First you have to decide where Atlantis sits.

I go back to the one thing Ayn Rand said in an interview on the subject, namely: the Uncompahgre River Valley, and the town of Ouray, Colorado, that sits on the valley floor. It has the Red Mountains to the south--and red means copper, so we may assume that Francisco d'Anconia drove his mine into it. And Midas cutting off access? Of course: he destroys the Million Dollar Highway--"re-wilds it," however ironical that sounds--and camouflages the route out of town to the north.

I'd say assume MIdas tore down the "touristy" buildings, built his home near the hot springs that give the valley its name (the name given it by the Ute Indians), and go from there.

I dunno. I rake a mean leaf. Love the busy work.

But they do it anyway, don't they? Or at least they shinny up utility poles and string electric wires, or they dig the kind of ditch you lay a pipe in. Think of Dick McNamara's workforce.

Ill grant you this much: we'll probably never learn just what Ronald Reagan and Karol Wojtyla (a/k/a Pope John Paul II) came up with, to collapse the old Soviet Union from the outside.

But--well, I would probably be one of those A students who couldn't get a job because he wouldn't accept the prevailing twisted notion of how the world worked. And I've always figured there were only a relative handful of us who had not only the knowledge but also the *wisdom* to reject the twisted notions and could form the nucleus of a real Atlantis.

And look at the state of the political debate today. You know what's happening? I see a bunch of James Taggarts yelling their heads off and saying "It wouldn't hurt you to do something!" They are accusing their political opponents of deliberate sabotage-by-omission. Which was the very thing John Galt did.

You might check your chemistry. Red would mean an iron oxide. Copper would be found in a more greenish matrix denoting cupric oxide.

"All those d____d People's States....This country was the greatest and the last. You've drained it." -- Henry Rearden, in his last meeting before he finally kicked over the traces.

Are you sure it would take that many?

Seems to me that you got a relative handful. Now I won't deny that a number of anonymous people did go to Atlantis, other than those John Galt explicitly named. Take Dagny's brakeman aboard the Comet, the one she caught whistling Richard Halley's Fifty Concerto. He was, I'm sure, one of many similar examples.

On the other hand, the only Prime Movers I could see bringing people with them whom John Galt did not explicitly invite were Francisco d'Anconia and Henry Rearden. Francisco evaculated the best and brightest from D/Anconia Copper SA, and Hank Rearden set an example that "God knows how many" of his workforce followed. Then, too, there were Ragnar Danneskjöld's officers and crew. (Though this crew did not build homes in Atlantis until after the Rescue.)

Still...thirty thousand? I would have fighred two thousand, tops.

Recall that Francisco told Dagny that manpower was at a premium. So he had to design mining machines with elaborate servo systems so that one man could do the work of ten.

I would think he would perhaps have repurposed them where he could... makes good economic sense...

Oh god, this is off topic and long... sorry.
How true... My favorite object of the difference between socialist hell and a prosperous industrial population is... wait for it...
Moscow. Really.
it was once a great capitol city that, under the socialista looter marxist society, became a dumpy slum (if you doubt, look at the 5 story "Kruchev Flats" and the deterioration of that 70 year era still present all over the city)... since the return of Capitalism to Russia (something they celebrate with great gusto every year in June, BTW) the city, once dead, drab, and dreary, is starting to teem with life, opportunity, and excitement again... One can really feel it in the air, and it is one of the few places in "Europe" that if I had to live there, I feel I could prosper there as well. And for a right wing commie hating enterpreneuer, raised during the cold war by good, objectivist parents, to say I could live in the once-capitol of the center of the morass of socialist hell is surprising to me. Its one of the few places I've seens where with guts, determination, and drive, one can go from a nobody to prosperous... by the hard work and determination of their minds and hands.
Europe... Much of South America... Asia... dare I say Australia... is following each other to the morass. Even the US... sadly... tragically... look where our "enlightened, socially responsible" government will lead us if it continues on this same path...

An off topic thought- Susanne, yes.
The speed of economic and social decay suggested in AS is unrealistic.
But, if you take out the really productive and creative, and the sloppy thinkers get a free hand, then down is the only way to go.
Consider, Europe and Venezuela today.

I was thinking from the other direction... you have the major minds of the country - say the top 1% of the top 1%... and those they brought with them. I am sure others were there as well... but without the movers and shakers the world would, indeed, fall apart... maybe not as fast as AR extrapolates in her book, but left to the sociocommunist leaders snd their cronies, it cannot help but slide downward, and pick up speed as it goes.
Anyway, I was thinking maybe 100 of these producers, and perhaps 10-50 times that many in others who know the value of their worth, to make a functioning town, separate from the failed world...

30K wouldn't fit there. Boxed in by mountains and pass to the south. I like Lake City. No hotsprings though. I like a virtual Atlantis

Do you mean demographics?

Last I heard, Ouray had a population of a thousand. Does that give anyone any ideas?

I was thinking of our "red-iconned friends" -grins- ... To do the Gulch scenes, even if it was all green screen and models, they would have to have a layout to insure consistency if nothing else. Add to that, Ayn gives a basic layout during Dagny's "tour" - who she saw when as they drove by. I do know it would be larger than my mind pictured it - you have a *lot* of stuff in that valley - Waterworks, airfield, croplands, the Mine, etc - AND the residences and workplaces / businesses of the "non-main" characters. I am guessing, all told, a country village of perhaps 5-10K, spread out over a 20-mile long valley floor... I am excited to see how they bring the visualization of valhalla to life on the screen!

I love the idea! And to work on how a modern community would grow, organically I think the word would be, without zoning and land use and all the multitude of regulations we all have

Offhand without looking, two passages describe the geography of the Valley. The first is general about the houses being spread out. The second is when Galt drives her around to meet people. Rand also says that no two homes looked alike. It is pretty much up to you.

My thoughts were influenced by the small farming communities we have here in Illinois. Most of them in the 1000-2000 with an occasional 3k town.

These were, until the mass exodus cased by the interstate highway system, very self reliant places. Self contained and Places where about every skill could be found. From a machine shop to grocer. Places were the high school parking lot also had a place to tie up your horse in a small coral and if you looked close a few of the trucks in the lot had shotguns and a rifle in a rack on the back window - for hunting on the way home or practice on the school rifle team.. Where TV was brought in on a antenna and on a clear day you might get three channels and the word "darn" was never heard.

It was the the sort of town I grew up in, but it's pretty much all gone now. All that's left are the dry bones and fear soaked old women.

No but it sure would be interesting. Especially if there were references to whose house was which, were Francisco was planning on mining etc. This sounds like a project for Non-Mooch?