Pleasantville
Nestled in the pine forests not far inland from Aysea, there is a town where the apocalypse never happened. White fences line the road. Farms stretch to the treeline. Children attend a schoolhouse with worn textbooks. A friendly general store stocks goods that most wasteland settlements could never imagine seeing on a shelf. The Pleasantville Herald rolls off an antique printing press with news of local harvests and community events. Radios in every home play calming music interspersed with weather reports and cheerful bulletins. The residents go to church on Sundays, do not drink, do not swear, do not dance, and do not explore beyond the tree line where the forest devils live. They believe themselves to be a small, self-contained community in a world that simply forgot about them.
Every element of this life is manufactured. The Board of Aysea spares little expense maintaining the illusion of pre-fall American normalcy. The radios are artfully broken to receive only Board-programmed frequencies mixing false news, scare stories, and music designed to soothe. "Traveling merchants" supplied by the Board deliver goods the town cannot produce on its own. The Old Faith religion was engineered to forbid precisely those behaviors that might lead to curiosity: drinking loosens tongues, dancing breeds energy, exploration reaches truth. Forest devil folklore explains the disappearances. Children are taught the outside world fears and hates people of faith. The residents work collective farms, practice carpentry, chandlery, and blacksmithing. They are given just enough luxury to prevent boredom but not so much as to create idle time.
Pleasantville is a farm. Its product is innocence: human beings almost completely untouched by the apocalypse, ignorant of the world's true state, childlike in their belief in a better world. When invitations go out for a Pleasantville auction, travel patterns change across the continent. Buyers want the residents for their unique perspective, or for the pleasure of watching carefully constructed illusions shatter. Aysea once filled its entire armory on the trade of a single Pleasantville slave. Freedom from a notorious pirate fleet was secured as payment for another. Prices are not always in credits. The town is the Board's most valuable commodity, so closely guarded that only a handful of members on the third and fourth sides may learn of its existence. Others receive cuts from "long-term investments" and are quietly discouraged from asking questions. Buyers who reveal the secret lose their invitations and face retribution severe enough to ensure silence.
Every element of this life is manufactured. The Board of Aysea spares little expense maintaining the illusion of pre-fall American normalcy. The radios are artfully broken to receive only Board-programmed frequencies mixing false news, scare stories, and music designed to soothe. "Traveling merchants" supplied by the Board deliver goods the town cannot produce on its own. The Old Faith religion was engineered to forbid precisely those behaviors that might lead to curiosity: drinking loosens tongues, dancing breeds energy, exploration reaches truth. Forest devil folklore explains the disappearances. Children are taught the outside world fears and hates people of faith. The residents work collective farms, practice carpentry, chandlery, and blacksmithing. They are given just enough luxury to prevent boredom but not so much as to create idle time.
Pleasantville is a farm. Its product is innocence: human beings almost completely untouched by the apocalypse, ignorant of the world's true state, childlike in their belief in a better world. When invitations go out for a Pleasantville auction, travel patterns change across the continent. Buyers want the residents for their unique perspective, or for the pleasure of watching carefully constructed illusions shatter. Aysea once filled its entire armory on the trade of a single Pleasantville slave. Freedom from a notorious pirate fleet was secured as payment for another. Prices are not always in credits. The town is the Board's most valuable commodity, so closely guarded that only a handful of members on the third and fourth sides may learn of its existence. Others receive cuts from "long-term investments" and are quietly discouraged from asking questions. Buyers who reveal the secret lose their invitations and face retribution severe enough to ensure silence.
Government
Pleasantville has a tiny police department, a post office run by Mr. Summers (head of the Nosy Neighbors), and all the trappings of small-town governance that the Board considers necessary to maintain the illusion. None of it is real. The actual authority lies with Andrew Borgata, the reclusive controller of the slave-farming operation, and with the Pine Baron who guards the perimeter. The Board controls everything from Aysea: what goods arrive, what news the radios broadcast, what the schoolteacher tells the children. The residents govern themselves in the small ways that do not matter, choosing what to plant, settling neighborly disputes, organizing community events. The decisions that define their existence are made by people they will never meet, in a city they do not know exists.
Defences
Pleasantville's defenses are designed to keep the truth out rather than enemies at bay. The Pine Baron and his lieutenants patrol the forest perimeter, intercepting anyone who approaches uninvited and maintaining the scare tactics that keep residents afraid to leave. The Nosy Neighbors operate internally, watching for signs of curiosity or doubt among the population and acting swiftly to contain any breach in the illusion. The engineered religion, the rigged radios, the carefully curated flow of goods and information: all of these function as defenses against the most dangerous threat Pleasantville faces, which is not raiders or undead, but knowledge. The town that the Board has built is a prison without walls, and its security apparatus is designed to ensure that the prisoners never realize they need to escape.
History
The Sainthood of Ashes discovered the truth about Pleasantville early in the town's existence. Their members managed to convince some residents to escape, leading them out through the pine forests to freedom. When the Saints returned for others, they found the message the Board had prepared for them: every person remaining in the town strung up from the trees, with signs promising more of the same. The Saints got the message. They withdrew and now pass the secret only rarely, even among the faithful. The Ashen Ghosts know the town exists. They know what happens there. They bide their time because the alternative is another row of bodies hanging from the pines.
Denny Leeds, the Pine Baron, guards Pleasantville for the Board. His most trusted and depraved lieutenants maintain the perimeter, throwing in scare tactics that reinforce the "forest devil" mythology for any resident who wanders too close to the treeline. The Board pays him enough to choke a Vegasian crimelord, and for that price, Leeds keeps everything exactly as the Board desires. The "Nosy Neighbors," a secret police force composed of residents who have been told the truth, maintain the deception from within. Each was offered a deal: keep the secret, keep the locals from getting curious, and their families will be spared slavery. Not one person has refused. Not one has gone rogue. They work with fanatical devotion, because the alternative is watching their children sold at auction.
Denny Leeds, the Pine Baron, guards Pleasantville for the Board. His most trusted and depraved lieutenants maintain the perimeter, throwing in scare tactics that reinforce the "forest devil" mythology for any resident who wanders too close to the treeline. The Board pays him enough to choke a Vegasian crimelord, and for that price, Leeds keeps everything exactly as the Board desires. The "Nosy Neighbors," a secret police force composed of residents who have been told the truth, maintain the deception from within. Each was offered a deal: keep the secret, keep the locals from getting curious, and their families will be spared slavery. Not one person has refused. Not one has gone rogue. They work with fanatical devotion, because the alternative is watching their children sold at auction.
