CHAPTER 1: Moving In

 It wouldn't be properly Sixties if there wasn't a groovy soundtrack to go read along to.  Every so often there will be a music cue to one of the fabulous sounds of the Sixties for you to click and play.

Sim City, 1966. A cultural revolution is underway across the Western world as fashion, music, art and style are undergoing great change. It's a time of experimentation, of pushing boundaries, expanding minds and grooving on out. It's turn on, tune in and drop out...baby.

Well, not everyone's like that. Take young Jeremy Saint here. A square jawed, clean cut kid from Crested Butte who has recently graduated from Britechester University with a burning desire to strike out from his family and make a name for himself in the big city. Jeremy's tastes are....shall we say "conservative". Not for him wild parties, discotheques and....experimentation of various sorts.

With some money saved from legacies left to him by his Great Aunts Gertrude and Hildegarde, Jeremy has managed to put a deposit on a small, not too fancy house in Willow Creek. From there he plans to seek his fortune.

As Jeremy can't so much as boil an egg, and heeding his dad's advice to learn how to fix leaky pipes, change a tyre and mend a fuse he starts to learn valuable life skills when there's a knock at the door....

The neighbours...three friends who share the house at the end of the road.

"Hey, we saw you move in this morning and we came to say hi!" said a young, with-it guy who introduced himself as Travis.

"Oh, hi...I'm Jeremy. Nice to meet....erm...." but Jeremy couldn't finish his sentence. Behind Travis were two hot chicks who introduced themselves as Summer and Liberty. He'd known girls on campus but these two were way beyond their league.

Liberty was the chattiest of the group; she kept talking about her job at Space Y and how plans to land the first Sim on the Moon were progressing. Jeremy hardly understood anything she said. Travis was more easy-going, cracking jokes about this and that and eating a fruit cake he'd brought along. Jeremy wasn't sure about the cake and as for Summer, she walked around his new house checking everything out. She had this perky walk that Jeremy found alluring. However, he didn't know what the score was with these three and didn't want to hit on Summer just in case she and Travis were an item.

It was clear these guys were part of the in-crowd in Sim City with their talk of parties and the hottest spots in town. They all recommended the Blue Velvet nightclub and suggested that one of these days they should all go there. Just before dinner time, the guests left with promises to catch up soon. Did Summer give Jeremy a cute little wave as she left? He couldn't be sure but Liberty didn't leave right away; she kept talking about vectors and orbits and such. Soon even she noticed it was getting dark and made her goodbyes.

Jeremy enjoyed a moment's peace before his telephone rang.

"Is that Jeremy Saint?" said a rather gruff, stern voice at the other end of the line.

"Er...yes, yes it is" replied Jeremy.

"My name is J.J. Gotcha from Dewey, Cheatem and Howe...we got your resume and we liked it, we liked it a lot. Can you begin work at 9am tomorrow?"

"Yes Mr Gotcha! And thanks, I'll be there!"

"Don't be late....I've sent you some reports to fill out. Be a good chap and fill them all out by the end of the day. Goodbye." and with that the line went dead.

Jeremy smiled: A job, a cool neighbour and two hot chicks living nearby. Liberty of Summer....Liberty or Summer? Jeremy snapped out of his daydream. What if they thought he was a nerd?

MEET THE CHARACTERS

MEET THE CHARACTERS

 JEREMY SAINT

BORN: 1943, Crested Butte, Colorado (age 23)

CAREER:  Business

MARITAL STATUS:  Single and sharing a house with with Barbara Dubois.

RESIDENCE:  Crick Cabana, Foundry Cove, Willow Creek

FIRST APPEARANCE:  Chapter 1 (Moving In)

PERSONALITY:  Jeremy is a button down, square sort of regular guy from a small town and very middle class aspirational in character.  He has solid, small c conservative values and a cheerful attitude that endears him to many people who meet him.  He gets nervous around the mod, swinging culture he encounters but is also drawn to it via his various friends.  He's also an incurable romantic who is looking for Miss Right.

INSPIRATION:  Jeremy is based on the kind of square, button down types prominent in mid-60s comedies such as Robert Morse in "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" and...quintessentially...Don Hollinger from "That Girl".

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SUZY HUMPHRIES (nee Kent)

BORN:  1946, Boston, Massachusetts (age 20)

CAREER: Style Influencer

MARITAL STATUS:  Married to Neil Humphries

RESIDENCE: Rindle Rose, Courtyard Lane, Willow Creek

FIRST APPEARANCE: Chapter 6 (The Mod Girl)

PERSONALITY:  Suzy is the archetypal Sixties Dolly Bird.  Hip and with it with her Mod gear she knows the latest sounds, fashions and influential people.  She's generally upbeat and loves her job at "Hey Wow!" magazine and feels blessed to be in the perfect job for her at the perfect time in history.  Recently she's shown some ability as a dogged investigative journalist as she uncovers the dark side of Sim City and the strange power struggles between the Landgraabs, Fengs and Goths.

INSPIRATION:  Suzy is based on the real life dolly bird models of the Sixties such as Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton.  She's a representative of the Swinging Sixties, Carnaby Street modern young woman.

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JOHN ACTION

BORN:  1940, Harlem, New York (Age 26)

CAREER: Law Enforcement

MARITAL STATUS:  Single

RESIDENCE: Daisy Hovel, Foundry Cove, Willow Creek

FIRST APPEARANCE: Chapter 16 (Action)

PERSONALITY:  John Action (or Action as he prefers to be known) is the cool city dick who's hot with all the chicks.  He's always ready for action, hates criminals, lives off adrenaline, sometimes prone to having a short temper, but has a cool, sophisticated style and an eye for the ladies.  A former Sim Nation Marine, he did a tour in Vietnam (Simdo-China) and that has coloured his attitude to life, which he intends to live to the full.  A sharp dresser in his 100 Simoleon suits, he's a tough cop by day and a loving machine at night.  The Chief and the D.A. might despair at Action, but he gets results...his job, his way!

INSPIRATION:  The main, obvious inspiration for Action is Shaft.  However, the early strong black characters emerging into mainstream consciousness also go into the Action character:  Barney from Mission: Impossible, Virgil Tibbs and Mark Sanger from Ironside.

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JULIA EPSTEIN

BORN:  1944, Windenburg, Sim City (Age 22)

CAREER: Doctor

MARITAL STATUS:  Single

RESIDENCE: Bargain Bend, Foundry Cove, Willow Creek

FIRST APPEARANCE:  Chapter 7 (Guys' Night Out)

PERSONALITY:  Julia is a newly qualified doctor who was always top of her class and now finds herself at the bottom of the career ladder.  She's an observant Jew, but not Orthodox, and has a strict moral code, disapproving of a lot of the Swinging Sixties culture.  She appears to be a mass of contradictions: Gawky and nerdy looking but at the same time a natural beauty when she relaxes.  Disapproving of the Swinging Sixties yet prefers to wear a mini skirt.  Serious about her work but with a mischievous sense of humour.  Independent and yet craves companionship. She is a young woman of many talents which have yet to be realised. 

INSPIRATION:  Julia is part Mary Tyler Moore, part Rhoda and part Susan St James in "The Name of The Game".  She represents a more cerebral take on the liberated young woman idea of the Sixties and could be a proto-second wave feminist.

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BARBARA DUBOIS

BORN:  1947, Montreal, Canada (age 19)

CAREER: Owner of Pack's Clothing Boutique

MARITAL STATUS:  Single and sharing a house with her boyfriend, Jeremy Saint.

RESIDENCE: Crick Cabana, Foundry Cove, Willow Creek

FIRST APPEARANCE:  Chapter 17 (Chick Repellent)

PERSONALITY:  Barbara is a Canadian living in the United States, looking for opportunities there.  She's a funny, sweet girl who often feels intimidated by all the sights, sounds and craziness that goes on in Sim City.  She has that Canadian and British whacky sense of humour that is sometimes lost on Americans and is quite naïve about the more worldly aspects of the Swinging Sixties...she wishes to be "with it" with all the latest fab gear but is unsure about how to go about taking full advantage of all modern life has to offer.

INSPIRATION:  Barbara is a randomly generated townie whose outfit was modified to look more Sixties.  As such she's not obviously based on any real person or character from that era.  She harks to that kind of cute, girl next door ideal that often crops up in movies and TV shows of that era.

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TRAVIS SCOTT

BORN:  1943, Sim City (age 23)

CAREER: Tech Guru (electronics)

MARITAL STATUS:  Single but in a relationship with Summer Holiday.

RESIDENCE:  Garden Essence, Foundry Cove, Willow Creek

FIRST APPEARANCE:  Chapter 1 (Moving In)

PERSONALITY:  Travis works as a research technician for a large electronics manufacturing company, specialising in solid state circuitry, transistors and radios.  He's enthusiastic about where this work will take him...hopefully Space Y....and he gets jealous about Liberty's more glamourous job.  Travis can't believe his luck at sharing a house with two hot chicks, but can't make up his mind who he likes more.  If pushed, he prefers Summer but feels she's way out of his league.  Liberty is more on his intellectual level.

INSPIRATION:  Travis is a retconned version of the base game character, just adapted for the 1960s in appearance and attitudes.  Of course, in this world the computers are room sized and work off reel to reel tapes so he works more on the electrical side.

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LIBERTY LEE

BORN:  1943, Sim City (age 23)

CAREER: Astronaut

MARITAL STATUS:  Single and in a relationship with Gary Corbett

RESIDENCE: Garden Essence, Foundry Cove, Willow Creek

FIRST APPEARANCE:  Chapter 1 (Moving In)

PERSONALITY:  Liberty is the brainbox of the BFF household: A genius intellect working for Space Y on the quest to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth by the end of the decade.  Ideally she'd like to be that person but is working flat out as part of the support crew.  She devotes so much time to her work she often neglects her personal life and her goofy walk and nerdy obsessions get in the way of her social activities.  She fancies Travis but knows that her best friend, Summer, adores him so doesn't want to cause a rift in their happy home.  Fortunately for her she's met another man, Gary, who she's taken a fancy to.

INSPIRATION:  Liberty is the base game character retconned for the 1960s.  As the 1960s is the era of the great Space Race, she's going to be kept VERY busy over the next 4 years!

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SUMMER HOLIDAY

BORN:  1946, Sim City (age 20)

CAREER: Catering

MARITAL STATUS:  Single but in a relationship with Travis Scott.

RESIDENCE: Garden Essence, Foundry Cove, Willow Creek

FIRST APPEARANCE:  Chapter 1 (Moving In)

PERSONALITY: Summer is the life and soul of Foundry Cove.  A happy, outgoing and bubbly person she's become close friends with everyone in the street due to her positivity, sensitivity and willingness to help others.  She's an active, get up and go girl with a romantic heart that is attracted to Travis, but does he notice her?  Summer's insecure that she's not clever enough for him but still works hard to help others. 

INSPIRATION:  Summer is the base game character retconned for the 1960s.  

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EDNA SNEEDLEY

BORN:  1925, Hartford, Connecticut (Age 41)

CAREER: Housewife, aspiring politician

MARITAL STATUS:  Married to George Sneedley

RESIDENCE: Sneedley Burrow, Bedrock Straight, Oasis Springs

FIRST APPEARANCE:  Chapter 32 (Veiled Threats)

PERSONALITY: Edna is Sim City's busybody and self-proclaimed moral guardian.  Along with her husband, George, she casts her disdain on the permissive society and has begun the League Of Decency to fight back against moral corruption.  She's a nagging wife who tries to boss her husband around and dislikes most young people.

INSPIRATION:  The classic moral busybody neighbour from Sixties sitcoms mixed with Mary Whitehouse and her National Viewers And Listeners Association. 

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GEORGE SNEEDLEY

BORN:  Born 1924, Oakland, California (Age 42)

CAREER: Caterer

MARITAL STATUS:  Married to Edna Sneedley

RESIDENCE: Sneedley Burrow, Bedrock Straight, Oasis Springs

FIRST APPEARANCE:  Chapter 54 (Standards of Decency)

PERSONALITY: Along with his wife, George looks down at the permissive society and the youth of today.  Quite often a morose man, he will gladly tell stories about his time in the Navy fighting in two foreign wars.  But along with his sneering, busy-body nature there are hidden secrets to George Sneedley...secrets Edna does not even know.

INSPIRATION:  The henpecked husband from old sitcoms but one of those characters who keeps a dark secret with a nod towards the transvestite husband in Woody Allen's "Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask".

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NEIL HUMPHRIES

BORN:  Born 1942, Sim City (Age 24)

CAREER: Retail/aspiring artist

MARITAL STATUS:  Married to Suzy Humphries

RESIDENCE: Rindle Rose, Courtyard Lane, Willow Creek

FIRST APPEARANCE:  Chapter 36 (Insider Information)

PERSONALITY: Neil is a shy and artistic young man who is nervous in matters of romance and is often indecisive but deep down there's a hero struggling to come to the surface.  He is loyal, brave and protective of his fiancée, Suzy, he just needs the confidence to go for what he wants out of life and to be the hero.

INSPIRATION:  Neil was a townie who had random characteristics and, on the surface, seemed a lot like Jeremy Saint.  However his interactions with Suzy has propelled this background character to the fore and now he's taken on a life of his own.

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JAMIE McGREGOR

BORN:  Born 1949, Sim City (Age 17)

CAREER: High school student

MARITAL STATUS:  Single; lives with his parents Colin & Myra.

RESIDENCE: Agave Abode, Bedrock Strait, Oasis Springs

FIRST APPEARANCE:  Chapter 79 (All In A Day's Work)

PERSONALITY: Jamie is a boy in his late teens and on the verge of manhood and as such is driven by his hormones, aspirations and worries.  He desperately wants to get a girlfriend, preferably a swinging mod chick, be seen to be part of the in-crowd and enjoying everything that the Swinging Sixties has to offer.  However, being in Bedrock Straight is far from where the action is and he feels like everything's passing him by.

INSPIRATION:  The inspiration for Jamie comes from his namesake character from the film and novel "Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush".

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JOANNA THOMPSON

BORN:  1945, San Myshuno (age 21)

CAREER:  College student

MARITAL STATUS:  Single

RESIDENCE: Streamlet Single, Foundry Cove, Willow Creek

FIRST APPEARANCE:  Chapter 90 (The Accomplice)

PERSONALITY:  Joanna's had a rough life so far:  Parents both dead when she was very young, growing up in the slums and with an older brother who got involved in a gang and was killed when she was just 16.  With no money she turned to prostitution, a life that has made her cynical and suspicious.  Then she found she was a beneficiary of a forgotten relative's estate and has come into money so she's quit life on the streets, enrolled in college and is determined to do things her way.

INSPIRATION:  She began as a townie but as the story of Sim 66 has progressed there came a point where a streetwise character of dubious virtue was required so Joanna's role was born.  After the story progressed some more I decided to elevate her to a main character and explore her story.  The street life part is inspired by various cinematic characters found in Blaxploitation movies but also in TV cop shows which had more of a social commentary angle such as Ironside and The Mod Squad.

Sim 66, prologue

 The year is 1966

It is a time of a-changin'.  At the mid point of the Sixties things were starting to kick into gear...gone were the stiff, formal 50s.  Jack, Jackie and Camelot were also history by now.  Things were now entering the Swinging Sixties phase.  It was a youthful time where young people were gathering in Carnaby Street, London and Haight Ashbury, San Francisco.  

In music The Beatles still reigned supreme but hot on their heels were The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Beach Boys were now entering their most creative era.  The pop and rock music of the era was getting more experimental, there's an increasing emphasis on musical ability and loudness.

Fashion was entering a whole, new phase.  For men the sharp, mod suit competed with the more psychedelic shirt patterns, velvet flares and turtleneck sweaters.  For women the biggest fashion revolution had just hit the scene: The mini skirt.  Introduced at the tail end of 1964, by the end of 1965 it had proved a hit with young women and by the start of 1966 it was worn everywhere.  With the introduction of so short a skirt, other items of fashion had to alter as well; shoes, hosiery and underwear.

Society was changing, but not in so radical ways as popular history would have you believe.  Yes, a large section of the youth were protesting war and civil rights but the real social revolution was The Pill.  There was one thing on the mind of the young in 1966 and that was how to score with someone of the opposite sex?

Around the world there was still war and conflict...the United States had committed itself formally to a war in Vietnam in 1965.  Elsewhere the United Kingdom had to deal with conflicts in Borneo and Aden and, ever present, was the Cold War with the Soviets and the People's Republic of China.

And technology was changing fast as well.  The space programme led to many innovations in electronics for the household as a byproduct.  Most people had a television and stereo.  Life had never been better for millions of people in the whole of history beforehand and the world was on the threshold of going to the Moon.

But what of the folk of Sim City in 1966?  We follow the lives of some of them and their stories will be related here.

Sim 66 is a simlit series that is based upon actual gameplay of The Sims 4.  A 1960s world has been created in the game and all events written up here are expanded and extrapolated from what happens in it.  The stories flow from the game interactions and actions of the characters.

So without further ado, let's enter the world of Sim 66.