Part 3: A Place of Freedom
Update 2: A Place of Freedom
Good morning, people of the world! This is Juanito, with TNN’s biennial Very Special Broadcast.
There is much that has been happening in the world, it seems. The Korean War has finally ended in a ceasefire, and England has lost its king. Eisenhower has become El Presidente de los USA, and someone named Khrushchev took over in Russia after their Great Leader Stalin died. Our El Presidente Voodoo Pizzaman is still doing fine, and he thanks you all for your concern.
The two sorts of letters we received after the last Very Special Broadcast were almost all in one of two categories: sugar (and rum!) and pineapples. El Presidente does not believe that farms are very expensive, so he has decided to build both! As such, the votes were not counted, but be assured that your voices were heard.
Unfortunately, certain other domestic issues are making themselves felt at this point. Even after all this building, basic structures like churches and clinics have not been built since their destruction in the Revolución of ’50. The Religious faction for one has begun complaining about not having a place to worship. When asked about the matter, El Presidente insisted that he has been too busy trying to bring in a steady cash flow to worry about such trivial matters. Needless to say, the Religious leader did not take it very well.
Instead, Mr. Pizzaman decided to spend the financial aid given by the Americanos on a pair of car garages. When asked about them, El Presidente explained that he had to walk for two hours to reach the docks when he checked on it last, and he was sick and tired of having to run everywhere.
I cannot say I blame him, as everyone on the island except the miners, teamsters, construction workers, and dockworkers did not have access to cars at all, and even these people cannot use their trucks for personal use. By placing a garage downtown and one near the docks, El Presidente ensured that everyone, including himself, would be able to reach their destinations much quicker. Each garage is staffed by two teamsters, which means that our products will be reaching their destinations in record time, as well.
Why, even the normally lazy construction workers managed to finish both buildings in record time!
Soon afterward, another cargo ship docked at our island, bringing a mess of new immigrants and several thousand dollars in profit from exports.
Sadly, with all of the lumberjack, teamster, and miner jobs, there was not much available for the women at the moment. Fortunately, this would change with the farms that were about to be built with the export surplus.
You may wonder why there are three farms in this picture instead of two. Well, in my last Very Special Broadcast, I mentioned that El Presidente had a very strong interest in seeing a tobacco farm becoming built. It would seem that this desire did not disappear when hearing the will of the people of the world, and so along with the sugar and pineapple farms, a tobacco farm was built. Tobacco can only be farmed at one location in Tropico, while pineapple and sugar can grow anywhere, so it was not hard to find a good position for the three of them.
Here are the farms after the construction workers left. The growth cycle is fairly long for most plants, so none of these buildings have even now turned a profit. This is expected to change in the near future, however.
The second cargo ship of ’52 was not as exciting as the first. Still, our exports are holding steady.
Meanwhile, our high school has had its first graduate! I do not recall the name, sadly, but he immediately joined the ranks of our palace guards, who are currently the only male job available which requires a high school education.
After seeing how long it was taking for students to graduate, Mr. Pizzaman growled with impatience, and instituted a literacy program, which encourages us Tropicans not currently learning at the school to drop by and actually read some of the books in the library.
Speaking of which, I found a very interesting geography book, and I would like to apologize for what I said in my last Very Special Broadcast. It seems I have vastly underestimated the number of people in the world, so my apologies to the other 999,000 of you!
With the farms and garages finished, El Presidente finally relented and permitted the construction workers to build a pair of additional tenements. While this placed the government into debt once again, El Presidente laughed very deeply when the fear of USSR interdiction was brought up.
In spite of his confidence, however, I must admit that I do not think the Soviets like us very much.
Perhaps building the tenements and appeasing the Communists helped to calm them down, as we have not yet seen any foreign warships in the nearby waters. It still seemed to take far too long for the construction workers to finish building them, however.
As it stands, it was too long for the Tropican Revenant Threshold. The last I heard, he swore vengeance upon the Capitalist scum who run our government and ran into the deepest part of the jungle. I can only hope that nothing bad comes of this.
At last, the buildings were completed, and the majority of the Tropican people were able to move inside. I do not know how buildings of three different sizes are able to hold the same number of occupants, but I have been told that the reasoning is far too complicated to bother explaining.
In more exciting news, it seems that the grubby shanty built just behind the construction yard has been abandoned! This is exciting because, as you can tell from the large, cartoonish bomb stamp, the building has also been designated for demolition.
Tickets were sold for positions near the top floor of the yard. It was a very beautiful explosion, and Juanito was very glad to be there.
Near the end of ’53, we received yet another large group of immigrants.
Among their number was one Volmarias, who, along with voting for one of the crops under contention, made some very strong comments about what El Presidente should do with his corn farms.
I think I speak for all of us when I welcome him to our island. Perhaps he will be able to go into more detail about his ideas on where the Tropican economy should head next.
Ironically, it seems that Volmarias’ first job as a teamster was to collect the surplus corn crop from the farms.
¿Señor Juanito?
¿Si?
Que El Presidente quiere que usted lea este.
Hmm? Breaking news, people of the world!
It seems that a death scream was heard near the corn farm after Volmarias entered the area. No shots were heard, but Davzz was sent to bring Volmarias in for questioning.
El Presidente would like to make it clear that the soldier Psycho Serum was murdered in cold blood, and in no way was poor health care involved in his death.
Sadly, Volmarias resisted arrest, and Davzz was forced to shoot him down in the street. All Tropicans mourn for our fallen compañero. Except, of course, for Revenant Threshold, who does not know the meaning of camaraderie.
Fortunately, the fallen Mr. Serum should soon be replaced, as the high school is still going strong!
¿Eh, señor Juanito?
Oh. Oh dear. It appears that the bad health care on the island may have deeper consequences than was previously thought. However, I do not wish to end the Very Special Broadcast on a bad note, so here!
Have a toucan!
And now, our special segments.
Since the last Adopt a Tropican Corner focused on the most special person on the island, it was decided that this broadcast would choose someone who is not special at all: Richard Nixon!
Richard works at the Tropican dock, a thankless job which nevertheless is among the most important on the island, since our exports cannot get on the ships without someone to wheel it out of the warehouses!
Here is Nixon standing in a field staring at plants. Since there are no entertainment buildings on the island, this qualifies as the most exciting form of relaxation available.
We’ve got our eye on you, Nixon!
Here at Tropico News Network, one of our jobs is to collect census information on our island inhabitants. As you can see, Nixon is a Tropican native, and has reached the age of 40 as of this year. Nixon is unmarried, which means that the food he collects from the farms is able to last him quite some time. When we caught him for an interview, he was heading home to sleep, and although he could not satisfy his need for faith, fun, and health, it would be some time before he would complain about not having them.
We then asked him about his satisfaction with various needs and wants. We have placed stars next to the needs he feels are most important, which are housing, religion, and job quality. He had only just moved into the tenement, so his housing satisfaction was still low.
Next, we asked Nixon about which factions he supported, and how strongly. I am not sure what the symbols on this page mean, but I have been assured that only El Presidente needs to know what they represent.
This is our information about Nixon’s job and home. Tropicans will almost never pay more than 1/3 of their salary in rent, which is why tenements are so cheap.
Nixon is not related to anyone currently living on the island, but we have a place for that information, too.
There are also a few tests TNN administers to our interviewees to test out some basic information, which is then measured on a scale from “excellent” to “abysmal.”
Finally, we asked Nixon to tell us a few of his most recent thoughts. We thought they were quite representational of the current population as a whole.
Today’s Meet a Faction: the Capitalists!
Compared to the population, the Capitalists are generally not that big. However, they very frequently have all the money, which makes them worth listening to.
At the moment, the Capitalists are very, very pleased with El Presidente, even though he has not done very much for them. It is more his background that they enjoy, I believe. Were this not so, the ways to appease the Capitalists are to increase the economic disparity, develop much high-class housing and entertainment, and to keep the poor from trying to equalize the cash distribution the hard way. Or to keep enough police on the streets, that is. And while the Communists and Capitalists cannot seem to get along outside of our little island, it is not very difficult to see both factions approve of the same leader here, so long as basic and luxury needs are both being met.
And now, it is time once again to hear the opinions of you, the people of the world! This time will be even more exciting, as we need two different answers!
In the first place, El Presidente says that he will be very busy over the next two years building up the tourism industry, and will only have time to build one building to fulfill basic needs. So he wishes to know if it should be the Clinic (health), Church (religion), or Restaurant (entertainment)?
Next, El Presidente’s first term will be drawing to a close at the end of the sixth year, and he wishes the people’s advice. El Presidente fully intends for the democratic process to go ahead without interference, of course, but he is writing a book about all the different ways dictators have rigged the elections over the years. First, elections can be called off entirely, without even bothering with the counting. Second, elections can be rigged with just a little creative counting measures. Third, something bad can happen to the man or woman who decides to run against the great leader, and although it is usually expensive, tax breaks are sometimes imposed to get a quick boost in respect. Not that they last long beyond election day, that is.
So, El Presidente would like to know everyone’s opinion on which method of cheating he should emphasize in his book, or whether to democratically keep them all the same. Mr. Pizzaman would like to emphasize that all options, including the last one, are equally valid.