Scientology Empire (Civ 5 Brave New World Mod)







Leader: David Miscavige

A friend of mine a year ago asked me to help out with a custom mod for Civilization V, I have never played the game before but love the soundtrack so agreed to help since he needed my work as an artist and someone who has been researching Scientology for a number of years at university. Unfortunately he stopped with the project, but I wanted post what we had done so far, and if anyone wants to help let me know.

This was the first piece of art I did for the mod, I ended up going to an oil painted look to blend it in with the still screen artwork of the game.

All the dialogue for David Miscavige is heavily based around his purple prose vocabulary he uses for his speeches, sometimes called “Shermanspeak” by ex-Scientologist after his speech writer. Common phrases he uses are “ergo,” “in point of fact,” “in totality,” “panorama of expansion,” “described as breathtaking,” you can look up any of his speeches on YouTube and I will guarantee you he will use all these phrases at least twice.







Unique Ability: Dianetics Guardians

Each city receives +3 Faith and +3 Unhappiness. You automatically start with 3 Spies when you enter the Renaissance Era.

Unique Unit: Sea Org Ministers

SEA Org Ministers replaces normal Missionaries and can improve titles and build like Workers.

Unique Building: Celebrity Centre

Celebrity Centre increases the appearance of Great Artists and prove +3 Happiness per city. Replaces Opera House.





The Unique Ability (Dianetics Guardians) is based the espionage and infiltration of Scientology during the 1970’s to current day, from their Guardian’s Office to Office of Special Affairs. One major act called Operation Snow White being was noted as being one of the largest infiltrations in the history of the United States Government, in which Scientology operatives infiltrated, wiretapped, and stole documents from different government offices.

The Unique Unite (Sea Org Missionary) gets its special ability from the fact that members of the Sea Org, the clergy of the Church, are normally used at Scientology bases for building, repairs, and other hard labor work with little to no pay, including famously being forced to plant a field of daisies for Tom Cruise to run through with Nicole Kidman.

The Unique Building (Celebrity Centre) notes the Church’s famous drawing power for current and potential members, as well as their most public face with the public. Historically the Church aims to draw in members who are well known actors, artists, musicians, and directors, including Chick Corea, Issac Hayes, Lisa Marie Presley, the parents of Neil Giaman, Will Smith, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, and of course, Tom Cruise.







Peace Theme: We Stand Tall (Jazz/Synth Arrangement)

War Theme: We Stand Tall (Military March Arrangement)

My friend actually composes music for video games and wanted to personally compose the music for the Scientology Empire mod. He asked me my opinion on which Scientology song should be used for this mod. For those of you who don’t place Civ V, each Empire/Leader has a background soundtrack which is based around a culturally significant song (like Can Can for France, Chega da Saudade for Brazil, and Li Ling Si Han for the Huns), in times of peace the song is played soft, while in times of war the song is played intense.

After looking through music L. Ron Hubbard had composed including a soundtrack for his novel “Battlefield Earth” with Chick Corea called “Space Jazz” and “The Road to Freedom” which includes the singing talents of John Travolta, Frank Stallone, and a horse (yes a horse), I decided the de facto anthem of Scientology, “We Stand Tall” was the perfect fit.

“We Stand Tall” is a cheesy song composed in the vain of “We Are the World” that has gained recent fame from its appearance in “Going Clear” and the parody put out by Saturday Night Live. Since, I was pushing to make this a more David Miscavige centric mod, as he had a hand in creating the song, I thought it was the perfect choice. Especially since it plays ever New Year’s Eve at the conclusion of Miscavige’s speech, each time in a different arrangement, from R&B, Jazz, acoustic guitar, gospel chorus, and others, so there are different arrangements for my friend to choose from.

Going in line with the official Civ V soundtracks, we decided to make a Peace Theme that used elements of Hubbard’s “Space Jazz” so it was played with light jazz and heavy synthesizer to give it the cheesy 1950’s sci fi feel. The War Theme was arranged like a military march, drawing from the evil sounding scores of space opera films like “Star Wars”, especially the “Imperial March”.

Sadly, the person we had to compose these pieces fell off the radar so I don’t have any of it available. The backup plan I had in mind was to take pieces of the Battlefield Earth movie soundtrack, as it was a film David Miscavige had his hand in, micromanaging nearly every element of that production.







Cities:

Flag Land Base (location of Scientology’s “Mecca” and Headquarters in Clearwater)

Hemet Gold Base (location of Scientology’s International Base, where Miscavige lives)

Trementina Base (location of Scientology’s underground vaults and archives)

Saint Hill (location of Saint Hill Manor in Sussex, Scientology’s former Headquarters under Hubbard)

Clearwater (city in Florida which Scientology “took over” with Operation Normandy)

Freewinds (cruise ship Scientology operates in International Waters)

Bay Head (666 East Ave in Bay Head is where the Church of Scientology was founded)

Ideal Org Los Angeles (location of Scientology’s Mother Church)

Ideal Org Washington (location of Scientology’s Founding Church)

Ideal Org Portland (location of the Scientology “Battle of Portland”)

Ideal Org Phoenix (location of the Birthplace of Scientology)

Ideal Org Tampa (location of Scientology’s Clearwater based chuch)

All other cities will be drawn from the existing list of Civ V cities with the phase “Ideal Org” in front.







Spy Names: Mary Sue Hubbard, Gerald Wolfe, Michal Meisner, Mitchell Herman, Duke Snider, Richard Weigand, Henning Heldt, Karin Pouw, Tommy Davis

First group of spy names are taken from actual Scientology spies arrested for Operation Snow White, last two are current Scientology spokespeople.







Dawn of Man Speech: Hip hip to you David Miscavige, Chairman of the Board of Religious Technology and self-proclaimed ecclesiastical Leader of the Church of Scientology. While your position in the Church started as a lowly messenger to founder L. Ron Hubbard, you were able to maneuver yourself to the top leadership position upon his death. Under your reign Scientology fought and won a major war against the IRS with your elite group of spies, the Office of Special Affairs, which resulted in the Church’s net worth of now over three billion dollars, which you use to expand your global estate empire by buying and converting expensive buildings into Ideal Organizations and Celebrity Centers. You ushered in two eras called the Golden Age of Tech with the claim of 42x vertical membership expansion all while fighting the public’s perceptions of your Church.

Cunning Miscavige, will you expand your Church once again and dominate the world with your faith and celebrities? Can you truly live up to your claim of 42x vertical expansion and usher in a new Golden Age of Tech? Will you once again fill the void left by the death of L. Ron Hubbard and guide Scientology to a new era? All the thetans of the world await your guidance.