On February 5, 2012, scientists from the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute of St. Petersburg drilled through a final layer of ice in their quest to reach Lake Vostok, a 14-million-year-old subglacial lake located 13,000 feet below the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Fearing the hole tainted by kerosene from the drilling, they created another hole in January 2015 and began drilling through the ice to reach the lake and collect waterborne samples.
On December 25, 2025, NZK Vostok began operations as the most advanced wintering station on the continent. In January 2026, scientists there launched three experimental drones into a three-mile-deep borehole over Lake Vostok with the goal of mapping its surface. Two days passed before they lost contact with all three drones.
In February 2026, they partnered with China in a robotic exploration of Lake Vostok and its surroundings. This drone returned images from the lake’s cavernous perimeter, displaying a blanket of energy over the southwestern shore. Another brought back water samples indicating that life in the lake is older than the lake itself.
Political unrest in China led to a recall of research personnel by March, and as darkness set in for the winter, NZK Vostok’s founder ceased allocating funds to supply the station. Scientists and researchers wintered over with enough supplies at NZK Vostok and, on October 5, 2027, acquired privately funded drones designed for Mars exploration.
Researchers dispatched the first drone on December 14, 2027. Live recordings showed a sizable metallic structure on an island in Vostok’s southwestern lagoon, along with the remains of previously destroyed drones; the footage also revealed hundreds of elongated pods floating beneath the lake’s surface.
The following February 2028, researchers launched a remote surface-controlled robotic drone and landed it on the shore. They drove into the slushy shallows and dragged six pods to the shoreline before an electromagnetic pulse emitted from the structure ceased all power and communications at Vostok and blacked out the entire continent.
Outside Antarctica, worldwide unrest developed when a chunk from Mars orbiting asteroid 433 Eros (struck by a meteor) drifted toward the Moon.
A sizable portion of 433 Eros entered the Moon’s orbital path and pulled free without colliding. It altered the Moon’s orbit, which upset the stability of Earth’s oceans. Antarctica experienced rising tides, volcanic eruptions, and massive quakes.
Researchers and scientists retreated into NZK Vostok for the winter. Their supplies were dwindling, and they hoped for rescue by sun-rise in September, unaware that their corporate benefactors in Eastern Europe had abandoned them for Project Ural Wall. When the sun returned, the residents were forced back inside, unable to tolerate the low air quality. They remained within the station through the new year.
The Eros Impact occurred on January 2, 2028.
TIMELINES
- HELOVIDOL (The Human Era | Antarctica)
- Helovx Time of Transition
- The Valentine’s Day Eruption
- The Dark Years
- The Age of Diplomacy
- Recompense for the Dead (Brasilia)
- The Greenland Base Incident (Eurislam)
- Jungwa Amazons (Jungwa)
- Rise and Decline of the NAU (North American Union)
- Australian Genocide (Australia/Aotearoa)
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