>>4591083

The equatorial regions, already precariously hanging above starvation in better years, were the hardest hit; by a perverse irony, those who did better went either to the far north or the far south, spurred by the knowledge that there be cold-resistant fauna for meat, coal and oil shale for heat, and iron and timber to build shelter with. You and your people are headed towards some northern region called Nunavut, of which you know extremely little. Your understanding is that it was close enough to the mighty volcanic explosion to benefit from some sort of eye-of-the-storm effect, while being far enough away to be spared pyroclastic annihilation. The land belongs to a different country than your own, but the Great War has made it clear that there's no land owned other than that which one can defend. The fields have already skipped one summer, and official press has it that it will be another two before things go back to normal -- rumor has it that it won't. Thanks to your organizational skills, you have been tasked by a large construction concern with setting up a colony there, for the benefit of some of your nation's upper classes, "just in case". As far as you know, your customers are currently biding their time on an ocean liner with reinforced hull and due to come in when they run out of supplies or, you think bitterly, when the ocean freezes over.

You look at the cargo manifest. The very first line, the most important, perhaps even more so than pemnican or ammunition, says "Geothermal spike. One."

The co-generating multiple-expansion geothermal spike is a triumph of the brief moment at the start of the century when it looked like progress would take the whole of humanity to new heights. Piero Ginori Conti tested the first geothermal power generator on 4 July 1904 in Larderello, Italy; it successfully lit four light bulbs. Later, in 1911, the world's first commercial geothermal power station was built there. Complicit, some say, patent-office sleight-of-hand by the likes of Alexader Graham Bell, standardization soon followed, the work continuing in the US and UK during the Great War in order to better feed the demands of modern industry. Devised to complement the great turbines and dams that would shackle the world's great waterfalls and rivers to the cause of electricity, the generator spike was intended for installation everywhere close enough to geothermal faults from the American West Coat to the Alps to the Arctic Circle, providing electromotive force and hot water for a fraction of the cost in coal or tar that a free-standing power plant would have required. Spikes were designed and manufactured in many sizes and, as the Great Frost came, in as great numbers as the world's remaining powers could afford -- you remember hearing on the radio how this or that Royal villa in Europe got its own spike, with great fanfare hiding the poor output wattage, and the usual hand-wringing of deficit hawks and populists.

>>4591087

With the weary alacrity that pushed the wheels of industry at the start of the war, the powers of the world raced to build these spikes and send out survey teams to claim the spots where they could be installed. You have been sent to supervise the construction and deployment of one such spike. Officially, it's a construction job like any other, but you've seen what the mother country looks like these days, and have enough imagination to know what it will look like come the next harvest or lack of it -- the real reward is going to be a guaranteed spot under the spike's shadow, in case the doom-mongers are right and the world will skip another spring and finally eat the last of its seed grain.

The particular geothermal spike you are carrying is large enough to be a good fit to the place you're headed -- good, because there's no way to build more without the sort of industrial infrastructure that you suspect won't exist in another year. Your job is to install it on top of a geothermal vent that a survey team has located, build temporary living quarters around it, and put yourself at the orders of the people who bankrolled the settlement.

* one of the earlier models: inefficient, since a number of things about optimizing it had not yet been found out, but easy to repair and modify.

* a "mass produced" (relatively speaking, of course) version that you hope will perform as well as the blueprints specify. At least it'll be easy to put together once at the site!

* a very late build, benefiting from experience derived from designing and constructing its older siblings, but suffering from the beginning of a global resource shortage: it will be efficient, but difficult to perform maintenance on.

Supply lines are going to be inconsistent at best, and the radiotelegraph back home is impossible to secure and, given the extreme distances, stretched way past its operational limit; to most practical purposes, until the higher-ups arrive to formally establish civilization, as the person in charge of the expedition you will be lawgiver, judge, jury, and executioner.

>>4591091

The construction company you work for is the sort of far-spanning concern made possible by the railroad and the radio, which you'd have guessed would swallow up countries whole if given another generation to do so. It is based in

* The United Kingdom, a world-spanning empire that believes strongly in social stratification, industry, and tea. The stereotype is that UK citizens ("Bricks") excel at nothing, but are quite good at everything.

* The United States, a former UK province that broke away a century ago, the only such success since then. Americans ("Yonks") are all about free enterprise and the right to bear arms; your people are excellent innovators, and (you consider this a plus, of course) difficult to keep in line.

* Germany, the Great War's ostensible winner, if one were to measure acres rather than lives. Despite the onerous cost paid for insignificant land gains before the armistice, Germans ("Crucks") had both the discipline and industrial might to send spikes and surveyors same as the other great powers. They may be famous for a lack of creativity, but it hasn't slowed them down any when it comes to civil engineering.

* Italy, a Mediterranean kingdom formed by the ruling house of Savoy claiming the throne of Rome in your grandfather's time. Italians ("Spags") are clever and resourceful, but take too much pride in their feudal and artisanal heritage to have been a serious contender in the industrial age.

Your life before -- everyone's life before, really -- matters little; you are alive, here and now, and you plan on keeping it that way whatever it costs.

You've got a couple of decisions to make about the lading. The crew manifest is just a list of names, in alphabetical order. Who have you been? ( Name, gender, looks)

At birth, your family was

* firmly working class; you're no stranger to hardship, and favor simple solutions over complex ones. You got to your current managerial position by sheer grit and the occasional dirty trick.

* gentry, or belonging to the nascent professional class: you received a good, comprehensive education, and can probably read some Latin if you take your time with it. Your career has been conventional: finishing school and then university.

During the War, you were

* front line; you have seen the horrors of the trenches and are familiar with the worst and the best that man can do to man. You are hardy enough to have survived all that, too. Of course, cynicism can be its own punishment.

* back line; your expertise is in medicine, logistics, or industry, rather than combat. You kept the men at the front hale and supplied to the best of your ability, and perhaps skimmed a little off the top.

* smart enough, or crafty enough, to stay well away. You're a good manipulator, a politician, perhaps former clergy. Having been sheltered from the horror of wars probably makes you too squeamish to make the hard choices, but you hold the flame of civilization in higher regard than most.

>>4591093

You lived through the Modern Plague, and you suffered no lingering effects -- luckier than quite a few. During it, you were

* well away from it; your rural roots allowed you to stay away from the masses and close to the food supply, at least until the ground froze.

* a survivor of it, standing up as so many in your town or city started coughing and fell down.

Life's hardships in recent years mean that your hair is significantly more grey than you'd like it to be, but so it is; some of your crew have taken to washing their hair with soot-covered hands, or even, to reduce reflections in the endless white, cover their cheeks with it.

* That goes to show how bad it's been: you're pretty young, in your thirties.

* That's not too bad: you're middle aged, in your forties or fifties.

* You're surprised it's not white: you're in your sixties or older.

This is the last stop before the last push north. You will have to say goodbye to your cargo ship, and keep going on a sled train, propelled by steam engines adapted to take in coal or naphta -- those that aren't being pulled by sled dogs, that is. Once you touch land, you will be formally in charge of the expedition.

* You see this as a nationalistic effort, and - with the consent of your higher ups - will style yourself Captain.

* This is probably the most important job of your life, but it's still just a job. Pick a civilian title (Architect, Foreman, etc.)

Strangely, one of your most valuable assets is a ream of impressively-lacquered and gilded papers declaring to the international community (what's left of it) that your construction crews and survey teams have unbridled authority to map the nearby lands, mine, forage, and generally do what they must to carve a niche in the large sub-arctic island. The natives -- such as there still are, following a Commonwealth attempt at colonization during the Great War -- call it Kalaallit, or Ikkarumikluak; your people, having made it to this last outpost before the endless white, have taken to calling it Frostland. You're very sure that other expeditions have a variant of the exact same papers. You also have a cipher book that, once you build a radiotelegraph, will allow you to communicate with the mother country; a little voice in your head keeps adding "as long as it's still there".

> Frostpunk game
> Starts in "The Last Autumn" era, it's already freezing but the wider world has not disappeared yet
> This is set in 1921, so some later technologies such as radio and diesel engines will be available
> No automatons; some dieselpunk will happen, but I try to keep things semi realistic
> Not related to my previous quests (Left Beyond, Space Princess, etc.)
> I will make a wiki page explaining how the game works in terms of turns, but expect something similar to the quests above
> Research into legged armored vehicles is specifically allowed, since they finally make some sense
> Character creation time!

>>4591093
>* Germany, the Great War's ostensible winner, if one were to measure acres rather than lives. Despite the onerous cost paid for insignificant land gains before the armistice, Germans ("Crucks") had both the discipline and industrial might to send spikes and surveyors same as the other great powers. They may be famous for a lack of creativity, but it hasn't slowed them down any when it comes to civil engineering.
>* gentry, or belonging to the nascent professional class: you received a good, comprehensive education, and can probably read some Latin if you take your time with it. Your career has been conventional: finishing school and then university.
>* back line; your expertise is in medicine, logistics, or industry, rather than combat. You kept the men at the front hale and supplied to the best of your ability, and perhaps skimmed a little off the top.
Let's go order.

>>4591093

* a very late build, benefiting from experience derived from designing and constructing its older siblings, but suffering from the beginning of a global resource shortage: it will be efficient, but difficult to perform maintenance on.
* The United States, a former UK province that broke away a century ago, the only such success since then. Americans ("Yonks") are all about free enterprise and the right to bear arms; your people are excellent innovators, and (you consider this a plus, of course) difficult to keep in line.
* gentry, or belonging to the nascent professional class: you received a good, comprehensive education, and can probably read some Latin if you take your time with it. Your career has been conventional: finishing school and then university.
* back line; your expertise is in medicine, logistics, or industry, rather than combat. You kept the men at the front hale and supplied to the best of your ability, and perhaps skimmed a little off the top.
* a survivor of it, standing up as so many in your town or city started coughing and fell down.
* That goes to show how bad it's been: you're pretty young, in your thirties.
* You see this as a nationalistic effort, and - with the consent of your higher ups - will style yourself Captain.

Also
>* well away from it; your rural roots allowed you to stay away from the masses and close to the food supply, at least until the ground froze
>* You see this as a nationalistic effort, and - with the consent of your higher ups - will style yourself Captain.
if we're playing as germans we should go with Capitan as our title but in german wich is just kapitan

>>4591095
Use > for options please what the fuck is this?
Also why are we doing a resume for chargen?
* one of the earlier models
* Germany,
* firmly working class
* smart enough, or crafty enough, to stay well away
* a survivor of it
* in your thirties
* Captain.

>>4591093
> Italy, I like flexibility
> 30s
> back line makes the most sense
> thirding gentry also
> capitan

>>4591101
>let's go order
let's. for the name... us being Benito Mussolini is probably a bit too on the nose eh? How about Lorenzo Avenire

>>4591108

(Sorry, I'll switch formats for options if that makes it easier to read.)
(The various choices for chargen are for me to get an idea of who people want to play, and also solve some crunch things (for example, a working-class captain will have an easier time dealing with labor disputes, but a doctor may talk over their heads when it comes to organizing healthcare)).

>>4591108
>>4591107
>>4591104
>>4591109
You see this job as your own way, however small, to rectify the mistakes of the Great War; with luck, your nation will emerge stronger from this, a well-prepared, well-disciplined labor force of people who have already survived the Plague surely is too far above land and beast to suffer more than a few losses to frostbite and other environmental hazards. The people you're working for are so intertwined with the government that they probably own a sizeable chunk of it.

You come from a large landowning family, gentry but not aristocracy; your mother made a point of being invited to the important events of the upper echelon, in hope to maybe marrying up a son or daughter and get to some day host them; your father was perhaps the more modern of the two, selling off some of the ancestral land to invest in a fledgling automobile workshop and other small-scale industrial concerns, and making sure you got a comprehensive university education. Being a relatively wealthy child of the Gilded Age, you're not used to privation, but despite the Great War maintain the optimistic outlook taught to you in school.

During the war you received an officer's commission and served with distinction, but only saw the front lines in the early days, during the "race to the sea" in which competing construction crews tried to out-turn each other in building fortifications, trenches, and even tram lines at rythms never before seen on Earth. In a rare display of intelligence, the brass figured that using your body as something to lead yet another useless assault when they could have had your mind ten miles away from the front doing unheroic but essential maintenance and conveyance work would've been a waste. You're fine with this: you did your duty for your country, you still have all your extremities and your hearing, and you like to think that your work kept people alive that would've died otherwise.

In order to bolster your authority over the people you'll be coordinating, you have been given a letter informing you that your service record has been reviewed and you have been given a rare but not unheard-of retroactive promotion, from 1st Lt. to Captain, taking effect the moment you and your crew are off the ship. Officially, you're here on business, but the construction company bankrolling this expedition is about as intertwined with the government as the East India Company was with the British Empire. You telegraphed your immediate family, and were given a surprisingly wordy message of congratulations from your parents -- it must've cost them a pretty penny.

>>4591109
>>4591108
>>4591104
>>4591101

(So far I got 1US, 2DE, 1IT. Note that in this timeline the war started in 1914, but unofficially ended in 1917 because of the encroaching frost; there's an armistice in place, but... well, you know how it is. My personal preference is US or Italy simply because that way I get to use names of people I know, but if a third person votes Germany, we go with that)

You and your crew got here on a pair of huge scows, flat bottomed barges pulled alternately by a hired ice breaker or, when going up a river, by a pair of treaded tractors that will be used in setting up the work site once you get there. Back home, you've spent a fair amount of time figuring out the optimal

"Captain! Why are you up already?"

You're looking at your security officer and unofficial second-in-command (the official second-in-command and company liaison is still sleeping soundly), Yelena Shabayev. She's a Russian, who participated in the revolution but got out across a blasted continent in the final days of the war when, according to her, "things got too far out of hand". You've known each other for a couple of similar, smaller scale jobs closer to home, and have a good working relationship. According to her otherwise extremely slim personnel file, she was a sort of agent provocateur for the Okhrana, the brutal Tsarist secret police, then fell in with the Mensheviks for real before deciding that it would be best for her health if she moved to warmer pastures. That last part didn't work too well; her ability to figure out who the malcontents are before they start trouble, however, does.

"Don't call me Captain until we arrive; it'll cause confusion with the ship's crew."

"Gotcha, boss. But we're on land right now."

"Fair enough. I want to supervise the loading, make sure there's no last minute stupidity. The locals know what two harsh winters in a row look like, and we're hauling food, coal... some of it is bound to go missing at the last minute, and I want to make sure it's within tolerances. What got you up?"

"Didn't sleep. Same reason, really. I do have a couple of locals to talk to in that sense, maybe it's better for their health that they stay in bed."

> Grab a couple of workers and go rough the would-be thieves up, it should make loading operation go smoother.
> Just a warning will do.
> If they're intending to steal from you, you're going to conscript them. Bring them in in irons.

>>4591123
> If they're intending to steal from you, you're going to conscript them. Bring them in in irons.

>>4591095
* a very late build, benefiting from experience derived from designing and constructing its older siblings, but suffering from the beginning of a global resource shortage: it will be efficient, but difficult to perform maintenance on.
* The United Kingdom, a world-spanning empire that believes strongly in social stratification, industry, and tea. The stereotype is that UK citizens ("Bricks") excel at nothing, but are quite good at everything.
* gentry, or belonging to the nascent professional class: you received a good, comprehensive education, and can probably read some Latin if you take your time with it. Your career has been conventional: finishing school and then university.
* back line; your expertise is in medicine, logistics, or industry, rather than combat. You kept the men at the front hale and supplied to the best of your ability, and perhaps skimmed a little off the top.
* well away from it; your rural roots allowed you to stay away from the masses and close to the food supply, at least until the ground froze.
* That goes to show how bad it's been: you're pretty young, in your thirties.
* You see this as a nationalistic effort, and - with the consent of your higher ups - will style yourself Captain.

I'd be fine with Germany (or even Italy, though I cringe at the industrialisation malus).

>>4591123
> If they're intending to steal from you, you're going to conscript them. Bring them in in irons.

Pressganging is a fine British tradition, if it worked for the navy it'll work for us.

> If they're intending to steal from you, you're going to conscript them. Bring them in in irons

>>4591123
>> Grab a couple of workers and go rough the would-be thieves up, it should make loading operation go smoother.

>>4591150
(So we got 1US, 1UK, 2DE, 1IT. Will go on as long as possible without picking, but once picking becomes necessary, I guess the Captain is German and so are most of the crew. My preference is IT/US, just so I can use names and personalities of people I know)

>>4591135
>>4591150
>>4591158
>>4591168
(Wow, that's a start...)

"Yelena, how many people were planning something?"

"Two. Nothing crazy or violent, they were simply going to swap some sacks between the depot and the barges."

"Bring them to me. In irons, if possible. They're coming with us."

She doesn't object, just nods. "They'll be on board when we leave. I'll make sure that the evidence is obvious. This will take me the entire morning, so I'm going to be in my cabin early, and hope to be let sleep." She doesn't salute or ask for your leave, she just goes.

Whether there is any hard evidence or not, she'll find or make some that even the common workers in your crew can understand, you figure.

Using one of the icebreaker's cabins as a brig won't be particularly difficult, and as much as having prisoners meant high expenses for low-quality labor back in civilization, here it means that you have a reason to build a stockade immediately -- just in case you'll need one for later, you figure -- and there will be someone to give the especially crappy jobs to, and to make an example of. That they're foreign to your crew, and tried to steal their rations and fuel, will make this decision easier to swallow for them.

Now that you know that there won't be any last minute shenanigans, you go over the manifest.

You've got 80 (82 now) people to work with; of these, five are officers (yourself as captain, the company liaison and quartermaster, Shabayev as security chief, the chief medical officer Dr. Priscilla Ainsworth, and the chief engineer Enrico Forlanini), another 20 are educated workers -- former army medics, junior engineers, technicians and the like -- and the remainder were chosen on the basis of a strong back, resistance to cold, and enough brains to have finished elementary school.

You have sufficient rations for fifteen days after making landfall, and some foraging prospects afterward, be it hunting or fishing; water is not an issue since, while the construction site will not be far from the Arctic, you know that the site will have fresh water available from the same underground source that the geothermal spike is intended to tap into. Your backers have promised that they will be able to send supplies twice a month should you need additional equipment; part of your job is to prospect for coal, oil shale, and iron deposits known to be nearby.

Your main concern is timber; there won't be much that far north, and what will be there has even chances of having frozen in place and requiring processing in a hot dry environment. In addition, some things used for spare parts for the geothermal spike and other machinery, such as rubber, will simply be unavailable unless brought in.

>>4591174
I'll vote for Italian

>>4591123
>your security officer and unofficial second-in-command
>She's a Russian, who participated in the revolution
>she was a sort of agent provocateur for the Okhrana
I smell future trouble with her.

>>4591174
>My preference is IT/US, just so I can use names and personalities of people I know
If that's what you want to write, I'll throw in for the US.
Why'd you even offer a full country option if you wanted us to pick from 2? Don't offer vote options for things you don't want to write.

>>4591178
>>4591201
(sorry! trying...)

Starting equipment (I will be tracking this at the beginning of the turn).
* Packed geothermal spike; you'll have to unpack it, drive it into the ground, and build pipeworks around it.
* 1200 coal, used for heating, making steel from iron, running steam engines, and making naphta for diesel engines - and operating the geothermal spike in forced-pressure mode
* 100 naphta, used for running diesel engines
* 1200 rations (Looks like a lot, but trust me there's a reason for it...)
* 1200 wood, used for pretty much everything
* 800 steel, used for construction
* 100 copper, used for electrical machinery
* 200 rubber, used for steam or diesel machinery
* 120 changes of clothing
* 40 boxes of trinkets - books, musical instruments, manufactured goods, small luxuries - to be used as a reward or as trade goods should any of the locals show up.
* 20 hunting rifles or shotguns, with ammo sufficient to last three months. (You, the company liaison, and Yelena own pistols designed to take rifle ammo; they're loud and must be fired with both hands lest you punch yourself in the nose, but pack a punch and fit in the inside pocket of your coat).

You also have plenty of hand tools, two tractors that can be used as donkey engines, and 4 five-man sleds that can be used for survey and foraging. As specified by you before you left the homeland, they operate by
> diesel engines, which are fast, consume naphta, and are somewhat unreliable
> steam engines, which are slow, consume coal, and are very reliable

You were left with some discretionary funds -- gold and silver coins from various countries, traded as bullion -- for any last minute purchases, and the last minute has now arrived. This allows you to make a last minute purchase of (pick 3, multiples OK)
> sled dogs, which consume rations and move at medium speed, but let you make extra sleds cheaply
> extra lumber, although it will be of lower quality
> peat moss, can be used instead of coal and as fertilizer

Your crew is equal parts male and female; you would have preferred to go with an all-male crew overall, but the loss of many young men to the War made that impractical, and having sex parity is, in your experience, the second-best solution in order to minimize men fighting over women.

You plan to run the work camp on
> quartermastering: pay will be remanded to the workers' families, and they will be issued necessities as needed
> scrip: people will be paid part of their wages locally, and be able to buy necessities and small luxuries at a company store

You've planned to stay for longer than the 3 months that the project is intended to take, and brought some entertainment as well: musical instruments, a few fiction books along with the manuals, and so on.

> No alcohol: your backers insisted, although you're very sure that people will improvise anyway.
> Of course you brought some booze - you'd pretty much have risked a mutiny from the get go if you hadn't!

>>4591206
> diesel engines, which are fast, consume naphta, and are somewhat unreliable
> sled dogs, which consume rations and move at medium speed, but let you make extra sleds cheaply x2
> extra lumber, although it will be of lower quality
> scrip: people will be paid part of their wages locally, and be able to buy necessities and small luxuries at a company store
> Of course you brought some booze - you'd pretty much have risked a mutiny from the get go if you hadn't!

>>4591206
>> diesel engines, which are fast, consume naphta, and are somewhat unreliable
> extra lumber, although it will be of lower quality x3
> quartermastering: pay will be remanded to the workers' families, and they will be issued necessities as needed
> Of course you brought some booze - you'd pretty much have risked a mutiny from the get go if you hadn't!

>>4591206
>(sorry! trying...)
Don't worry about it. You're doing mostly fine so far.

> steam engines, which are slow, consume coal, and are very reliable

> extra lumber, although it will be of lower quality
> peat moss, can be used instead of coal and as fertilizer
> peat moss, can be used instead of coal and as fertilizer
I like the sounds of fertilizer.

> scrip: people will be paid part of their wages locally, and be able to buy necessities and small luxuries at a company store
quartermastering sounds like more red tape for pretty much the same effect.

>> No alcohol: your backers insisted, although you're very sure that people will improvise anyway.
alcohol makes you feel warm, but actually cools you down faster. Plus the usual drunkenness issues, it'll do more harm than good.

>>4591123
>security officer
>She's

Sounds like a trash quest so far

>>4591091
>a very late build
>The United Kingdom,
>gentry
>back line
>well away from it;
>That goes to show how bad it's been: you're pretty young, in your thirties.
>Captain

>>4591206
>steam engines
>>4591206
>sled dogs x 2
>scrip
>Of course you brought some booze

File: 78FAC1B8-8C63-4F48-B20D-3(...).jpg (68 KB, 680x680)

68 KB JPG

>a "mass produced" (relatively speaking, of course) version that you hope will perform as well as the blueprints specify. At least it'll be easy to put together once at the site!
>The United States, a former UK province that broke away a century ago, the only such success since then. Americans ("Yonks") are all about free enterprise and the right to bear arms; your people are excellent innovators, and (you consider this a plus, of course) difficult to keep in line.
>gentry, or belonging to the nascent professional class: you received a good, comprehensive education, and can probably read some Latin if you take your time with it. Your career has been conventional: finishing school and then university.
>back line; your expertise is in medicine, logistics, or industry, rather than combat. You kept the men at the front hale and supplied to the best of your ability, and perhaps skimmed a little off the top.
Logistics for the above
>a survivor of it, standing up as so many in your town or city started coughing and fell down.
>That goes to show how bad it's been: you're pretty young, in your thirties.
>You see this as a nationalistic effort, and - with the consent of your higher ups - will style yourself Captain.
wb geist!
>spider tanks
>pic related

>>4591206
> diesel engines, which are fast, consume naphta, and are somewhat unreliable
> extra lumber, although it will be of lower quality
> scrip: people will be paid part of their wages locally, and be able to buy necessities and small luxuries at a company store
> Of course you brought some booze - you'd pretty much have risked a mutiny from the get go if you hadn't!

I'm tempted by the steam engines, just for reliabilities sake, but if it comes down to it long-term we can produce some ourselves.

>>4591091
>a "mass produced" (relatively speaking, of course) version that you hope will perform as well as the blueprints specify. At least it'll be easy to put together once at the site!
>>4591093
>Italy, a Mediterranean kingdom formed by the ruling house of Savoy claiming the throne of Rome in your grandfather's time. Italians ("Spags") are clever and resourceful, but take too much pride in their feudal and artisanal heritage to have been a serious contender in the industrial age.
>>4591095
>a survivor of it, standing up as so many in your town or city started coughing and fell down.
>That's not too bad: you're middle aged, in your forties or fifties.
>>4591206
>steam engines, which are slow, consume coal, and are very reliable
>extra lumber, although it will be of lower quality
> peat moss, can be used instead of coal and as fertilizer x2
> quartermastering: pay will be remanded to the workers' families, and they will be issued necessities as needed
> No alcohol: your backers insisted, although you're very sure that people will improvise anyway.

I think that's everything still on the table right?

>>4591238
(Hey, spider tanks actually make sense in this terrain. Maybe. See frostpunk automatons)
>>4591270
(yep, thank you)

(death in the family. i will be a few hours. apologies.)

>>4591308
Sorry for your loss OP

>>4591206
> steam engines, which are slow, consume coal, and are very reliable
Maybe use heat from spike to refil it? Maybe Would need enough storage tho.
> peat moss, can be used instead of coal and as fertilizer
Moss can also be used to filter water and can be great to start the proces of making land fertile.
> scrip: people will be paid part of their wages locally, and be able to buy necessities and small luxuries at a company store
> Of course you brought some booze - you'd pretty much have risked a mutiny from the get go if you hadn't!
For medicinal purpose. Way to dangerous to start drinking in the cold.

>>4591206
> diesel engines, which are fast, consume naphta, and are somewhat unreliable
> extra lumber, although it will be of lower quality
> scrip: people will be paid part of their wages locally, and be able to buy necessities and small luxuries at a company store
> No alcohol: your backers insisted, although you're very sure that people will improvise anyway.

Thoughts on expanding underground once we get set up?

>>4591738
Depends on the location. If we're located on top of a natural aquifer (as QM has already stated, since there is a underground spring) we'd have to be careful we don't flood whatever we build.

Not impossible mind you, just somewhat annoying.

>>4591738
frozen ground in general and permafrost in particular is impractical to dig into. Unless we're willing to spend a ton of heat and manpower for meager results, it's not worth it.

>>4591083
voting USA

>>4591738
what is with this board and living in caves?

not mad just curious

>>4591852
You know "return to monke", well this is like a somewhat less extreme version of that. More seriously, its comfy.

>>4591852
It's the dwarf thing probably; /tg/'s race of choice is dwarves, and I'd bet /qst/ is the same.

Hello Geist! It is nice to see you doing another QST. Sorry for your loss :(

>>4591206
> Steam Engines
> Peat Moss (x3)
> Scrip
> No Alcohol

>>4591852
Do you even z levels

I enjoyed Frostpunk, this should be interesting.
Although I've never played the DLCs, I'm too cheap and too lazy.

Diesel engines are a tempting option, due to their low weight and high RPM, but you've decided to standardize on steam power for your vehicles and donkey engines; the workers are more familiar with the more mature technology, you have plenty of water available just by melting snow, and you've seen naphta turn to unusable jelly in the sort of cold spells that the National Academy briefing your backers gave you -- which you did read, contrary to their assumptions -- are going to be the new normal. Your naphta reserves are going to be used to start furnaces, run the generator for the radio, and so on.

As you complete haggling with the locals at the port, your official second-in-command, Frank Miller, finally shows up. You don't blame the former Pinkerton agent for not getting up before the crack of dawn, since he's had a hard time reaching the expedition departure point overland. As per your request, he's brought the Bakelite scrip tokens -- greenbacks would be useless and are best sent to the workers' families anyway, paper scrips are too likely to get damaged, and you know by experience that workers wouldn't trust a central ledger, since it'd make recording incidentals such as bets lost and won too much of a headache for you -- that you plan to use to run the work site's economy. You gave a thought of running the place on a quartermastering system, as has been done for smaller projects, but you and most of your men are Americans, damn it, and this is supposed to turn into a proper town at some point; handing off a ration a day would remind people of the War too much, or else make them think about Communism. You idly wonder how the Russians are dealing with this; Shabayev didn't say much.

Your last-minute trading net you a team of dogs, various mutts with Newfie, Malamute and Labrador blood in them that wouldn't win any prizes but have been pulling sleds since they were puppies; they'll need to be fed, and won't be as indefatigable as the motorized sleds, but you've read the notes of Nansen, Amundsen and Scott, and get the idea that they'll be useful for hunting besides; a dog's nose sees a lot farther than a man's eye when the fog turns everything white.

You were also able to buy two loads of peat moss, intended to be used for insulation and, if it comes to that, as emergency fuel -- it's light, and won't overburden the barges.

Among the "entertainment" boxes are a few large glass bottles of what amounts to, essentially, moonshine, as well as a little bit of glassware that can be easily turned into a proper still after the geothermal spike has been installed and some of the temporary pipework removed; you have little patience for the temperance movement, and besides, you will need alcohol as a disinfectant (and, likely as not, painkiller -- nitrous simply isn't an option for a far flung operation such as this) once accidents inevitably begin. You're planning to keep all that under lock and key, of course.

Rolled 31 (1d100)

The loading operation proceeds remarkably smoothly, and you have relatively little to do other than separate the local stevedores and your crew for the couple of times during which this naturally becomes necessary; the locals, largely Canadian with some Inuit blood in them, are equal parts happy to see you go and uneasy about what's clearly a colony expedition from the States preparing to make camp close to them. You reflect that "close" is a relative term; your experience in Europe has shown you that people from the old continents have a completely different understanding of distances than Yanks do, and perhaps so far up here, the locals feel the same about your people. Then again, while serving overseas, you've spent the night in homes -- or what was left of them -- that had been around since before the Revolutionary War.

That you have time for idle thoughts at all is a good sign; the loading has proceeded smoothly. Eventually, the docks are empty, the barges full, and most of your crew on board the rear section of the first barge where two improvised dormitories have been set up between bulkheads; you and your officers get cabins on the icebreaker. Yelena is already fast asleep, having been up all night taking precaution against thievery; Miller has sent his report down South and helped disassemble the radiotelegraph. You're all set.

Barring problems, it'll take four days to get there; you're planning to let people work six days a week, ten hours a day, and take Sunday off. You have a handful of Jews, Chinese, and atheists in the crew, and have already arranged for them to work on Sundays and keep an eye on things like generators, furnaces, and the radiotelegraph. Should you need to set up a second shift, you'll be able to alternate shifts every three days.

You plan to spend most of the trip across the Hudson Bay, and then up what has been called either a fjord or a wide river, with

> your core team; best to get to know them well, or reconnect properly.
> the junior engineers and medics.
> the workers.

Your two prisoners have been locked up in the icebreaker's coal room and their presence will be shown to the rest of the crew

> as soon as you're away from the trading post, with an explanation
> only when you get to the work site

Your destination is a place called Baker Lake; you understand that a trading post had been set up there, but nothing has been heard of them in about a year; you assume that the Canadians repaired south, and the Inuit left it to rot. You do know that the initial survey team that found the geothermal heat source has used the place as a home base; last you heard by radiotelegraph, they were heading back with their boat, but the people at the trading post you just left hadn't seen a trace of them.

The radiotelegraph didn't really allow for a lot of comsm, and you only have the coordinates for the spike location, but, they've left you a map with the approximate location of hunting grounds, and fishing spots.

Rules for this phase are at

http://www.emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/Frostpunk.QuestRules.html

Your first objective is to find the optimal location for the geothermal spike, transport the undeployed spike to it, and build a work camp.

Tentatively, a turn is 3 days (with a day of rest after every two turns). This will change as the environmental and social conditions change.

>Also, we've established that the Captain is in their thirties, but what is their name and gender? I'm going to assume male if there is no vote to the contrary, as a female Captain with a military background would not make much sense in this time period, but I'm cool with integrating a reason why that's not the case if people vote for it.

I'm still making a map for this.


Your starting resources:

PERSONNEL
Yourself, the Captain
Yelena Shabayev, security chief
Frank Miller, company liaison
Priscilla Ainsworth, chief medical officer
Enrico Forlanin, chief engineer

5 officers (see above)
20 technicians (junior engineers, medics, etc)
55 laborers
2 prisoners

EQUIPMENT
Naphta: 100, Mothballed for now since you have no diesel engines
Coal: 1200
Rations: 1200
Wood: 1200
Steel: 800
Copper: 100
Rubber: 200
Work clothing: 120
Trade goods: 40
Rifles: 20
Peat: 2 loads
Donkey engines: 2 (Can be used to build powered buildings, or for logging)

FLEET
Sled dogs: 1 team (Uses 5 rations per day; medium speed)
Steam crawlers: 2 vehicles (crawler + flat trailer; low speed)

>>4592519
>> your core team; best to get to know them well, or reconnect properly.
>only when you get to the work site

As Americans I really feel like we didn't bring enough guns. Think of all the surplus rifles and machineguns sitting out there!

Also, I'm not very familiar with the frostpunk setting, are bi planes and zepplins not really a thing or what?

>>4592618
Airplanes and airships are very much a thing; your radiotelegraph works by lifting the antenna with a balloon. Initial plans for this expedition included the use of a two-man airship for aerial survey, but the survey team's initial report recommended against it. You may be able to request it later, of course.

There are plenty of surplus arms out there, true, but you're a construction team, not a garrison. Should you find (or fabricate) evidence of similar expeditions from other nations, especially if they're Central European or Russian, you may request them as well.

The plan for this settlement is to provide a second-chance safe haven for some East Coast industrialists and politicians; if, as everyone hopes, the winter relents and seasons return to normal, it will be used as a staging post for further exploration (and possibly a land grab from Alaska, depending on how diplomatic relations with the British Commonwealth go).

>>4591864
Expanding downward is difficult, hazardous, and would require quite a bit of social engineering -- or some serious hardship making it the only viable option -- but has the undeniable advantage of being able to use the Earth itself as insulation.

>>4592519
> the workers.
> as soon as you're away from the trading post, with an explanation

>Also, we've established that the Captain is in their thirties, but what is their name and gender? I'm going to assume male if there is no vote to the contrary, as a female Captain with a military background would not make much sense in this time period, but I'm cool with integrating a reason why that's not the case if people vote for it.
Clearly there is only one suitable answer: Douglas Roosevelt (no relation); alternatively, Thomas Bell; Jacob Ford; Alexander Hope; Dave Carver; Jack Pasteur.

>>4592546
> your core team; best to get to know them well, or reconnect properly.
> as soon as you're away from the trading post, with an explanation

>Also, we've established that the Captain is in their thirties, but what is their name and gender? I'm going to assume male if there is no vote to the contrary, as a female Captain with a military background would not make much sense in this time period, but I'm cool with integrating a reason why that's not the case if people vote for it.
Fuck it, Emeline Earheart (no relation)

>>4592546
Male.

>>4592546
>Male
>Howard Perkins
name suggestion
>Your core team
>Immediately on the ship
just get the prisoners out of the way first

>>4592546
>Also, we've established that the Captain is in their thirties, but what is their name and gender? I'm going to assume male if there is no vote to the contrary, as a female Captain with a military background would not make much sense in this time period, but I'm cool with integrating a reason why that's not the case if people vote for it.

Male
Yukon Cornelius

>>4592790
Jack "Yukon Jack" Cornelius?

>>4592519
> the workers.
> only when you get to the work site

>>4592825
That works.

>>4592519
>> your core team; best to get to know them well, or reconnect properly.
they will be or most direct means of getting things done. Best to make sure they stay on side.

>> only when you get to the work site
But don't try to hide them. Hiding them will make it look worse.

>but what is their name and gender?
Male
>>4592641
I'm game for
Douglas Roosevelt, Thomas Bell, Jacob Ford, Alexander Hope, or Dave Carver

>>4592825
+1

File: large[1].jpg (343 KB, 2048x1152)

343 KB JPG

>>4592790
>>4592825
>>4593451
>>4592825
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozug-WU2B8U

>>4592746
>>4592685
>>4592641

You figure that spending too much time with your new work crew would mark you a martinet to them, and decide to let them be, unless there are actual disciplinary problem -- in which case you have Miller and Shabayev to deal with it; you've learned both from your military and site engineering experience that it's best to let the NCOs mete out punishment and the commanding officer dish out rewards, as warranted. Besides, you want to get as much information from the icebreaker crew as you can.

Interestingly, they tell you that you're the third in a series of seven such contracts they've had for various locations about the Hudson Bay; when you ask the icebreaker's captain for more information, they tell you that your backers aren't the only ones paranoid about the end of the world. He personally thinks that it's just a particularly long bad weather spell; from his perspective fish is plentiful, he's not going to say no to the extra work at premium rates -- you learn that he's the owner-operator of this particular ship -- and things will go back to normal soon. He's Norwegian; while he is a good Christian, he mentions that some of the deckhands follow the old heathen religion and are waiting for "a dragon to circle the sky or some such nonsense". He plans to fulfill his contracts here and cross the ocean again while the weather permits.

> That's really all you need to know there.
> Have Frank offer a bribe for more information about the other contracts, but it'd have to be in cargo to take home to Norway or sell to the next expedition.
> Have Yelena break into the captain's cabin while he is on watch and steal the folders.

The captain does share a few aerial photos of the area you'll be going towards; one of his crew took them himself, by sending up a hot air balloon with a camera and an egg timer on a day that was particularly cold and clear. "Mind you, these are a few months old - it took the better part of a day to take these, and we've been far too busy to do it again." You consider requisitioning an airplane or airship for survey.

Who you see relatively little of is Dr. Priscilla Ainsworth, and it's easy to understand why; she's been making herself hoarse (a pity, you like her prim Brick accent) telling your construction crew about what to do and not do to keep frostbite at bay. Some of your workers have done prospecting and dockside construction in Alaska, and know the score there, but many do not, and "Doctor Painsworth" isn't really handling it too well; she complains to you that some of the men doubt that she's got a full medical degree, and have been referring to her as "nurse", usually in "glaringly inappropriate ways", as she put it.

> She'll have to deal with it; they'll change their tune when they need her, anyway.
> Encourage her to be assertive about it.
> Better nip this in the bud: talk to the workers yourself.

>>4593797
> That's really all you need to know there.

Best to just report it back to the home country, their paranoia and fear from unknown threats'd probably get us more than confirming it is the other peer powers.

> Better nip this in the bud: talk to the workers yourself.

>>4593797
Frank Miller is your company liaison; you brought Yelena on board yourself, and your backers don't trust her. You don't find that unreasonable, and to Miller's credit, if he is supposed to be holding your leash, he's not made a big deal of it. What you do know is that he busted his ass getting valuables overland to your last stop, at some personal risk. You can respect that.

Past that, you don't really know each other, something which you plan to rectify in these few days before work starts. He's ex-Pinkerton, and makes no mystery of having broken a few strikes and a few arms in his younger days; much like yourself, he did not see the front lines of the Great War more than occasionally, his skills being more valuable in the rear echelon.

"...the big mistake on the governor's part was not declaring martial law, if you ask me. You can't have a strike disrupt wartime production, it doesn't matter where the war is."

You nod.

One interesting thing about the man is that he's an avid hunter; prior to coming here, he's taken the time to study the local wildlife and the best ways to stalk and even cook a good chunk of it. You get him talking, and find it difficult to get him to stop, but learn a few interesting things -- moose can swim better than most men, for example, and that's to be taken into account when tracking one. You doubt his story about a brief affair with the daughter of an Alaskan whaling magnate who said she could field-dress a moose and offered to prove it to him, but you admit that it makes for a good tall tale.

This loquacity falters when you ask about your backers; you know that the Unclaimed Arctic Corporation is nominally headed by Thomas W. Lamont, J.P.Morgan's de-facto VP of diplomacy and the one private citizen who got a seat at the armistice negotiation, and you learn that Lamont hired Miller personally. All you get out of him is that Gerald Macguire and former president Wilson (Miller tells you that the rumors are true, the man is incapacitated, and it was his wife who called this particular shot) are also involved.

"I mean, we're effectively setting up a town, an American town, smack in the middle of British Crown land, using the frost as an excuse. I think you catch my meaning if I tell you that the UAC has an eye towards making the most of all this doom-mongering... while Morgan keeps their hands clean."

"You think we're here to build a garrison, claim territory?"

"I think that it's not just the weather getting frostier. Sure, we fought the Crucks together, but what business do limp-wristed Englishmen have in the American north? Wouldn't surprise me one bit if Morgan was bankrolling the Canadian annexation movement."

> He's got a point.
> You don't care about politics, you're a professional.
> The UAC may not believe in impending doom, but you do.

>>4593827
> You don't care about politics, you're a professional.

Professionals have STANDARDS

>>4593827
You were expecting Enrico Forlanini to be like the Italians you've met in New York and New Jersey, loud, passionate. Instead, you find him prim and reserved, almost mitteleuropean in demeanor; you only got him to relax when he discusses the geothermal spike.

And did he ever. On your way here from the East coast, he's told you more than you wanted to know about the history of the device, and how the French and English allowed their own manufacturers to run roughshod over the original patents. Eventually it dawned on you that Forlanini worked with Prince Piero Ginori Conti, which he calls "Sciur Principe" and which you mentally translate as Mister Prince, on the very first geothermal spike; he didn't say so because he didn't want to brag.

Now that you're on the final leg of the trip, you ask him what you didn't want to ask earlier: why'd he sign up with "a bunch of unruly Yonks", as he put it, rather than working in his homeland or joining one of their expeditions?

That is how you learn that he's made a personal enemy of a powerful Italian nationalist politician, Benito Mussolini, over the surprisingly trivial matter of a bet over an automobile race. He maintains he was in the right, of course -- listening to the rather colorful story, you aren't so sure, but you don't really care either -- and notes that matters escalated up until the point where members of Mussolini's political party and personal fan club beat his best friend to death, not finding him. Mr. Forlanini didn't care about the public apology by the party leader, and figured he'd put an ocean between himself and the country that couldn't protect his friend. Last he heard, Mussolini's excesses were going to earn him exile on Elba Island. "Hah, like Napoleon. And that's also why I'm staying away. He's scum. But I don't want blood on my hands.I'll face God with a clean conscience, when it's my time. "

> That's the sort of revenge one considers for a lover, not merely a friend, isn't it?
> Pretty intense. You're sorry for his loss of course, but let's look forward.

(There's currently a 2-2 tie over whether the geothermal spike is middle-of-the-road, or geared towards efficiency but harder to maintain. This does need settled at some point)

His spirits rise considerably when discussing geothermal power; you learn that a properly installed geothermal spike will provide heat and electricity to a small community almost for free, and if paired with an external source of hydraulic pressure -- any steam or diesel compressor, or even the electrical power from a dam -- it can trade being a power source for being a power sink, but give heating and clean water to up to two thousand people.

> Steady as she goes then! (Middle of road)
> The catch is that Forlanini is the only person who knows how the entirety of the system works, and he admits that even he's fuzzy on the details on the latest details of the design improvements made during the last year. (Late model)

>4593797
> That's really all you need to know there.
> Encourage her to be assertive about it.

>>4593827
>> You don't care about politics, you're a professional.

>>4593844
> Pretty intense. You're sorry for his loss of course, but let's look forward.
>The catch is that Forlanini is the only person who knows how the entirety of the system works, and he admits that even he's fuzzy on the details on the latest details of the design improvements made during the last year. (Late model)

>>4593844
> Pretty intense. You're sorry for his loss of course, but let's look forward.

Ain't our business, let the man be.

> The catch is that Forlanini is the only person who knows how the entirety of the system works, and he admits that even he's fuzzy on the details on the latest details of the design improvements made during the last year. (Late model)

>>4593873
>>4593804

You thank the icebreaker's captain; he gives you a copy of the photographs. Looking closely, you notice that they're black-and-whites that someone went through some pain to color by hand. The captain calls the strait to Baker Lake a fjord, and from what the coast looks like, you can see why he'd equate it to his homeland.

Seen from the ship, the icebound coast of Lake Huron has a clean, stark beauty; you find yourself keeping an eye out for birds or sea life, for when you'll have to do foraging; in theory, your provisions should last you for the initial two weeks, after which you'll have to hunt or fish. Scurvy and gout being a possible concern, the rations you have been provided are heavy on lemons and oranges.

>>4593878
>>4593830

"I'm not going to be sorry if Lamont or even Morgan want to raise the stars and stripes when they visit, but this isn't my concern. We're here to do a job and go back to our families and to a few months of back pay."

"What if we don't get to go back?"

"Twice the reason to do good work, then."

"I've been thinking... just in case, you understand... we should use our logistical limit to request things we can't find or make ourselves. Especially if a case for it can be made for, well, strategic reasons."

"Like what, more guns?"

None of the men were allowed to bring their own firearms; this is standard procedure for a remote work site, and there were few complaints, although you're certain that at least one person broke the rules. and besides, anyone who might want to go hunt on their day off can requisition a rifle, have some ammo docked from their pay, and sell any game back to the company store. In effect, it is a tighter-loop version of how frontier trading posts, both North and West, operated until the frontier was no more... and now, here it was again.

"I was more thinking a scout plane, or a blimp. Plenty of surplus H-2s, if we can get them to run in this weather."

Being as your job while you install the geothermal spike is to survey the area for resources, it certainly makes some sense, although it means you'd have to build a hangar and possibly an airstrip.

You're going to be able to request a supply run every two weeks (4 turns); transmission is instantaneous, assuming the radiotelegraph isn't damaged, but it will take at least a week (2 turns) for the goods to arrive, and possibly longer.

Miller tells you to not worry overmuch about the money aspect, but of course, the more equipment you ask for, the more likely it is that you will come under scrutiny. Vehicles and things like cocaine pills (assuming Dr. Ainsworth can be convinced to sign off on it, but, Miller notes, ultimately you're the arbiter of what gets passed onto the radiotelegraph) should be fine, as should provisions and construction materials, but if you ask for guns and ammo, it should be only in self-defense.

>>4593887
>>4593880

You tell Enrico that you're sorry for his loss, of course, but you've had your fill of European politics when you were at (or near) the front, and don't really care one way or the other. You seem to recall this Mussolini as some sort of Socialist agitator running a newspaper, and make a note of it in case there are labor issues here -- Forlanini is likely to be friendly to you in that sense.

You're more interested in the specifics of the geothermal spike. The core mechanism was designed and produced in Tuscany, then brought overseas by steamship and adapted to working with standard fittings in Grand Rapids. Forlanini feels that there was a bit of corner-cutting, but can live with it.

One thing that nobody ever bothered changing are the temperature gauges -- they're all in Celsius; so are most of the thermometers. You ask why.

"Oh, that's just a psycho-logical contrivance" Forlanini smiles under his mustache "as you know, minus forty is minus forty. We expect it to get that bad during the very worst of the winter. But if we use Celsius, the men, well, they won't be familiar with it, so we can tell them that it's a little better than how it actually is, or conversely a little worse if we feel that they aren't paying enough attention to their own safety. Besides, it cuts down on some of the math."

You can see the reasoning, but you can also see that forcing the technicians to work uing unfamiliar units may slow them down.

> Use Celsius.
> Use Fahrenheit.

(This has no actual ingame effect, it's just so I know what to use. Frostpunk was coded in Celsius, it uses "heat levels" that are 10C each).

Forlanini explains that your men will have to dig to the underground heat and water sources, deploy the core on the former, and link it to the latter with piping and valves that have linkages to the surface. In cogeneration mode, the spike will produce both heat and electrical power for a small settlement; in forced-flow mode, it will become a power sink rather than a power source, but give out enough heat to provide for a relatively large town, up to 2000 people according to his back-of-the-envelope calculations. Initial survey has identified three promising sites nearby; you'll have to pick one, ideally after drilling exploratory wells at each location. Once you've picked, you can't change your mind -- extracting the spike would require heavy machinery that simply isn't going to be realistically available.

"Could you make more, if we find that all three sites are viable?"

"Oh santa Maria, no, no. This was a labor of love, and I mean no offense, but the tooling here..."

After a brief tirade comparing the beautifully crafted flying boats of the Italian Navy to the mass-produced German and Austrian biplanes, he continues. "We could go back to basics, and cobble together a cogeneration system with what tooling we have, but it'd be good for a waystation or outpost, at best. Two dozen people, if that, less if the cold gets worse.

>>4593797
>She'll have to deal with it; they'll change their tune when they need her, anyway.

>>4593901
> Use Celsius.

>>4593901
> Use Celsius.

>>4593797
>That's really all you need to know there.

>>4593827
>The UAC may not believe in impending doom, but you do.

>>4593844
>Steady as she goes then! (Middle of road)

Feminism is for fags

>>4593901
>Use Fahrenheit

Ffs

>>4593797
>> That's really all you need to know there.
>>4593804
good idea on reporting back. I'm sure they'll be quite interested.
Of course, they might also have us take a look as the nearest available asset.

>> Encourage her to be assertive about it.
She's going to have to get used to dealing with them, same as they'll have to get used to working with her. These are hard-bitten men, and us needing to cover for her might cause more issues down the line vs her standing up for herself.

>>4593827
Quietly agree with him, but politics aren't really your concern.

>>4593903
>>4593873
>>4593804

(Priscilla Ainsworth is, of course, from the excellent narrative playthrough "Last of the Lamplight", which you can find at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgGynjZs8mg&list=PLeunFtMS5KNIp_Mtb7aCNfTfCLa3guQ10 and please note that unlike Devin, you do not get automatons, at least as far as things are now) So far we got a tie as to what to tell her.

>>4593903
>>4593966
You figure that Dr. Ainsworth's authority will naturally assert itself as soon as someone gets hurt and the men understand that she's the one who decides who gets that little you have in the way of painkillers; the Arctic is no place for shy violets, and maybe she needs to get with the program and understand that as well. You know that she has wartime experience; it'll come back to her, if there's a need for it.

No sense mincing words; she's a doctor and she probably has seen far worse than you have during the Great War. You tell her in no uncertain terms that she should treat these workers as she'd treat soldiers under her care; you absolutely have her back if anyone lays a finger on her, of course, but if it doesn't escalate to that, she'll have to assert her authority.

The evening before landfall, she tells you that you should keep in mind that men are stronger and women are used to working longer hours. I hope to have as little to do as humanly possible, Captain, but we both know that won't be the case. The good news is that none of our crew is in ill health, as far as I can tell. We have a few smokers, but they packed their own tobacco and understand fire safety, so I see no problem in that sense."

>>4593911
>>4593907
(thank you!)

You can see Forlanini's reasoning; overall best if the laborers don't mess with any equipment controls beyond the emergency stop lever.

On landfall day, as you compare the map with the painted aerial photo, Yelena leans next to you on the icebreaker's railing.

"Cpt. Cornelius?"

Shabayev being formal is... new. "Yes?"

"We'll be at the landing in an hour. If you want to introduce the prisoners to the work crew, I've cleaned them up. Otherwise, there's still the option of sending them back, although I would not recommend it."

The three possible sites are marked simply 103, 117, and 113, indicating that the survey team was extremely thorough in preliminary mapping; you will land at the abandoned trading post, simply because it's the easiest place to unload the barges at, and then... it's all up to you. You can set up camp there and scout all three sites, or move directly towards one of them, which will require a handful of trips for the snow crawler that you've brought.

> Begin preparations for the unloading.
> Give a brief speech first, to give a tone to what you intend to accomplish here. (Write-ins very welcome!)
> Show the prisoners to the crew, and explain that they tried to steal fuel and rations that they'll be depending on.

(I'm still converting the Frostland maps for use in this)

>>4593844
>he's made a personal enemy of a powerful Italian nationalist politician, Benito Mussolini
That's not good.

>> Pretty intense. You're sorry for his loss of course, but let's look forward.


>(There's currently a 2-2 tie over whether the geothermal spike is middle-of-the-road, or geared towards efficiency but harder to maintain. This does need settled at some point)
You're not doing things the normal way, so I'm not surprised. And you closed a several of them inside an hour. Multiple votes per post is fine, but generally a vote closes once the next story post goes up, unless otherwise stated.
The way you structure your posts makes for apparently a very short voting window. Running sessions instead of dailies is fine, but you'll not get much participation with windows this small.

> Use Fahrenheit.
We're American.
Plus F is better anyway. More granularity in the useful range.

>>4593970
>(thank you!)
No, bad! longer voting windows, please.
Plus we're american, we're not using C.

>>4593970
>> Give a brief speech first, to give a tone to what you intend to accomplish here

>>4593982
>>4593915
(Fair point, looks like we're 2-2 on C vs F)

>>4593979
(thank you for the advice! I should slow down, yeah.)

>>4593970
>> Show the prisoners to the crew, and explain that they tried to steal fuel and rations that they'll be depending on.

>>4593984
+1, mention the prisoners in it

>>4593991
Oh yeah let's use F instead of celsius

>>4593991
>>4594070
You direct Enrico to pick a technician with good handwriting and, as soon as possible, mark the gauges with degrees Farenheit. "This is going to be a harsh job, and we shouldn't sugar coat it. We can't ask people to keep themselves in good health if they don't know what's going on."

Forlanini grumbles a little, but concedes that since both Canadians and Americans use the older standards, it will mean less training for any new arrivals. In your collection of books, to be checked out for a nominal fee in company scrip, are several translations of Jules Verne's work; you've thumbed through a few, and discovered that when writing a book with British or American protagonists, the Frenchman got the temperature scale exactly half wrong, performing the correct multiplication but neglecting the offset and ending up with a scale that had freezing water at zero and boiling water at 180.

Besides, you reason, the numbers will look smaller in F than in C, as long as the temperature stays above -40... and you've been reassured that there's no way it will go that low for more than a few days.

(Fahrenheit it is! Please correct me if I get it wrong).

Shabayev has done a good job with the prisoner; they've been stripped of their coats, and their undergarments have been bleached white and striped black with soot or oil residue. Granted, they were given no trial and no conviction, but they certainly look the part of convicts.

You have the option to request convict labor; it will be cheap, and you won't have to worry overmuch about their safety, but it will bring security concerns. For the time being, you figure that just bandying the option about will be useful in case of labor disputes.

>>4593970
> Show the prisoners to the crew, and explain that they tried to steal fuel and rations that they'll be depending on.
> Give a brief speech first, to give a tone to what you intend to accomplish here. (Write-ins very welcome!)
"Good morning Crew: before we disembark and begin our toiling, I felt like we should discuss why we are here and what we are going to do.

Facts are thus, world's colder and the rich want to be certain they've a bolthole if things don't get better - or get worse - so we get the lovely job of turning cold to comfortable and icy to extravagant. If they are wrong, we're getting excellent pay for a paranoid preparation. If they are right, best to be successful and valued.

So to that purpose, we are going to investigate the three possible sites allocated to us, set up base and begin exploration and extraction of local resource deposits. We'll be here for the long haul, get stuck in and it'll at least be comfortable."

>>4594088
is this an implied >wat do, or was is this just the last post of the session?

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260 KB JPG

>>4595988
>>4594137
(Sorry, I was waiting for a second on this one)

You bring out the prisoners.

"Good morning, crew. Before we disembark and begin our toil, I want it to be clear why we're here and what we're here to do. The world is getting colder. We all know this; we've all seen food prices go up, dead baby birds in spring. We've been reassured that it's going to get warmed, but some very rich and powerful people don't think so. So, they've hired us to build them a bolthole, just in case. We get the job of turning cold to comfortable, eventually icy to extravagant maybe."

"If they're wrong, we go home in three months knowing our families ate well in our absence and there's a year's pay waiting for us after three months. If they're right -- well, we'll be here. So, we're going to do this right; we're setting up camp at the landing site and do some exploration and prospecting along with the construction."

"These two here tried to steal our rations, so I've arrested them. When they go home, they'll call it a kidnapping. That is entirely on me, and I don't care -- the law will do what the law does, but I'm willing to stick my neck out to protect my crew."

Shabayew takes off their gags. "You're bloody right it's a kidnapping!"

"You'll get your day in court when we go home. For now, you want to eat, you work, same as all of us. Got it?"

The two locals look at each other; it's them against 80 people.

Someone from the back rows calls out, if they wanted food, make them peel potatos! That gets a fair bit of good natured laughter; the ethics of what you did was questionable, but you've given even the lowliest laborer someone to look down on.

The trading post at Baker Lake is extant, at least some of it; it looks significantly older than it has the right to be, indicating that an out-of-season snowstorm has recently hit it. The land here is fairly flat, meaning that storms will sweep right through -- you'll have to deal with wind chill.

File: frostpunk prospecting map.png (2.95 MB, 1920x1080)

2.95 MB PNG

>>4596040
Notably, not only there is no trace of the survey team -- they supposedly made a base camp here, but it looks like nothing here has been touched for a year, at the very least -- there's also no trace of the map that you were told had been left here; all you have to go by are the coordinates of the possible geothermal spike locations.

All are near a river, so it should be possible to yoke your steam tractors to one of the barges and carry it very close to the final location, once you've decided which way to go; it means two trips, to be sure, but it also means not having to unload most of your supplies twice.
The landing site is, however, as far as the deeper-hulled icebreaker tug could go, so any resupplying will have to come to here.

Site 113 is an exception: the resupply ship can dock there, and fishing is also likely to be easier, at least at first.

Site 103 is close to the hills, and the most likely to have easily accessible iron deposits;

Site 117 is closest to a forest, which will make it easier to get timber once you cut down the local trees.

Your baseline ration consumption every half-week (turn) is 260 (80 crew, 2 prisoners, 1 dog sled team).

Your baseline coal consumption every half-week (turn) for heating is effectively 0; people are here with heavy winter clothing, and it's not quite freezing just yet. Fuel used for cooking isn't a big deal

You decide to

> not bother unpacking anything and send out survey teams as soon as possible; you and everyone else can live in the barges, and maybe fix up the trading post and its outbuildings the minimum necessary. (Cost: 10 laborers)
> rebuild the trading outpost here, insulating the buildings, setting up a communal dorm and a field kitchen, and putting together a proper harbor. (Cost: 20/1200 wood, 10/800 steel, 35 laborers)

While that happens, you can use your vehicles to

> send out a full survey team, with dogs and crawlers, to any one of the sites (Cost: 20 laborers, 5 technicians, 20/1200 coal). Choose it.
> use the fact that you have a sled dog team and two snow crawlers to send out smaller survey teams to all three locations simultaneously; (Cost: 25 laborers, 10 technicians, 20/1200 coal). You will have to specify which site gets the dog sleds.
> send out two survey teams and use the dogs to organize a hunting party. (Cost: 30 laborers, 10 technicians, 20/1200 coal). Choose the site to skip for now.
> act as donkey engines while a hunting party explores the immediate area and tries to bring back game. (Cost: 10 laborers, 5 technicians, 10/1200 coal).
> stay put and just send the dogs out. (Cost: 10 laborers)

Any of these tasks can be assigned one of your officers (including yourself) for direct supervision.

You're going to communicate with the remote teams -- or with the base camp, if you go out with any of them -- by

> setting up the big radiotelegraph immediately. (Cost: 20 coal, 5 technicians)
> using heliographs
> using the small spark-gap radios.

>>4596044

Explanation for costs: each turn is six work shifts, so, three days, with most people taking Sundays off and it being available for extra shenanigans later on.

Each action will require a certain amount of resources and a certain amount of people.

Once you have a stable base of operations, we're going to have a start-of-turn task list like in my previous quests; for now there will be multiple choices because I'd like to try to ease people into the system.

Convicts can be used as laborers, eat less, but need supervision by an armed guard. In a personnel shortage situation, you can use technicians as laborers, although they won't like it and will do a worse job; you cannot use laborers as technicians except in very rare cases.

You can always choose to underman or underresource a job, but then there's a chance that nothing will get done!

Assigning an officer to a job may save time or resources, give them experience, and may result in interesting interactions.

You can assign yourself to two jobs, as long as they are both in the same location (right now, that doesn't really apply yet). You're an all-rounder, but give smaller bonuses.

Dr. Ainsworth will decrease the chance of serious injury or death if there's an accident; she can also perform field autopsies to determine the rough age of a body, should you find one.

Mr. Forlanini will likely save you some resources on construction jobs, and give you more detailed information on geothermal spike surveys (you do not have a dedicated geologist on staff, but some of your technicians are trained as prospectors and some of your laborers, and yourself, have been on survey crews before).

Ms. Shabayev and Mr. Miller are good in a fight; on top of that, Frank is a skilled hunter and Yelena can move across a whited-out landscape with great stealth if she needs to. They're somewhat suspicious of each other, but they're also professionals, and there has been no big disagreement between them.

>>4596044
>>not bother unpacking anything and send out survey teams as soon as possible; you and everyone else can live in the barges, and maybe fix up the trading post and its outbuildings the minimum necessary. (Cost: 10 laborers)
We might end up heading to site 113 after all, setting up a harbor here could prove to be wasted effort.
>send out two survey teams and use the dogs to organize a hunting party. (Cost: 30 laborers, 10 technicians, 20/1200 coal). Choose the site to skip for now.
Send survey teams to 113 and 103. It'd be useful knowledge to have as to whether or not there is actually iron at 103, and the prospect of an easily accessible harbor/fishing industry would be nice in the short term. Once things freeze over a bit more, or the situation back home deteriorates enough to a point where there isn't going to be any more supply ships, it'd probably be better to be at one of the other locations where we have better access to natural resources. Send Miller on the hunting crew. Forlanini with the guys heading to 103, more detailed information from the survey sounds intriguing.
>using the small spark-gap radios.
I don't like the idea of setting up the main radio here when we'd only have to dismantle it later.

>>4596090
All this sounds good. Site 103 also appears to be close to a river, while the boat might not be able to make it up there we should be able to do some amount of fishing there as well

>>4596090
>>4596141
You're hoping to roll the crawlers on the riverbanks, and have them tow the barge as far as it'll go; your people aren't afraid to work hard, but keeping the human pack-muling to a minimum will do good for morale.

> Assign officers to the four teams (survey 1, survey 2, hunting party, clean up the landing site a little).

That plan leaves out 5 laborers and the two thieves; for the former, you're pretty sure that you can find a bunch of small jobs to do - check the ropework for the barges, dismantle some of the trading post outbuildings to insulate the temporary chow hall, that sort of thing.

The latter aren't in any danger of escaping -- there's nowhere to escape TO -- and will

> be split up and sent one each with the survey teams.
> be used as beaters by the hunting party.
> dig latrines here.

>>4596159
>> be used as beaters by the hunting party.

>>4596159
> be used as beaters by the hunting party

>>4596159
>be used as beaters by the hunting party.

>>4596232
>>4596183
>>4596160
(Getcha! Will any of your officers, including you, go with the hunting or survey teams?)

>>4596245
Send Miller on the hunting crew. Forlanini with the guys heading to 103
let's send the doc with the other survey team, the one going to 113

>>4596251
and send the Russian gal with the Doc as well, I guess. We have officers, might as well use them, though I don't know if doubling up provides any benefits

Hmmm should we worry about a tuunbaq?

>>4596290
You've gone through some trouble in picking even your laborers to not be a superstitious lot -- they can all read, write, and do sums -- but the remote location and lack of other human presence save for a trading post that, to be fair, looks a lot more dilapidated than it should given that there were men here only months ago, has raised a few superstitious specters among the crew. You've heard of wendigos and tupilaqs inhabiting the land or having been summoned by the shamans of the natives that the Canadians chased away from here years ago. Legends of more southerly fearsome critters such as the sasquatch have followed your crew, but they've been retold firmly tongue-in-cheek around fires and boat radiators. Should you see a pair of eyes stalking your people from the shadow at night, you'd be more inclined to suspect rival prospectors or returning natives.

And yet, who knows? These are unexplored lands. Just as there are polar bears, could there not be some arctic ape, the parallel of a gorilla as a polar bear is to a grizzly, having been missed by naturalists and named a spirit by the natives?

>>4596254
>>4596251
(sounds good, anyone wants to second?)

>>4596310
was repeating what >>4596090 said there, except the bit with Doc which was my own suggestion, I guess that's a second?

>>4596251
>>4596254

Agreed

>>4596310
>Should you see a pair of eyes stalking your people from the shadow at night, you'd be more inclined to suspect rival prospectors or returning natives.
We need a skinwalker watch crew. No telling what's out here. Even if nothing turns up, it'll keep some of the more superstitious happy.
>>4596251
>>4596254
Seconding.

>>4596310
>(sounds good, anyone wants to second?)
Seconded.

Rolled 64, 95, 39, 56, 67, 88 = 409 (6d100)

>>4596689
>>4596638
>>4596414
>>4596337
>>4596254
>>4596251
(thank you! It seems like /qst/ is being slower than I remember, so I've been trying to likewise take it easy, ish. Would people rather I be a bit faster?)

You figure it best to hold the fort, and dispatch your people to the various survey sites; besides, in case there are bodies at the trading post, you want to know it when there's only a handful of workers about.

The five people you're left with look a little uncomfortable; you tell them that they aren't being punished, it's simply a matter of setting things up. Under your direction, they begin taking down most of the trading post's outbuildings and build what amounts to a longhouse that will be used as temporary sleeping quarters, and set up a field kitchen at the appropriate distance from it. You quickly check the buildings for bodies or other items best hidden before they start work, and tell them to salvage any useful fixtures, lamp oil, rope, mining explosives, or anything that could be of use.

While they do that, you set up one of the dozen spark-gap radios that you have along; unlike the radiotelegraph, these have short range and no encryption whatsoever, but they don't need their own building or an antenna held aloft by a kite or balloon to function. Spark-gap transmitters are on the way out in most of civilization, but have the unmistakable advantage of not requiring thermionic valves -- your "big" radio has to be kept within a certain temperature range to prevent those from cracking, while these can be treated a lot more roughly, to the point that you were even able to pack one for the dog sled team. You're even able to check on the snow crawlers as they move; checking on the hunting team will happen when they make camp.

You spend your first night as Captain with five workers, more or less huddled in a corner of the trading post -- you admit that the workers did well, the longhouse's skeleton is already protruding from it -- by the light of a kerosene lamp that you found there, eating pemnican and the lucky find of some French-style bread that was found frozen and softened quite well when thawed.

> You had little else to do, and you're in good shape, so you got your hands dirty.
> You gave clear directions and took the time to walk the perimeter with a rifle; best to not fraternize too much with the laborers.

The men's talk turns to fearsome critters, and you

> play along, noting that you'll post a bounty for any spook brought back dead or better yet skinned.
> reassure them that the only spirit alive this far north is that of entrepreneurial conquest.

>>4597173
>thank you! It seems like /qst/ is being slower than I remember, so I've been trying to likewise take it easy, ish. Would people rather I be a bit faster

Whatever you're comfortable with desu

>play along, noting that you'll post a bounty for any spook brought back dead or better yet skinned.

>>4597173
> You had little else to do, and you're in good shape, so you got your hands dirty.

A 20% increase in labour force is significant.

> play along, noting that you'll post a bounty for any spook brought back dead or better yet skinned.

>>4597173
(a c1 c2 f m s)
(oh hey, decent rolls)

The first group to check in are the crawler crew bound to Site 113. They're making good time, aided by the fact that all they have to do is backtrack along the coast, and expect to cross the fjord branch on the way there first thing in the morning. The crawlers, derived from wartime landships intended to cross trenches and disgorge troops, are far too heavy to be amphibious, so the survey team are going to take it as far as it can go and finish the trip on foot. Shabayev comments that this place may look quite similar to Siberia in photos, but it's actually quite different than the tundra -- the soil is harder, and easier to traverse, for one. This region was never developed for timber, so trees here tend to be of all shapes and sizes -- you'll make good use of donkey engines, you reckon. Dr. Ainsworth's terse message is that the prisoner pulled his weight.
> Divert to site 117 so that you can stay with the crawler, it'll take roughly the same amount of time.
> Sounds good, keep moving.

Your small team gets a lot done, to the point where you'll have the longhouse and field kitchen done by the time your survey teams return; you even manage to recover most of the trading posts' fittings, at least those that you aren't planning to reuse for the longhouse. (+5 wood, +5 steel). However, your search for the map promised by the survey team that precedes you turns up nothing. You also notice that the place is underfurnished; did someone beat you here, take the map, and helped themselves? Natives? Competing construction teams perhaps?

Forlanini has almost reached Site 103, and reports that the crawler is having a few difficulties moving uphill, but nothing insurmoutable; the water in the fjord is blissfully clear of calcareous deposits, which will simplify steam plant operation, and he confirms the presence of iron ore that can be recovered without having to set up a large-scale modern operation. He also notes that there's a fair amount of marinite under the soil; this particular type of oil shale can be used almost like coal in steam engines, pending some minor adjustments, or refined to make diesel fuel. None of this is in commercially viable quantities, but a small settlement would be able to self-sustain for some time on these reserves.
> Get to the potential spike location and dig a borehole as soon as possible.
> Take a bit of time to survey the area.

The last to report is Miller; you almost expect a Morse code bragging session, but instead find that he has been focusing on scouting for tracks, secluded watering spots, and thickets rather than hunting -- working out where the game is will make life easier in the long run, he reckons.

> Good plan, you're stocked well for now and the time investment will pay off in the coming weeks.
> If it gets colder, wildlife movement patterns will change anyway; start the hunt in earnest.

>>4597194
>Sounds good, keep moving.
>Take a bit of time to survey the area.
>Good plan, you're stocked well for now and the time investment will pay off in the coming weeks.

>>4597210
This.

>>4597210
This but
> If it gets colder, wildlife movement patterns will change anyway; start the hunt in earnest.
Best to get a larger stockpile of food and pelt before the freeze comes

>>4597219
Well, it's going to be a while yet before everything freezes over correct?

>>4597229
Well it never hurts to have a surplus. Plus it will help morale to have fresh meat for the workers instead of pemmican and preserved foods.

Pictured: An adapted steam landship(UK) or tank(US) refitted for cold climate operation.

>>4597229
You know that it'll get worse, but you don't know how bad it will get, and how quickly -- neither does anyone else, to be fair; the reason why you don't have a dedicated meteorologist on staff is that the weather right now isn't making sense to the experts, either. Weather forecast is very much more an art than a science in the best of times, never mind now!

>>4597210
>>4597216
>>4597219
(Let me do the other stuff in meantime then)

Since one of your survey team is proceeding on foot and the other is being told to do a little bit of exploratory drilling, you can expect them back in three days, four at the outset.

The reports come in; Ainsworth and Shabayev made it to Site 113, and the technicians have begun to drill a borehole to the underground heat source to evaluate its strength and capacity. Once everyone's returned, Forlanini will take the numbers and give you an executive summary.

The chief engineer, for his part, has done the measurements upon getting at the site, and indicates that he suspects that all three sites share the same underground heat source, but he'll have to compare to be sure. He also notes that, with sufficient heat, it should be possible to make green glass from the river sand, if it proves necessary.

That's plenty of time for you to get the longhouse done, and walk around a little besides; you do see some signs of human activity preceding yours, but chalk it up to the survey team that preceded you.

The five men you have working with you are on their best behavior, to your absolute lack of surprise; rather bashfully, they invite you to a game of poker after the work shift is over, waging a few of those little bakelite chits that you're intending to use as scrip.

> Best nip that in the bud; forbid gambling, and make it official, before it leads to problems.
> Join in, and play to win.
> Join in, and play to observe their behavior.
> Decline.

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(welp, forgot the picture)

>>4597256
> Join in, and play to observe their behaviour.

I'd prefer to legislate gambling long-term, since it provides a good distraction and a way to raise production hours willingly by letting people "bet" with overtime.

>>4597256
>Join in, and play to observe their behavior.

>>4597256
>Join in, and play to observe their behavior.

>>4597256
>Join in, and play to observe their behavior.

> Join in, and play to observe their behavior.

>>4601687
>>4597558
>>4597551
>>4597321
>>4597277
(Sorry about the delay. It's been a bit of a week.)

You lose a few bakelite chits; one of the workers is from Texas -- he left is family in a snowy San Antonio; seasons at this point have largely stopped making sense -- and teaches you all the hold-em variant popular in those parts after a few hands of regular poker.

Since the stakes are low, you let yourself pay attention to how these people play -- they don't seem particularly well versed in the statistics that go into playing poker at a high level, even at an instinctive level, but you find that they don't lag very far behind you in learning the new poker variant.

It should be possible, you reckon, to set up some sort of internal promotion system if a worker wants to put in extra time and graduate to a technician position; upward mobility has always been the historical Yonk advantage, and it'd be foolish to not make use of it.

-----------

>>4597210
>>4597216

You've barely had time to enjoy the new longhouse when two of the three expeditions return; you're not expecting Miller to be back until late at night, or even the next day, depending on how the hunt goes. You told him to focus on stalking game to figure out animal movement patterns in the area, rather than start shooting, so you're not expecting any venison coming back -- unless Miller has decided to show off. That, too, will tell you something about the man.

Forlanini and Ainsworth put up what can pass for a drafting table, summon the technicians who accompanied them, and have them begin to sling numbers at each other. You understand the general gist of it, although the details fly over your head.

Shabayev helps you in setting up a chow line; she notes that the flora in Nunavut is different than that in Siberia, but she's certain that there will be time and effort for figuring out how to spice up the meat and fish you'll probably be living on. Ainsworth joins you to give a quick talk about the danger of "squirrel starvation" and reminds people to mix foodstuffs; if you end up staying here longer than planned, you'll have to worry about food variety, both for health and for morale.

> Rank has its privileges; technicians eat first.
> Ring the chow bell, form a line, come and get it.

Miller shows up considerably late, with a single deer over the shoulders of one of the workers; he's identified a few watering holes -- small springs warmed by the underground heat source, although with insufficient pressure to be used with a geothermal spike -- and one pond full of freshwater fish.

The deer was caught by a snare; what's interesting is that it had survived being shot before, two or three weeks ago by the age of the scar; an inexperienced hunter shot it with birdshot. There are definitely other people nearby here. Miller opines that they must be newcomers too; the locals would know better than doing that. He recommends switching to heliographs for communication.

>>4604223
>> Ring the chow bell, form a line, come and get it.

>>4604223
That means only communicating with remote sites during the day.
> We'll have to, for operational security.
> We came in with an icebreaker tug and two barges, and made a lot of radio noise; whoever is out here already knows we're here. What's the point of secrecy?

The first night with a full crew at the temporary base camp is loud, slightly smelling, and overall reassuring -- it's the hallmarks of civilization, such as it is.

The next day brings you the results of Forlanini's calculations: two of the three sites you have surveyed are connected to the same underground heat source, and he is willing to bet ten-to-one (90%) that the third one is as well, given proximity and basic geological makeup of the area.

"This means that the geothermal spike will be just as effective in each location. It also means that we will be able to immediately tell if a location we don't use has been tapped by a second spike, incidentally." He's skeptical about the ability to construct additional spikes, or even obtain more, but notes that it may be possible to build small geothermal pylons to support outposts at the other locations, eventually.

Since there's no loss or gain when it comes to heating, you may choose the geothermal spike location entirely on strategic and logistical grounds.

> Site 113: There is a natural harbor which will make fishing easy, at least at first, and taking in resupply barges trivial.
> Site 103: Plenty of metallic ore that are easy to smelt without modern equipment.
> Site 117: Close to a large, ancient forest with trees too big for the locals to have exploited; plenty of timber.

(OOC note: This is an important decision, more so than just easier access to one resource type. Look at the map, imagine it covered in ice, and think strategically.)

Carrying the equipment will take between three and six days, after which the installation of the geothermal spike can begin. Some men on Miller's team described the hunting grounds pretty colorfully to the others, to the point that on the first Sunday, a few people want to check out a rifle and go hunting on their own. Since you've set up scrip and will build a company store at the final site, they'd effectively rent the rifle and buy the ammo, and sell any catch back to the UAC.

> Allow it.
> Deny it right now, but note that you'll allow some form of it at the long-term job site.
> Deny it outright.
> Require that the volunteer hunter work in one expedition, and give them a minder.
> Require that the volunteer hunter work in one expedition, and go with them. (This consumes one action of your two for the next turn since you'll want to rest for a day afterwards).

>>4604248
> Ring the chow bell, form a line, come and get it.
> We came in with an icebreaker tug and two barges, and made a lot of radio noise; whoever is out here already knows we're here. What's the point of secrecy?
> Site 117: Close to a large, ancient forest with trees too big for the locals to have exploited; plenty of timber.
Wood>metal, at least for now. Charcoal, etc. Both 103 and 117 have river access 117 seems to be more mountainous, which could be an issue, but 103 is already covered by snow for some part.
> Require that the volunteer hunter work in one expedition, and give them a minder.

>>4604248
I would vote site 103 we wouls need the heat to smelt the ore right? Be much harder with a pylon

>>4604259
>>4604237
Dr. Ainsworth is mildly scandalized when you right the dinner bell by hitting an I-beam with a hammer, and people start lining up without regard to role or seniority; Forlanini has been in America for longer, and is only mildly surprised. People find a place to eat and talk, swap stories about what they found in their repective expeditions, and just generally fraternize; you wonder how long this honeymoon is going to last.

You overhear one of the women saying that this to her looks a little bit her grandfather's stories about the California gold rush, except for the temperature, of course; a short-lived rumor that this is all a ruse and you're actually here to prospect for gold doesn't last much longer than consuming the meal does.

Frank notes that there'll be no harm in looking; Yelena counters that by this time next year gold and silver will be worthless. Enrico counters that gold is an excellent electrical conductor, and if it wasn't for the folly of man using it as a store of value, we'd be making excellent thermionic tubes out of it.

Dr. Ainsworth asks the engineer about his opinion on the "current wars", to which he answers that while he feels Tesla was treated unfairly, and symphatisess with him, it makes more sense to run things on DC here since there's no intention to send electrical power long distances. He points out that he isn't an expert; his job is to make generators spin, not build them. "On that note, we'll want to use Edison's bulbs, not Tesla's tubes - they have a warmer color, and the waste heat in this case works in our favor."

You heard last year that an Austro-Hungarian outfit had, essentially, dragged Nikola Tesla out of retirement by appealing to his Serbian roots to work on a project similar to yours in Iceland, but you didn't really follow up on that, and besides, that's on the other side of the North Pole. Edison these days is rich, old, deaf, and somewhat infirm, and you idly wonder if he's among your largely nameless backers.

If you choose sites 103 or 117, you will have to keep a temporary warehouse either here or at site 113; if you choose to go to site 113, you can dismantle these temporary lodgings for resources.

>>4604262
If you have a local source of high heat, carrying ingots is a lot easier than carrying ore.

>>4604259
Is me, changing vote to >>4604262

>>4604223
>We came in with an icebreaker tug and two barges, and made a lot of radio noise; whoever is out here already knows we're here. What's the point of secrecy?

>Site 103: Plenty of metallic ore that are easy to smelt without modern equipment.

>Allow it.

Freedom, capitalism and industry!

>>4604801
>>4604635
>>4604262
>>4604259

The next morning, you announce your plans.

"We're going further inland to Site 103. Our task is to find a suitable place to build a town, and I believe that once the thaw finally comes, we will have mineral resources sufficient to sustain a number of industries for a long time."

What you don't say is that you aren't sure there will be a thaw any time soon, and that having the mountains at your back and only a narrow branch of the fjord as the main way into the small valley that the site is in makes it considerably easier to defend, if it ever comes to that.

"We're going to build the longhouse into a proper harbor here, and use the crawlers to pull each barge upriver as far as it'll go, before unloading manually."

You have two "donkey engines" that can be used as cranes to speed up unloading and construction; they can also be used to speed up timber operations as you go further out afield. You decide to invest

>zero
>one
>two

into the final site.

Moving the barges is going to take pretty much the entire crew no matter how you slice it -- the crawlers can be driven on opposite sides of the narrow fjord, and pull each barge one by one as far as it'll go. You decide to privilege

> speed; both barges will be moved over the next three days. (30 coal per trip, total 60)
> fuel economy: you'll do one barge now, and one next week. (20 coal per trip, total 40)

While marching order isn't particularly important, since you aren't expecting hostile activity or inclement weather, you decide that the barge with the geothermal spike will be moved

>first (if you go slow, you'll be able to start deploying the spike while the 2nd barge moves)
>second (if you go slow, you'll be able to start building while the 2nd barge moves)

as opposed to the barge that contains most of the other supplies.

The move is going to take most of your manpower to ensure that the crawlers have a clear path -- you may have to fell some trees and make a gravel path across some brooks -- but you've got a work team free, you reckon. They're going to take the dogs, and

> go hunting
> survey site 117 and then double back to 103, staying above the snow line
> survey site 117 and then go back to 103 following the water
> act as a long-range patrol and look for other human presence


Stores (I'm going to make a sheet for these, or put them in the image from here on out)

* 1180 coal
* 100 naphta
* 940 rations
* 1195 wood
* 805 steel
* 100 copper
* 200 rubber
* 120 changes of clothing
* 40 boxes of trinket
* 20 rifles

>>4604801
On a whim, you consider having the stars and stripes repainted on the side of the crawlers; they're modified supply tanks (auxilliary landships if you're a Brick, since they like longer words), and used to bear it in the service.

> Nah, you're in Canada.
> Why not.

File: british-mark-ix-or-supply(...).jpg (170 KB, 1300x1054)

170 KB JPG

>>4606096
A few people voice their preference for site 113, simply because it'll be easier to fish there; two or three ask if they'll get paid for the whole job even if it's finished earlier.

Mr. Miller says that you're technically a little behind schedule, being as he figured you'd want to set up the long range radio first thing, but it's only been a few days. He does seem a little antsy about flapping around loose, and you figure he'd prefer to be flapping around at the end of a very long string.

Forlanini has sketched a plan for a small geothermal pylon that could be used to support an outpost of a dozen people, which you could build with local resources -- especially if metal can be smelted locally.

> Please focus, Mr. Forlanini; let's get the big spike where it has to go and worry about that later.
> We don't have a lot of spare paper, but sure, sketch away.

Later on in the day, Yelena asks you how much defense featured in your site selection.
> Tell her what you think (or what you think she wants to hear)

She's been discussing pitfalls and benefits of setting up what amounts to a sauna with Dr. Ainsworth; it would have to either be heated by coal or use up a significant percentage of the geothermal spike's output, but it would also be a lot more effective in maintaining hygiene than any sort of ordering people around. Ainsworth is worried about people catching a cold upon leaving, and is skeptical about Yelena's explanation about saunas in Nordic cultures. Nevertheless, the older woman is smart enough to recognize that experience has value.

>>4606125
>one
> speed; both barges will be moved over the next three days. (30 coal per trip, total 60)
>second (if you go slow, you'll be able to start building while the 2nd barge moves)
> act as a long-range patrol and look for other human presence
also go hunting if the opportunity presents, send the Miller hunter guy
>Why not
America, fuck yeah.
> Please focus, Mr. Forlanini; let's get the big spike where it has to go and worry about that later.
> Tell her what you think
Attacking us is going to be fairly difficult due to the cold, we're close to a mountain so we could set up a watchtower up there if needed, and ore will provide us manufacturing capabilities we wouldn't otherwise have, possibly on site production of guns.

>>4606949
Supporting this

>>4606096
>>two
> speed; both barges will be moved over the next three days. (30 coal per trip, total 60)
>first (if you go slow, you'll be able to start deploying the spike while the 2nd barge moves)
> act as a long-range patrol and look for other human presence
> Why not.
> We don't have a lot of spare paper, but sure, sketch away.
> Tell her what you think (or what you think she wants to hear)

OP ded?

>>4619911
no, my aunt died and had to deal with various stuff. sorry. this resumes tomorrow after we're done with the notary, i hope

>>4620741
Hope everything goes well there qm

>>4620741
The Curse strikes when we least expect it

Rolled 89, 57, 93 = 239 (3d100)

>>4620741
>>4619911
>>4622338
Sorry about that...


>>4609498
>>4607405
>>4606949
While there's no bonus for finishing early, you figure that you want to seize on your workers' current good spirits before something sours them.


"You want to be able to build guns on site?" Yelena looks at you confused. "Captain, we're going back down south in a few months... right?"

You tell her that you don't know if there's going to be a south by the time you've put the geothermal spike into operation. "You and some others" she notes. "If you tell these thoughts to the men, I warn you - most will want to get on the first return barge. You'll want to keep those who don't." Yelena has been tempering her harsh Russian accent with a maternal disposition, but when you tell her your doubts about at the long terms, it's gone, just like that. "We'll need sulfur and, uh, nitre, how do you say in American, saltpeter. I'll see who you can trust, but it won't be many."

And just like that, her face and words soften again when you give orders to the work teams; you're left to wonder which is the real Yelena Shabayev.

She wants to go with the long-range patrol; if Miller sticks around, he can set up the long-range radio within the end of the week, hopefully. You don't really need a security person around, as such; the two prisoners are being kept an eye on by whoever has time -- they've been locked in the barge's engineering closet when not working, and are eating the same rations as you and your men, the harsh arctic climate not being kind to a bread-and-water diet -- so you can easily do without both of them.

> Yelena goes out scouting. Frank will start setting up the long-range radio.
> Frank goes out scouting; Yelena will start figuring out who shares your views.
> Both go. You'll get to see how well they get along, and if they do, they'll overall do a better job.

Since you're moving camp as fast as the crawlers can handle it, and they'll need some sort of roadbed to be able to pull the heavy barges up the river, everyone else is on that duty, you included -- Dr. Ainsworth will have to be on hand in case of accidents, and Forlanin is going to stay with the geothermal spike and give it a once-over before deployment.

You decide to send the first barge out first; the second will follow almost immediately after, but that should at least let the technicians unload the sensitive elements of the thing without having to worry about other provisions getting in the way.

The journey to Site 103 is relatively short, and only made arduous by the need to keep the two snow crawlers on the riverbanks so that they can tow the barges; those things are heavy, and you note that...
Turn 3 (No deadlines yet)

* 5 officers
* 20 technicians
* 60 laborers
* 2 prisoners
* 1 team of dogs

* 1120 coal
* 100 naphta
* 680 rations
* 1195 wood
* 805 steel
* 100 copper
* 200 rubber
* 120 changes of clothing
* 40 boxes of trinkets
* 20 rifles

File: Alaska%201[1].jpg (27 KB, 419x281)

27 KB JPG

>>4626355
(oh hey, good rolls)

...and you note that they don't quite do as advertised on the riverbanks; that's not a major surprise, since they're adapted from supply landships (tonks, to Yonks, although the official paperwork still says landship) used at the tail end of the Great War, and were designed to operate in the fields of France and Germany.

Fortunately, there are no major accidents; Dr. Ainsworth has to treat a few rope burns and sew up a couple of gashes from people banging into sharp metal, but nothing that stops work significantly.

There is one minor issue, however; the work crews are riding on the barges and rotating as needed to clear or make a path for the crawlers, but the prisoners are being made to walk in front of the crawlers. This is preferred to keeping them manacled because neither of them is Native, and even a Native would have a hard time going anywhere alone -- it's not as cold as the worst winter on record for these regions, but wind and rain patterns have been disrupted sufficiently that you've read about Native bands having problems finding their way and living off the land as they have been doing.

The men are accusing one of the prisoners, a Quebecois whose English is barely intelligible, of having caused one of the stoppages that befell the crawlers -- the thing got a rock in its tracks and almost threw the track, a situation which you can deal with if you must, but would prefer to avoid since it means stopping for half a day. He responded with a string of French invectives that Forlanin called "admirable" and pointed out that he's been walking in front of the crawler with a red flag and marking dangers all day rather than taking turns with someone.

> Confine the prisoner to manacles and half rations for a few days.
> Punish the prisoner and make a show of it (A lashing maybe?)
> Let the workers decide.
> Hiccups happen; leave the man alone.

The other guy has been behaving himself; you wonder how long it'll last.

Fortunately, this is the only serious issue you have to deal with; by the time you lead the second barge aground, Forlanin's team have unpacked the radio and geothermal spike components, and started doing surveys as to where to dig.

The plan is simple: set up a derrick, have it drill exploratory holes, and once the best tapping point has been found, dig down to the bedrock. Once that is done, the spike will be assembled on the surface, lowered into the hole, secured in place, and used to drill further down -- then, the high-pressure heat exchanger will be built around the spike, closing the hole. Pumps and boilers will be installed above the surface, for ease of maintenance.

While the underground parts of the spike came in preassembled (good thing, too, since they require precision machining that you don't expect to have acces to any time soon), the gantries, scaffolding, and aboveground structure and even parts of the metalwork such as the boilers will have to be constructed on site.

>>4626389
>> Let the workers decide.

>>4626389
> Frank goes out scouting; Yelena will start figuring out who shares your views.
> Hiccups happen; leave the man alone.

>>4626389
>> Let the workers decide.

> Frank goes out scouting; Yelena will start figuring out who shares your views.

>>4626389
desu I wish we had just beat these guys up in chargen instead of dragging them along with us, why do you guys want to let the workers decide what to do w/the prisoners? frenchie sounds like he was actually being useful

>>4626565
>>4626587
>>4626618
>>4626623
>>4626627
Frank laughs at the assignment. "I should be prodding you about getting the radio set up, but being as I'm being paid to go hunting, I'll write you up later, okay, Captain?" He picks a few people -- only one of which had been on the previous expedition, you note; he's also evaluating people -- and sets off with the dogs. While this is primarily a hunting outing, he's also intending to see if there are other settlements nearby.

You let the workers decide what to do with the recalcitrant prisoner; at the end of the work day, there's a quick vote, and eventually he's forced to stand at attention when your men raise the American flag on what's going to become the antenna mast, and then stripped and summarily thrown in the river; in maybe a minute, he's back on shore, where Dr. Ainsworth has a warm blanket ready. She clearly disapproves, but manages to turn the little spectacle into a demonstration of what to do with a case of hypothermia for the few workers and technicians who stick around after the flag-raising.

Yelena scoffs; the man shouldn't have had problems with just a few dozen seconds swimming in freezing water. Given the high spirits, one of the laborers is bold enough to ask her for a demonstration, which she agrees to after briefly staring him down -- if the man follows. Of course, swimsuits being unavailable, they'll both be naked. Neither of them is particularly interesting to look at -- you muse that Yelena fits the definition of "handsome" better than the worker -- but most of your crew is happy

> This has gone far enough; some of the women are uncomfortable, they're worried about being asked to follow suit.
> What's the harm? There's no entertainment here other than what we make.
> Make it a contest, actually -- this will give Dr. Ainsworth and the medics some baseline data on hypothermia with this particular population.

Your presence ensured that things didn't go too far; the other proposed punishments were manacles and half rations for three days, a lashing, and -- Dr. Ainsworth flat out vetoed this one -- being left exposed for the night.

Forlanin goes over the geothermal spike parts, and confirms that none of it was damaged in transit or unloading. When confronted with the various shenanigans, he turns away; this sort of punishment by hazing reminds him too much of the Blackshirts for his comfort.

> Advance turn.
> Wait, one more thing!

>>4626634

> This has gone far enough; some of the women are uncomfortable, they're worried about being asked to follow suit.


> Advance turn.

>>4626635
+1

>>4626635
This

>>4626634
>> What's the harm? There's no entertainment here other than what we make.
> Advance turn.

>>4626634
>> Make it a contest, actually -- this will give Dr. Ainsworth and the medics some baseline data on hypothermia with this particular population.
> Advance turn.

>>4626634
>> What's the harm? There's no entertainment here other than what we make.

>>4626634
>> What's the harm? There's no entertainment here other than what we make.