Victoria (city)
| Leader(s) |
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| Founded |
2015 |
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| Website |
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| VP Suite | |
Victoria, unofficially also known as Vicky is a city in Blizzard. Started in 2015 as an experimental offshoot of a larger building community in Active Worlds, the city of Victoria became a proper independent project in the aftermath of the city's main leaders being forcibly exiled onto Virtual Paradise due to larger community drama in AW. Victoria itself is notable for having inspired later cities as well as having brought people over who would become respected as master builders within the VP community at large.
Victoria has played the role of capital to the former Xennan Republic, the Victorian Republic, and the provisional seat of government for the Commonwealth. Victoria is also the central flagship city within the overall region of Victoria, an wider area that includes Cannaville, New Beachfield & Sparta as associated suburbs and counties of Vicky.
History
Beginnings
In 2015, citizens of Alphaworld began work on a new city called Fantasia. The city became a boom-town for residents that continued to make use of the platform, and it had attracted builders such as OptimumPx and KoL to come together and form a unique building group called the Xennan Republic. As the community grew and began to host community events, the leadership also began to make public criticisms of the direction of AW, particularly aimed at the owner for allowing the platform to stagnate. By this point, the residents of Fantasia became more aware of Virtual Paradise and its capabilities as a platform, prompting some to explore the idea of expanding XR into VP. The Victoria Colony was never intended to be a proper city, and was treated more of an experiment in testing out VP's building capabilities. It was not until tensions boiled to a head that the owner of AWI would disable the account of Fantasia's mayor, The Courier, which forced most of the Xennan building group over to VP. Victoria would declare itself as an independent city-state, operating in the same fashion as the Xennan project.
From Growing Pains to Major Power (2015-2017)
Victoria itself would not find much love in Virtual Paradise starting off; largely due in part towards its choice of location, steadfast independence from most infrastructure within Blizzard, and most importantly, its building style being in direct contrast to much of the rest of Blizzard. Victoria would not be taken seriously at all until the migration of Optimum into VP, who laid the first initial builds (mainly ports of older Fantasia and Phoenix City builds) in the town. In order to expand, the Victorian leadership would encourage AW citizens to migrate to VP, primarily those who were experienced builders. This was met with mixed results, but Victoria and her efforts of encouraging immigration into VP would nevertheless bring people such as GSK, Tardy, SirGreendown, and Optimum into the platform.
Of much larger issue was its relationship with the Kingdom of Palmshire and her associated cities, which Victoria found herself in direct competition with. The city of Victoria would heavily push its national project, the Republic of Victoria, as an alternative to the long-standing kingdom. This became complete with its own version of a parliament, the Peerage of Victoria, which was treated as a shot against the Parliament as it was seen by many to be the de-facto meeting venue for the VP community at the time. Peers were often the major builders within the city itself who de-facto controlled large chunks of metropolitan Vicky territory, which was meant to reward and encourage retention of builders exclusively to the city, mainly to no avail. In August 2016, tensions would come to a head as Victoria would be the main force alongside Summerville and the Lemerican Federation in protesting the parliament system on the VP Facebook group, jointly accusing the Parliament of not fully representing all of VP while imposing laws upon the world of Blizzard itself. After solutions were reached, drama flared again the following day until the existing parliament including Palmshire itself was dissolved by Legion. The Lemerican Federation also collapsed due to the departure of KoL, leaving Victoria & Summerville the only active communities for a long period of time.
Victoria's national government would be dissolved shortly after Palmshire's own government collapsed by January 2017, but the city itself remained an active force and quickly reformed its own government in the wake of community anarchy in VP. Neighboring New Beachfield and Victoria would merge together, briefly forming the city of New Atlanta until August 2017, when the city of NB changed hands back to Sarah and became independent once more. Cannaville would also become closely tied to developments in the city due to its proximity to Vicky.
From Decline to New Golden Age (2018 to Present)
The dissolution of Victoria as a national project would ultimately result in the birth of the Commonwealth of Independent Cities, which was meant to replace the influence of nation roleplay within Blizzard and encourage cooperation among individual cities. However, the Commonwealth would not be formally ratified nor have a proper government for five years, leaving it to also be abandoned for the time being as a serious project. The city would also remain stagnant or borderline dead as other communities like Summerville became the main focus of development until the early 2020s. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, restored interest among the wider community in Virtual Paradise became a factor in the revitalization of specific areas, including Vicky.
2023 was a particularly noteworthy time in Victorian history, and arguably the beginning of a new golden age for the city. In March 2023, the city of Cannaville would formally merge with Victoria, and individuals such as RyanLion & Zezima would create their own villages/towns within Victorian land by following April, which led to the need to reorganize the city government into a system of counties. Canna County, Ryan County, Sparta County & Victoria County would be created during this time period, largely containing the territorial claims of each section of the Victorian metropolitan area. In mid-April 2023, the city of New Beachfield would formally rejoin Victoria with permission from Sarah, becoming New Beachfield County and Victoria's fifth county. Concurrently, the Commonwealth would also be resurrected, encouraging more collaboration between all communities in Blizzard including Victoria's new counties.
City Government
The city of Victoria is organized as a council-manager government led by an city council & mayor. The city council functions as both the municipal government as well as the government of the wider region of Victoria, a decentralized grouping of multiple counties that share power with each other, in which the city council is then referred to as the Peerage of Victoria. The mayor is the prime leader of the city and can override peers, but peers usually have a large degree of freedom in operation. Peers are also the leaders of individual cities that participate within the region of Victoria, and have the option to withdraw at any moment.
The current peers of the city thus are as follows:
- The Courier
- Tardyllamma
- Ry
- Zezima
- Sarah