BUT!! Dawnlight needs YOU! Why is that you ask? Because it needs CITIZENS!
Dawnlight originally started as a series of paper cutouts, an art project for a bored 12 year old. It was through this artwork that the politics, relations and spirit of the whole world of Dawnlight were created. Each persona had a name, relatives, and a job. Each of them was rated as "Loyal" or "Not" to the leaders of the city. In this way, over the years, I developed quite a world.
Some information? Of course!
Dawnlight is a city near where Pittsburgh used to be. I say used to be because it was vaporized hundreds of years before in the Third Exchange. What's that? Read on! The world was devistated when President Nixon was assassinated in office, and the CIA took control of that Big Red Button. They pushed it. The world ended shortly. Well, it didn't end, but it did kind of start looking different. Biological warfare began in the late 1970s, and by the 1990s the world was to say the least ... messy. The Second exchange happened in 2055, when the third world activists happened upon another nuke. How fun. Later, the Third Exchange in 2089 sent everything to hell in a handbasket, when Japan lobbed something at Antarctica, and got the whole asiapac community in an uproar. The west suffered due to infighting and many of the still-peaceful native tribes turned to their leaders to stop it, then went into hiding. The less-acclaimed Fourth exchange happened long after, in 2306, and served only to stir that mutagenic soup known as humanity a bit.
Dawnlight is a city state with a 200 year history of selective teaching and slightly socialist tendancies. Food, clothing and shelter are always available to every Citizen at a base level. The Caste and Rank within that Caste determine any further benefits and money. Credit is earned electronically and based on what type of job the person is in and occasionally on a per-hire basis.
Identification must be carried at all times. All communications including mail and telephones as well as private conversations in the home (and on the fax machine, copier, and ...) are monitored. If you don't say anything which angers the Admin, you will be just fine. Political Outcasts are uncommon but happen with greater frequency than usually announced. Outcasts are also commonly criminals. Citizenship must be proven to enter the city, or be approved by an Admin. It is very unlikely that a regular Citizen will ever get to leave the city for any reason other than a brief picnic or week end outing. Most regular folks don't much care that there is still a world beyond their walls. They aren't taught that it does exist, after all. Extreme xenophobia ruled the city's creators when the world was still wild with mutants and bad radioactive hoo hah.
The city itself is peaceful and normally does not have much in the way of violent crime. Small theft, gang activity, illegal drug use and illegal high tech do exist. The population of the city is approximately 54000 in the year 2482, with a strictly-followed adherance to a plan to keep security, administration and public works proportionate to the citizenry. For every 100 citizens, 15 of them are public service workers, 3 are security and 1 admin.
For many years since its inception, the Color Caste system has served and is just now starting to degrade. People cannot be barred from raising between Castes, nor from marrying a different caste. Originally, and to a very small extent today, the castes were as follows:
Brown for laborers; Green for trained workers; Purple for specialized workers; and Silver for administrative.
It no longer truly works that simply, each caste is found now in very nearly every kind of job, so the math of keeping up on the castes and salaries is staggering and done only by Admin.
Clothing is usually long-sleeved and comfortable but styles include many found today as well as from the ancient past and fanciful futures. The reason they use more fully covering clothing is due to the heavily eroded (or nearly nonexistant) ozone layer, and the radiation that follows. Only in Dawnlight the colors on the clothing one wears MUST display your caste! No mix and match, no patterns including clashing caste colors. It just isn't done!
Criminal activity varies from decade to decade, but Outcasts are forever. If an administrator decides to follow your activities, and the wrong things are said or done, they may begin to file Outcast paperwork. If found completely iredeemably against the wishes of the admin the Outcast is shown to the edge of the city wall and thrown out. They are assumed to die, at least legally they are off the books forever. They may not enter again legally, but many do as another guise or a criminal breaking into it. Outcast as well as the criminals in the area tend to congregate in an area south-west of the city in an old military installation now home to over 200 people, called the Underground. Mutants and other stranger things such as Clones are more common in the Underground than in Dawnlight, but are in both to a degree.
Clones are illegal, technically, in Dawnlight. There are dozens of them there, with their secret either being kept by the admin, or by themselves. They only place to create them near Dawnlight is in the Underground, where huge stores of them are found of popular or important people. Clones themselves often have a telepathic link with their prime, and are more likely to be pale or albino no matter what the original skin tone of their prime. In the Underground, they usually wear a distinct style of clothing with colors based on that of their Prime's caste.
Mutations have been "bred out" of Dawnlight's population though careful administration of drugs and actually terminating mutated children before birth. This practice is no longer in force, but the fact remains that in this particular fictional setting, the "functional mutation rate" is much higher, so viable mutations tend to live longer than ones found in real life. If they breed true, they are likely to be called "Exotic" and if enough of them exist they may claim a whole new racial title. Many of them are quite "like" human, but perhaps with an added feature such as more arms, blue skin, or feline tail and fur.
Northstar (Montreal) and HarborWood (Boston?), nearby cities, are completely at ease with mutants. Francisco Island (San Francisco) is completely the opposite, they experiment on mutants. Hammerville (Detroit) and Seattle (duh) supply Dawnlight with both clones and high tech gadgets. Japan and India, as well as the Mayan Federation of the southern American continent have strong space interests with Dawnlight's lauch pad being in a primary location for their satelites.
The West Coast Enclave, Coal Bend, the Glades and Eden's Gate are not for the weak of heart in Dawnlight... WCE is where Disneyland used to be, but Disney bless his heart was actually into making cryogenics and those animatrons... They're functioning as cybernetic enhancements today. Coal Bend is a small but extremely influential city far to the north, where the Kshau Protectorate (not the Pernese one... that's based on this one...) is centered. The Glades is in another Disney locale, in the everglades area, and the place consists entirely of telepathic people bent on controlling the world. Eden's Gate is where the local raiders like to hang out when they're not tearing up the countryside or invading Dawnlight's food stores.
Some key points to remember for this world:
Who really invented the Light sword? George Lucas, or Sumerian God Shamash? Well, good old Lucas was the inventor of many things at ILM -- Industrial Lasers and Machinery!
If Chief Justice Reagan knew about that brain tumor earlier, would he have have gone into acting instead of politics?
This is a world where no Crusades happened -- no one religion dominates any others, and there are many new ones not found in our world. It is equally likely that your Citizen be a SUN worshipper, a SON worshipper, or a SONY worshipper...
Details about other stuff?
Blackbottoms: a strange Hair Cult which is very moody, broody and fantastically loyal to one another. Run by one of the Saturn RXI freaks. Black Goo is ritually spread over the hair of the subject. If it is found to be "cool" enough, the top of the head will sport colorful hair, while the back and bottom will grow out black -- forever. If not "cool" enough, THE HAIR WILL ALL FALL OUT and never grow back. Ever.
Outcast: politically resistant to Dawnlight's current Administration. Must be forced to wear a black band, may come back eventually to renounce their beliefs, but few do.
Underground: run by a 200 year old woman with a clone and spare parts, seeking equality in Dawnlight, the hard way, by taking in all their refugees and politicos, as well as keeping the criminals happy and sheltered. Occasionally runs against Dawnlight security when "recruiting" but has taken more subtle approaches recently.
Mutant Guys: some of them have become very influential in Dawnlight, particularly that Shard guy. He's the head of Tactics in the security division. Yeah, he's blue. But you get used to it.
Psionics: are common nowadays, but not usually visible. Glades people all have them, and some mutants have latency. Everything from genetic engineering down to simple mind control or invisibility can be had among the stronger ones. Each person might have something very different. They used to be called Witches, in our time... But they have ALWAYS existed.
Other Cities?
Hammerville -- Detroit, industrial, hard working humans, doesn't like slackers
Northstar -- Montreal, underground bomb shelter turned huge, a pit of sin, wants anyone so long as their credit is good, many mutants live here, all entertainment, all the time
Wind City -- Chicago, ruined but with a retirement community attitude, doesn't like trouble, dangerously free for Dawnlight's taste
Dici Shelter -- Washington DC, very badly damaged, gets canned pretty quickly every time someone invades
Harbor Wood -- Boston, shoddy but with good food, big go-booms forbidden, largest city on the coast
SayMass -- Salem, private, NO psionics welcome, witches are still burned here
Glades -- Florida, shining and clean, no refugees or transients welcome, every one is psionic
WCE -- Disneyland, huge underground tunnels and labs, select few people welcome in the house on the cliffside over the tunnels, run by an immortal mutant...
Francisco Island -- can you guess? Isolated, pretty Utopic but very very frightening, xenophobic and high tech, they breed mutants for experiments here
Seattle -- high tech computer stuff, clones and such, kicks folks out when they're dangerous
Utah Enclave -- Archives in the mountain side, refugees and sick welcome, mostly doctors and communication experts needed from the old times
Mayan Federation -- Central and South America, underground and through out all of the mountians, extremely high tech, perhaps first contacted by aliens? Biotech also
Hindi Empire -- very agrarian and peaceful, never taken over by England, real religion
Japan -- also much of China, Blade Runner level stuff, Nihon mutants (manga looking)
RXI -- huge corporation which has a Saturn and moon base, very business like structure to their works, effective and with an eye to rule the world too
Cali-Mex -- dirt, with beer
Catalina -- island off WCE, protected by laser grid, almost 100% are artificial intelligence or robotic
Australia -- craters, but maybe something is still there
Antarctica -- covered like Catalina, no communication except with RXI and occasionally WCE
Eden's Gate -- Great Plains, small communities of mutants and wanderers
Coal Bend -- great white north, where the Protectorate is centered and the Greenland empire is at bay
Greenland Empire -- much warmer now... The only place with tanks and planes that still work to drop bombs on you... Invading sometime soon to a coastline near you!
All right, all right, but how does this relate to ME? You ask?
WELL!
As part of a special project, the 2000 by 2000 project, I have been attempting to get 2000 people as citizens of Dawnlight. The original purpose was to find many people to inspire me to draw them as characters, and possibly mention them in the novel. Now it is just an obsession. I've been drawing the citizens of Dawnlight since 1978, and only recently stopped. It was because I stopped that I'm so far behind on the project. I need just under 400 people to complete this project and YOU could become one!
You may fill out the form as YOURSELF, with your likes and dislikes and skills. You might fill it out as You WANT to be, according to the world as described above. You could also fabricate as MANY people as you want for this project... Whole families, even shoot, send me a new town! Mutants and Clones are welcome, just tell me that you want to be one!
Please take the time to fill out the form and drop on by occasionally to see what the progress is!
Email Lethe for your chance to become a Dawnlight Citizen!
Don't delay! I can even send you pictures and a real "Citizenship" award!! Get all your friends in on this! HELP ME MAKE 2000 by the end of 2000!!! For an example of what the art might look like go here...
AN UPDATE as of 5/13/01
Well, no, I didn't get those 2 thousand characters. But thanks to everyone who sent in forms, I did get around 60 more than I had before, which is quite good considering no one really knows this is here except people I already know online.
I'm STILL taking forms, though with my work schedule I haven't had much of a chance to update anyone on their character.
Another update as of 9/14/01
Still taking people. Come on by!
