By Horace P. Dunwoody, Developer and Industrialist
My good citizens,
We all know our country’s proud history of attempting to build Utopian societies in exclusive, or as some would say, dangerous and ridiculous, locations. We all know that each of the twenty-two previous attempts to do so have failed, and failed horribly. But that is no reason not to make a twenty-third attempt! And I have every faith that this time, we shall succeed!
It will certainly not be easy. We can recall the failure of the gleaming, floating city of Columbia, built in the clouds in the early 20th Century, and how it quickly and shockingly came to ruin. I need not go into the details: we all remember them clearly.
We also remember Andrew Ryan’s bold dream for Rapture in the 1940’s, his proud city built beneath the sea, and how, despite an entirely logical plan involving the torture of little girls and the sale of affordable proximity mines, it still somehow fell into chaos.
We remember another attempt at Utopia in the 1950’s, with the great city of Metro-Hyperion, which was suspended from a cliff by a mighty rope, and how it swung and spun and turned to-and-fro so beautifully in the gusty winds, and how citizens eventually became tired of constantly falling over and vomiting on themselves. And so, it was abandoned.
Horace Dunwoody, circa 2007
And Isla De Lunar, built on the moon by hundreds of the patriotic monkeys from the early days of our space program, though sadly, when the time came for the city to be populated by our human astronauts, no amount of scrubbing would get that disgusting monkey smell out of the walls.
And of course, there was the massive city of Oakstone, built of gleaming, solid marble in the branches of a mighty oak tree, which, as it turns out, was not remotely mighty enough to support the weight of a city built of gleaming, solid marble. Not even close. Hoo boy, no.
And always shall we remember Evermoss! The inspiring Utopia of Evermoss, built entirely on a patch of peat moss. It succeeded brilliantly from the start and remains intact, though as the patch of moss is only eleven inches wide, the city is far too small for anyone besides a few insects and one hungry bird to enter.
Following those failures came the city of Centuria, a metropolis built half-underground and half in ice, producing the blissful Utopia we all had dreamed of, or at least that one of us had dreamed of, that one being architect Robert Whipple, who dreamed of constantly being very, very cold and very, very dirty. He lives there still. Please stop by and see him. He is quite lonely and needs groceries.
So many, many triumphs! Followed immediately by so many, many failures. The exact same number of each, in fact.
There were others, of course, all built with the inspiring ideals of Utopia we continue to strive for. The city of New Magma, built inside an active volcano. The city of Many Points, built on a pile of needles. The upside-down city of Falling Falls. Oakland, California. Failures, all.
But we must not dwell on our previous, repeated failures! We must forge ahead and build anew! While the first twenty-two attempts at building Utopian cities resulted in misery, destruction, human-rights violations, billions of lost dollars, countless deaths, and the overpowering stench of monkey filth, I am certain our twenty-third will succeed!
We merely need to find the proper location. And with your courage, we will!
It’s good to see this kind of attitude! For me fourth time was the charm, but 4, 23, 8, 15, 16 or 42 are just numbers. The important thing is that, someday, they’ll have the strongest Utopia in all of the world!
We should talk.
No, we will not talk. I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.
Horace, I like the cut of your jib!
Do you need a musician to lighten the burden of leading this utopia of yours? My current situation is somewhat untenable, but I’m available.
I promise you won’t figure in my music, unlike some people we both know.
Yours eternally,
Anna
Lando, get in line.
*Moan, mooooaaan* (Rapture didn’t fail, I have a perfectly fine job with good benefits and more proximity mines than I can shake a rivet gun at)
Have we tried the center of the earth yet? I’m sure the extreme heat,pressure and zero gravity would make for an excellent location.
Monkeys. That’s almost as bad as clowns. With chainsaws.
You think monkeys are bad? Try cavemen. With robot arms.
That’s gotta hurt.
Not chainsaw arms?
Just asking.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
I have a wonderful spot available. If you don’t mind a few typical annoyances. Minor flooding in Spring, man-eating spiders, psychotic children. The usual.
I keep telling you, jungles are where it’s at.
You want to really know what a fallen utopia looks like?
In the world I see – you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You’ll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You’ll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you’ll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.
And I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling – erm – me.
*sigh*
I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose….. ALPHA CENTAURI.
Wyoming.
There’s nothing there that could possible screw it up.
There’s a prime little spot I know of- City 17. Might need a bit of tidying up.
Its a great place, honest!
Statement: Oh how much amusement I derive from pathetic meatbag attempts to create utopia’s. Observation: It is only through my superior droid intellect that I can see the cycle that governs all meatbag institutions: all rise and all fall. Presumably do the fact that all meatbags are driven insane from the sloshing of their internal and external organs.
Humans have organs?
Oh, nobody ever mentioned that before they made me the vaults doctor, should probably find a textbook…
Sir:
With all due respect, have you considered deliberately attempting to create a dystopia? With your track record, I am certain your attempt would be interesting, to say the least.
No no no, that’s not what I meant at all.
Did someone mention a “track record”?
You’ve got it all wrong. Focus less on the people and more on profit! That’s how we run things at CabalCo., and there’s definitely profit in what we do.
I dunno.
The University of Carolina in the Sky worked out fairly well. Dated a girl who went there.
Sure, she was a bit of a cheating bitch, but the curriculum was good.
Fools.
Before you can contemplate building a Utopia, first you must secure a suitable power source. Magic is the only reliable option, preferably drawing from the life-essence of an ancient alien life-form.
I have personally overseen the construction of both a flying city and a vast underwater complex, and only when time-travellers instigated a rebellion were there any problems at all.
I am amazed that you have not yet tried simply constructing an underground city. It worked perfectly fine for me – I can recount a grand tale of one such city, and in fact did. I highly encourage you all to read it.
It’s like I told you, the volcano one would have worked if you’d pumped all the magma out first, then built the city out of something sturdy and magma-resistant. Like soap.
Hm… have you tried a haunted glacier yet? I’ve got a cousin out on one of those, says it’s quite nice except for the constant attacks by the horrible disfigured Spawn of Holistic.
LOL. I love the continuing jabs at California.
Whatever you do, make sure to have lots of booze.
There’s a beautiful city on the base of Mount Olympus, if you don’t mind the lack of a sun. I recently killed all the resident with a flood and some sort of plague, so I think you should find it quite easy to just march in and take over.
Oh I remember that! AND THEN ZOMBIES STARTED ATTACKING THE MALL! THANKS! But it’s ok, there’s still hope.
Oh! I have just the most wonderful ring-shaped superstructure just floating out in the cold vacuum, and I’d love some visitors! Oh yes…quite..especially a Reclaimer to control this Flood outbreak I’m struggling with! But anyone will do really…we have a wonderful Library…
And this ring DOES have the capability to eliminate all sentient life within three radii of the galactic center. In fact, it’s previous owners performed a wonderful test of it just 100,000 years ago!
Oh, I know just the loveliest little place! It’s a perfectly wonderful little island, and it was just cleared for development! Why, you could call it a slice of heaven, since it technically is! Though I suppose that depends on your definition of “heaven”. Which reminds me, we also need some dictionaries here as well! And just wait until people start breathing in that air! It has the most wonderful effect on mortals!
So come and visit, or I’LL PLUCK OUT YOUR EYES!
Man, I’ve created 30 utopian cities this year already. I can’t tell what you’re doing wrong.
Maybe you should invest in entertainment disctircts. The people seem to like those.
30, you say? We might just pay them a visit. Better have a good backup strategy.
Aha! I live in one such place myself! The residents are quite… amusing!
AHAHAHAHA! MUHAHAHA!
Arghaaaaaaargle baaaaaaagh!
Yabba my icing!
I think no less of thee.
Affordable Proximity mines eh?
I’ve been stuck with these blasted remote sticky bombs for nigh on 3 years, think it’s time I upgraded.
Delivery’s gonna be a pain in the arse though.
Delivery? I have a delivery for you:
BONK!
I’m a freakin’ blur here!
But where’s Mister Bubbles?
I’m right here my sweet child, now hold still while I yank this slug out of you.
If I can say it here, a lot of the discussion about Tiger Woods will be rendered academic now that his divorce, which we were kept in the dark about, is over and done with and he can continue with what he does best – playing golf. Go Tiger!
i’ll give you a planet if you want
I hate to break the fourth wall here, but that first person observer video was great!
It’s called a Wasteland for a reason.
Man, I hope there aren’t any carbon freezing chambers or hallways so perfect for a son-possible-paternal-figure fight that they almost seem designed for it!
How about a city built atop corpses of dead spambots?
I have a facility you can occupy. It’s quite NiCe, really. You all get free companion cubes and cake.
There’s one catch though, you must go through my tests.
It’s not life-threatening, I promise you.
Did this site die?
I’ve heard there’s a nice space station utopia that’s just opened called ‘Citadel Station’, sounds interesting. There’s no stupid humans messing things up, it’s all controlled by an advanced artificial intelligence called SHODAN. Nothing can possibly go wrong!
= I need to frequent this website much more often, information like this is difficult to come by.
WHY CHRIS
Are you still alive? FirstPersonShouter and 1fort are down, and you haven’t made a post in ages.
^I’ve been wondering the same thing. His twitter disappeared too.
You see! I KNEW that the Utopian idea of a “video game newspaper” could NEVER work.
Despite having a large reader-base and an initial supply of well written articles, it is plain to see that the people managing this site must have fallen to savagery, thus ending the reign of the First Person Newspaper
Has he died? has something happened to him? its like he has disappeared or something.
I think the government have just learnt about him. Interesting.
Search for “the daily pixel”… Its a site very much like this. Don’t know if it’s the same guy but it’s pretty funny