pulsemods

A long time ago, a group of scientists from found habitable planet in a distant part of the galaxy. The human race was continuously expanding and needed more and more room, so a group of settlers was sent to inhabit this new world. Unfortunately for them, when they got there, there was nothing but rubble.

The light from the world that had reached Earth didn't reflect its current state: utterly destroyed. What used to be a planet was now an asteroid belt.

Their salvation came in the form of a mysterious artifact called The Sands of Space-Time. Or at least, that's what they called it. The shape of it was indistinct at first, even though they arrived right near it, but it quickly began to form a familiar shape: that of an hourglass, with the hourglass surrounded by two large stone discs. Trees--impossibly from earth--grew on top of each disc. And even more impossible, considering how small the discs were, the strength of gravity was the same as it was on Earth.

There's still no unifying theory on how it was possible, but the people settled on one of the discs, not having any other options to return home to Earth. While they had enough to start farming, there wasn't enough materials to start making much of a home.

Until there suddenly was.

One night, they went to sleep with the hourglass top nearly empty of sand--and the next morning, a world had sprung up around the disc that they lived on, the sand completely reset to the top. It was sudden and it was brilliant, just as thin as the disk but it stretched on for miles, and it had everything they needed. They could mine for whatever they needed from the underneath of the world, while they could hunt, gather, and collect from the top. Periodically, the worlds would collapse into a smallish orb that they would call a "seed", and they would be sent off to other stars, presumably to do.. something.

Slowly, they were able to build a future. First one skyscraper, then another, until there were six in total with their cultural center as a gleaming mass of hope in the middle of the city. A tram system was run in all six of the points once the hourglass's movements were better understood. The other disc became their industrial center, allow the air pollution to stay away from their homes. Thus, worlds around the home disc remained lighter and the worlds around the industrial disc became dark and more barren. They went from surviving to thriving in their new home, happily exploring the worlds that it created for them. Shields that they didn't understand protected them from wayward asteroids and from things in the world coming onto the Central Discs, allowing only harmless ones through so that they'd have something to pick up off the ground for fun and inspection. They even found out, happily so, that the hourglass would revive people that died accidentally or through tragic circumstances, so that no one ever had to live a short life.

They found out the hard way that the shields their home created couldn't stop every meteor. Not the largest of them. It had come during the middle of the day, breaking through the shield and streaking across the sky. The asteroid took out the Houston Skyscraper and slammed through the ground, and into the hourglass itself. Everyone that died that day remained dead and the worlds around the disc decayed away, as the hourglass repaired itself and the hole left in the disc. The hole has still not fully closed, and debris that fell through it now orbits around the center of the hourglass in an artificial planetary ring.

It was not able to reverse the effects of time while damaged, so it did the only other thing it could: it brought in help. New people are just beginning to arrive, pulled from other times and spaces, each of them able to bring their own sliver of hope back to a city still reeling from the loss of so many.

As they bury most of their dead and clear the destruction of one of their homes, the cycle of worlds has currently paused. And it is now that your character finds themselves suddenly awake in a world that isn't their own.

This is the whole IC to OOC calendar thing.

Might decide how many days OOCly pass before IC day change.

GOOGLE CALENDAR INSERT FROM PULSEMODS.

HERE IS HOW THE NETWORK WORKS.

Ya'll got smartphones. They gave you decent ones upon arrival because holy shit new people must insert safely. We're going to simplify things because keeping track of 10 million ways to communicate is gonna be waaaay too much.

You've got the usual public network--or well, let's just assume that they have a public group that's just for the newcomers.

You can private chat message a group or a single person. You can send pictures, videos, etc. Bandwidth is cheap. These phones can be broken, but your stuff is backed up automatically on a secure cloud server, and you can always get things replaced. And you can access from multiple devices!

Actually, why not make it an application that everyone uses that's new. It's secure, got set up by the government and one of the big companies to try to butter people up. But they can't even get access to your messages if they wanted to! Encryption is key. Hehe. Key. Get it? Wait, no you don't. You don't do PKI stuff. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Sure you get a base apartment and food because no one wants you to starve, but it's pretty bare bones. Your phone is a pretty old model. It works, but not well. At least you get a nice place to live because you're new to the whole social order of things. And healthcare is free.

So you're gonna have to make some money.

Schools, Universities, labs, healthcare, working on the industrial side (don't worry, they'll fix any genetic abnormalities that pop up if you work there!), mining (don't worry, there's lots of safety equipment--and you can keep some of the fancier stuff you find!), engineering work, general businesses, maker lab, restaurants, retail (quick marts, upscale, midscale, walmart), pharmacies, etc. EVERYTHING.

Also a general idea of what eat thing brings in.

Rent is pretty cheap but you're expected to spend that money back into the community!

Map based on this city prototype.

General Area: The Northern Disc is where everything but large scale production happens. Everything from retail, schools, homes, innovation, and offices reside here. It's mostly covered by forests (light green), with the northern half tropical, and the lower half temperate. The inner hexagon (dark green) has forests (spread out), a zoo spread out in the northwest, a desert area in the northeast, a beach in the southeast, an amusement part in the southwest, and a desert in the northeast. The Southwest is the only portion that experiences snow.

Standard Amenities for all buildings*: regional malls & general retail, restaurants, gyms, schooling/daycare up to American 8th grade, post office, groceries, convenience stores, doctor/dental/specialist/optometrist offices, emergency room, housing, movie theater, live show theater, police office, fire station, emergency transit, transit hub, building government offices, library, hotels, some farms, small gardens, helipads, trees, lounge spaces, small spas, etc; enough to be somewhat self-sufficient, company satellite offices

*Exception is the Seoul Skyfarm. See its listing for specific amenities. Otherwise, all buildings have a minimum of at LEAST these amenities, and any amenities listed are additional.


NOTES TO SELF:
Someplace for an aquarium, biggest mall, biggest art gallery, etc.
-UPDATE FOR TAITLIN'S TOWER
-WHERE ARE THE PETS. WE NEED PETS. Also need the animal shelter?
-What did I just forget
-Animals were collected from various worlds that grew. :3

[0000 block LW] Living Water
Inspiration
Reservoir Floors: B1-B4
Retail Floors: 1-5
Office/School/Business Floors: 5-19
Resident Floors: 20-35?
Additional Amenities: Main hospital, high schools (1 public, multiple private), colleges/universities, vocational schools, multiple live show, jail, many art galleries, museums, multiple movie and live theaters, opera house, large ornamental garden, seat of all government, largest regional library
Description:
This is the main cultural center for the Upper Disc, and for the entire game: it contains schools, universities, government offices, religious institutions, start-up incubators, MakerSpaces, and shops that support them. A few residences exist for teachers, scientists, religious leaders, and politicians. It's surrounded by forests and quite beautiful. It has addresses in the single digits to set it apart as the center of society on the upper disc. The high schools and colleges are located here. There always seems to be some sort of festival or fair going on one or more terraces.

[1000 block MTS] The Montpellier Tree Skyscraper
Inspiration, 35 right, 39 left
Retail Floors: 24R-29R, 17L-26L, 36L-39L
Office/Business Floors: 16R-23R,29R-35R, 11L-16L,33L-35L
Resident Floors: 1R-15R, 1L-10L, 27L-30L
Additional Amenities: local history museum, science museum, art galleries, biggest startup incubator, largest MakerSpace, tech companies galore, boutique shops, many high end retailers, only adult store
Description:
A normal skyscraper with plenty of outdoor space. This skyscraper incidentally ended up with the largest concentration of software and product design companies. It also hosts the largest startup incubator (which has office space for small, brand new companies for cheap), and the largest MakerSpace (a place with tools and equipment to prototype/make nearly everything) in all of the Home Disc. The adult store's description is here


[2000 block MCS] The M-City Skyscraper
Inspiration
Retail Floors: 1-9
Office/Business Floors: 10-36 (2 of 3 stacks)
Resident Floors: 10-36 (1 of 3 stacks), 37-63 (2 of 2 stacks)
Additional Amenities: conference center + large hotel 1st/2nd floors, western style spa, highest concentration of design firms (clothing, interior design, final product design), high end restaurants, movie studios, highest end mall, design schools, lots of crazy experimental shops/venues/restaurants/services
Description: Think Hollywood. A lot of rich people live hear, and it shows. This place is a bit of a gated community. The very high end residences (some of them pent houses) stacked on top of the other buildings are locked down so only residents can get in. Many company executive offices are located here, and this is where they call the shots for the various satellite offices.

[3000 block THS] The Houston Skyscraper
Inspiration - DESTROYED, UNINHABITABLE
Retail Floors: XX-XX
Office/Business Floors: XX-XX
Resident Floors: XX-XXX
Additional Amenities: (Now former) jail, (now former) animation studio, (now former) major sports venues
Description: It's been left almost as it has fallen, other than areas where survivors were located. Guards are posted to stop looters. There are rumors that some of the missing inmates are hiding in the structure.


[4000 block TJS] The Jakarta Skyscraper - Tatlin's Tower
Inspiration
Retail Floors: 1-2 (groceries/retail only, some small offices), 50-63
Office/Business Floors: 20-29
Resident Floors: 9-19, 31-49
Forest Floors: 1-8, 30
Additional Amenities: Animation studio, farming (livestock, insects, fish, vegetables/fruit/plants), indoor grassland, small farmers market, aquarium, insect specific cuisine, large multi-level parks; no large offices/businesses
Description: Has about 9,000 people with a capacity of 9,256. 2,314 units.

[5000 block TSS] The Seoul Skyfarm
Inspiration
Retail Floors: 1-4 (skinny)
Office/Business Floors: 4-10 (skinny)
Resident Floors: 11-37
Amenities: small amount of retail, a handful of restaurants, gym, single school/daycare up to American 8th grade, post office, grocery, convenience store, one large doctor/dental/specialist/optometrist office, farming, daily farmers market, emergency room, housing, live show theater, police office, fire station, emergency transit, transit hub, small movie theatre, private and public gardens (mostly farm, some ornamental), 2nd largest regional library, 1 hotel, BIGGEST KOREAN SPA EVER
Description:
Mostly farm, but there are apartments and businesses to support them. People live here to escape the rat race and live in the "slow lane". The majority of Pulse's food comes from the farms here. Many of the farms are small scale family farms, but there are a few large scale operations.

[6000 block ZMF] The Ziggy McFishlips Skyscraper
Inspiration 35 floors
Retail Floors: 1-3
Office/Business Floors: 2-10, 13, 18, 25
Resident Floors: 2-35
Additional Amenities: Multiple pools, farming, lots of indoor forests, large scale nature preserves, vertical river, river rafting/tubing, anothe large scale spa, artists/crafters galore (potters, painters, quilters, scrapbookers, EVERYONE that's using less high tech art stuff), large art center
Description: "Someone had the brilliant idea to host a contest for naming this building. It went about as well as you'd expect." - Zee

The vertical river meanders through the structure, slowly traveling from one open area/nature preserve to another. Some areas allow white water rafting or tubing with specialized elevators so people don't plunge to their deaths.

[PRETTY PICTURE OF HOURGLASS]

The hourglass was the salvation of the [GROUP]. When they arrived to an asteroid belt instead of a world, it was the hourglass that built them what they needed to survive. Some claim they can 'hear' the hourglass. All can feel its warmth. Some have gone so far as to worship it.

When people travel through the transit system between the discs and approaching the hourglass's center, they can feel... something. It's not just reaching the center of gravity, reaching equilibrium, but like coming home. There's a platform built around the center of the hourglass for a reason: not only to have someplace for people to sit if they fall off the sides of the discs, but because it produces the sort of calm that cannot be replicated. It's only temporary, but still wonderful.

Wow, I really need to rewrite this. BUT BASICALLY IT IS REALLY RELAXING. Also we are on an incline so there's a day/night cycle. Or maybe the people made something to do the cycle around the disc? WHO KNOWS.

The Sands of Space-Time are what draw in the asteroids around them and use their material to build the worlds that the residents explore. It responds to their needs and wishes, co-creating a new existence with them. How long it lasts is variable, but usually it is not shorter than it needs to be. The changes are made in the night, as everyone sleeps.

When people die before their time, before their bodies expire due to age, the Sand comes in the night to "fix" their bodies and restore them. The first few times this happened, it was pretty freaky, but the residents got used to not needing to say goodbye to friends too soon. It is because of this that murder is an almost non-existent crime--if your victim sees you, you can be sure that they will be telling the police what you did in a week's time. The only way to successfully kill someone is to not be seen or be unidentifiable.

Recently, the residents have found that the Hourglass can repair itself. However, anyone that dies while it is still not fully healed will not come back from the dead. Thus, during the recent asteroid strike, the residents have learned for the first time in a generation what tragedy is. They are scared and afraid, spooked now that they are reminded of their own mortality.

That is where the newcomers come in--to help rebuild their future and bring back hope.


-MAYBE SAND ALLOWS PEOPLE TO DO STUFF? LIKE WHAT? WHO KNOWS? BITS CAN ESCAPE AND COLLECT.
-Sand changes color
-sand ignores gravity to fall instead of being stuck in middle
-also what is the sand made out of