Storyline

"“Sun: a common noun. ''1. The Sun: a heavenly body, which produces the light of day.

''Example: The distance from the Sun to the Earth. By extension: One Sun: one heavenly body radiating its own light at the centre of a System.

''2. The luminous disc of the Sun, the appearance of this heavenly body for an earthbound observer.

'Example: The sun rises in the East and sets in the West.

''3. Radiation, light and beat of the sun.

''Example: It is sunny, sonny. Protect yourself from the sun. Expose yourself to the sun. Sunburn: Burning caused by the rays of the sun.”

''I closed the old encyclopaedia, got up, opened the window of the compartment and stayed there for a long time, lying down with my eyes closed, my face lashed with the icy squalls. I remembered the first time I read this text in the abandoned library of Alexandria. What a revelation! Ever since, I searched for other writings on this myth. This had caused me a lot of problems with the Administrators, and the railway agents were supervising me constantly. Everything rocked when I discovered an article dating from the twenty-first century in the “Blind” project, which referred to the “ultimate solution” to save the planet from perishing. I then became an “Ambivalent”, and the Administrators of the Viking Union had put a price on my head."

Transarctica is set in a world where an attempt to save humanity from the ravages of climate change went completely awry, clothing the world in a thick layer of clouds and leaving eternal winter in its wake. For seven hundred years, the Viking Union reigned supreme over the railways connecting what remains of human civilization, throttling any attempts to alter the status quo. You were a prominent officer of the Union, before you learned of the mythical Sun and joined the Ambivalents. You and your crew commandeered Transarctica, the jewel of the Viking train fleet. Your goal? Uncover the truth and survive long enough to maybe change the course of human civilization once more.

Blind Project
Consumed by a runaway greenhouse effect, the ravaged earth sought salvation in technology. However, by 2022 it became clear that there was no miracle technology that could save the world. When the summit in Ottawa ended in April 2022, only one scientist remained optimistic: Professor John Merrick. He proposed exploding thermonuclear devices at both poles to surround the world with a layer of opaque clouds and thus cool down the world. Approved by the United Nations in October, the operation was slated for December 24, 2022.

Project Blind, as it was called, was set into motion on schedule. The explosions went off without a hitch, and the simultaneous explosions deposited the expected large quantities of debris in the atmosphere, blocking the Sun's savage rays. However, the scientists miscalculated. The experiment worked all too well, and the world was thrown into an intense nuclear winter. Civilization perished under a blanket of snow and ice.

Sun Project
As chaos engulfed the world, Merrick started to look for a solution to reverse the tragic mistake he made. The solution was to disperse the clouds themselves directly. Operation Sun, launched in August 2024, was to establish the Gycode: A group of particle ray generators situated at very high altitudes in the Himalayas, which would bombard the clouds with gamma rays, destroying them in a nuclear chain reaction. The construction of the Gycode was finished by December 2025, in spite of the difficulties. The deadlines were met, however, the newly formed Viking Union intervened, blocking its activation.

Disillusioned and haunted by his failure, Merrick retired, devoting his life to the study of the mammoths, reintroduced to cope with the new permanent ice age.

Long Winter
The Union succeeds in blocking the Gycode's activation. For the next seven hundred years, it grew into Eurasia's most powerful monopoly, cementing control over the railways and the trains that cross them. The survivors act out a miserable existence living most of their lives on huge trains, the only source of transport, travelling constantly between those towns that still exist: pathetic shadows of their former selves, used now only as meeting and trading points for the giant trains.

The Union will tolerate no threats to their profitable monopoly. An ice-locked world suits them just fine. As such, it takes great pains to track down and eliminate the Ambivalents, who believe in the Sun's existence above the clouds. The Administrators ruthlessly suppress dissent within their ranks. However, their plans fail when the captain of their greatest train, the Transarctica, realizes that the Sun is more than a myth after reading a dictionary in the abandoned library of Alexandria. Although railway agents and the Administrators tried to dissuade him from the pursuit, they persisted, eventually finding an article on Project Blind and its particulars.

That same day the Viking Union's Administrators declared the captain public enemy number one.