[All the fanfare about Second Life and virtual worlds more generally has to do with the builds and the things you can capture with Fraps and screenshots. But in my view that isn't where the action is. The builds and textures and skins and clothes are just eye candy designed to facilitate the creation of in-world narratives and histories. But those histories are being lost and the content is evaporating into the aether. Or are they? While groups and guilds record their histories, we we seldom get to see them and share in them. I thought it would be a virtual public service to begin publishing more second life RP back stories. Today we begin with the back story to The City of Lost Angels. Screenshots are mine. --Uri]
The End of the Beginning: The Story of the City of Lost Angel's
by Suzanna Soyinka
©2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 - Angel's Respite
The conceit of the human race has always been its most curious aspect. It was the early part of the 21st Century, a century that had been much lauded in fiction and fantasy alike to be the next great Golden Age of humanity where all the ills of the world would be erased by technology and all of mankind would finally be working together for the greater good.
Writers though, are often idealists. The 21st Century came, and the technology came with it. But instead of saving the world, it was compartmentalized and corporatized, copyrighted, registered, trademarked and patented, and turned into the chains of the system that bound the whole world into dependence upon it. Much of the world fell under this new technology based domination without even a single protest, but some of humanity resisted, some turning to logic, others to activism, but many turned to religion.
Religion, always a major facet of human existence, came into prominence again in the late 20th and early 21st Century through the unconscious rebellion of mankind towards the vastly changing world of the new age. The old establishments of Western and Eastern theology, and the spiritual safe zones they had always represented, standing between humanity and the forces of evil, were politicized and refocused to try to stop the changes coming to the world.
Fundamentalism rose up in the world like an uncontrollable fire. Wars and rumors of wars, terrorism, biological attacks, political pogroms and propaganda became the tools of the nations of the world. The differing idealisms fighting each other for dominance in a world that had gone far beyond the control of any of them.
The Old United States, in its pursuance of fundamentalist policy world wide, eventually overextended itself, bogged down economically under the weight of multiple wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela, it became a super power in name only. U.S. currency became worthless on the international market, triggering major economic depressions world wide. Just as the Golden Age was supposed to dawn, it seemed that humanity was truly entering the next Dark Age.
The people of the Old United States eventually lost faith in their governments ability to recover from its entrenched warfare and economic ruin, and did the only thing that was left to them to do. Anarchy and rebellion broke out all over the country. Plunging an already dark period of the nation into even darker times. The federal government had no resources to call on to stop it, having committed nearly all its monetary resources and ninety percent of its military forces to its operations overseas, The White House put out an order to the state police forces to quell the rebellions, but met with little success as the state level law enforcement agencies had even less resources available than federal agencies had and the police on the streets knew, in the end, where their loyalties truly were and much of them sided with the rebels themselves.
It was during the revolution within the United States that odd reports began cropping up, people coming up missing, bodies being found drained of all their blood or horribly mutilated, strange cases of what appeared to be spontaneous combustion and of people apparently killed with brutal biological weapons that immolated and melted the flesh and organs from their bones. Much of this was originally written off as factions using unknown weaponry, possibly stolen from top secret federal labs, but that was not the case, the monsters of myth and legend, that had always carefully survived quietly under the surface of human society had thrown aside the cloak of secrecy that had hidden them for so long, and were now starting to openly show themselves in the new darkness that mankind had created.
Years of chaos ensued, with many pitched battles in major cities all over the country. The Battle of Seattle, the Chicago Massacres, the Battle of New York, all of them sad and dark periods in the history of a once great nation, but none of them as dark and chaotic as the Battle for Los Angeles.
It was in Los Angeles that the first vampire Coven openly rose to power among the battling factions of the city. Casting aside centuries of co-existence with humanity itself, the vampires of the city came together under the elder leadership of Suzanna Soyinka, an ancient vampiress.
The Elder, Born originally in the 11th Century in Novgorod, Russia, was turned by a vampire of ancient descent that was currently ensconced in the Byzantine Church as a Greek Orthodox Arch Bishop, at the age of 30, and lived the next two centuries in Pskov as a vampiress, living amongst the populace and widely feared by the superstitious as a witch or demoness. Until 1238, when she fled the Mongol invasion of the Kievan state in the 13th Century, and traveled to Rhoda, Spain, where she lived quietly among the populace for nearly 600 years until immigrating to the United States under the guise of an expatriate member of the Spanish Royal Family, just after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that began World War I. It was never investigated if she was involved in the assassination in some way.
After establishing herself in the United States, Suzanna lived primarily in New York City, living a quiet but opulent lifestyle at the top of the Rockefeller Tower Center, while investing her rather substantial wealth in the pursuits of well known business tycoons of the time.
During the aftermath of WWII, Suzanna moved to West Coast, to the growing cultural center of Los Angeles where she met with other vampires of the area and eventually, after a few decades of establishing her dominance, formed the first Coven of vampires in the city. They did very well in the growing prominence of the city as their work guiding the creativity within the newly established industry of entertainment in Hollywood did a great deal for not only making them a lot of money, but also advanced their agenda of ensuring humans knew about vampires, but continued to believe that they didn't exist.
In the chaotic beginnings of the 21st Century, after the final deaths of several elder vampires in the pitched fighting between the rebels and the police and the military remnants and the gangs of Los Angeles, Suzanna finally rallied the Coven together to fight as its own force in the struggle for power and control of the city. The vampires were quite simply unstoppable. Human forces were not equipped to deal with them, gangs were simply torn to shreds and left hanging from the ceiling in pieces in their safe houses by vampire strike forces. Police and military forces were subverted and turned or killed, over time, the vampires began to hammer something close to a brutal and iron fisted order out of the chaos that had been tearing the city apart.
During these fights, challenges to their dominance that were not human in origin started becoming apparent. Vampires and their thralls alike were being occasionally found, mutilated and torn to shreds in a way that could only be attributed to one kind of being, the Lycans, the age old nemesis of the vampire in myth and the silver screen, were also somewhere in the city brutally asserting their physical strengths against any that got in their way.
Humanity lost hope entirely. After nearly three decades of war, rebellion, and now monsters among them all. They fell back into a primitive, almost tribal state amongst the buildings and cities of their dominance in the world. Gangs and syndicates formed. Crime families and mafias took what territory they could and worked to attempt to bring the humans under their own control to attempt to survive in this brutal new world. The world of man was bleak and hopeless, a shadow of its former greatness, still in possession of much of its previous technology but unable to fully reproduce any of it, mankind, through religion, once again looked to heaven for release, and learned the harsh meaning of why its said "Be careful what you wish for."
In the summer of 2032, after it already seemed the human race was in its darkest hour, the Armageddon of religious prophecy began. The Earth itself, passing through the tail of a massive comet named Wormwood, was enshrouded in several months of near total darkness and burning hydrocarbon fire and huge cometary fragments cascaded through the sky, blasting the cities and the landscapes of the world and setting the them afire again. In the chaos that ensued, the first gates from Hell opened and the demons poured through ravenously, killing humans and immortals without care or preference, and the wars began again with all the factions fighting each other and the demons on all sides.
During the onslaught, a great trump was sounded, and the skies caught aflame from horizon to horizon, and down from heaven came the Angels of God, bearing the flaming swords of justice and riding velocipedes into battle...flying through the skies with holy vengence, they fell upon the demons, fighting them in a timeless battle between good and evil on the very streets of Earth itself.
Humanity raised its hands in supplication, crying out to be saved by the angels, taken up to heaven and saved by the Rapture, but the Angels just passed them by, the fight between God and Lucifer having absolutely nothing to do with humans after all.
And now we stand in the thousand years of war, the world is a very different place, humans and vampires and lycans and demons and angels and nekos and supernatural beings all fight for the future they want to make happen, in the Pacifica territory of the Confederated Republic of North America, completely cut off in contact from the Central Badlands and the Atlantica Territory, in the city now known only as Lost Angel's.
How the story ends, will be told by those that live in these times...in the City of Lost Angels.
I'll admit a bit of bias as I am a GM in the city of Lost angels, but honestly when I first read this story a few days ago it blew me away. Its very nicely written and explains a lot of how CoLA because what it is today.
That said I find it nice that the city is finally getting the attention it deserves. Suzanna works hard on keeping things looking good and running smooth and does it for the people there. Congrats Suz on a good story and an even better area for people to get more out of their Second Life.
Posted by: Speyeder Farina | March 29, 2007 at 09:09 PM
Heh I was wondering when this place would have something written about it. I use to RP in CoLA.
Posted by: Ickabod Humphreys | March 29, 2007 at 09:12 PM
Blah blah vampires blah ancient blah stereotypical blah goth blah blah boring blah blah
Posted by: Gunther | March 30, 2007 at 06:52 AM
My inaugural address at the Great White Throne Judgment of the Dead, after I have raptured out billions! The Secret Rapture soon, by my hand!
Read My Inaugural Address
My Site=http://www.angelfire.com/crazy/spaceman
Your jaw will drop!
Posted by: Secret Rapture | March 30, 2007 at 11:24 AM
I was absolutely thrilled to see something written in the Herald about CoLA. I used to roam the streets there and couldn't have found a better place to start. Long since, I've moved to CoLA's sister city, Nation of Remembrance (NoR). Even though I spend a good 98% of my time in NoR (opposite of Spey, I GM in NoR), I visit CoLA occasionally and still have good friends there.
Suzanne has done a wonderful thing with CoLA and things just keep getting better. For the most part, the people that bring the RP alive there are fantastic. The staff is great, as well.
Congrats Suz on a great story that tells the tale behind CoLA. I hope it draws more people into our world ;)
Oh.. and Gunther... if you don't like it, don't be apart of it. Plain and simple.
Posted by: Mystyka Gray | March 30, 2007 at 11:25 AM
Cola is one of the most interesting and highly diversed rp sims. The thing that's great about cola is that, even though Suzanna wrote the back story, every character's background and actions are a part of the constantly ever changing story of lost angel's. Everyone is connected to each other somehow, whenever through the factions of personal friendships, every story written, the character you rp as, can feel the reprecussions, directly or indirectly.
Posted by: Jack Cardozo | March 30, 2007 at 04:49 PM
I stand to applaud a well thought out back story. My compliments to the chef ;-)
Posted by: Charm_Chase | March 30, 2007 at 06:34 PM
Great story. I enjoyed the read. Uri, I want to say great idea of printing the back stories of some of the RP Sims. I have alway loved reading about different RP worlds, as my large collection of unplayed, but well read RP books, can attest. I look forward to the next one.
Posted by: Guiles Tidewater | March 30, 2007 at 09:06 PM
Let me just begin by saying that the simbuild itself is extremely well done..but as for most other categories? Well..
I myself have been let down by the level of roleplay on the sim. I'm not going on about the bunch of noobs who rush into the sim, whispering via Ims for sex, or what Roleplay is..no..Im talking of the factions, and day-to-day roleplayers that exist. Most of the time, you will see some 30+ players, lifelessly standing about the city..or travelling back and forth, praying for something to happen; then from the blue, all chaos breaks loose as two people engage in combat, which signals to the rest of the sim "Let's rock" which equals sim lag..and in the rare cases, sim crashes. I'm an avid roleplayer, and spent time in most of the varies forms of RP that exist in SecondLife, and like most of the others out there, I am disapointed in what this sim offers. Constantly, quarrels end up in OOC fights, which makes you want to avoid roleplaying, and depending on your faction, you can expect to be griefed quite often. There is ample godmodding in the rp, thrown in with OOC revenge and vendetta's, which can bring about a bad day. Also, the level of maturity that some GM's, and players have is quite disappointing, where if your not one of the favorites of the sim, you can expect little help in situations, and sometimes an unncessary ban, as I've known to happen. Now, there are worse sims out there..a few gorean sims..NOR sims which is related to CoLA..and Toxia..which is strictly a SL Quake/Doom..But I do recommend you checking it out, and give it a try, it is worth the effort, usually, ;)
Posted by: Christie Heaney | April 01, 2007 at 01:30 PM
Christie, so you bash everything about the sim and then tell people to check it out??? Weird. Every RP sim has its bad moments. Nothing run by a bunch of humans on their free time is going to be awesome all the time. All the issues you raise I see happening among the newer or more immature players in the SIM. The experienced players and the GM staff are remarkably patient with those new to the sim. If you read the notecards, actually interact, get to know the background of what is going on then a new player can expect to get integrated in easily. If you waltz in without reading anything, decide your level 1 character is the supreme Vampire in the universe and all should bow before it, cop an attitude and general act immature then you run into the issues you list. The only faction that suffers regular "grief" are the demons because 1)they have played their role really well and have a long history of general badness among the experienced players or 2) every newb in the sim sees a player with horns, screams "demon" and starts shooting. *shrugs* If you would go to the CoLA website you will find about 5 pages of discussion among the players on how to deal with the situation so demons can RP without being "griefed". I haven't been in any other sim where that type of discussion takes place.
Posted by: Damia Savon | April 02, 2007 at 02:41 PM
Sorry I haven't had the time to personally comment on this but wanted to thank Uri for coming to me and asking to do this. I was very surprised by it and I'm glad people enjoyed the story.
My apologies for not replying immediately but CoLA and CCS are alot of work so I tend to get constantly sidetracked on a daily basis.
Thanks everyone for your input and thank you for enjoying our community.
Posted by: Suzanna Soyinka | April 02, 2007 at 11:08 PM
Wow, I have rped in Cola for a while now but to be honest had never bothered to read the back story. And an excellent one it is at that. I am very impressed and hopefully, when sl stops making it damn near impossible for me to play without having a nervous break down, I can continue to rp there :)
Cola Rocks!
Kes,
xx
Posted by: Kesia Gabreski | April 26, 2007 at 10:55 PM