Before the Sims of the little prospering desert community (population: 74) knew what was happening, a large mountain nearby started spewing lava! Dozens of Sims panicked. Some tried to save their crops. Some dove underwater. Some cloistered themselves away into their caves.
Amidst the chaos, the teenager Domino Allah realized what they needed to do to survive.
“Mom, Dad, we have to leave – now!” he said quickly.
“But we don’t have anywhere else to go!” Elle said desperately.
“We’ll die if we leave!” Danny predicted.
“We’ll die if we stay here!” Domino countered. “Listen, I played on that mountain as a kid. It was all rock! Even though what’s coming out of it now moves like water, what will we do if it turns back to rock while we’re in our cave? We’ll be stuck and die!”
Danny and Elle looked at each other, and then Danny nodded.
“All right, son, I hope this works,” Danny said.
“Mom, you go get all the families in that direction,” Domino said, pointing in each direction as he spoke. “Dad, you go that way and warn those families. Perseo,” he looked at his younger brother who was just barely old enough for such an errand, “you go warn the Nanus. I’ll warn everyone else. We should meet back up after a two days’ journey toward the rising sun.”
Westward was the direction from which Domino’s grandparents had come, and Domino knew that nothing was left back there. So the best option was to continue the journey that Dan and Dami Allah and their friends had begun, Domino decided.
Thankfully, everyone escaped with their lives.
Shockingly enough, the community found out that they had settled right near the edge of the desert. In their rush for safety, the Sims discovered a terrain so lush and alive that they hardly knew what to do with it.
“I guess we could try farming again,” Ida Ungi said dubiously.
“I have a lot of seeds,” Donny Allay announced. “Does anyone else need any?”
Slowly, the Sims took inventory. Some of them had managed to grab some of their belongings in the rush to safety. Some of them had had to leave a lot behind. They began to voluntarily pass resources around to help those who had very little.
Domino held back from the trading, and he stood in front of his parents on the edge of the crowd to keep them from getting involved, too. He didn’t like that his family, who had thought to take all they needed, would have to help the Sims who had been, to his mind, stupid and careless. They wouldn’t even be alive if it wasn’t for him! What more did they want from him?
“What are we going to do for shelter?” Domino asked, partly to excuse his lack of participation and partly to hide it. “There aren’t any caves around here. And it’s colder here than it was back home; we’ll definitely need some way to keep warm.”
“We can teach you how to build houses,” an elderly voice from behind Domino said. The voice belonged to an elderly man who introduced himself as Grand Abbot and the elderly woman who traveled with him as Mother Serenity. The two of them had come from a more “civilized” society, they said, and they offered to teach the cave Sims how to live in a more advanced civilization.
The Sims drank in the knowledge that the strangers shared, but they put it to use too quickly for their new system to be anywhere near perfect. The rough edges of the new system only sharpened, rather than smoothed.
First off, they elected the Allah household as their rulers, particularly Domino. His sisters weren’t too happy with that, as they still remembered him as the bratty little brother who stole all of Daddy’s attention, but even they couldn’t deny that he had been instrumental in their survival. No one knew yet of Domino’s selfishness and greed, or how far he would go with it. So Domino became Emperor Domino Allah.
Mother Serenity and Grand Abbot taught the Sims how to build a magnificent palace for the Emperor and his family; then they set the Sims to work on building houses of worship. Along with a hierarchy and building methods, the two Sims had introduced religion to the community. Elia and Ella Allah were fascinated by Mother Serenity’s description of nunship, especially that she took a vow to never marry. After growing up with Danny and Domino, nothing appealed to them more than a life spent among only sisters.
Mother Serenity and Grand Abbot also said that the community needed a name, so the Sims all put their heads together and decided to name their new land “Rome,” misspelling the word “roam” to signify that they would settle here and that nothing could move them. (Education had already begun.)
Once the Emperor’s palace, the Cathedral, the monastery, and the convent had been built, the Roman citizens had few resources left to build homes for themselves. Domino decided to assist some of the families, but he more or less turned a blind eye to the needs of others. Thus, even more social classes were born.
The Allahs aided the Nanus, Ungis, and Allays in building new homes. They were later given titles, called Patricians.
The Nanus, still headed by Ouran and Trina but soon to be passed on to Orlando, took their experience in farming to an entirely new level. They started a plantation.
Donny Allay decided to leave home each day to start experimenting with the laws of science that Grand Abbot was teaching him about.
Emperor Domino asked Yami Ungi to be a peacekeeper in their new community, and he accepted. Yami patrols Rome daily to make sure all is well, and he breaks up any fights that he comes across.
The Sims that still had a decent amount of resources left grouped together in a section of the new land and built themselves homes. In building the palace, Mother Serenity and Grand Abbot had taught them how to lay flooring and decorate walls, which they then applied to their own homes.
The Nunas, Allehs, Nanos, and Unikis were the original families in the area, but they were soon joined by the Alilays. These average families were called “Plebeians.”
Mother Serenity introduced the concept of art to the community, and many families loved it. The Nunas, however, fell so in love with art that they began making their own artworks. With Mother Serenity’s help, they fashioned some art easels and immediately set to work painting.
Demian and Isi Alleh, upon finding themselves forced to begin life anew, decided to stick with what they were good at. They planted seeds and farmed.
Omu and Dani Nano built their new home by a large pond, and the family forged their way in the new world by focusing their attentions on fishing.
The Unikis and Alilays, as they were headed by Sims still teens in the beginning of the Era, took a little longer to decide how they wanted to live their new lives. They eventually discovered that their new society meant that jobs existed even outside their homes.
These “Plebeian” Sims, while not overly fortunate like some, were a pretty happy bunch. Once all the homes were completed, they even worked together and built themselves a local chapel where they could worship the Almighty. They felt out of place in the fancy Cathedral, and Mother Serenity and Grand Abbot said that the fanciness of the house of worship didn’t matter, as long as the Sims’ hearts were sincere.
They also worked together to build a community bathhouse. With the new ways of doing things, they found that they had more time to devote to some more enjoyable parts of life, so why not enjoy those things as a community?
Not every Sim was so fortunate as to have options available to them, unfortunately. Some households found themselves nearly destitute after helping build the large, upper-class homes. Among the most unfortunate families were the Unkis, Eunkis, Nainus, Ounkis, and Udkis. Out of necessity, these Sims slaved away to make their living, resulting in their derogatory label of “Slaves.”
The Unkis, led by Cadenza now that she was an adult, became Slaves because Emperor Domino, influenced by his upbringing that said men ruled, disapproved of a woman leading the family. He forced them to work harder than the other families, so they had very few resources left with which they could begin their new lives.
The Eunkis were also left destitute because of Emperor Domino’s coercion. Before the volcano ended life as the Sims had known it, Cosimo Eunki, two of his siblings, and Elettra Allah had been more or less outcasts. Feelings apparently had not softened after the mad run for their lives.
The Nainus, led by Oden and Azia, ended up as Slaves due to an unfortunate stroke of luck. They had given their all in helping build the upper class homes, still believing in the Neanderthal mindset of helping others when they needed a hand. Unfortunately, that mindset had apparently been buried along with all of their former homes. Emperor Domino did not help the Nainus. And then Oden was the first Slave to suffer the worst part of slavery.
The Ounki household, due to their terrible condition just before the volcano erupted, landed a spot in the Slave community. The entire family was too sick to help build anything. Emperor Domino asked for their resources to replace the fact that they couldn’t physically help; Yugi and Darla agreed, unaware that they were essentially being robbed until it was too late.
The Udki household also ended up as Slaves because Emperor Domino didn’t like them. His reason was that Dex’s son was illegitimate.
The upper classes (the Emperor’s family and Patricians) took advantage of this class’s struggle for survival, offering to let Slaves of certain ages to move in with them and do all the chores in exchange for free meals and a decent place to sleep.
All the Sims in slavery banded together and managed to put up a few small, cramped huts to live in. Much too bitter to attend the lush Cathedral with the Emperor and other upper class Sims, and a bit too proud to show up at the common chapel in their dirty, shabby outfits, the Slaves built a tiny chapel of their own.
For the most part, the new Romans built churches because they believed in what Mother Serenity and Grand Abbot taught them about their religion. Some Sims didn’t believe, but the others hoped to eventually convince them.
Unfortunately, Emperor Domino acted in a way that actually drove Sims further from belief in Mother Serenity and Grand Abbot’s God. He hoped to further his own power by getting Mother Serenity and Grand Abbot, who had helped the community rise from Neanderthal dust to Roman heights, on his side. So he decreed that all Sims must attend church on Sundays. Skipping would result in fines and, if done enough times, death.
Mother Serenity and Grand Abbot pointed out in their Holy Writ that ten percent of each Sim’s income was to be given back to God. They assured the Sims that that price was surely affordable, even for Slaves, and that they would be blessed for their sacrifice.
Emperor Domino, again, ruined things by twisting it to his own benefit. He decreed that any Sim who didn’t pay tithe would be executed immediately. He also liked the idea of profiting from his subjects’ wealth, so he then decreed that a yearly tax would be enforced. His price was steeper to pay, a certain percentage based on class of a household’s net worth, but his citizens could hardly argue. The ones who would have the most difficulty paying were the ones with the least free time to do anything to protest the law.
Before the volcano erupted, several households offered homes to Sims not in their immediate family. When the social classes were assigned, the guests took on the classes of their host families. This resulted in some very awkward situations, such as some enslaved Sims serving their higher class parents or siblings. However, the general consensus, starting with the Emperor and then influencing his family and the Patricians, was that if the Slaves with upper class family had simply stayed with their family where they belonged, they would not be in this mess.
Emperor Domino foresaw problems arising with the Slaves, and he came up with a plan to keep them even busier than they had been before. Just before he publicized his decision, he met a stranger who offered to help.
The Emperor’s plan was Slave Lottery.
“Because some of you are discontent with your lives, I have devised a strategy to help you,” Emperor Domino said.
The Slaves who (barely) had the time to spare to listen to their ruler whispered amongst themselves. They wouldn’t have to be Slaves anymore? Their Emperor was going to help them finally?
“On a regular schedule, I will put the names of all Slaves teenaged and older into a box,” Emperor Domino continued. “Then I will draw a single name. The Sim who has won will be freed from their earthly troubles.”
The Slaves noticed Emperor Domino’s careful wording and started to worry that he was up to something they would not actually like. Unfortunately, even the Emperor’s sisters who were now Slaves had no idea how horrible a person he had become.
Until now.
“I will then help the winning Slave depart from this world to his heavenly treasures,” Emperor Domino finished, trying hard not to snigger at the horror on the other Sims’ faces. That would teach them to be content with their lot in life, lest things become even worse. Now they would not only be busy scraping together a living, but they would also be busy praying that they didn’t get chosen.
The Slaves recovered from their shock enough to get angry. They started pleading for mercy or flinging curses. Some even approached Emperor Domino with the intention of helping him depart from this world.
However, a very tall Sim with bulging muscles stepped between the Emperor and the angry mob. The Slaves hadn’t noticed him before, and they didn’t recognize him now. But he was clearly much stronger than they were, and they backed off; though if looks could kill, theirs would.
The strange new Sim said, “Your Emperor said that he would be doing all of the name-drawing, but to ensure fairness, I will in fact be the one to take responsibility. This way, your esteemed ruler can focus his attention on other, more important details. If you have a problem with this new law, you will take it up with me.”
“Who are you?” Dex demanded.
The Sim laughed. “Your worst nightmare. I have traveled here from Greece to be with you puny mortals. Show some gratitude and grovel.”
“We will not submit to this!” Cadenza shouted.
“You don’t have a choice,” Emperor Domino said.
“Brother, please!” Elettra Allah cried. “We’re your family!” Even as she spoke, she knew it was useless. She had always known that her little brother would turn out to be trouble, although even she had never imagined that he would become this corrupted.
Emperor Domino ignored her altogether, turned, and marched back to his palace.
“Now, then,” the stranger said, flexing his biceps. “Which of you wants to help me build my new home?”
“As if we would help you!” Tessa Nanu yelled.
“I might be able to swing things in your favor come the first lottery,” the stranger said casually. “Make it so that you have a better chance of spending more time with your loved ones.”
Some of the Sims swallowed their pride and built the stranger his Colosseum, a place which no Sim ever thereafter visited, unless he was dragged there, kicking and screaming, to be put to death.
From that point onwards, the stranger, who eventually introduced himself as Mars Roma although Mother Serenity and Grand Abbot referred to him disparagingly as Ares, enforced all of Emperor Domino’s laws. He killed all of the “winning” Slaves, in addition to Sims who broke the law, or broke it enough times.
All the Sims feared Mars, but the Slaves feared him the most. He sometimes socialized with the Emperor’s family and the Patricians, and he sometimes bought things from business-owning Plebeians. But if he approached a Slave, that Sim was pretty much guaranteed to be the next to die.
Life had improved for some Sims in the Roman Era. Learning abounded, and art flourished. Opportunities presented themselves, and money flowed from Sim to Sim. But life for the Slaves was worse – much, much worse. Their homes were smaller; their incomes were lower; and their lives scarcely seemed to be their own.
Some nobility knew about the Slaves’ suffering and didn’t care. Other aristocrats had no idea about the Slaves’ horrible lives. Many other Sims, Plebeians and some Patricians, learned about the Slaves’ mistreatments but couldn’t do anything about it.
Over time, life in the new Roman Era became natural, and they slowly began to forget how things were in the egalitarian Neanderthal life.
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