[Games] Fallout Brainstorming 2: The Mimsyverse
FALLOUT CAMPAIGN CONCEPTS (continued):
The following is a bit of a brainstorm on the park in Florida and how it may have come about, with blatant inspiration from Walt Disney and the history of EPCOT and Disney World, but with a Fallout-universe twist, with more of a focus on futurism and the concept of a “City of Tomorrow.”
This is a bit stream-of-consciousness, and hence not edited for brevity. I apologize for that, if you attempt to actually read this.
Wallace Mimsy
Wallace Mimsy was an American entrepreneur, engineer, inventor, and animator who, in the 1930s, was blindsided by the sudden popularity of a hastily-drawn caricature of a rabbit character he animated as part of a humorous presentation piece highlighting potential uses of his advanced, ahead-of-its-time design for a Safety Oven (and, of course, in comparison to all the over-the-top hazards posed by the regular sort). While he would rather be known for his innovation in various electric gizmos, his older (and more business-minded) brother Roger realized that real money opportunities could be had in entertainment.
Thus it was for some years that it was the secret shame of Wallace Mimsy that he was primarily famous not for his brilliant engineering, but rather for ridiculous cartoon characters of his invention-most famously Ricky Rabbit and his sometimes-pal/sometimes-rival Larry the Lab Rat-and that once the “microwave” oven widely caught on, a failure at properly filing patents meant that he never received proper credit for his decades-prior invention of the same basic concept in the Safety Oven.
Due largely to Wallace’s primary interests in science and engineering as a path to a bright and better tomorrow, the themes in his animated features tended toward the futuristic and fantastical, with a range of animated treatments of the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, and family-friendly adaptations of the works of numerous more recent science-fiction authors.
In the 1960s, after the success of the Planet Mimsy theme park in California, the Mimsy Company began secretly grabbing up the better part of an entire county in Florida, in order to build not only a new theme park - The Mimsyverse - but also a year-round showcase of technology and innovation that would be like a permanent World’s Fair, known as the EXPO (also known as EXPeriment Zero).
In 1969, the same year that the Virgo II mission landed Americans on the moon, and the unprecedented American Constitutional Convention resulted in a reorganization of the US government to create an intermediate level divided between 13 commonwealths (Florida becoming part of the Southeast Commonwealth), Wallace Mimsy, already in poor health for some time, passed on.
Background Note: Details about Virgo II, the 13 Commonwealths, and this sudden cultural divergence in America’s history are pulled from the Fallout canon.
Or, that is what everyone was led to believe.
The Marvelous Mind of Mimsy
In the alternate history of the Fallout universe, technology, culture, and politics took a very different turn. The Vietnam War didn’t happen. The counterculture movement of our own 1960s never really took hold, either. In response to the pressures of the Cold War, the United States took on a “Fortress America” mindset, with extreme patriotism and a freezing of pop culture aesthetics being the order of the day. It was the sort of environment in which any one person holding an undue amount of influence over the popular culture would be facing an awful lot of political pressure - and so Mr. Mimsy, preferring not to personally be made into a puppet of the new regime, found it to his advantage to let rumors of his own death be greatly exaggerated.
Background Note: Fallout canon doesn’t really try to explain WHY we have music and aesthetics from the ‘50s and ‘60s dominating things all the way up to 2077 - or, more importantly, a distinct lack of aesthetics and certain innovations in intervening decades from our own world - so I’m resorting to some hand-waving here.
In truth, he wasn’t long for the world anyway, and arranged to be cryogenically suspended, in hopes of being later revived with the advancement of medical technology. This came much later, but only partially: With advances in computer and medical technology, he was eventually revived by his grandson, Mortimer Mimsy, during a severe financial downturn for the company, in a desperate bid for creative inspiration. This time, Wallace Mimsy was kept in partial suspension, his brain floating in advanced biomed gels, and connected to a huge supercomputer. His relationship with the company as a whole has varied over time, as he has long been officially dead, and no longer the owner. For much of the park’s history, in between being quietly consulted by the company’s head at the time desperately seeking advice or creative input, he simply secretly observed goings-on in the park as a hidden Big Brother, monitoring the park’s increasingly more extensive surveillance systems, quietly alerting staff (human or mechanized) in the case of problems with rides and attractions, lost children, and so on.
When the bombs dropped in 2077, and most of the park’s network went down for nearly 200 years, while still leaving him in a wakened status, it didn’t do much for poor Mr. Wallace’s sanity.
The Mimsyverse
The Mimsyverse was the primary park attraction, despite Wallace Mimsy’s best efforts to turn EXPO into the bigger draw. The center zone featured an idealized version of Castle Frankenstein. Other zones changed names and themes over time, but by 2070 they were best known as Prehistoria, Innovutopia, and Spaceport Mimsy.
Castle Frankenstein
This central structure originally used forced perspective to make it look larger and more gravity-defying than it really was, but into the next century the structure underwent a radical rebuilding project that doubled its height and increased its interior space to turn it from a mere centerpiece to a structure large enough to house a pricey restaurant with a commanding view of the surrounding grounds, “Dr. Frankenstein’s Laboratory” (an educational science center that would put big-city science center interactive exhibits to shame), and - less known - a lavishly-appointed Dr. Frankenstein’s Suite that VIPs could actually stay overnight. Taller towers housed communications arrays and relay towers useful for the park’s own internal communications system.
Baron Frankenstein’s Castle was an idealized and almost magical place of flashing Tesla coils, happy scientists (don’t call them MAD) in shiny white lab coats and goggles, and handsome Adam (don’t call him “The Monster”) and friends. Of course, the animated Mimsy version was far removed from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or anything involving Boris Karloff, removing all the nasty bits, and adding in lots of cute animal sidekicks (particularly Ricky Rabbit and Larry the Lab Rat).
Castle Frankenstein was further elevated by being built atop a manmade “mountain,” with a sprawling villa of vaguely Germanic timber-built houses, housing gift and candy shops by day, and ready to spring forth with pitchfork-and-torch-wielding villagers by night (who of course would break into song and dance in a recreation of the happy finale of Mimsy’s Frankenstein).
Background Notes: My intent here is to have a centerpiece element reminiscent of Cinderella’s Castle, but without being Cinderella’s Castle. My choice of Frankenstein’s Castle is because of the idea of the Mimsy franchise being more fantastic-science-oriented rather than fairy-tale-focused. I imagine a Disnified version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, purging any unhappy ending, gleefully ripping off and celebrating mad-science tropes from the ‘50s, and shoehorning in a contrived villain and even-more-contrived romance. Dr. Frankenstein and his bride in the movies are never as interesting as Frankenstein’s Monster … so let’s turn Frankenstein’s Monster into the misunderstood (and handsome!) hero, and invent a beautiful daughter of Frankenstein to be the love interest, throw in some singing lab animals, and so forth, thoroughly butchering the source material.
Gameplay: I have a number of refurbished building ruins originally meant for Warhammer Fantasy / Mordheim, which could pass for pseudo-Germanic houses, and would work nice for ruined scenery in this zone. Ditto for some of the “mad science” props I made for the Cephalyx for Iron Kingdoms, for use in the castle.
Spaceport Mimsy
The Spaceport was an attraction hub themed after a futuristic transportation hub for rocketing off, “tele-beaming” or even using wormhole gates to far-off planetary locales. Popular attractions included the Space Ranger Rocketships and Rayguns Shooting Gallery (a moving ride featuring a chance to fire low-powered lasers at animatronic targets along the way), the Solar System Slingshot (an innovative “trackless roller coaster” flinging guests’ rockets around a vast and not-the-least-bit-to-scale 3D “model” of the solar system), the People Tubes (where people in special helmets shoot down clear transpari-plas tubes in a high-speed overview tour of the zone), and the Cosmodrome (one part observatory, one part planetarium, one part animatronic song-and-dance revue).
Background Notes: My intent here is to have a comparison to Tomorrowland - which is by far the best part of the Magic Kingdom to fit into the Fallout universe with minimal tweaking. As per the Fallout universe’s semi-satirical take on “THE FUTURE!” there’s a markedly less-obsessive focus on personal safety. People don’t get to sue McQuickie’s for millions of dollars because of spilling hot coffee in their laps, in a universe where the most popular soda actually puts strontium elements “for that extra kick” in each bottle, and BRAGS about it as a selling point. Hence, we get the People Tubes instead of the People Mover.
Gameplay: Here, I could use some of my Slipstream props - my “rocketships-and-rayguns” stuff - that might seem even over the top for Fallout.
Innovutopia
Formerly known as “Streets of Innovation” or the “March of Progress,” the region eventually called “Innovutopia” comprised part of the park divided into time-period-focused neighborhoods meant to recreate certain environments in different places and times: walking down a street of Renaissance-era Florence (featuring a fanciful studio of Leonardo da Vinci with ornithopters and sky-screw helicopters, and other of his inventions), or into Kittyhawk Bay circa 1903 to witness the first powered flight of the Wright Brothers, or a circus in the 1890s to witness inventions of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison and to experience the shocking (!) electrocution of an elephant as part of a demonstration in the “Current Wars.” In addition to these historical or at least quasi-historical recreations, there were also chances to step aboard Captain Nemo’s Nautilus, or to take a ride in a cavorite space-sphere to become one of the “First Men on the Moon” as imagined by H. G. Wells. In a bow to pressures to include patriotic elements, there was also a Freedom Park recreating the look of Revolution-era architecture, featuring an animatronics ride giving a brief history of different types of political systems in human society, progressing toward democracy (or some variation thereof), with cautionary tales about the dangers of communism.
Connecting all the zones was a railway (which, thanks to clever theme-park trickery, had its outer appearance disguised while passing through tunnels from one zone to the next, going from Wild West steamer to futuristic monorail and back again as needed).
Background Notes: This takes the place of Adventureland, but with areas themed after history - and quasi-history - as the driving idea. Freedom Park is a tip-of-the-hat both to the Hall of Presidents and to the hyper-patriotism of Fallout’s America. Gameplay-wise, these areas of the park would allow me to justify digging into my scenery and miniatures collection for props and characters from different time periods. Plus, if I ever get my hands on one of those “Automated Patriots” minis from Bioshock Infinite (looks like an animatronic President Washington with a minigun), that would fit perfectly into Freedom Park.
Prehistoria
This zone underwent radical changes, at an early point featuring a working “farm of the future” and hydroponics center that was later relocated to the EXPO, as most kids were only interested in the petting zoo part.
Eventually, with advances in genetic sequencing and splicing, the rides and attractions in this general area were incorporated into a newly-themed zone dubbed “Prehistoria”: a walk-through exhibit of areas meant to represent the Earth in the age of the earliest formation of life, on through the age of the dinosaurs, up to the dawn of primitive man. The biggest attraction would be the on-site Recovered Species Nursery, where visitors might have a chance to witness the hatching of a neo-dinosaur egg, or pet a baby wooly mammoth or play with a sabertooth cub in the “Interactivity” attraction (basically, another petting zoo, only with higher insurance premiums).
Background Notes: I see this as being at points a sort of nod to the idea of Animal Kingdom, though here I envision that it never warranted its own park. Environmental and geopolitical concerns in vogue today don’t seem to have been a concern to the Fallout version of America, so I don’t think the themes of Animal Kingdom would have resonated quite as much. However, a mini Jurassic Park? YOU BETCHA, and they wouldn’t even bother putting it on a remote island.
Gameplay: Of course I’m going to break out the dinosaurs - of the old-style non-feathered variety, that is. I might even have some gun-toting velociraptors. I could possibly throw in some other reptiloids, using the excuse of mutation or genetic manipulation.
Cast Members
Considerable importance was placed upon “staying in character” while in the park, as if all the park’s workers are actors in a play, with attempts to hide away anything that might interfere with the willful suspension of disbelief. Cast members privately referred to all such hidden elements as happening “backstage” or “underground.”
By 2077, the idea of actual human actors prancing about and sweating profusely while wearing big bulky costumes of animated characters was unthinkable. Cutting-edge animatronics and more recent advances in robotics were merged to make “automatoons” {sic} to represent such characters as Ricky Rabbit, Larry the Lab-Rat, or the Dolly Sheep Clones. More controversially, genetic tweaks were being made to animals performing in attractions (to make them stronger, more athletic, more capable of understanding instruction, and more obedient, or some mix of the above desired traits). Behind the scenes, experiments were even underway to come up with a talking dinosaur mascot who would be able to lead tours, or even bioengineered replacements for “automatoons” to make them even more life-like … by actually making them live.
Background Notes: I imagine a little bit of “Five Nights at Freddies” creepiness would be appropriate here - “friendly” robotic characters who are unstable, and might turn psychotic at the slightest provocation. But more on that later.
The Underground
Houses in Florida generally do not have basements. The only way to work around this would be to build up a level first - and that’s exactly what happened at the Mimsyverse. The whole park was built atop an artificial “underground” structure. In a sense, everyone strolling about was walking on the “rooftop” of the complex where all the work was going on. Tunnels and underground chambers provided staging areas, changing rooms, dining areas, maintenance workshops, storage, control centers, and so on for the operations, with various hidden entrances so staff could enter and leave zones without fear of strolling through the wrong “historical period” while wearing a costume themed to another zone. As most of this was built under the perpetual threat of the Cold War, the “underground” areas were also heavily reinforced and lined to work as shelters, and emergency pantries kept well stocked. They weren’t deep enough to be able to survive a direct hit from an enemy attack, but the hope would be that no enemy force was going to bother dropping a bomb directly on a theme park, and certainly not in a limited engagement (a “limited engagement” being the more hopeful
scenario in many cases where it might be sensible to stay underground for just a while and awaiting rescue).
Gameplay: I have several modular techno corridors/chambers pieces that would work perfectly for these areas. Some of them even have old-style CRT terminals depicted in the décor.
The EXPO
Mimsyverse’s sister park would be the EXPO. Originally, the EXPO was envisioned as being more focused toward grown-up concerns (with the hope that children would be inspired toward greatness by all the exhibits) rather than cartoon characters and movies and such. It would be a perpetual world’s fair, including a model community showcasing the latest in technologies. Over the years, there was eventually considerable overlap with the themes of the Mimsyverse, but it still had its own distinct features.
Exhibitions of Tomorrow
While Mimsyverse devoted considerable space to what people of past times imagined the future would be like, or to inventions that never actually worked, the EXPO was much more firmly anchored in celebrating actual technological achievements. It also featured exhibits bankrolled by various national and corporate entities, and most of the flux in this park was spurred by the shifting climate as sponsors came and went.
Circa the 2070s, major technology exhibits included such sponsors as Repconn (space tech), Robco (computers & robotics), Nuka-Cola (soda manufacturer with the added “kick” of strontium additive), Abraxodyne Chemical (cleaners), Ball Aerospace (aircraft), ArcJet Systems (space tech), Big Boss (tobacco), Beat-Co (inventors of the “power fist”), Big MT (research), Chryslus Motors (automotive), Codac (photography), Diamond Inc (computers), Future-Tec (virtual reality simulators), General Atomics International (robotics), H&H Tools, Med-Tek, Poseidon Energy, Radiation King (electronics), Red Rocket (fuel), and more.
Assorted technologies showcased here found their way into application elsewhere in the parks, and some of those into general use. A biotechnology exhibit would eventually lead to the development of Prehistoria and its “reclaimed” species.
Wonders of the World
Several of the exhibits sponsored by foreign governments were essentially like tourist promotions of the country in question. For a long time, the Russia and China exhibits were considered highly controversial, as they rather brazenly promoted communist propaganda, and were suspected of harboring spies.
Background Notes: If this isn’t obvious enough, this part is intended to be inspired by EPCOT’s World Showcase.
Gameplay: The different world “pavilions” give me an excuse to use scenery, props and minis associated with different parts of the world.
Mimsyville
Parkgoers were free to take a detour from the Exhibitions of Tomorrow to stroll down a model street of Mimsyville, a planned community on Mimsy Corporation property. The actual community was only reachable via an exit from the park (making it a bit of a disincentive for curiosity seekers, since they’d have to go through a line again to get back INTO the park even if they had a day pass), but several model homes and some gift shops were easily accessible right next to the Exhibitions of Tomorrow.
Although the model homes featured conventional garages with display cars (courtesy of sponsors such as Chryslus), one big feature of Mimsyville was that pedestrian and vehicular traffic was almost completely separated, with underground transit tunnels for cargo deliveries to the central business district. The only vehicles seen to ply the aboveground streets were slow-moving delivery and maintenance vehicles (operating at strict schedules), so more often they were friendly for pedestrians and for playing children. For those in more of a rush, every home had access to Mimsyville’s subway system, and parking garages for vehicles to venture to the outside world were located along Mimsyville’s outer perimeter.
The housing authority was especially strict, as might be expected, with every exterior required to maintain a very particular appearance, and any innovations subject to bureaucratic micromanagement - but also, there were strict restrictions on PERSONAL appearance and grooming for the town’s inhabitants while out and about, comparable to those restrictions placed upon theme park employees. As a result, the only people actually dwelling in Mimsyville were generally either park employees (thanks to strong financial incentives), or the most dedicated and fanatical of Mimsy aficionados (a major perk of Mimsyville residence being year-round free admission to the Mimsy parks).
Background Notes: This is sort of a hybrid of Celebration, plus an imagining of Walt Disney’s original vision for EPCOT. It’s also part of an excuse for why there might be a settlement on Mimsy property circa 2277 or so.
(Next: The Mimsyverse in 2277!)