Ice (steampunk, slo-mo apocalypse)

[SAGrognard]

Both reckless and over-cautious are sins in a good Captain. Right now you have no need for speed, conserving lives now will mean that you can spend them in the future (if needed). The train comes to a halt, the skater cars spread the great wings of their tents, the kitchens feed everyone a meal, and you prepare to wait it out.

Afternoon and night pass with the howl of the wind to keep you company, but before the sun is over the yardarm the next day it is easing. About mid-morning you are preparing to move once more, and you get the news. Some idiot, despite all the warnings and precautions, has succeeded in getting themselves frostbitten. Right foot. The usual option is amputation, but Graf Anette tells you that she could use Electroconvulsive therapy to restore the limb. She will need to set up apparatus, you have used enough supplies to clear a car as an infirmary.

Frostbit - [] Heal them
4 of 5 hours (once-off) , 2 hours spark time per week. Science!!!.

Frostbit - [] Nothing doing
Amputate and move on.

 

[SAGrognard]

You are the Captain. If you wish to watch the procedure then you watch. The injured woman sits on a table with the bad leg immobilized between two electrodes. Switches are thrown, a brief howl of power rising, and lightning arcs through the foot. The patient screams, but a minute later she is wiggling her toes, and the black marks that had been tracing up her veins are gone. You have something that can cure frostbite. It seems that the spark is required however.

The train rumbles East across the Baltic, soon you will have to make another choice. Scouting reports people in St. Petersburg. The river there will serve you as a highway to Eastern Europe, as it has done for countless others through history. Taking the train into the close terrain of a city, however, could result in sudden conflict. You could bear north to the Finnmark, or south just enough to avoid the city. Either way you are leaving the advantage of (iced over) water for land with it's inevitable complications.

Path - [] Through the city.
Possible recruits, easy navigation (follow the river), possible conflict.

Path - [] Go around
Deal with hills and such like in preference to humans

 

[SAGrognard]

The initial passage along the frozen river is quiet, frozen docks and river walls echoing only the flat chuff-chuff of your engines. Then behind you the rapid crackle of rifle fire and the scream-hiss of Wanderer's heat ray. Locals hopped out and abducted some of your skaters before being driven off.
Examining some of the bodies they do not look hungry, but neither are they uniformed. Still, they have snatched some of your people.

Response - [] Punitive expedition
Six-inch fire and heat ray as you cut a path of devastation towards your abducted people.

Response - [] Rescue
Deploy marines and militia for a measured, precise response.

Response - [] Abandon
This must be a trap of some kind. Move on, leaving the lost behind.

 

[SAGrognard]

The population here behave oddly. Some, as expected, recoil from armed and uniformed men moving in a rush - quickly seeking other places to be. Many more simply watch with calm disinterest, stepping aside only if pushed and otherwise continuing their routine tasks.

Your force reaches a market square and now you know why. The fist-sized hexagonal cells of mindwasps in clusters near the centre of the square.
Herded near them - your people, still under guard so presumably not yet subsumed. Your troops close in and discover that the cells are both empty and dusty, having released their cargo long ago. Rifle butts strike down abductors and bring people back, probably uncompromised, probably.

[] Quarantine and check
Have your sparks build a mindwasp checker and check all abductees and troops before resuming.

[] Load and go
Get out as soon as possible, check later when this place is several miles behind you.

 

[SAGrognard]

All 'stung' persons secrete an IFF molecule similar to human pheromones. The Other presumably regarded it as a uniform of sorts. Your two sparks have very different devices intended to detect that particular chemical, but both have long snouts like that of a sniffing animal. As they move down the line double-checking each other, Prof Wilne produces flashes of green light while Graf Anette gives cheerful all-clear tones. They reach the end of the line without any positives, no stung infiltrators in your train.

Professor Wilne recommends obtaining a sample of the deploy pods. Wasps (and victims) have been captured before but the deployment cells have not been carefully studied. It could lead to some form of defense other than 'Get the wasps before they get you' or even to a cure for mindwasp infestation. He cheerfully admits that this is not a -safe- course. Isolation will have to be very carefully maintained.

Graf Anette thinks he has been smoking his socks. She wants to use HE gunfire to breach barriers in a perimeter around that market square, then drop fuel-air bombs from the zeplins to scour it clean.

[] Response - Very careful study

[] Response - Scorch it clean

[] Response - Why waste resources. Just move on.

 

[SAGrognard]

For the first time since being transferred to the train, the 9-inchers swivel in their mounts - and fire in anger. Ear shattering sound and tongues of flame at the firing end, devastation at the target. Three salvos later they fall quiet and the zeplins move forward, spraying a fine mist of petroleum fuel over the target before maxing their engines to get clear. Your 6-inchers fire incendiary shell, and the world turns to fire in the market square. Looking over the blasted and burned result, the zeplins signal 'Destruction complete, target Purged' and return to Wanderer.

400 miles and several weeks later, it is time to part ways with the river. The train powers up the bank and you order the course change to Nor'nor'east. Soon you will have to choose your route.

[] Route - via Moscow.
St Petersburg did not go well, but Moscow is another chance to pick up cold-weather recruits. The Russias collapsed under the Other's hammer, but the capital would have been heavily defended.
[] Route - Go North
Heading up to the ice shore of the arctic, then straight east is slightly longer but avoids possible city trouble.

 

[SAGrognard]

Researched Tech : Basic survival 1, Basic Travel 1, Basic Hothouse 1
-20C, Clear weather
Shelter : None
Food : Production : red. Storage Green
Coal : None
Iron : None
Lesser metals : None
Wood : Production None. Storage Green

The colors indicate:
Red Production well below demand, Storage almost empty
Yellow Production meets demand, Storage below one month.
Green Production surplus, Storage more than a month

Having decided that possible recruits are not worth the risk in cities, the group heads North to the arctic ocean. Frozen solid, ice and snow, comfortable problems you are familiar with and handle without issue. Your only encounter with people in the next three weeks is an Eskimo sitting next to a hole in the ice, fishing. He waves casually, and goes back to his fishing.

Reasonably good time has been made, with only three days lost to weather, and the barrier range that will protect you from superstorms rising in the Atlantic looms to your starboard forequarter. On this course you have only to continue and it passes to your right. Shortly thereafter the coast curves north, you continue toward your isolate mountain, pulling up next to the crater about a week later.

Time to put down roots. You have many priorities, and they are all important.

You have 108 work crews, and two sparks.
Please allocate them amongst

[] Temporary Housing (Wood huts and tents)
[] Storage (unpack the train sand set up warehouses)
[] Generator Startup (will use Coal)
[] Hothouse Setup (Research done on the way means you can get straight on this if desired)
[] Research Labs (to adapt tools, lubricants etc to the cold, and do further research)
[] Geological survey (identify local coal, iron, copper etc)

Example [20 c, 1 spark] Temporary Housing

 

[SAGrognard]

Researched Tech : Basic survival 1, Basic Travel 1, Basic Hothouse 1
-20C, Clear weather
Shelter : None
Food : Production : red. Storage Green
Coal : None
Iron : None
Lesser metals : None
Wood : Production None. Storage Green

Your construction crews are struggling, it's as simple as that. Digging in the frozen soil is a pain, much of the caldera is rock rather than soil, and the habit of about one on ten tools (and nails and hinges etc) of breaking or shattering the first time they are put to heavy use does not help.
After the first day (4 hour shift) your shelter crews have places for 290 people out of 10800. Time for a rethink mayhap.

Spoiler: Tools and Lubricants

I did warn you that everything on the list was necessary. Choosing not to put any effort into research is not going well for you

Storage is less of an issue. An iron warehouse does not care if wind is whistling through gaps in the walls and windows, just so long as it keeps snow and light fingers out. You have about 10% of the train's remaining stores offloaded and safely packed.

Professor Wilne takes his team off to the Generator. It was properly mothballed after construction, and no problems show up during his restart check. Coal is loaded, the fires started, and yellow light shines out over the caldera. In a radius of 432 yards around the generator the temperature is now -10 instead of -20. No hotter near the Generator with a gradual cooloff, just an even 10C throughout the affected area, ending abruptly at the cut-off. Amazing device really. He spends another half hour monitoring the Generator, then take his teams off to assist the hothouse crews for the remaining two hours.

The hothouse teams were having the same issues as the residence teams, until the Generator came online. Bringing the temperature up to British cold rather than Arctic cold means everything starts working properly again, and when the good professor arrives and builds an explosive-driven sonic digger to help with foundations and support posts work proceeds smoothly. You have the buildings for 11 hothouses (intended to supply 11000 people's greens). Tomorrow soil can be moved in and planting commence.

The geo survey is smooth and effective. With Graf Anette using a field spectrogram to identify ores and minerals, zeplins to conduct aerial survey, and plenty of people to check on the ground, the caldera is finished in an hour. She puts 6 teams on scouting outside the caldera and takes the rest to assist the hothousing. You have identified two coal deposits, two iron deposits, and sundry lesser materials (including gypsum which the Graf believes could be used for brick soda if you wish to set up a brickworks)

The free economy is also starting. Fresh fish, a boon to any British group are coming in from the ocean 150 miles off (they hired a zeplin), the Hunter and Rangers Guild has allocated claim areas for traps although you will not see a catch until tomorrow at best, an enterprising individual has put together a clothing workshop, and a cookhouse has been set up next to the Generator.

Change of plan?

 

[SAGrognard]

Plan balance wins. My apologies, I failed to mention that the Generator is now up and running and only requires 1 (one) work crew to keep loading it with coal. I will put them on Housing.

Researched Tech : Basic survival 1, Basic Travel 1, Basic Hothouse 1
-20C, Clear weather
Shelter : None
Food : Production : red. Storage Green
Coal : None
Iron : None
Lesser metals : None
Wood : Production None. Storage Green

Housing, 39 crews + spark : Graf Anette turns Wanderer's heat ray to minimum and gives the ground a light toasting to remove snow and unmelt frozen soil. Tools and building materials are stored in the Generator Zone, so are still (relatively) warm when put to use. Your crews put together housing for 1200 odd people today, should be finished by the end of the week.

Storage, 20 work crews : Hammer, nail, build, work proceeds. With slightly more crews it speeds up a bit, 25% today, should also be finished by the end of the week.

Hothouse setup, 20 crews : Soil is in, boilers are loaded with coal, planting starts tomorrow.

Research, 28 crews + spark : A lab has been built, and is ready to conduct research.

Please choose your research.

[] Research - Arctic adaption
Tools, lubricants, runners instead of wheels, it all needs work.
[] Research - Lumber mill
Start bringing in wood from the frozen trees
[] Research - Fishing Outpost
Community based fishing.

No major changes in the free market. The cookhouse (FM) is feeding 3000 people from fish and small game. You will need to build community cookhouses or wait for free market if you want to feed more with economies of scale

You now know that each hothouse and lab will require 5 work crews to operate them. You can choose not to work them if crews are vitally needed elsewhere.

[] Work Generator 1 crew
[] Work Research Lab 5 crew
[] Work Hothouses 5-55 crews
[] Temporary Housing (Wood huts and tents)
[] Storage (unpack the train sand set up warehouses)
[] Research Labs (to adapt tools, lubricants etc to the cold, and do further research)
[] Cookhouses

Plans?

 

[SAGrognard]

Researched Tech : Basic survival 1, Basic Travel 1, Basic Hothouse 1
-20C, Clear weather
Shelter : None
Food : Production : Green. Storage Green
Coal : None
Iron : None
Lesser metals : None
Wood : Production None. Storage Green

Research: Arctic Adaption 1 complete. With two sparks on this it did not take long. You will not need more unless the weather worsens. Your alloys have been modified for cold, suitable lubricants chosen etc.

Choose your next area of research

[] Research - Lumber mill
Start bringing in wood from the frozen trees
[] Research - Fishing Outpost
Community based fishing.
[] Research - Coal Thumper
Bring coal up to the surface so that it can be gathered
[] Research - Iron Mine, Smelter, Bessemer Converter
Begin production of iron
[] Research - Scouts
The zeplins have been useful but they miss a lot that a man on the ground will not.
[] Research - Advanced Laboratory
Slow, expensive, not currently recommended but included in case you wish to tech rush

Work on housing and storage continues, should be finished at the end of the week.

Some of the people who are doing fishing are finding the zeplin ride each day a pain. They would like to do a triple shift for the community (12 hours) and then have 3 days off.

[] Flexitime - OK
[] Flexitime - No way

Plan vote will happen again when something changes.

One of your people is producing beer during his free market time. He would like a small building in the Generator Zone for his barrels. Certainly a pub or two would be nice.

[] Brewer - No, you can burn coal to warm your shed.
[] Brewer - Absolutely, which is first, guiness or stout?

Other entertainment establishments have opened already, including a house of dice, a bareknuckled brawling ring, and a group of ladies of negotiable virtue. Given the heavy female to male ratio in your society you are surprised the last survives but there it is.