The Heroes of Strangerville (with best friends). Always remembered, always honoured.
The story of Gen 1
Back then I didn’t play as I do now but eventually I think I made a sort of headcanon about Strangerville and what Una and her friends ended up in.
Even before, there was Strangetown. In this world there was a catastrophe when an experiment of the Beakers failed. Many died, and the Beakers were assumed to have as well. (This took place 27 years before my first sim, Gunnel, stepped into the world)
But the Beakers survived. They moved to what eventually became Strangetown and continued their experiments to create a superhuman. In doing so they found plantsims who they abused and experimented on.
The government had by then begun suspecting something and sent their agent - Bella Goth - to investigate. Now, she was at the lab in Oasis Springs when she was attacked and while unconscious she was brought to Strangerville.
The lab in Oasis Springs was investigating the idea of alien life and Bella had been the liaison between the Secret Service and the scientists. She was investigating if there was a leak or a connection to the things that seemed to take place outside Strangerville - a town mostly occupied by military as it is at the end of simnation - but where the mayor recently a had begun building a massive lab but refused to tell what it was for.
She was partly right about the leak. The Beakers had built a tunnel to be able to sneak in and steal what they needed. However, they hadn’t fully understood that Oasis Springs were investigating aliens. (And the scientists in Oasis Springs were unaware that some of the new families were survivors of Strangetown and part alien themselves.)
Now, Loki and Circe decided to use Bella in their experiment. However, she did have alien spores in her (she herself unaware) and might even once have been abducted.
So when mixed with the stuff they had made from the plantsims and whatever else the Beakers had been brewing - she turned into the Mother Plant.
And quickly killed them.
This was about six years before Una was born.
Now, as Una is born and grows up the world of Strangerville is slowly infected. The plantsim community sees how some of them turn and start talking about The Other Mother. And in Willow Creek, a man has lost his wife and two children has lost their mother.
For Cassandra, this is the end of the world. She was already a troubled teen and now, when she is 19, the disappearance of her mother only escalate things. She runs away, never to be seen again.
Somehow when she is in her 30s she finds Malcolm Landgraab, her old high school crush, and he tries to help her. He lives in an unhappy marriage with the heir of the Feng Industries after having broken off with his own family. Malcolm and Cassie have an affair, and - unknown to him - Belladonna is born. She’s left at the doorstep of Cassie’s childhood home and is raised by her uncle Alexander and husband (Iggy Pancakes).
And then, somehow, Cassie meets vampires and is turned.
A few years later, Una and her friends (Orion Michaelson, Jaycee Greenburg and Anton Bjergsen) move to Strangerville. They take over a house previously owned by the recently deceased Jill Smith and Buck Grunt, survivors of Strangetown (not that Una and her friends know this).
Eventually, they defeat the mother plant (yes, Una killed Bella Goth. Sort of). Jay, freaked out by the whole thing packs her stuff and moves to Sulani. Orion stays for a while with Una and Anton before she moves to a place next to them. Sadly, Orion passes away just a few years later to the great sorrow of Una.
During the investigation of Strangerville the gang became friends with Erwin Pries and he eventually met their friend Alison Landgraab (youngest child of Nancy and Geoffrey), they feel in love and stayed friends with Una and Anton and their eventual family.
Una joins the military and with her science background and her knowledge of the Mother works with finding and understanding other supernaturals - and see if they are threats of any kind. She is eventually known by most of them but sees their threat levels as low; let them be, and they’ll let us be. The only ones she is worried about are the vampires, because they are truly vicious and can’t fully blend in - and they are still very tied to their old living form and need to kill to live. As pretty much immortal their respect for the living slowly withers away.
And Una’s genome has been affected by the mother plant. Her own genius trait shows up as erratic in her daughter Amanda - who also has an affinity for plants and nature - and her grandson Saru eventually becomes a plantsim (to the joy of the plantsim-community who is trying to rebuild).
Her granddaughter Airiam’s ability to see the dead is actually a mix between a curse put on her grandmother Brytani Cho and Una’s genes. It’s mainly by chance that Una meets Olive around the time Airiam starts to show her powers (Olive had rescued Nyon and left Strangetown shortly before the accident). So far nothing has showed up in Una’s son Jim or his daughters. Sarek and Saavik are both very strong and intelligent and obviously open to the supernatural side of things. And Harry? Well, he too has showed erratic tendencies - but so far nothing else.
And that’s the story of Gen 1. Love them all so much!
