1 Chapter 1- Best-Laid Plans(1)

"In 1883, a caldera by the name of Krakatoa, also known as Krakatau, situated in the Sunda Strait between the islands if Java and Sumatra in the Indonesian province of Lampung erupted. This was followed by the eruption of Mount Tambora the following month. This coupled with the dimming sun and several other factors gave rise to a worldwide volcanic winter.

In response to this, several installations called 'generators' were built were built by the British Authorities in the coal-rich North, designed to be city centers in the event that dropping temperatures force mass migration from the South.

Sounds very steampunk,doesn't it? Well that's because I am reciting the scenario from a game called Frostpunk. But apparently the idea of Massive heat generators wasn't as impossible or impractical or insane as it sounded.

In 2016, several scientists were certain that we were due for an ice age quite soon,possibly within the next 10 years. The sun was dimming and many volcanoes were showing signs of movement. An ice age was indeed due soon. But such news was suppressed by the various governments to prevent mass panic and the news about a new ice age became nothing more than yet another conspiracy theory.But the government, in secret, started its preparations. They began the construction of huge nuclear generator stations that could provide electricity and heat to entire cities.

But such plants needed to have a competent manager since the very fate of humanity rested upon these in the event of an ice age. So the various governments subjected their employees and agents in various departments to simulations about the management of the stations. For the first time in history, every single country was united and pooled all of their resources together to ensure the survival of humanity, though it wouldn't be found out anytime soon.

It was the country of Poland that actually came up with the idea of testing the civilian population for such management skills and that is how Frostpunk came to be and while it was set in a century with technology less advanced than our own, it the management skills that they needed to test and so it was not an issue.

Years passed, the construction of the stations continued in full swing and many people continued to play the game, oblivious to its true purpose.The scientists grew more and more certain of the ice age that was to come soon and in 2022 the governments finally announced the truth. By then, a total of almost 5000 generators were either under construction in the guise of something else or had been completed.

At first there was mass panic and people took the streets to riot. The government reassured them time and again that they all will survive and that the generators will be their bastions but even they knew that not all will get an opportunity to be one of the citizens of such 'generator cities' .

I was initially an ordinary civil engineer hired to participate in the construction of a new kind of generator planned jointly by the government of India and Australia at a location close to Melbourne in 2017. At first, I thought it was just a normal government project but that changed after the Prime Minister of Australia visited the site for inspection. I was tasked to give a presentation on the situation of the construction that day but right before I entered, I overheard my supervisor and the Prime Minister discuss about the true purpose of the project. Nothing really changed after that though apart from the fact that I now knew that this project was more important than any before.

Our site finished its construction in mid-2023 and by then quite a few workers had quit and had taken to protesting against the government while some others refused to believe in the idea of a global ice age citing that the weather still felt hot, so the government was obviously lying. I don't what exactly these groups were trying to accomplish. In spite of all that, the completion of the now dubbed 'Site-112' generator was our highest priority and succeed we did. After that, I was hired by my supervisor,who was now appointed as the manager of this site, as an assistant since I was one of the first people to be hired and also had the technical know-how to maintain and repair the generator components when needed. I moved to Melbourne in December 2023 with my parents and was given an apartment to live in by my supervisor.

Time passed and soon came the year 2025, riots still continued in some parts of the globe and about 3000 generators had been constructed by this time. The governments had started to run out of resources due the many mines and factories that lay shut due to the refusal of many of the common people to work and had already started to move their headquarters to their chosen capital generator cities. This led them to more or less give up on the construction of the remaining cities. The ice age was due soon and they knew that this was all they could do to ensure their survival and that of humanity. Important personnel had already been moved to these new cities, some moved years ago and some just the last week. Supplies had been stocked. The governments had done all they could to ensure their survival and while some wondered whether there was anything more they could have done, it was way too late to begin anything anew. They will have to make do with what they had prepared and hope they had prepared enough. Winter was coming and it was coming here to stay. Now all that was left for them to do was wait.

By late November,2025 the weather had started to grow colder and colder. While many still remained skeptical claiming that it got cold every year, others realized that the cold this time was unnatural since it was supposed to be summer in Australia. More and more people started to realize something was off since the snow and the cold winds showed no signs of dissipating. Many people who hadn't done so previously started to rush towards the cities with generators and soon martial law was imposed in most major cities across the globe.

In case of Melbourne, the 'generator' I helped build was functioning as intended providing heat and electricity to the city. Multiple greenhouses had been constructed within the city and the electricity provided helped them operate. And while it was indeed growing colder and colder like it was predicted, we still had hope and were determined to survive.

What we didn't quite anticipate was the appearance of you guys. Now that I have explained why we built these massive generators", the man paused as he once again looked at the basketball-sized black sphere floating a few feet in front of the chair he was sitting in,"Can I please go back?"