back to article Inside the Skynet ghost town built by bunker-based boffins

It's an empty city in the middle of the New Mexico desert ringed by a security perimeter. The wind will blow down barren streets, whisper through a vacant school, round high-rise offices cleared of commuters and out through lonely houses in suburbia. Unseen boffins will beaver away in underground bunkers. CITE layout But …

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  1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    What's in a name?

    Pegasus. Global. Holdings. Mmmm...

    Can there be a better name for an evil concern bent on world domination?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What's in a name?

      If they changed their name to "Umbrella" I'd say "I've already seen this one".

      It's the thing of every Sci-Fi writers dream. An empty (or occupied) fenced and experimented city!

    2. IronTed

      Re: What's in a name?

      New Mexico again? It sounds fishy! Could it be sharing the same site with the Dulce, New Mexico Deep Underground Military Base run by the Reptilian aliens?

  2. James Boag
    Devil

    I much Prefer Volcano Island Industries. Come see the mono rail, Shark tanks ....

    1. durandal

      stay for the lasers!

  3. Robert Ramsay

    Is anyone else...

    ...thinking of The Truman Show?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pint

      Re: Is anyone else...

      Nope.

      But it'd be a brilliant place to dump someone after a stag do...

  4. Simon Barnes

    empty cities

    If building an empty city can be so profitable, hw long before someone figures it might be cheaper to empty out an existing one ? "We have ways of making you leave..."

    1. Paul_Murphy

      Re: empty cities

      Film studios,

      Advertising agencies,

      Maybe people learning to demolish buildings ... or build them

      LARP,

      Emergency response training.

      Traffic light management testing

      Robot car testing

      I can see that there would be a lot of interest in being able to hire a 'deserted' city. Good idea and handy that the USA has so much empty space.

      ttfn

  5. Thomas 18
    Thumb Up

    Infrastructure

    Well at least it's an investment that's actually producing something rather than banking/stock markets/IP.

  6. Tinfoil Hat
    Black Helicopters

    Eureka Series Link?

    So the Eureka TV series about a town populated by geniuses and run by a company call "Global Dynamics" ends and a new technology town run by "Pegasus Global Holdings" pops up. Suspicious?........

    1. Marvin the Martian

      Re: Eureka Series Link?

      That's closer to JG Ballard's "SuperCannes" city...

  7. Elmer Phud

    Westworld?

    "Unseen boffins will beaver away in underground bunkers."

    My dyslexia saw this as 'Unseen beavers boffin away in underground bunkers'

    1. ukgnome
      Alert

      Re: Westworld?

      No beavers, only racoons

      1. Yann BZH

        Re: Westworld?

        Yeah, Racoon City...

    2. Bad Beaver

      Re: Westworld?

      I tell you, the best beaverin' is always done underground. You're in for some unseen subterranian rodent adventure action here.

      1. Michael 28
        Terminator

        Re: Westworld?... Any one remember the New Avengers?

        Copy /paste from imdb.with adlib.

        Plot Summary for

        "The New Avengers" Complex (1977)

        The New Avengers fly to Toronto, Canada to learn the identity of KGB assassin X-41, aka Scapina. Unfortunately all their contacts end up dead before they are able to spill the beans. Also, Gambit keeps getting arrested by the Canadian police and Purdey finds herself trapped in a ultra modern building........whick KILLS! .

  8. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
    Holmes

    Won't be empty for long

    How far is this from the Mexican Border then?

    It won't take long for news of this place to circulate amongst those trying to enter the US now will it.

    1. laird cummings

      Re: Won't be empty for long

      Won't be a problem - no food in the stores, no lawns to be mown... and spooky unmanned vehicles to run you over.

      The illegals will keep on moving.

      1. Captain Save-a-ho
        Mushroom

        @ laird cummings

        Oh really? You don't think the human traffickers responsible for much of the illegal border crossings wouldn't relish a police-free, people-free place to use as a base of operations? You should definitely keep to your bigotted, small-minded life and leave real crime to the big boys.

        1. Figgus
          FAIL

          Re: @ laird cummings

          Yeah, because the best way to hide is to be the only surface dwelling people in an empty town monitored 24/7 by hundreds of underground technicians. Certainly the traffickers would go completely unnoticed.

          To be honest, I don't know if I should flame you or feel sorry for you. You should definitely keep to your pretentious, small-minded life and leave real thinking to the big boys

        2. laird cummings
          FAIL

          Re: @ laird cummings

          Why do illegals cross the border? To find places to live and *work.* Duh. They are NOT looking for a place to squat and starve.

          Hush up now - Clearly, you're incompetent to answer.

  9. richard 7

    This read and white umbrella type image springs to mind

    but I really cant work out why.

    1. Severen
      Black Helicopters

      Re: This read and white umbrella type image springs to mind

      I hear Raccoon City PD are hiring.

  10. The Jase
    Black Helicopters

    Isaac Kleiner?

    Do Isaac Kleiner and Gordon Freeman work there?

  11. Anonymous Coward 15
    Mushroom

    Get out of here Stalker!

    (The post is required, and must contain letters.)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Patrollled by large weather balloons....

    The riff-raff will be kept (out|in) by large patrolling weather balloons.

    The one with the large #3 on the back.

  13. KrisM
    Go

    another potentially lucrative income...

    Surprised they did not mention, or consider, the use of this empty, all american city for Hollywood filming. Can think of loads of films in the last 10 years that would have happily paid to use a empty city for a couple of days (thinking high risk car chases, post- Apocalypse sci-fi, urban environment for large number of extras etc) , so long as they tidied up when they left. Would imagine the film location rights would be as profitable as renting it out for different trials and projects!

  14. Jonathan White

    To me, it sounds rather more like Aperture Science.

    1. Bad Beaver
      Devil

      Totally

      Testing for science, eh?

    2. The obvious
      Coat

      Yes, But will there be cake?

      Or is that a lie?

  15. OzBob

    Dont; see the point really,....

    the thing that really messes up cities are those annoying meat-bags called humans acting irrationally and selfishly. Taking them out of the equation just renders it pointless.

    1. laird cummings

      Re: Dont; see the point really,....

      Actually, that *is* the point - a city where you can test basic functionallity without those messy meatsacks.

  16. ChrisInAStrangeLand
    Trollface

    If they need an empty city, why not use Detroit?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Terminator

      Their robotic police officers keep disobeying direct orders.

      Buggers up all the experiments.

  17. Dick Pountain
    WTF?

    They're just practising

    Guy Debord, thou shoulds't be living at this hour.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    FO: New Vegas?

    It almost seems like that science place they released for fall out new vegas as DLC (Entitled 'Old World Blues'). Now all we need is for the world to end and we can go take a look and talk to the brains in jars.

    1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Re: FO: New Vegas?

      My first thought was Big Mountain too.

      Not so sure about the roboscorpions though...

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "I have a city that needs power but I don't have any inhabitants, so once I run the city power, the additional energy that I produce I will sell to the local power company, same with the water and communications and other output we have," Brumley explained. "People forget that cities really are big producers of consumable resources and this city will be the same."

    Is it just me or is the above just complete crap, cities are sold utilities/consumable resources by usually private companies who pay/invest in their production, the only way that his argument makes sense is if he's going into the utility business, or is just a front to launder large amounts of cash.....

    1. ArmanX

      He *is* going into the utility business.

      If this is supposed to mimic a city, it will need power, water, waste, and other facilities. However, since there is no one there to use those services, the city becomes a huge exporter. Cities use a lot of water and energy; the fact that they consume all the resources they create (and then some) doesn't mean that they aren't still producing. And all those resources have to go somewhere; might as well sell them, right?

    2. crowley

      It's just you

      Mention of various power tech was made, e.g. solar, biomass.

      Presume labs, etc will use less than planned facilities will generate, assuming supplies are built to the scale of the town itself as if it were in full use.

      In effect, yes, he's going into the utility business.

    3. HeNe
      Meh

      @AC 15 May 16:22GMT: Brumley was spouting semi-crap

      o Locally-generated power: can be easily sold to power companies.

      o Locally-pumped-from-the-ground fresh water: sketchy. Is clean water so costly there that it really is economical to buy, maintain, and fuel a fleet of stainless-steel-tanked semi trucks to transport clean water to potential buyers, or to build a pipeline and pumps to the nearest major municipality?

      o Local sewage treatment facilities: sketchy. Same issue as with water, as noted above.

      o Communications: bullshit. Unless you've got data-carrying capability from Point A to Point B, where Point A and Point B are places anybody actually cares sending data to and from, you've got nothing to sell to communications companies. Comm companies aren't going to pay to establish links to/from Robot Town unless there's a significant market there.

      1. -tim
        Black Helicopters

        Re: @AC 15 May 16:22GMT: Brumley was spouting semi-crap

        Unless they have to build test water and sewage treatments to test how the department of Fatherland security needs to test to protect basic infrastructure in a way that won't kill people when they get it wrong.

      2. Figgus

        Re: @AC 15 May 16:22GMT: Brumley was spouting semi-crap

        [i]o Communications: bullshit. Unless you've got data-carrying capability from Point A to Point B, where Point A and Point B are places anybody actually cares sending data to and from, you've got nothing to sell to communications companies. Comm companies aren't going to pay to establish links to/from Robot Town unless there's a significant market there.

        [/i]

        True, unless you start thinking of large dish arrays or testing of point to point communications (microcells and such)...

  20. taxman
    Mushroom

    New Mexico?

    Isn't this where other tests used to take place? Empty towns that suddenly disappear in a flash?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Alien

      Re: New Mexico?

      Anyone else thinking Philadelphia Experiment with the round town? :)

  21. Witty username

    The truth

    I'm going to be vastly disappointed when it all turns out to be exactly as they said and there's no conspiracy theories involved.

    1. Not That Andrew

      Re: The truth. Fnord.

      Thats what they what you to think.

  22. Adam T

    Gypsies

    If they did that over here it would wind up overrun by gypsies.

    Not quite the cast of Eureka.

  23. Richard Jukes

    heh

    I really cant see this making money.

  24. Not_The_Droids

    A Slashdot poster did some digging on "Pegasus Holdings", seems it's 1 guy that's dreaming big. Interesting reading.

    http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2846347&cid=39986399

    Reeks of "monorail-syndrome" / money wasting boondoggle to me.

  25. BorkedAgain

    Oddly enough, I was thinking of Cypress Creek...

    http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Cypress_Creek

  26. Cam 2
    Happy

    With modern accounting, pretty much anything can seem like a profitable venture, regardless of it passing any common sense test.

    Personally I'm curious if anyone manages to wander in and photograph the place, I bet it has an eerie mood... or if there can be any 'stowaways'?

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