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1916
January.
Steward, a title thought to be useless by all facets of new London’s government, after all why have a steward when the crushing grip of our dear captain has held and continues to hold our city together yet, our ironfisted captain grows weak in his old age, addled some say.
June.
Whispers of what comes after his eventual passing course through this city’s veins like the heating pipes that provide for us all, instability? Guaranteed, chaos? Likely; the captain preached order to the masses; security and direction in exchange of freedom, a trade well worth it during the great glacial calamity 30 years ago but times have changed, security and direction matter less when it stops feeling like a warm embrace and more like a gilded cage housing the human spirit.
December.
The captain in his hazy mind has crowned me as his interim successor; why me? I only occupied the role of the captain’s secretary, a mere clerical worker, while serving directly under the captain is a prestigious position, it in no way prepares me to rule the city in his stead, but who am I to deny the city.
1917
January.
The captain has passed and in his wake he has left the city in a shoddy state; rampant homelessness, dwindling food and most egregious of all; the shutdown of the generator that gives this city life, yet I am expected, nay, Demanded to stabilize the city and form the council, give the people their own representation and say in how the city is run.
June.
The numerous coal deposits that used to line new London run thin, my top scientists estimate only a few years of coal before all is gone, I suppose 30 years of exploitation and drilling reaches it inevitable conclusion yet, its hard to believe the coal deposits that had been the reason this spot in frostland had been chosen as a generator construction site are near depletion.
December.
We need a new direction, I can’t simply order the people to mine deeper and deeper for more coal to feed the beast, innovation is needed, we must find a way to upgrade the generator, for this is simply unsustainable, I need to be decisive, the city must survive.
1918
January.
It haunts me, the knowledge that I willingly sacrificed my citizen’s lives for the good of the city, that coal mine cannot close under any circumstances, it feeds the heart of the city, I know it was needed to cut off the air supply but their faces still haunt me in my dreams, the stalwarts claim glory while the rest of the population mourns for their fallen brethren. A grieving mother came up to me on the street and told me how proud she is of her children for saving the coal mine yet, I sent them to their deaths.
June.
Black gold, my frostland teams have sighted it from their blimps, a black viscous fluid drawn from the earth’s murky ground, thought to be useless by most yet my top scientists claim the generator can be converted to burn it for heat, and with the knowledge given to not just myself but also the council, the factions bark like dogs, all demanding their own vision for the future is assuredly the correct one and all others are false, the papers continually praise the council yet if they saw this childish bickering that they participate in, what would their reaction be I wonder?
December.
Trails have been made, skyways forged from the best steel our forges can create, supplies prepared for the colony, months of planning and council proposals had paid off because if we do this right, if all goes well, we might just have a neigh infinite source of fuel for the reactor; which enables our very lifestyle in this frozen wasteland of a world. The stalwarts and pilgrims have demanded I make a pledge to the city’s future, a message to all; to show what new London will become and represent. I, Jonas Bile, pledge to beat the Frost once and all.
1919
January
As steward I was requested to watch the opening of the new oil extraction plants, black fluid gushed through the pipes, at the time I thought it was hope, it was a future for all. Unfortunately, this was delusional, once the initial pocket of oil had been extracted a corpse was revealed, buried in oil, markings on the corpse indicated that it was a burial ground, for whom? None of my trackers knew however, all of us knew this was a grievous mistake, we repumped the oil back into the pocket and buried the body, we needed to change drilling sites.
June.
With new materials, come new regulation and of course the council hands all paperwork to me, cowards the lot of them; they come demanding me to propose and vote in laws yet do none of the work to make the process more efficient, the generator now runs on oil and the city is now warmer than ever before, I have ordered new oil storage tanks to be made, the papers claim that I’ve lost my mind for trying to stockpile oil instead of warming the city further, i still have no information as to who buried their corpses in the oil but I feel we have defiled the corpses, we need to be prepared in case they come back.
December.
A whiteout, multiple months of near apocalyptic weather they say, what can be done? All the numerous farms we’ve labored to create will shut down, all I’ve worked for might crumble in one fell swoop, does the world still desire retribution for what humanity performed to the environment 30 years ago? No I cannot lose hope just yet,I need to galvanize my will and force the factions to cooperate with me for once, the city must survive no matter what these bickering children desire, I need more power to authorize the harsh working conditions needed to survive this, the city guard must be resurrected.
1920
January
They called me foolish yet here we are, men of nomadic origins and heavy clothes wandered into the oil colony, dismayed and aghast at our defiling of their burial ground, they called themselves wanderers. Negotiations were rough at the start but I revealed my trump card of offering to give them a “large” amount of oil as reparations for the harm I caused, damned fools took the deal not knowing that what I gave them was a paltry amount of our actual stockpiles, call me heartless if you wish but my duty is to my people, and my priority rests within the impending whiteout may god save us all.
June
It finally ceased, the whiteout had come close to ridding us off the planet for good yet with my prior planning we survived, the stalwarts and pilgrims are putting pressure on me to sign in more radical laws and solutions so we never fare this badly ever again, and in some ways they’re right, their methods would leave us off better in a technical sense, but did we really survive the apocalypse and survive for 33 years just to lose our morality and basic human dignity? They do raise good points though, barbaric as their methods seem, our generator no matter how modified and upgraded over the years simply can’t provide warmth to the thirty thousand souls that now inhabit our fine city, if only we can rebuild the generator but upscaled for our purposes.
December.
I’ve quietly began ordering a few of my own personal researchers to work on trying to create blueprints for a new generator without informing the broader council, all of them have sworn an oath of secrecy in front of my face, a dangerous gamble however, if the council knew about this little project of mine they’d drag their own twisted agendas on to it, lord knows what the pilgrims would think of this attempt to beat the frost, the stalwarts would probably proclaim foolishness because how dare I think of replace our oh so precious generator that was never built to handle 33 years of work, I suspect things are going to become difficult in the coming years.
1921
January.
The IEC, unimaginably massive yet so ruthlessly paranoid with its assets, why use common standard parts when you can simply create custom parts, every screw and bolt all custom to construct the generators that were the last bastion of humanity, no wonder all the captain’s notes about modifying the original generator all end with simply adjusting only its simpler systems, early research on reverse engineering the generator by my researchers has not gone smoothly, no detailed blueprint nor any production specifications exist in the archives, my engineers tell me the work can be done but it needs more funding and manpower than the small amount I’ve been secretly funneling away from the city’s coffers, it seems a press release is in order for the city and a reckoning for my actions but perhaps with a little manipulation I can spin it to gain the support of the council.
June.
Its not possible; the best estimates I have received for manpower and resources needed make this project impossible, oh the steel and ordinary components are rather simplistic to source and create with my massive industrial districts pumping out thousands of goods every day, even the more complex mechanical parts and steam exchangers while difficult to create custom manufacturing for, with great funding and manpower put into it, it would be possible, no, what makes this impossible is those damned steam cores; the damned IEC could never bare to improve the lives of people without a profit incentive could they? No complete blueprint or manufacturing method exists and no surviving factory exists to this day, 40 steam cores; that is all we need to make this dream possible and guarantee our way of life surviving for the next few decades until we find a more permanent solution to this godforsaken world.
December.
Winter home, a name not whispered in these halls of government in over 30 years, a foolish idea really; why would going to the city known for its failures and mass amounts of toxic gas be the torch we all need in this darkness? I nearly laughed at the council man who proposed the idea, yet the steam cores buried in its frozen old bones might just be enough to accomplish the dream of the city, but dare I even consider this idea? Not even the old captain dared think of it as an option, a man who managed to hold civilization together in weather cold enough to freeze the very air itself and have it rain down as snow, truly is going into the valley of death the way to secure the future or is it my own foolish pride?
1922
January
The sick pile the sick beds in ever mounting numbers, I’ve been constructing more hospitals in the housing districts to take care of everyone, the cold has been battering the city more and more recently; the generator simply can’t keep its heating capabilities at 100% anymore, it even stopped heating an entire district for a day until the malfunction could be hastily repaired. Order in the city has been threatened by the radical elements of the stalwarts and the pilgrims; fools who think raging against the very machine that sustains them would benefit them in any meaningful way Afterall, they do hold the votes and I simply propose the laws, I’ve hired more and more city guards to keep up the peace and so far, it’s working but I think we cant simply do nothing, we must seize Winterhome’s precious cores.
June
They don’t understand, of course how could they understand such, none of the council members truly know how to rule a city nor manage its resources, because Afterall why should they care if their opposing faction loses heating for a few days, their sector is warm and eternal isn’t it? Ah but the promise of being handed the title of the faction that restored winterhome is too alluring for these snakes. The pilgrims wish to settle the city and over time restore it to its old glory but this is foolish optimism, we do not have the technology nor resources to ever really stop the toxic gas and we barely have the means to seal it for a time however, the stalwarts glory seeking as they are, do propose for our teams to blast the city open, extract as many cores as needed and run from the site before the toxic gas kills all, a plan with many sacrifices but offers the fastest solution, its one I approve of, with a little coercion and a few monetary gifts to the specific parties I shall convince them to go through.
December
Despite being the main supporter and the one who proposed a vast majority of the plan, I don’t entirely agree with it nor its cost, several thousand souls all ready to plunge into the valley of death for our future and none know that their eventual death is not a surprise or some great event but in actuality a simple consideration in a proposal, people with lives and hopes and dreams all reduced to numbers on a highly complex plan to bring about the future. It haunts me, it truly does but what option do we have? No other site in frostland contains the steam cores in the amounts we need in the time we have, no matter, all must do their part in this grand scheme of ours, I have ordered all transports to begin their journey towards the city and the frostland teams to blow the avalanche, the city must survive.
1923
January.
The winterhome extraction colony has began producing its first cores, 30 years in the snow and still pristine and in full working order, those IEC manufacturing facilities truly were something else, the first deaths have already emerged; 2 people working in the extraction district fell into a small chasm filled a high concentration of toxic gasses. Breaths filled with agony and a quiet hissing sound was how the report described it to me, a horrifying fate yet one that might become all too common, hospitals are being built and enlarged preemptively for the incoming mass sickness from gas exposure, but this is all planned.
June.
More people keep falling to the sickness; I’ve authorized extended shifts at all medical facilities to help an ever-growing number of people yet its never enough. I might have to send a convoy of workers to replace the sick and treat them back here in new London, so far we’ve managed to excavate 10 cores, more than we’ve ever had at one time at new London but still only a quarter of what we need, is this what the captain felt like? Sending replacing the sick with new healthy people knowing that they are bound for the same end as their predecessors.
December.
The pilgrims plague my efforts once again, simply not voting for my proposals and causing a little unrest wasn’t enough; no now they directly meddle in the excavation efforts, work stoppages, minor “incidents” that no halfway aware worker would ever make, excavation tools somehow “missing”, they forced my hand and I’ve implemented guard towers across the residential districts, and quietly conscripted a few of their more radical members into my militia if the worst comes.
1924
January.
I don’t believe I’ve ever experienced as much rage as today, a stalwart representative came to my chambers today for an audience, a sniveling thin man with a crazed look in eyes and he began to regale me with his groundbreaking proposal, human experimentation, not simply clinical trials or some form of humane treatment no, he asked no, begged me to authorize a program to allow medical professionals to experiment on any human including children that does not provide enough productivity to the city. Why? Did my actions truly reduce the population’s morals and ethical knowledge for fools such as these to be granted the title of doctor? I wanted to strangle him I won’t lie, people who think this is a valid course of action should be jailed for life if it was up to me, but I am not afforded the power to execute this. Effective immediately I arrested the man and had my private investigators investigate his abode all to find nothing except very rough in progress plans to try to acquire test subjects, I am glad that he hadn’t executed any of them, but the medical society is going to face a reckoning for this.
June.
40 cores acquired and the only cost was 3657 deaths and countless sick, winterhome lies dead in its own toxic coffin, the city grieves for its dead yet celebrates their successes, blueprints for the new generator have been completed and revised a thousand times to make sure all is right, I’ve amassed a large amount of the population as the workforce to construct it, the pilgrims have been protesting every move I’ve made since the start of the winterhome plan but it matters not the future is within grasp, I’ve selected a date for the old generator to be shutdown while the new one is being made in its place, July 1st till august 30th will be the warmest time of year for this operation to happen, 2 months without generator heat but I believe we can handle it.
July 3rd
A murder, a murder in my very own council chamber; a pilgrim representative pulled out a wicked long knife during a debate over generator construction timelines and brutally killed a stalwart representative. The whole council is still in chaos even hours later, im sure this will escalate but I will not let this offence happen without repercussions.
July 10th
All-out war, I knew it would escalate but hundreds of faction radicals swarm the street, multiple districts damaged and work on the new generator has slowed considerably, city guards have been dispatched and some districts are held in our control but this is getting out of hand, I will not have the city’s dream dashed away by the foolish.
July 20th
I’ve managed to convince the remaining council to hand over more power to me so I can conscript more guards to help defend the generator and generator, even more hands have been drafted to finish the generator.
July 30th
Today is going to be a pivotal day for all, with the support of the city’s vast resources I’ve managed to track down both leaders of the stalwarts and the pilgrims and their strongholds, the city government moves too slugishly for me to do what needs be done, all guards in the city have been split into 2, one group will simultaneously capture and rid these strongholds off the face of the earth while the other group will go with me to overthrow this council, if my plan fails then I want all who read my memoir to have known that I regret the despicable actions I’ve been forced to do but I do not regret trying my absolute hardest to bring our city closer and closer to a utopia.
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“grandpa?”
The scruffy old man barely paying attention to the ensuing conversation with his grandson and more on driving the snow mobile that’s pulling the sled.
“what is it my boy”
The 12 year old sitting behind him on the snow mobile flailed his arms around trying to show his elder the barely preserved book they’d found in a snow pile without falling off.
“what’s new London grandpa?”
“new London? A fairy tale born from creative minds with too much time my boy”
“But these memoirs look real! And they even talk about a steward that was called Jonas bile!” the child said petulantly like teenagers are wont to do.
Interest now mildly increasing at his grandson’s excited chatter, the elder decides to pay more attention to the conversation.
“Steward? Jonas Bile? What foolish retelling of this story are you reading my boy? There is only the captain of new London, never a steward and no steward called Jonas Bile.
“but it says so his name here grandpa!”
"give me that" the elder stopped the snow mobile to grasp the book and gaze upon the story his grandson was so excited about
the old man's graying eyebrows raised higher as he read through the memoir, perhaps his boy did find something.
“Who the hell knows son, no one has ever found new London and only the mad wander the wastes for the so-called city of steam and order that vowed to beat the cold.”
“aww so its fake then?” the teenager’s excitement crashed down from its highs only a few moments earlier.
“i don't know son, it may be real, it may not be.” The elder tried to cheer up his grandson but he couldn't really give any true definitive answer on new london
for in an age of never ending frost and white wastes, a city with an eternal generator designed to beat the cold does seem whimsical doesn't it?