The Greenland Base Incident

The Greenland Base Incident

From 2093 to 2099, the Second Gen constructed an elongated dam at the mouth of the expansive freshwater bay of inland Greenland. It was done after ships from the newly forming North American Union, fired on ships from the African Trisect, after scouts from Jungwa discovered the freshwater bay that had formed from the melting of continental shelf-ice and glaciers. After the femmar took control of the island continent and erected their dam, an enormous statue was placed on over a small channel entry into the bay. It depicted Second-Gen hizak Po Banto, the former Committee member who had advocated Femarctic settlement of the northern polar region.

On January 1, 2128, a Ramaxian delegation led by Fifth-Gen Committee Member, Laxum Wram, held audience with the Eurislam Parliament. Standing before their leaders, some of them men, Wram proposed to reestablish balance to the meridional overturning circulation, by restoring salinity to the Gulf Stream current. Helovx scientists questioned why the femmar, a glacial species, would be so quick to restore the Gulf Stream. Once Wram explained that a frozen world wasn’t crucial to her species survival, scientists were able to appreciate the benefits of an Atlantic Ocean without constant hurricanes. Eurislam leaders supported the plan despite their aversion to the femmar; the open homosexuality displayed by the species went against their core values and so limited interaction suited both sides.

At the end of June 2128, a floating Ramaxian base appeared two miles south of the Greenland Bay Dam, and by January of 2129, women engineers from the African Trisect (the men among them had been turned away) became the first helovx to enter a Ramaxian base. The women became familiar with the the bizaki, hizaki, and marixi stationed there, and witnessed technology more advanced than their 21st century ancestors had ever known. Plans began without issue as the femmar bored into the undersea alley between Iceland Peak and Greenland’s eastern coast, but on July 22, the women were abruptly escorted from the base and sailed back to the Trisect. (Helovx were unaware that the femmar hibernated once a year.)

The dam at Greenland Hydrothermal was locked down and appeared all but abandoned, by August. In mid-September, the North American Union sent troops to investigate the abandoned dam; many men died trying to traverse its walls. When the NAU moved exploratory ships around the waters of the floating base and discovered the undersea work zone. Eurislamic officials warned them against interfering. The NAU, certain that the femmar acquired their legendary “balls of unlimited energy” from inside the Earth, set about studying the deep borehole on the seafloor. Finding nothing but warm water at the bottom, the NAU lacked the resources to go deeper. Remaining in position, their commander devised a plan to dive under the floating base, find a way in through its filtration systems, and acquire the technology inside. The plan approved by his superiors, the timetable for completion was eight months.

The femmar returned to Greenland Hydrothermal on December 10, 2129. Bizak scientists sent a message via radio-wave (at that time, this was the helovx only course of telecommunication) to the NAU exploratory ships over the bore cavity. They warned that once their operations began, the base would be unsafe, and the waters between the Peak and the coast would become unstable. Rather than respond on the same radio channel, representatives from the NAU sent an eight-man team to the gate of Greenland Hydrothermal, where they were assaulted by marixi guards for failing to have female representation.

At fifteen minutes to midnight on December 22, 2129, the abandoned base floating over the bored crust at Iceland Peak, imploded. Designed to serve as an impactor, the base widened the borehole made within the Peak’s submerged mass. The bedrock connecting the Peak to Greenland’s coast collapsed to form a natural trench in the sea floor. A current of hot water from beneath the planet’s crust drifted through the channel, where it continues to this day, seeping slowly into the Gulf Stream. The NAU lost all its ships and men during the upheaval, crippling their navy.

The severe hurricane’s that had plagued the Atlantic since the mid-21st century stabilized into seasonal patterns by the 2150’s. While the shallow seas of continental Europe saw less ice formation in winter, the waters of the Arctic Circle began developing permanent ice-packs, lowering oceanic levels throughout the Northern Hemisphere and bringing the planet’s temperature down.

 AGE OF DIPLOMACY