2081 — The Post-Apocalyptic Endpoint

2081 is the final simulation year and the endpoint of Rockvil’s decline — a world beyond theocracy, beyond fascism, beyond even organized society. It is a post-apocalyptic wasteland where the only remaining human activities are survival, predation, and cannibalism. The SCORE table reserves its highest values for this year: 15 points for cannibalism, 8 points for the ruins of Main & Wicker, 6 points for being jumped by a gang. This is the last decade the player can visit, and it asks the hardest question: what comes after the collapse of everything?

The City

Rockvil is a dead city. The buildings are “all gutted” (BUILDING-F in globals.zil). The BUILDING-F routine’s general description for 2081 is simply: “The buildings are all gutted.” No elaboration needed — the word “gutted” says everything.

Specific landmarks have collapsed:

• Main Street Bridge is “in ruins” (score item 44, 2 points)
• Main & Wicker intersection is destroyed: “ruins of Main & Wicker” (score item 36, 8 points)
• The Coachman “lies in ruins” (score item 41, 3 points)
• Foodville is “looted” (score item 39, 3 points)
• The cemetery is “abandoned and a hiding place for thieves” (score item 47, 4 points)
• The apartment: still standing, but Perry is alone, weak, and starving

The infrastructure that was decaying in 2071 is now gone entirely. No mention of elevators, skybuses, Tubes, skycabs, or spaceports — they have ceased to exist. The Church, so dominant in 2071, is no longer mentioned as an organized force — whatever social order it imposed has collapsed into chaos.

The river? Likely dead. The sky? Perpetual haze. The forests? Gone to strip mining, then to nothing.

Survival and Violence

2081 is the only year where the primary human activities are not commerce, worship, or even survival under tyranny — they are predation and desperation. The SCORE table records:

• Cannibalism (score item 111, 15 points): The single highest-value item in the entire game. The observation is stark: “cannibalism, 2081.” No modifier, no context — the word itself carries the weight.

• Jumped by a gang (score item 38, 6 points): Violence is now the primary social interaction.

• Devoured by wild dogs (score item 45, 3 points): The I-WILD-DOGS interrupt in interrupts.zil escalates over four turns: distant barking, getting closer, and then: “A pack of wild dogs enters the bridge from the east, barking wildly. They tear towards you, driven by mindless animal hunger, saliva dripping from rabid fangs. You run toward the city, but the fastest of the dogs lunges and sinks its fangs into your leg. You fall, and in a split second the other animals are on top of you as well.”

• So hungry you consider eating mold (score item 40, 3 points): Hunger has reached the point where mold looks like food.

• Examining the bloody sack (score item 46, 2 points): A suggestion of recent violence — whose blood? whose sack?

• Foodville looted (score item 39, 3 points): The last source of food has been stripped bare by desperate survivors.

The curfew is presumably irrelevant in a world with no functioning police. Gangs, not the state, enforce whatever passes for order. The wild dogs may have outlived the police.

Perry Simm

Perry is now approximately 60 years old (he was a young father in 2041). He is “frail,” “old” — the Mitchell-raid in 2071 described his “frail, old body” being knocked against the wall. In 2081, he is weaker still. He is hungry — “can’t remember when he last ate” — and the score item about considering eating mold suggests starvation-level desperation.

He is alone. Jill was taken in 2071. Mitchell was lost to the Church in 2061. No other characters are described in the source code for 2081 — the city is depopulated except for gangs and cannibals. Perry has survived longer than his civilization.

The apartment still exists, but its condition is not separately described for 2081 beyond the general “buildings are all gutted.” The window view is not mentioned — perhaps the serf village of 2071 has been destroyed, or perhaps Perry no longer looks. The word processor, the easel, the baby formula — all memories of a world that no longer exists.

Key Locations

• The apartment: Standing but likely gutted; Perry’s last refuge
• Main Street Bridge: In ruins
• Main & Wicker: Destroyed, worth 8 points to observe
• The Coachman: In ruins
• Foodville: Looted
• Cemetery: Abandoned, a hiding place for thieves
• All other buildings: “All gutted”

Available Score Events (2081)

2081 has fewer score events than 2071, but they are the most intense:

#	Points	Observation
36	8	Ruins of Main & Wicker
38	6	Jumped by a gang
39	3	Foodville looted
40	3	So hungry you consider eating mold
41	3	The Coachman lies in ruins
44	2	Main Street Bridge in ruins
45	3	Devoured by wild dogs
46	2	Examining the bloody sack
47	4	Cemetery abandoned, hiding place for thieves
111	15	Cannibalism

Total possible points: 49. The highest-value single item in the entire game is here. The average point value is higher than any other year — decline has accelerated into collapse.

The Haunting Nature of 2081

2081 is distinguished from the other simulation years by what it lacks:

• No Church — the theocratic apparatus that dominated 2071 has either collapsed or become irrelevant in the face of total civilizational breakdown
• No BSF — the Border Security Force no longer conducts raids because there is no border, no security, no force
• No government — City Hall has crumbled
• No economy — money is meaningless when the only “commodities” are food and safety
• No family — the Simm unit, the emotional center of the game, has been destroyed
• No recording — what is there left to document when every system of documentation has collapsed?

The score event “cannibalism, 2081” — 15 points — is the final word of the SCORE table and perhaps the final word of the game. After the government decays, after the economy collapses, after the Church rises and falls, after the BSF batters down the door, after families are torn apart — what remains is the human body as food.

The game does not offer redemption in 2081. It offers witness. Perry, alone in his gutted apartment, hungry enough to consider eating mold, is still there. Still looking. Still able — if the player chooses — to record. The act of bearing witness is the only moral act that remains possible, and the game awards 15 points for documenting the worst thing a human being can do to another human being.

See Also

• 2071 — The theocratic state that preceded the collapse
• societal-decay — The full arc of decline across all five decades
• recording — Why documenting even this matters
• perry-simm — The witness who survives to the end
• rockvil-across-decades — Side-by-side of all five years including this one