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Climate

It was a cold world, with an average temperature for about -20°C. Snow covered everywhere, the hill, the forest, and at the same time, towns and cities. Snowstorms sometimes would visit the world, freezing the air to about -40°C. Everyone would be killed in this world if there wasn't a proper shelter. Here is a typical weather forecast in this world: Monday Sunny -16°C Tuesday Sunny -17°C Wednesday Cloudy -20°C Thursday Cloudy and windy -28°C Friday Minor snow -33°C Saturday Snowstorm -40°C Sunday Cloudy -35°C

Landscape

The giant valley, surrounding the small village, was covered by ice and snow. The valley could protect the village from blowing away by the snowstorms raging outside. However, every coin has two sides, and though the mountains could protect the village, it could also bury the village under the snow and ice because echos and sounds in the village could lead to catastrophic avalanche. Being eroded, the mountains and also the valley were disappearing, and eventually they would break into pieces, causing the village to be eliminated. The day of the collapse of the mountains was called “The Judging Day”. Villagers were busying in discovering ways to survive from the Judging Day. Before the world was covered by snow, the sea level rose unexpectedly, and some of low-lying lands were converted into shallow water. When the temperature fell and the earth froze, water turned into ice. A piece of land was converted into icy platform, and the place was called by the villagers “The Giant Lake”. The lake was in fact, an unexpected food source for the villagers that dead fish sometimes emerged from the icy platform, eroded by the snowstorms. Since it was icy outside, people did not know why the fish were People dug a well directly towards the center of the earth to search for magma, which is considered a potential source of heat. However, they already dug for 50 kilometers but still there was no magma. Not even heat was discovered by scientists. People wanted to go into the well to figure out whether there was heat underground, but still no one was brave enough to conduct the experiment.

People

The people living in the place were white people. White people could gain a evolutionary advantage in the cold climate and they quickly gained an advantage in the process of natural selection. Therefore, people with colors except white quickly went extinct. What’s more, people were generally short because when facing a sudden snowstorm, it was easier for shorter people to stay warm and also it was hard for them to be blown away. The harsh climate divided people into thousands of small villages around the globe, isolated in the valleys and mountains, and snowstorms and the huge icy plains prevented them from meeting with each other. Most of the villages were self-sufficient. There was no need for them to went outside their living place to seek for food, and therefore trade was rare. Trade sometimes did take place, but as there was no law in the icy world, wars and robs were more common.

Government and history

The planet was governed by only one federal government and a few giant companies. It was a democrat country, with a president. However, the president was always busying in fighting against those companies, and eventually reaching a relatively equilibrium state. 55 years ago: News reported that the sea level unnaturally rose for over five meters within only a few years. Scientists tried hard to figure out why was this happening, but in the end, they could not came up with a conclusion. Cities distributed near the coastline were submerged by the raging sea water, and millions of people lost their homes. The government concluded that the unexpected change of the ocean was caused by global warming, and they imposed a strict environmental tax on the giant companies, which led to another furious fight between the government and the companies. 50 years ago: Scientists discovered that the temperature on Earth was actually decreasing. Extreme weathers including low temperature and snowstorms were frequently recorded on high latitude areas including Russia, North America, and North Europe. This made the global warming theory fell into the ground without being attacked, and the government had to pay a fee to the mega corps. 42 years ago: As the average temperature continued to decrease, food storage around the world was depleted. Flame raged across the globe, killing millions of people. 40 years ago: The government as well as the mega corps failed as the global average temperature fell behind 0 degree. Temperature continued to fall and people began to compete for resources. Small communities formed in warmer places, such as forests around the equator or the middle of mountains. 30 years ago: The temperature around the equator fell behind -10 degree, and the communities collapsed as the cumulated resources around the equator was used up. Refugees escaped from the equator and travelled to different places for food and accomodation. however, few places decided to accept those environmental refugees, conflicts continued to take place around the globe. 15 years ago: Snowstorms suddenly raged around the world so that it was dangerous for people to forge or collect necessities outside their accomodation. Communities were were separated from each other and they chose not to trade or communicate except for some important materials (e.g. oil). 10 years ago: the village where our characters lived in was formed by a group of refugees in a unexpected valley. They managed to utilize the coal and the forest discovered in the place and they could get access to food and accomondation.

Necessities

Most communities could manufacture vital resources by themselves. However, sometimes they had to risk to find some other resources. Food: Surprisingly, plants evolved to endure the freezing cold temperature and they managed to grow under a temperature of -20 degree. However, if the temperature continued to stay low (for example, -40 degree), they would stop growing and hibernate until the climate was suitable. Water and coal: Coal was the fundamental resource of heat, as well as water. People obtained water through melting ice. Oil and fur: Oil was one of the few reasons for people to go out. They obtained oil from hunting animals, and the oil was then used in infrastructure or industry. Although people could manufacture cloth using straw and they could protect people from freezing cold, they were not durable and should be replaced within a few weeks. Therefore, animal furs, which were considered durable and convenient, were also irreplaceable. Salt: People could easily discover salt in the mine, and therefore we could assume that if a small village could get access to coal, they could get access to salt at the same time.

Economics (Survival)

Churches: there were only underground churches that they were forbade (though not strictly) in the village. People viewed ritual objects as a kind of emotional support and they could provide them with literally “hope”, preventing them from suicide or anti-social behaviors. This was the reason why they were not strictly forbade. Governments: the government was simple in a small village. There was a president, but mostly, decision was based on the debates of the villagers. When they had to decide something, people were gathered at the center of the village and they debated. The president was only someone supervising the process of decision making. However, in diplomacy, the president was the one who directly communicate with people from other villages. Economic force: there was no currency in most villages (though some huge villages containing thousands of residents did have currency). Economic was based on exchanges of goods. Non-renewable resources including animal products were considered valuable than other products. For those villages where coal was not accessible, fuels were also valuable commodities. Guild: There was no traditional guild in the village because the villagers were assigned to different tasks on different days. In each day, the president would calculate the number of resources needed and he would allocate those resources into different jobs. Then he would hang dozens of signs in the center of the village related to those jobs, and villagers could choose their jobs and rewards in the center. However, there was one guild, or more appropriately, a group of scientists, continued working on the well in the center of the village because they thought there was a close relationship between the cause of the disaster and the mantle thousands of kilometers behind the earth’s surface. Robbers: There were some refugees who could not find a place to settle down and they eventually became thieves or robbers, attacking different villages for food and other necessities. Sometimes, villagers had to stop working and fight against them.

Technologies

The world was a steampunk world. Most technologies were motivated by coal but still, there were some remaining technologies powered by electricity—a kind of energy came from prehistoric civilizations. The most common thing used by explorers was beacons. These were small boxes, connected to the satellites launched by prehistoric civilizations. These beacons did save some lives but for some times, but in other cases, people could not get access to the places of the beacons at all. There were three villages in the story, and each of the village discovered a way to save the world (although they were proved to be useless at all). One decided to save the world by digging inside the earth and figuring out what happened inside the mantle. Another decided to burn tons of coal to increase the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere to save the world. They can give everything for their dreams. The third village focused on biotechnology, and they decided to find a way so people would not feel cold in the snowstorms. However, it turned out that even if people don't feel the cold anymore, they still freeze to death. In both three villages, there was a huge smelter in the center of the village, providing heat to all the villagers and powering the facilities. Water was burnt into gas in the smelters, and then was transformed in tubes. Houses were built around the smelter, and the village was in the shape of a circle. Sometimes the tube may break, and the hot gas would leak out. Some unlucky villagers would be killed in the middle of the night without even waking up. For most of the villages, they have a mine which could provide them with coal in the cold climate. However, there were some village which did not contain a mine. They had to trade with others to make a living. It was weird that the second village did not have a coal mine at all, but this may be the explanation of why they were crazy about coal. The center of the earth was cooled and earth lost its eternal heat, and that was the reason why the global temperature turned down in decades and civilization collapsed. Life on Earth evolved the ability to detect the amount of radioactive material on earth. As a result, most plants, sensing the disappearance of radioactive material from the Earth's interior, began to secrete a special protein that allowed them to survive the cold. However, for most animals, because radioactive materials are harmful to them, they tried to stay away from the radioactive source as much as possible, and this ability to sense radioactive materials gradually disappeared. Even if the third village managed to restore some of their abilities, humans would still not survive the winter. Steam generator: the steam generators were highly energy-efficient and they could transfer the energy in the coal completely into heat, with little or even no energy lose. Thus, a small amount of coal can turn a large amount of water into gas. All the weapons were powered by steam.

Difficulties?

The character was stuck inside the snowstorm. Luckily they discovered a cave and they sheltered in it. It was a bear cave and the characters used a steam ejector to kill the bear. Although the bear’s meat was not tasty, but still the character managed to survive in the cave. The character got tendons and a great fur from the bear. He went back to the village and made the fur into a warm coat and the tendon into a steam gun. This made him one of the few people who were able to participate in trading and hunting. What’s more, he was a professional hunter. The coal mine collapsed in the village and the villagers would be killed if they could not find alternative coal supply. One of the most experienced hunter in the village was killed by a fallen stone. Villagers were frustrated and they decided that hunters and fighters were not allowed to enter the mine since then because they could not trade with other villages if all those people were killed. The character was asked to go out the village and trade with other villages for coal. The character discovered dead fish on the ice of the huge lake, and he suspected that the water in the lake was frozen all together because dead fish was not likely to appear on the ice of a lake if there was water under the icy surface. He then suggested that the earth was also frozen both inside and outside and it could not provide heat for the villagers anymore. The good news was that the villagers could forage on the lake that there was plenty of fish. The Well in the village was built as a potential alternative source of heat, but since the character was suspecting the reliability of the earth, he managed to convince others to deploy an elevator in the well so that he could enter it and figure out what was happening inside the well.

Education

The education system in the world was simple: there were teachers and apprentice specializing in all kinds of fields, including manufacture, agriculture, mining and adventure (or hunting). When a person served a year's apprenticeship under a certain collar, he could join the production. In general, most villagers obtained permits in two or three areas when they were 18 years old. Manufacture, agriculture, and mining were relatively safe for people, but hunting was much more dangerous so it had a different education system and there were only a few qualified candidates to be a hunter. After working as a apprentice for a year, people who determined to work as a hunter were asked to survive independently in the wild for a month, carrying only basic tools. If they came back safely, they would be recognized as a professional hunter since then. Another way to be a hunter was to make a great contribution to himself or to the village. The character was qualified to be a hunter because he independently killed a bear and provided the village with oil supply with the bear. Before being a hunter, the character was a apprentice of a engineer so he was able to manufacture a gun or a bow by himself.

Technology——Restriction

In a steampunk world, electrical technology and thermal weapon were restricted by the harsh environment. Gun: Guns worked restricted because they used stones, a relatively heavy bullet. Compared to guns in real life, guns in this world were more similar to slingshots, using stones as ammunition. The stones were very heavy, which meant hunters would only use them on certain occasions. What’s more, the limitation of elastic bands prevented the popularization of guns. electricity: Much of the technologies of a hundred years ago were lost in the disaster, so people had no way to make or use most electronic devices. People used diesel generators to generate electricity inefficiently, and could only use existing technology to produce inefficient computing devices such as single-chip computers. These devices were used to control steampunk technologies (e.g. monitor the temperature of blast furnance). Smart electronic devices such as mobile phones had never appeared in this world. What’s more, electricity was much stable than steam, that steam with high temperature could easily erode the equipments. Steam: Steam was much more stable than electricity since it was easy for people to acquire coal than diesel oil. However, burning coal to generate steam was relatively ineffective since much of the energy was release as heat. Therefore, the village needed a huge amount of coal to survive especially in cold weather.

Social Class

Crime: There were crimes since there was no way for people to know whether you had conducted a crime or not. There was no technologies including cameras or fingerprint scanners, and since the weather was always bad, it was also difficult for the guards to notice your action. However, there was never a felony. For most of the time, people may steal or fight against each other, but killing or torturing never happened. This was because people were well aware that killing each other would do no good other than making fewer people available to work. Religion: people chose to believe in the gods since they had to find something to believe in. They often prayed the god for safety when going out for food or coal. The president did not want people to believe in any kinds of god, so in most cases, religious activities were carried out underground. Outsiders: most of the outsiders died in the cold weather because they could not survive in a snowstorm. Some outsiders were lucky enough to find a place to settle down, and as time passed, they might start a village and were not considered as “outsiders” anymore. Other outsiders lived in a life of robbing and stealing. They attacked other villages for food and other necessities. Ordinary people: they were regarded as people who did not choose to be a hunter or who were not able to pass the tests of hunters. In most cases, they could live in a hard but relatively stable life, mining or manufacturing in the village in their daily life. However, since they did not have a weapon, they were not likely to survive if a disaster eliminated the village they lived in. They were viewed as something dispensable.

A specific character

- Describe Joe's physical appearance, age, educational background, and speech patterns: Joe was 1.85 meters tall, with long, black bear around his face and a flat nose. His eyes were small, along with long eyelash, making him perfect to move in snow that nothing could easily go into his eyes. No one knew about his age because he was an abandoned child, but it was sure that his age went around 28 to 30. He had never been to school since there was no traditional school in the world, but he did pass the test as a hunter last year, by killing a bear independently. He was not a talkative person, but he tried to pronounce everything clearly due to his past experience—he knew that it may cause death (save him but not safe’in) - What would a stranger notice 5 minutes after meeting Joe? His left eye was blind because of snow blindness after he was abandoned. - What would a companion notice after 5 days of travelling with, working with, or being around Joe? Joe really cared about fact. He did not have the ability to tell lies to other people. He also cared about justice, and tried to eliminate inequality and pain from the frozen land. This was probably because of his past experience, that he was saved by a group of caring people when he was only an infant. - Who are Joe's parents? Are they still alive? No one knew who were his parents. They disappeared from the world, leaving Joe alone. Maybe they were killed by the harsh weather, or they refuged into a place far away from where Joe was current living. - What if Joe met his parents? How would he behave? Joe would be angry with them, but he was not likely to attack them. Joe thanked his parents for birth to him, but he hated them because they discarded Joe when he was young. Therefore, Joe may project a friendly distance. He refused to build a close relationship, but he would be kind. - Where did Joe grow up? What if Joe had grown up somewhere else? What if he didn't like his home? Joe grew up in the orphanage in the village. He was not the extroverted kind and he got nearly no friend when he was a child. He lived completely independently, which helped him a lot in his dream of being a hunter. He learnt about how to take care of himself, curling in the cold air in the middle night, or making a fire with some wooden sticks. A lot of children died in the hostile environment, but he managed to survive and became strong and independent. If he did not born in the orphanage, he was likely to be a ordinary person working in a mine or a workshop, depending on what his parents had learnt to do. He already hate his home and he really wanted to live in the past, prosperous world.

What's more?

I've already wrote a hook for the story, but not yet! Maybe I'm going to update about it later. Here's the hook of the story. It's only an outline yet:( Chapter 1 Joe was caught in a snowstorm alone and he had to hide himself in a cave in order to survive. However, soon after, Joe discovered that this was actually a bear cave and he had to fight against a female bear with a chopper and a steam buster. Luckily, the bear was hungry and she could not protect herself anymore, and as Joe chopped down her claws, she lost the battle completely. Joe killed the bear and ate the bear’s meat. He managed to peel off the bear’s fur and made it a coat, protecting him from the freezing cold night. The tendons, which he could make it into a gun, of the bear were also deprived from the bear’s body. He discovered two baby bears in the cave, but he could not determine to kill them. In the end, he decided to feed them for a few days when he was still stuck inside the cave because the bears recalled his early years. Chapter 2 Joe remembered his days as a child. He was left on a public market by his parents, whose face had never appeared in his mind. The weather was not that cold at that time, and he could wonder around, begging for food as people were passing and communicating with each other. He was laughed by adults and other children, but still he managed to survive and make a living. At the age of 12, snowstorms suddenly became popular and fewer and fewer people arrived at the market. However, he was lucky enough to be picked by Charlies, an old man who had formed the village of ChillyWood. Most of the children who begged in the marked eventually died in the endless snowstorm. This is the reason why he let the two little bears go. He lived in the orphanage after going back to the village. He was not the talkative kind and he was separated from other children. When he was 18, he was assigned as a ordinary worker, taking care of the giant stove standing in the middle of the village, heating the place and preventing people from being killed. His life was supposed to be ordinary, but his friend Jack changed the situation. Jack was the only friend of Joe because he was too weak so he was bullied by other children in the orphanage. Both of Jack and Joe were separated, and that’s the reason why they became good friends. Jack was weak and he needed to ingest enough proteins to stay healthy and warm, and Joe could secretly go out the village to hunt small mammals including pigs, rabbits, goats and dears for Jack. Jack was good at surviving in the wild since he had the experience to live in a freezing-cold market, and he seldom failed in carrying food back. Chapter 3 Joe was stuck in the cave for three days and eventually Jack, as well as two other hunters, notice that Joe was gone. Joe carried a small device, and this helped Jack to locate Joe. He saved Joe and took him back to the village. Charlies was angry with Joe, but after knowing Joe’s skills of hunting and surviving, he was really surprised and pleased and decided to make Joe as a hunter. (Jack could introduce the ways of being a hunter to the readers) Joe made the tendons into a steam-powered gun and became a hunter with his own powerful weapon.