2071 — The Theocratic State
2071 represents the endpoint of the Plan for Renewed National Purpose as it was intended to be studied — a full theocratic surveillance state. The Church of God’s Word has achieved near-total control over Rockvil’s economy, culture, and justice system. The BSF and Church police enforce terror. The environment is catastrophic. And the Simm family is destroyed utterly in the game’s most harrowing scene.
The City
Rockvil is no longer a democracy. City Hall, visible from Rockvil Centre, is no longer merely “aging” — it is “crumbling” (score item 11, 1 point). The interior “looks as though no maintenance has been performed here for years” (CITY-HALL-F). The government has been replaced in practice by the parallel authority of Church and security forces.
The sky is “gray and smoggy” (score item 118). Coal-burners “belch black ash” (score item 107, 3 points). The river is “incredibly polluted” (score item 134, 3 points) and “on fire as usual” (score item 108, 3 points). The water tower is “decrepit” (score item 132, 2 points). The apartment window is “etched from pollution” (score item 4, 2 points) and the view shows a “serf village” — “an ugly industrial slum, where thousands upon thousands of serfs live in substandard shacks, running the factories and mines that support Rockvil’s urban nobility” (score item 7, 7 points).
The economy has collapsed into feudal inequality:
- Dunbar’s requires an appointment; guards scrutinize visitors (score item 122, 1 point)
- Food is rationed (score item 19, 4 points); “clerk is rude and guard is rough in Foodville” (score item 135, 2 points)
- The skybus system has been “shut down” after a failed privatization experiment (score item 12, 2 points)
- The Tube is shut down (score item 31, 2 points)
- The skycar factory operates at “a fraction of capacity” (score item 111, 3 points)
- The Church owns the only bank in Rockvil (score item 83, 3 points)
- The Coachman is “off limits to ‘animals’” (score item 42, 3 points)
- The fast food place has converted to “a seedy bar” (score item 72, 1 point)
- The fire station has “only one dilapidated firecopter” (score item 127, 2 points)
Every cultural institution has been destroyed or captured:
- Public school system shut down (score item 82, 5 points)
- Rockvil University closed (score item 63, 2 points)
- Symphony Hall closed (score item 96, 2 points)
- Halley Museum closed (score item 62, 2 points)
- Railroad Museum closed (score item 90, 1 point)
- Bookstore closed (score item 113, 1 point)
- Library maintains “list of banned titles” (score item 121, 6 points)
- Films feature “Church propaganda” (score item 95, 3 points)
- Wells Theatre has “only ecumenical plays” (score item 89, 2 points)
- Cinema lobby “dirty and smelly” (score item 128, 1 point)
- Joybooths banned and now “used as brainwashing tool” (score item 31, 3 points)
Public spaces are restricted or transformed:
- Kennedy Park is now luxury townhouses
- Halley Park “converted to estates for wealthy” (score item 61, 2 points); “shot on site if you entered” (score item 65, 3 points)
- Riverside Park is “restricted” (score item 92, 2 points)
- Cemetery “defaced and partially bulldozed” (score item 48, 4 points)
The justice system has become state terror:
- Capital punishment for “all crimes” (score item 77, 4 points)
- Execution for “cheating on food allowance” (score item 17, 8 points)
- Execution for “food ration violation” (score item 18, 10 points)
- “Enthusiastic crowds at Execution Matches” (score item 79, 8 points); skycopter announces them (score item 103, 3 points)
- Televised “executioner awards” (score item 60, 7 points)
- Police shoot an old woman in an alley (score item 27, 7 points)
- Police club “screaming women senseless” (score item 35, 6 points)
- Shot by drunken cops for curfew violation (score item 117, 8 points)
- Guards are “abusive” (score item 98, 3 points)
- Wealthy couple’s bodyguards “beat beggar senseless” (score item 56, 4 points)
- Killed by squatters in Dorm (score item 21, 5 points)
- Stoned by schoolchildren (score item 81, 7 points)
- Many species extinct (score item 68, 5 points); organized torturing of monkeys (score item 69, 4 points)
- Heiman World fire (score item 26, 3 points)
- Shoot-out at airport (score item 100, 5 points)
The physical infrastructure is collapsing: elevator out “as usual” (score item 3, 1 point), hot water off “as usual” (score item 2, 2 points), water tastes rusty (score item 1, 1 point), the lobby door has “cracked glass is held together by boards” (UNOPENABLE-DOOR-F in globals.zil).
The Protestant church was “torched by mob” (score item 85, 3 points). Roy’s is “defaced” (score item 20, 2 points). Church pamphlets have escalated in value: from 1 point (2051) to 2 points (2061) to 5 points (2071) (score item 55). The curfew (score item 116, 2 points) is now enforced by lethal police violence.
The Simm Family: Annihilation
The apartment is a tomb. Jill’s easel holds “a pencil sketch” — not even a painting anymore — “dark and brooding, depicting a demonic figure towering over a frightened group of children. It’s been months since you last saw Jill working on it” (PAINTING-F). She has stopped creating.
The BSF raid (score item 10, 5 points) is now purely destructive: “Almost without reason, they tear your curtains, spill food onto the kitchen floor, and overturn furniture.” If you bought the old book from the bookstore, an officer picks it up and “smiles gleefully as he rips it to shreds.” They march out without a word, leaving the door open. The room is “torn apart after the BSF raid” (RAID-MESS-DESC).
Then comes I-MITCHELL-RAID (apartment.zil lines 1678-1720), worth 9 points (score item 120) — the highest value in 2071 and one of the highest in the game:
“With a screech of splintering wood, the front door explodes open, and six or eight heavily armed Church police storm into the apartment. You see a look of horror come over Jill, as she covers her mouth with the back of her hand, as though stifling some silent scream. You follow her gaze, and — a shock of recognition — sauntering in behind the police…”
Mitchell, now an adult, fur-clad, cold, unrecognizable:
“‘She is the one.’ The voice is Mitchell’s, but the tone is cold, unrecognizable, sending shivers through you. He raises a fur-clad arm, pointing at his mother without a hint of emotion. ‘She spake against the Church; she tried to poison the mind of a child too young to know the Truth.’”
The Church police grab Jill. She reaches toward Mitchell, “tears of terror streaming down her face.” He turns and walks out, “totally unresponsive.” Perry tries to follow but a cop “pummels you in the stomach with his club. You fall to the floor, retching, as the apartment door slams closed, shutting you off forever from the son you cannot understand and the wife you will never see again.”
Perry is old, frail, alone. He has lost his son to the Church, his wife to Church police, his career, his world. The apartment, once filled with a baby’s cries, an eleven-year-old’s logic games, Jill’s brushstrokes, now holds only an old man and his memories.
Key Locations
- Parkview Apartments: Elevator out “as usual”; glass held by boards; apartment “torn apart”
- Dunbar’s: Appointment-only, guards, restricted Church areas; violet and gold fashions for landowners
- City Hall: Crumbling, decrepit interior
- Kennedy Park: Luxury townhouses
- Halley Park: Estates for wealthy; trespassers shot
- The Coachman: “Off limits to ‘animals’”
- Church-owned bank: Only bank in Rockvil
- Execution Matches venue: Crowds enthusiastic
- Serf village: Visible from apartment window — industrial slum
Available Score Events (2071)
This is the most score-dense year. Nearly every system has deteriorated sufficiently to generate points:
| # | Points | Observation |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | Vandalized apartment lobbies |
| 2 | 2 | Hot water off as usual |
| 3 | 1 | Elevators off as usual |
| 4 | 2 | Window glass etched with pollution |
| 7 | 7 | Window view: serf village |
| 10 | 5 | Apartment BSF raid (destructive) |
| 11 | 1 | City Hall crumbling |
| 12 | 2 | Skybus shut down |
| 17 | 8 | Executed for cheating on food allowance |
| 18 | 10 | Executed for food ration violation |
| 19 | 4 | Food rationing |
| 20 | 2 | Roy’s defaced |
| 21 | 5 | Killed by squatters in Dorm |
| 25 | 3 | Hospital refuses dying patient |
| 26 | 3 | Heiman World fire |
| 27 | 7 | Police shoot old woman |
| 29 | 3 | Indoor Cities are slums |
| 31 | 3 | Joybooths: brainwashing tool |
| 32 | 2 | Tubes shut down |
| 35 | 6 | Police club screaming women |
| 42 | 3 | Coachman off limits to “animals” |
| 47 | 4 | Cemetery defaced, bulldozed |
| 48 | 4 | Cemetery abandoned (earlier state?) |
| 51 | 4 | Health Center: substandard serf housing |
| 55 | 5 | Church of God’s Word pamphlet |
| 56 | 4 | Bodyguards beat beggar |
| 60 | 7 | Televised executioner awards |
| 61 | 2 | Halley Park: estates for wealthy |
| 62 | 2 | Halley Museum closed |
| 63 | 2 | Rockvil U closed |
| 65 | 3 | Shot on site if you enter estates |
| 68 | 5 | Many species extinct |
| 69 | 4 | Organized torturing of monkeys |
| 71 | 1 | Aquarium murky |
| 72 | 1 | Fast food: seedy bar |
| 77 | 4 | Capital punishment for all crimes |
| 79 | 8 | Enthusiastic crowds at Execution Matches |
| 81 | 7 | Stoned by schoolchildren |
| 82 | 5 | Public school system shut down |
| 83 | 3 | Church owns only bank |
| 85 | 3 | Protestant church torched |
| 89 | 2 | Wells: ecumenical plays only |
| 90 | 1 | Railroad Museum closed |
| 92 | 2 | Riverside Park restricted |
| 95 | 3 | Films: Church propaganda |
| 96 | 2 | Symphony Hall closed |
| 98 | 3 | Guards are abusive |
| 99 | 3 | Spaceport closed |
| 100 | 5 | Shoot-out at airport |
| 103 | 3 | Skycopter: Execution Matches |
| 104 | 3 | Wastes dumped into river |
| 107 | 3 | Coal-burners belching black ash |
| 108 | 3 | River on fire |
| 111 | 3 | Skycar factory: fraction of capacity |
| 113 | 1 | Bookstore closed |
| 115 | 2 | Tubecar filthy |
| 116 | 2 | Curfew |
| 117 | 8 | Shot by drunken cops |
| 118 | 2 | Smoggy skies |
| 120 | 9 | Mitchell drags Jill away |
| 121 | 6 | Library: banned titles list |
| 122 | 1 | Appointment needed for Dunbar’s |
| 124 | 2 | Long line at Post Office |
| 125 | 2 | Mugging |
| 126 | 2 | Soy patty description |
| 127 | 2 | Fire station: one dilapidated firecopter |
| 128 | 1 | Cinema lobby dirty |
| 132 | 2 | Water tower decrepit |
| 134 | 3 | River incredibly polluted |
| 135 | 2 | Clerk rude, guard rough in Foodville |
| 136 | 1 | Aquarium smells of dead fish |
Then, separately: the Mitchell raid (score item 120) is 2071’s most narratively significant moment.
Key Characters Active
- Perry Simm: Old, frail, beaten, alone — wife taken, son lost to the Church
- Jill Simm: Labeled heretic, dragged away by Church police; her fate unknown
- Mitchell Simm: Adult Church enforcer, cold, fur-clad, unrecognizable — sentences his own mother
- Church Police: Conduct the raid that destroys the Simm family
- BSF Officers: Conduct destructive apartment raids
- Drunken Cops: Shoot curfew violators
- Executioner: Celebrity; televised awards
- Serfs: Thousands in industrial slum
Broader Context
2071 is the endpoint of the Plan — the future it was designed to forecast. The game’s argument is complete: a surveillance state that begins with “security” ends with Church police dragging mothers from their homes. An economy that begins with “deregulation” ends with serfs in shacks. A culture that begins with “efficiency” ends with banned books and propaganda films. A family that begins with honeymoon watercolors ends with a son who sentences his mother to death.
The Mitchell raid is the game’s emotional and thematic crescendo. Mitchell is not a monster — he is a victim of the system the Plan created, so thoroughly indoctrinated that he can watch his mother being dragged away screaming and feel nothing. This is what the simulation was built to show. And the people who commissioned it do not want to see it.
See Also
- 2061 — The tipping point that led here
- 2081 — The post-apocalyptic endpoint
- church-of-gods-word — The theocratic power at its peak
- mitchell-simm — Full character arc from boy to enforcer
- jill-simm — Jill as heretic and victim
- execution-matches — The public execution spectacle
- bsf — The security apparatus