and flexible Barsoomian utilitarianism for faster and safer construction, reconstruction and deconstruction (no more monolithic designs), and are equipped with sophisticated and environmental friendly technologies such as AIs, robots, auto-repairing systems, sensors, solar panels and solar windows, long-live batteries for emergency situations, rain water cleaning and recycling system, nano-organic composting devices, walls that act like monitors too, and advanced augmented reality systems, all providing the best level of comfort and safety possible, at the lowest energy and environmental cost possible. At this area well find the mayor's house, coming with a small park right next to it, and two statues that follows the Barsoomian sculpture style. And this is our third and final subway pods station at the outskirt of the town, next to a cabin and a small picnic field. Don't you like it when you disembark from your subway pod, get on the ground and take a deep breath of fresh air, in a mountain-looking station? Every town has to deal with garbage, but landfills and old school incinerators are out of questions because of the high amounts of pollution they bring. This is why Fairview needs enough recycling centers and green waste-to-energy incinerators to deal with the trash. Right now, only Dawnville has a sophisticated and integrated enough trash management facility to provide its services to Daphnerose and Everret Green as well. But deploying noisy and gazoline-powered garbage trucks, that contribute to traffic jam and air pollution in the time consuming process of collecting so many trash from an entire town, emitting reek and exposing the trash collectors in biohazards, is not a solution. What we need is an underground automated waste collection system, that uses vacuum pressure to move waste and recyclables from buildings and street bins to the trash management facilities. This system, also known as automated vacuum collection (AVAC), transports waste at high speed through underground pneumatic tubes to a collection station, where it is compacted and sealed in containers. When the container is full, it is transported away and emptied. It might sound a bit futuristic, but first, welcome to the future , and second, this system has already been tested, used and developed in various places on Earth. For instance, Council and the Sunshine Coast is installing Australia's first underground automated waste collection system (AWCS) in the new Maroochydore City Centre, so soon this... ...will become a reality Hmm, @mattb325 is from Australia and I think he's working on civic services or something like that. Maybe he's familiar with this project and can give us some extra information. Everret Green is the first town on Fairview that utilizes this new system, with two public sites of gathering and transporting the garbage, each one using a different strategy to deal with different kind of materials. The first one is at the middle of this residential zone. At this one, people can dispose their recyclable materials into portholes specialized for recycling, which from there will be transported by an underground pneumatic system to Dawnville's trash management facilities, obsoleting the need of garbage trucks. The second site is a yard located at the main road, specialized for larger and heavier materials to store and transport them. This yard can also work as an underground warehouse for temporary storing those materials, or send those materials to Dawnville's recycling center and plasma gasification plant by flying drones. By the way, the future drones of Fairview are ion-propelled (and yes, ion engines are not only for space probes anymore) which generate no sound at all, because unlike propels and jet engines, ion engines doesn't have moving parts, which also reduces the time and resources to repair and maintain them. Ion engines right now are not strong enough to lift an entire airplane, not even a flying car. But don't worry. This will be changed in the future. By the way, please ignore the fact that this drone looks like it's colliding with the branches of this tree After a tranquil night, when the Sun goes up, you open your smart window and what's the very first thing you see? In this part of Everret Green, you see trees, birds eating seeds, squirrels playing on the trees, and butterflies flying from flower to flower. And what's the very first thing you want to do? Why, eating your breakfast at those tables of course, becoming one with the nature, enjoying the moment and feeding those little animals, without being too far away from your 3D virtual television. Just like Dawnville, Everret Green is also close to a body of water and above underground water source. This tower pumps up and cleans the underground water and makes it available to the thirsty citizens of the town. The water tower is located in between of an observation tower and a small open area for parking our electric cars. There is also a small path beginning from there. Let's follow it. This path leads to one of the service/access hatch to an underground conduit. The ordinary (and very ugly) power transmission towers with the hanging wires are too dangerous for the local fauna and bring visual pollution to the point of making your eyes want to vomit. On the other hand, wireless transmission of energy hasn't been fully developed yet on Fairview. So the next best thing is using underground wires to connect our renewable energy sources with our towns. But what kind of energy source we use this time? This time we're using a wind turbine, equipped with room-temperature superconductors (and yes, they can already exist), to provide electricity to our civilization. Now, more and more people are concerned about the local problems the wind turbines bring, especially the noise pollution and the bird deaths caused by their blades. Those power plants are very important to decrease and hopefully even eliminate the need of burning fossil fuel, but the challenges they poses should be used as reasons to improve them, not as reasons to remove them. Wind turbines can be upgraded with sound-killing materials and mechanisms to minimize the noise pollution they bring. At the same time, simply by changing the color of a single blade on a turbine from white to black can result in a 70% drop in the number of bird deaths, according to a study ran for nine years at Norway's Smøla wind farm. This time I tried to make the landscape as realistic and detailed as possible, with plenty of types of flora and MMPs to see, such as rocks, weed and a lot of flowers. To do this, I used the ability of the terrain mod I have to display various details, such as flowers and logs, and paint accordingly. Flower above flower, rock above dirt. And then I discovered that this mod changes every month, removing the textured flowers from my prop flowers etc . Next time, I'll try to make it even better. Water is more alive than ever, with weed in it and birds flying around above it. Look closely and you'll see fish swimming around the weed. At first I was thinking about turning this place into a big natural park, but that would require some terraforming that would mess with it. So I decided to let it as it is and even enrich it with trees and flowers. As well as some logs and dead trees. Even more flowers. Some of the Everret Green citizens enjoy to get there (or at least deploy a drone with ion engines) to appreciate the flowers, without picking them up though. Because as Osho said: "If you love a flower, don’t pick it up. Because if you pick it up, it dies and it ceases to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation." And some rocks too. But Fairview, and thus Everret Green, is a home for everybody. Not only for humans, but also for so many animals. Foxes. Even more foxes. Deer. Even more deer. Moses. Buzzards. And bears. And bees, and butterflies, and so many other wonderful creatures. We're all children of the same planet, breathing the same air and sharing the same evolutionary and cosmic origins. And if we can get along, if we can live and let the others live, the possibilities of the future will be endless. "When we talk about building an empathic civilization, we aren't talking about utopia. We are talking about the ability of human beings to show solidarity not only with each other but with our fellow creatures who have a one and only life on this little planet." Jeremy Rifkin Hope you did enjoyed this special entry. What new things we'll find in the next entry? There is only one way to find it out. See you there
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@Dot, @WolfZe, @korver, @bobolee, @kschmidt, @tomz16, @mrsmartman, @Manuel-ito, @Kuba138, @mitsos, @ByeByeBayou, @MilitantRadical and @Raymond7cn: Thank you very much for your comments, likes and follows. One of the topics that this CJ is going to study in an upcoming entry is mining operations and how it could be possible to extract the minerals we need to build our electric vehicles and renewable energy power sources, without having to deal with further environmental damages and terrifying situations like this: Now that's a very interesting and important topic that needs further discussion, and we're going to do this soon. It would be a good opportunity to tell something about the "new technologies will fix everything" rhetoric. For now, let's keep on with the development of Fairview by exploring our new town, Daphnerose. Daphnerose is bigger and more populated than Dawnville because of its almost flat landscape and the general lack of major natural features at this area, such as bodies of water and large cliffs, thus giving the city a larger room to expand and develop without terraforming too much and damaging the environment. While all of our towns in Fairview will share the same environmental aims and principles, each one will still be different from each other, using different strategies for the same goals, having its own unique identity and its own story to tell, being a different kind of experimentation and expression. Different ideas can lead to a large variety of different solutions, and the more ideas you have the more likely is to get the one that will solve your problem. This is one of the reasons why free thinking and free speech, especially when utilize the scientific methodology, are so important. Daphnerose's larger size is not the only reason why it's not like Dawnville. Another reason is the existence of unique infrastructures, such as a farmer's market and a weather station, that we'll be having a look at them very soon. Another difference is the lack of an independence water source and a trash management in Daphnerose. This is because Dawnville's water tower pumps enough clean water from the underground natural deposits there are there, and its garbage management facilities have more than enough room, to support both Dawnville and Daphnerose. Now, the ideal strategy is to make each and every city as self-sufficient as possible, producing its own energy, water, food etc to cover its needs, in order to reduce the environmental footprint of transportation and the risk-bearing consequences of overly dependence on other cities. This doesn't mean that cities can't exchange and trade, or help each other in emergency situations. It means that each city should be able of take care of itself if things goes wrong and nobody else can help. Still there is a debate of how efficient and environmental friendly is giving each city its own individual utilities, like having plenty of small solar power plants in each city instead of fewer but bigger plants in the region to support multiple cities. While Daphnerose has its own power source, it still needs Dawnville to get water and dispose its trash. But what if something bad happens to Daphnerose, forcing the town to face a water or/and garbage crises? Maybe we'll find it out one day. At the south part of Daphnerose we'll find the agricultural and industrial zone of the town. At the north part we'll find most of the residential zones, the magnetic railroads and the central park of the town. South part again, this time looking at the central square, the farmer's market, the cemetery, some of the civic services, and the weather station. And back to the north again, this time looking at the mayor's house and the spiritual temple. Remember when I said that Dawnville is so green that sometimes it's not very easy to tell the difference between nature and civilization? Thanks to Maxis Tree Replacement Mod made by @_marsh_, we took this statement to the next level Let's go now to the agricultural zone. While Dawnville is reliant on a skyfarm, Daphnerose has deployed a variety of agricultural methods to produce a larger variety of food. This includes a smaller skyfarm, advanced greenhouses based on food production methods originally developed for the colonization of Mars, and seasonal food farms. Now, some of you might ask if those small farms are organic farms. Organic food is supposed to be more healthy, natural and ethical, because is farmed without genetic engineered seeds and without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Instead, organic farms use more traditional ways to produce food, like crop rotation, and use organic fertilizers, like compost and manure. All the above sounds awesome, but what you see is not always what you get. Organic farms uses less energy and pesticides than the conventional ones, but have similar greenhouse gas emissions and need more land to produce the same amount of crop. This, adding to the constantly rising demand, have already brought an environmental mess of less sustainable methods, greenhouses that uses too much energy, and even frauds. In a system based on money, competition and greed, of course you'll have frauds. Right now, one of the best solutions suggested to produce healthy food efficiently and as environmental friendly as possible would be a combination of the best features of both organic and conventional farms. But since Fairview is somewhere into the future, we can always imagine new, healthy and eco-friendly ways to produce enough food for everybody, such as hydroponics, genetic engineering, robotic farmers and skyfarms. See this big, white tower? It's a water purification system, that uses bacteria to remove any pesticide and clean the water. Those microbes produces enzymes that break down the pesticides into less toxic substances, which can later be removed entirely. This technique has been initially used to clean up the soil of Mars from perchlorate, making exploration and food farming safe. Regardless, all kinds of food can be accessible to everybody and anybody at the farmer's market here. Or, if you don't feel you want to get out of your house, just make your order and a drone will deliver to you anything you need. Close to the agricultural zone we'll find some small factories that produces various goods. You really think that factories must be big, dirty and ugly, right? Right close to the farmer's market is the police station of Daphnerose, that keeps an eye for any emergency situation. Dawnville has a SimMars fire station. Daphnerose has a more down-to-Earth fire station. Variety is the spice of life, I guess. At the main road and not very far from the police station, we'll see the clinic and the library of Daphnerose next to each other. The library houses both physical and digital books that hold the memories of the past, the status of the present, and the visions of the future. Next to it is the clinic, obscured right now by a tree. This clinic comes with a small dome with pharmaceutical plants for medicines, and a mobile medical center in a bus-like vehicle that patrols both Daphnerose and Dawnville and provides healthcare support when necessary. Flexibility is vital if we want to face the challenges of the future. Close to the above buildings is the town's elementary school, surrounded by shops, parks, and bigger trees this time. Actually, there are so many big trees this time that it's just impossible to see the paths that leads to the entrance of the Daphnerose's high school Next to the high school we'll find the Daphnerose's museum and a small plaza next to it. Man, those new trees really does hide my plazas And finally, for the first time in Fairview, a college. Daphnerose is right now the only town with a college, so students from Dawnville will need to take the bus, the magnetic train or the underground wagons to get here. Just like most of the buildings in Fairview, Daphnerose college's architecture is based on the Barsoomian utilitarianism, originally developed on Mars. But the college itself isn't just based on Martian architecture. Its theme is 100% Martian! And here is why. This is the energy source of Daphnerose, a solar power plant which looks very different from the typical solar plants like those in Dawnville. This is because this specific plant, instead of blue panels, it utilizes red panels, a new type of solar panels initially researched for the Martian colonies. The solar energy on Mars is roughly half as effective as on Earth, so the scientists on Mars invented the red panels by using new techniques in metallurgy, metamaterials and nanotechnology. Those techniques increases the efficiency and energy output of the Martian solar power plants, so it was only a matter of time before this new technology reaches and applies on Earth too. Add a smaller but still efficient power amplifier that utilities room-temperature superconductors, and you'll get solar power plants so effective and cheap that can finally obsolete the nasty fossil fuel power plants. Go red! Go green! Thanks to Daphnerose, Fairview now has its very first weather station. This station is linked to a global forecast network that provides accurate information about the weather and how it will be evolved into the next days. It's stations like this that has already saved many lives by situations like savage storms, and they'll become even more sophisticated and important because of the man-made destabilization of the global climate. Daphnerose is connected to Dawnville by road, subway and magnetic railroad. But one of the coolest features of the town is the abundance of trail paths and bike paths. Anywhere you see you'll find paths that encourages people to go anywhere they wish by foot or by riding a bicycle. There is a bike path even right under the elevated magnetic railroad. Just take your bike and enjoy the trees around you, the song of the birds, and the humming of the electric engines of the cars and the magnetic trains. That path crosses most of the town like the magnetic railroad, and connect the rest of the town to the central park. Paths are a neat way to connect various areas of the town together. They, along with the bus stops at every corner and the subway stations across the main road, encourages walking, biking, skating or using any other futuristic personal transportation system, thus reducing even more the need of cars. It's also a good excuse to build even more parks and plant even more trees. For instance, this path begins from the mayor's house... ...and ends up to the spiritual temple and the park around it, with a playground and a beautiful statue. And the central park has a statue too. Now, let's talk about statues. They are a nice way to honor important persons of the past, such as scientists, artists, philosophers and activists, keeping them and their legacy alive. But not all the people in the past were good guys, and some of them doesn't deserve any honor at all, although who deserves a place in the future Hall of Fame can be debatable even in the most extreme cases. For example, would you like a statue of Adolph Hitler? If yes, maybe that's because you don't want to forget the atrocities he made, hopefully never repeat. If no, maybe that's because you don't want him to get glorified for the atrocities he had made. There is an interesting debate about statues and whether they are pieces of history that must be preserved, no matter who they're honoring, or symbols of past shames that must be removed and destroyed, even if this could lead to a memory self-erasing. History is full of great and horrible moments. We should not forget it, we should not glorify it. And we can't change it. It is what it is, so it's better to learn from it and memorize both its good and its bad moments, if we wish to pick up the torch from our ancestors without repeating their mistakes. And yes, there is a bigger subway station at the north part of the town. Anywhere you look at you'll find trees, parks and other recreational facilities, such as this playground with a small basket field. Look closely and you'll find buzzards flying around the town. And now something very important. There is a problem with SimCity 4 on Windows 10. When placing props that require you to cycle through using left button mouse clicks, the game sees each click as a double mouse click, which in-effect makes half of the props in the cycle unavailable. That was a big deal-breaker to me, because I used to build mini parks and other details by using MMPs, which would be a great addition to Fairview. But one day I found the solution. I discovered that it's possible to play with MMPs on Windows 10 without skipping props. To do this however, you need to hold the right button of the mouse while placing the props. But by doing this, the game will not skip any prop. I've tested many MMP sets and all of those tests have the same result. When placing an MMP with only single clicks of the left mouse button, the game places the second, fourth, sixth, ... prop. But when pressing the right mouse button at first and then start placing an MMP with the left mouse button while keeping the right mouse button pressed, the game places the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, ... prop! And here is the prove. If you still have doubts, give it a try. Just hold the right mouse button while adding MMPs. Why this is so important to me? Because now I can finally do this! Mini parks at the outside of Daphnerose, where Sims can park their electric self-driving cars, relax, have picnics, and even feed the animals. Here is a little detail just out of the Martian-styled cemetery. A small cabin, some parked futuristic vehicles and... is that a zombie? Oh my goodness, so many trees and futuristic technologies. So many buzzards and drones flying around. So much nature and advanced civilization. This is crazy. This is unrealistic. This is madness! Madness? This... Is... SOLARPUNK! Right now, Daphnerose is connected to Dawnville only... ...but we're going to change that. A new town is going to be constructed very soon. See you there
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@Raymond7cn, @Dot, @mrsmartman, @tomz16, @MilitantRadical, @mitsos, @RipRap, @ByeByeBayou, @Manuel-ito, @Kuba138: Thank you very much for your likes, comments and follows I hope I didn't forgot anybody --------------------------------------------- We have already a small city in Fairview and now it's high time to build a second one, just south of Dawnville. All of my towns will have futuristic-solarpunk names, based on the natural landscape, plants and animals, mythology, and pieces of modern and future technology. Our second town is Daphnerose, named after the plants laurel (daphne in Greeks) and rose. Our canvas is ready to be painted with our colors. The colors of the new. The colors of the future. While all of our towns will share the same environmental aims and principles, each one will have its own unique identity and its own story to tell. Each town will be a different kind of experimentation and will have something different to present. And Daphnerose is not an exception. For instance, unlike Dawnville, Daphnerose will have a central roundabout to make the main road network a little more interesting. Trucks are not going to cross this section of the town, so a roundabout will fit nicely there. A good excuse to discourage car drivers from over speeding. Now let's build the rest of the road network and use the rail tool to flat just a bit the landscape, making it more appropriate for our building projects while respecting its anaglyph. And here you can see the second difference between Dawnville and Daphnerose. Instead of being peripheral and encircling the town, the main road now goes through the town, having quiet streets instead of busy roads to separate nature from civilization. The residents will need some access to the magnetic railroad, so let's build two monorail stations. Both of them also works as bus stops and subway stations too for even easier access, while encouraging the usage of public transportation. Speaking about buses, every corner, every building block and every intersection has at least one bus stop, with subway stations across the main road. Of course we can imagine that instead of big buses, Fairview uses smaller and more flexible buses that work like taxis, kind of like how many municipalities operate bus service in more rural areas, like in Belgian countryside. The central roundabout is going to be a busy place, so it needs a nice decoration to make it more interesting and attractive, especially when this decoration also works as a bus stop. Now that we have our land prepared and our transportation systems ready, it's time to plant some trees. And here comes another one difference. Instead of smaller trees, Daphnerose has larger pines to separate the zones and cover the empty sloped spaces inside the town. I really love those pines. They're beautiful and tall enough to provide more and bigger shadows to our Sims, while absorbing even more noise and making our town even more green and cooler. Some extra trees and parks are always welcomed, especially at the diagonal streets to break a bit the gridy feel of the game. And since we're here, let's expand our public transportation system a little more with a nice subway station in the middle of a future residential neighborhood. "What? Subway in non-central area, surrounded by small houses? This is not realistic!" I'm such a bad boy And when I said that every part of the town should have at least one bus stop, I meant it. Time to build our civic services now. I like building my police stations on the main roads for easier and faster access to the rest of the town, so police cars and drones can go anywhere and to any emergency situation ASAP. Our city journal takes place into the future, where police officers stop the crimes and help the people. They don't bully them. Police brutality has no place in Fairview, and neither should have in the real world. Like police stations, fire stations should also be constructed on main roads for faster responses to emergency situations. By the way, this is a different fire station than the one we build at Dawnville. Variety is the spice of life, and "he who controls the spice controls the universe". Got the reference? Don't you love it when a school is surrounded by trees, parks and playgrounds, instead of noisy roads and ugly buildings? Of course this could make the children prefer listening to the birds instead of the teacher, but that's OK. Even the teachers themselves love hearing the birds. You can learn so many things simply by listening to the birds. You can learn to appreciate them and protect them too. Different ages, different buildings, same habits. Same thing at the high school too. No matter how old you are, there will always be the right moments to listening to the birds. As you can see, I like surrounding my civic buildings with nice parks and plazas, and this museum is not an exception. Parks are a nice way to relax and socialize, you know. And here is the digital library next to the clinic. Daphnerose's clinic comes with a mobile medical center, a bus manned by doctors and equipped with medical instruments that patrols both Dawnville and Daphnerose to provide medical care to anybody needs it. When not in patrol, it pays a visit to schools to teach children vital lessons about the human body and how to take care of it, encouraging with that way a healthy way of life. Of course all the above buildings and the entire town needs power, and a solar power plant in a solarpunk future makes a lot of sense. But if you look at it a bit closer, you'll see that this power plant is very different than the one that Dawnville has. That's because Daphnerose's solar plant is based on technologies initially researched for colonizing Mars, to maximize the energy input of the Martian colonies. This power plant comes with more efficient solar panels and a more advanced version of the power amplifier that Dawnville has. Colonization of Space has unlocked a huge palette of new technologies, many of which are now used to improve our Sims' lives here on Earth. Also, each new town we'll build and explore will be more advanced than the previous ones, as we see Fairview evolving into the future. And as you can imagine, the future is not static. And now, it's zoning time! Time to remove even more of the rail tiles we used to terraform just a bit our landscape and start zoning for homes, shops, offices, factories and farms. Some of the empty spaces will stay empty for a while, in order to build something else later such a statue or some extra parks. It's always good to be flexible and have some extra space in case you need to make some improvements. This is where farms will be constructed, providing food to our Sims. Maybe this will include vertical farms too. There are many ways to go from point A to point B. This include cars, buses, magnetic trains and subways. Flying cars are coming soon. But it also includes walking and go biking, which are 100% environmental friendly and excellent ways to burn some calories. Every concept about green cities has more than enough trail paths and bike paths, and Daphnerose now have some of them, encouraging our Sims to get their butts out of their couch and start walking and biking. Speaking about trail paths and bike paths, here is an idea I had while building my magnetic railroad. Under of it you'll have empty space with only grass, which can be utilized by building there a trail-bike path, so Sims can walk and go biking while the trains runs above them And speaking about the magnetic train, here are my current plans of how my railroad will cross Fairview. We'll see during the development of the region how it will go. And this is it. Daphnerose is now ready. Not 100% ready, but ready to be developed. Most of the construction is done, so in the next entry we'll find Daphnerose fully developed, alive and kicking. See you there
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When we think about cities of tomorrow, we tend to think of something big, strange and epic. We usually tend to think of huge metropolises populated by robots and cyborgs, with plenty of buildings so tall that their height can only be measured by kilometers, with flying cars soaring around the sky, holographic advertisements everywhere selling various stuff, and highways larger than all the modern highways combined. When we try to imagine how the cities of the future would look like, we tend to think of Coruscant, Los Angeles from Blade Runner, the Mega Cities of Judge Dredd, and @2ch.net simplayer's Zanapolis. In other words, a modern city on steroids where everything is possible, and not always in a good way. Of course those predictions look cool and badass, and they work as warnings of what we might get if we let problems like overpopulation, pollution, poverty, scarcity and wars unsolvable and uncontrollable. But they're also very mainstream, so let's try something different for once. How about humble cities of tomorrow, with smaller but more efficient buildings and infrastructures, electric cars guided by computers, green energy sources like nuclear fusion, and a system of values way different than the one we have today? How about an eco-friendly, post-scarcity civilization, blessed with both a high level of technology and a high level of living standards for everybody, while having its environmental footprint as low as possible? In other words, how about a story that inspires you to do something instead of warns you what not to do, showing a future way more different than we have in our mind? Now that's something you don't see very often, right? There are very few futuristic city journals here in Simtropolis, and most of them have this classic, high-tech, cyberpunk feeling we all know and love, with huge buildings populated by creepy cyborgs, titanic infrastructures that laugh at ours, epic spacecrafts covering the skies, and not a single bird or tree to have around. All those are cool, but let's try something different. How about a city journal that's still futuristic but in a much different way, emphasizing this time not on cyberpunk, but on a new movement named "solarpunk"? Solarpunk is a new -punk that shows a positive vision of the future, this time with green cities that has more trees than buildings, renewable energy sources, eco-friendly technologies, and a high living standard and spiritual level for everybody. Solarpunk is not technophobic, and was made as a reaction to cyberpunk and its dystopian visions of the future. It's not utopian though. Utopia mean perfection, and perfection doesn't exist at all. It's eutopian, which means it's something better but still plausible. While not as adventurous as cyberpunk, solarpunk can still provide us with plenty of stories, adventures and visions to explore. And this city journal is going to explore one of them. So... welcome to Fairview. Fairview is one of those maps made by the Maxis team available into the game to play with. In this very small map we'll be building our eco-friendly civilization. The goal and challenge here is to build cities that provides the highest standard to everybody with the minimum impact to the environment. This means application of ecological technologies and strategies, plenty of green belts, and no excessive terraforming. So don't expect huge infrastructures and epic cities here that devours the natural landscape. Right now Fairview is an empty canvas without a single tree, but we'll fix it very soon. Not only the map is very small, it also has plenty of small tiles and only a few medium ones, some of which can only be colonized by excessive terraforming, which is out of question. We're not going to built on the entire map and our construction options will be limited in order to preserve the environment. Despite its sci-fi nature, don't expect big aerospaceports, huge farms, highways or seaports, but you can still expect AIs, cyborgs and flying cars Despite the small size of both the tiles and the map itself, there are still plenty of flat enough areas to build our civilization. Not enough for a futuristic metropolis, but still enough for a small city made by mini towns. Who said that the future must be big? So how those cities will look like? Because of the environmental limitations and thanks for the flat open spaces, those cities will mostly have low density zones but still provide all the necessaries to the citizens and some more, mixing the best from both worlds, the comforts of the big city with the tranquility of the village. They'll look like these, but a bit bigger... If small futuristic villages is not your cup of tea, Simtropolis has plenty of awesome city journals to explore. But if you wanted something a bit different and more optimistic, something familiar but still fresh, something advanced and still cozy, welcome to Fairview
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Are there any futuristic city building games, where you can build an extremely futuristic looking City (like coruscant)? Or do sci fi city building game not exist because it would be too difficult to program such an game?
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In orbit above the Earth, a remarkable conversation is taking place... Carol was dumbfounded, “How do you know my name? And why am I not freaking out over all of this?” For your own well-being, you’ve received a mild sedative. We’ve been observing you and others like you for quite some time. We know you as well as you know yourself, otherwise we would not have brought you here.” “Where is here? Who are you and what do you mean, ‘at war’?” The white-skinned alien continued, “I am a representative of the Shi’ar Empire. Your word for me would be Oracle.” She reflected a moment, “Yes, you may call me Oracle.” She followed Carol’s gaze to the bug-eyed helmet cradled in her arm, “An environmental suit. We couldn’t have you getting sick by being exposed to us prematurely. You, yourself have been in a pressure suit many times, have you not?” Carol nodded. “For hundreds of years, the Earth has been under indirect attack by the Brotherhood of Badoon. Your planet has been declared a neutral territory between all of the major interstellar empires. Given its strategic value, the Earth would most likely eventually be destroyed as a result of the efforts of those who would bring it into their respective empires. Rather than allow that to happen, a treaty had been signed that would see the Earth forge its own destiny among the stars. Thus the Earth was declared off-limits until such time as it could determine its own path either as Empire or as subject.” Oracle reached down and began releasing Carol’s bonds, “It has proven impossible to substantiate the actions of the Badoon, and thus we remain bound by the constraints of the treaty to not come to the direct aid of the Earth.” Carol was puzzled, “So why are you telling me this? Why did you bring me… wherever we are?” “To help you help yourselves,” Oracle smiled. “Don’t fret, Major Danvers. Look upon your planet as it is now.” She gestured and the wall opposite began to shimmer and change color. It resolved into an image of the Earth far below and Carol realized that they must be in orbit above the planet. “Since the Badoon are able to indirectly attack; we can surely indirectly assist in your defense. The Badoon have been responsible for some of your planet’s most tyrannical leaders. Attila, Temujin and Hitler are but a few through whom they’ve attempted to gain control over your world.” “So what do you expect me to do about it?” Carol scoffed. “You’re going to help me help myself? How? By teaching me how to fly my jet and frag some ISIL grunt a little quicker? Better yet, make like Luke Skywalker and blow up these Badoon like the Death Star?” Oracle laughed, “Not even close. Your race possesses genetic anomalies similar to those found among many of our own races and those among other Stellar Empires. We have long suspected a common origin, and the concept has apparently not been lost on the Brotherhood of Badoon. These anomalies seem to lie dormant for the most part until they are stimulated either naturally or artificially. Once activated, those who possess the anomalies unlock immense abilities.” “So what does that have to do with me? Are you saying I have the anomaly? How do I unlock my power?” “Your session with Haella earlier has catalysed your anomaly. Her analysis reveals that you have many abilities. Among them; energy manipulation, enhanced strength, limited invulnerabilities, flight and enhanced speed.” Oracle turned and moved toward the image of the Earth on the wall as Carol rose from the bed. Carol tried to process the information as she made her way to Oracle’s side. She was quiet as the two women stared at the Earth, far below. Finally she asked, “So why did you choose me?” “Again, we’ve been watching you for a long time. We choose those who would counter-balance the evil the Brotherhood has sown for so long. Your sense of justice and righteousness will be a beacon for those in search of hope in dark times. Nor will you be alone. Many others will rise and join you in defense of your home; some with our assistance, others will not need our technology to evolve.” “Assuming that’s the case, how do I use my powers?” “How do you breathe, Carol Danvers?” and Oracle gave her a mighty shove, sending her tumbling into space. Carol came to the horrible realization that it hadn’t been an image at all. It was a force-field and she was in a free-fall. To be continued...
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CBC Article He was 91. Prolific author, probably his most famous work is "Fahrenheit 451". R,I.P.
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Version 1.0
1,417 Downloads
WARNING! If you have problems with the installation of Barsoom Project and the manual can't help, please check this topic. Building a city of the future on Earth? Established a colony on an extrasolar Earth-like planet, like Kepler 22-b? Did you finally terraformed planet Mars? For any case, you need more futuristic buildings. SimMars Beta 3 has tons of awesome buildings, but they are incompatible for green environments... until now Memories of the Colonists is back and fully updated. All the cool buildings from SimMars will finally be compatible on green environments. No more red barren lots with dust, but green lots with grass, trees, Sims, birds etc. Check the screen shots to see it by yourself This mod contain my reloting work, as well as a copy of SimMars itself (the leader of SimMars team Andisart gave me the idea and permission to do it). Because it's too huge for the Simtropolis servers, the mod is in external sites. Download this text to find them. After downloading, check the readme for installation guide. Extra dependencies: There's been a bug discovered where the Mars Face landmark has no model file. To fix it, download it from http://www.mediafire...pyy5ua2speokbup and place it into +Landmarks/SM_LM_MarsFace folder. BLaM Overpath Props --> It's a bit odd that cars have to drive over the sidewalk to reach any parking lot. This dependency will make the lots more realistic by adding visual connections between the roads and the lots. Maxis props --> In some lots I placed some Maxis buildings to make them a bit more realistic. Let me thank the SimMars team who allows me to use their great stuff and for their help. I also wanna thank the communities of SimPeg and SC4Devotion for their help and ideas -
Version 1.0
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This is the Myonian freighter, the main ship used for transporting large amounts of cargo between planets. Normal size is about a mile long, though since that most likely won't fit on a single lot, it was split up into 3 different lots, one for the front, one for the rear, and one for the middle. To get the normal 1 mile length, place 2 of the center lots together between the front and the rear. Size: 25x23 per section Cost (bulldoze, plop, and monthly): $0 Full details are in the readme. If there are any problems, let me know.- 30 Comments
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Version 1.0
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This is the diagonal versions of the AF-1, AF-12, and AF-17, all are Myonian fighters. Each comes with 2 lots, one flying over water, and one flying over land. Orthogonal versions of the AF-1 and AF-12 available here: https://www.simtropolis.com/STEX/index.cfm?id=17780 Orthogonal version of the AF-17 available here: https://www.simtropolis.com/STEX/index.cfm?id=19211 Size: 1x1 Cost (bulldoze, plop, and monthly): $0 Full details are in the readme. If there are any problems, let me know.- 13 Comments
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Version 1.0
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This is Myon's AF-17 flighter, which is also known as the GS-2. This is a more advanced fighter than the AF-1 or AF-12, and also has a different style. 4 lots are included: one parked, and 3 flying. Size: 1x2 Cost (bulldoze, plop, and monthly): $0 Full details are in the readme. If there are any problems, let me know.- 6 Comments
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Version 1.0
1,153 Downloads
This is a redo of my very first BAT, the AF-1, with better textures and a more detailed model. It also includes a related fighter, the AF-12. These ships are perfect for any sci-fi city, and wherever else you want a fighter of some sort. 3 lots are included for each ship, one parked, and 2 flying. Size: 1x1 for flying, 2x2 for parked. Cost (bulldoze, plop, and monthly): $0 Full details are in the readme. If there are any problems, let me know.- 10 Comments
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Version 1.0
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Everything is explained at https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=70215&forumID=36&search=1&searchstring= # Contains informations highly classified by Zanapolis Aquaforce (Navy) # The package contains 1.Kamia Xiia Alpha Frigate and 30 degrees rotated version 2.Kamia Xiia Beta Frigate and 30 degrees rotated version 3. Kanzform Active Automation Warfare Aquaunit 4. Kanzform Passive Automation Warfare Aquaunit They are all eye-candies doing nothing, but adds some defence expenditure to your city. All water Landmarks btw, why is capital "Z" considered an "illegal character" when uploading stuff to STEX???? It happened to me with Zhonghua Zutao Chinatown set before!- 10 Comments
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