Joint Exclusion Zone

The Joint Exclusion Zone
One of many vehicle graveyards established in the JEZ
Ecology
Realm	Palearctic
Biome	Multiple
Borders	Republic of Kalaron
Animals	300-800~
Bird species	132
Mammal species	300
Geography
Area	1,500,000 km2 (580,000 sq mi)
Conservation
Conservation status	Formally judged to be expanding

On October 20th, 1994, the landscapes of several landmasses were permanently changed. For one matter, stretches of the different areas became magnetically, radiologically and climatologically destabilized. The true explanation behind these changes have never been objectively proven, though several theories have been put forward by leading scientists across the world. The impact, however, was felt globally. For instance, arable lands and several dozen cities were quickly evacuated for fear of the sudden shift, and several more were lost completely from anomalous conditions. Some nations even experienced irrecoverable strife, fracturing or collapsing entirely. A famine followed, caused by the rampant "Anomalous Winters" that struck the Exclusion Zones.

All told, the economic and social damage of the event could well be said to be impossible to truly calculate, with recovery for the majority of effected nations taking upwards of 28 years. By this point, adaptations have been put in place by several nations to stabilize their otherwise jeopardized trade routes. In some cases, overland trade has become completely impossible, requiring the establishment of underground settlements (with an associated rail-line connection) while in others only high-altitude flight or nape-of-the-earth transit were possible. Furthermore, a flourishing trade has come into being from the uniquely rare materials that can often be recovered from the damaged cities. This has, in turn, prompted the existence of organizations, free agents, mercenaries, freedom fighters, and professional military units dedicated to their collection, often with all of the aforementioned actors having ties to a specific and always "off the record" sponsor nation.

Navigators on these expeditions are often forced to compromise between different types of risks, whether it be from the frequent anomalies, the oppressive radioactivity stemming from the Ice-Sprouts, or the environmental stresses brought about during their spread. In addition to these issues, diplomacy must often be undertaken with those communities that have managed to retain some existence in the zone -many of whom have evolved beyond considering the will of their native nation-state. Survival is a difficult matter in general, and those who've endured the Joint Exclusion Zone remain a consistent thorn in the side of more professional forces despite their lack of advanced arms or vehicles. Even those who successfully navigate through those obstacles must deal with the mutated and twisted creatures and vegetation that inhabit and flourish inside of the Zones.

Physical regions

Kalaron

As a nation, Kalaron has been shattered. With it's lack of military personnel prior to the event, as well as the massive consumption of it's territory by the Ice, the majority of the cities that were lost underwent only paltry evacuations of both people and material. Furthermore, the South had been the primary source of the country's bulk domestic industrial capacity, leaving the North suffering from a draught of supplies critical to rebuilding their infrastructure after the earthquakes had subsided. This population loss, however, helped to inure the region to the coming food shortages that blanketed the world for years after.

The Federal Government of Kalaron, empowered by the constituent Republics for the war with the USCS, was quick to enact a host of legislation attempting to restrain the economic and social side-effects of the predicted economic collapse. In the years that followed the outbreak of the event, a massive Public Works program was instituted to support Operation Inspirit, which sought to utilize the relatively small military as a training body for the populace. Under their attention, the intent was for a whole generation of welders, carpenters, plumbers and eventually homesteaders to be trained for the rebuilding of their current territory, and for the reclamation of what they considered to be "Dead Lands" near and below the portion of the Trans-Continental Railroad where it sliced through Kalaronian Territory.

Despite a rising sense of pessimism from the population as more and more details of the global catastrophe -to say nothing of the rolling death estimations of the South as the extent of the radiation became known- slowly filtered back in from those Pilots that risked their lives exploring the devastated new world, the program was largely successful. The doctoring programs of Inspirit, while neither particularly long or comprehensive, did create an influx of individuals capable of at least some degree of patient care for the most common maladies they were likely to face. This, alongside the successful creation of dozens of factories, stabilized the conditions of Kalaronian society in the North.

However, dissatisfaction quickly spread among those who charged the nation with negligence due to the failed evacuation, and exponentially more expressed displeasure as that generation slowly flowed outward into the "uncivilized" South. The North had absorbed massive amounts of resources, blinded to the unsuitability of the original Iron mines that had proliferated before the appearance of the Ice. This quickly lead to anger as the salvage operations that supported the reconstruction of the North were at the same time draining the South of valuable salvage, an unfortunate necessity that fuels more intensive examinations than most of the Upper Staff would ever admit. This is what largely drives Kalaron, a fear that without the Southern States, they'll lose all hope of recovery to a slow death by lack of materials. The validity of these concerns, of course, is to be debated.

Finally, Kalaron operates as an industrial nation, though they harbor new doubts regarding their mercantile nature given the rather open question of what caused the Catastrophe. The most extreme members of the nation would argue that it's true cause must obviously stem from enemies perceived out of the Survivors of the USCS. Others in Kalaron, notably the conspiracy spinners that exist to provide interesting stories, would argue loudly that the true cause for the increasing radiation and cognito-hazard protection has far more to do with so-called secret military bunkers devoted to a pseudo-historical program named "Orion's Stars.

Mysteries, Rumors, Legends

Despite the Zone being a relatively old feature of the world, the land contained therein has become largely unknown to the global population. However, for years the brave and the foolish have volunteered to risk everything to map it. Where radiation, anomalies, and other unsolved errata occur, they are logged here, across all nations.

The Burning Forge: Formerly known as the Zlatan Steel Works, this facility was lost to the Ice only days after it's original spread. Initially protected by the thick walls and massive heat of the liquid steel. For a period of approximately one month, the workers of the plant were able to survive off of survival rations left in the emergency bunker of the facility as they waited for an extraction. However, the remoteness of the facility, combined with the inherent issues of operating the -then unmodified- Helicopters over the spreading ice meant that a rescue was not forthcoming. However, supplies were able to be dropped via a a cargo aircraft. Unfortunately, only days afterwards the situation began to deteriorate. The vats of metal that had maintained their heat had begun to react in an anomalous manner, with the metal rising out of their containers in perfectly formed molten spheres. Further, the temperature fall at the plant began to reverse.

The workers hoped to leverage this to enable them to leave the facility, waiting until the heat had freed the rail lines so as to enter the nearby Ristalian Transit Tunnels. Their attempt to maneuver one of these orbs, however, unleashed doom. By disturbing the apparently geometric nature of their "orbits", a chain reaction occurred as several orbs collided together, forming the lingering Molten Sun anomaly at the core of the ruined facility. A number of the other orbs meanwhile escaped the building by flash-vaporizing holes in the restraining wall. The workers were forced to flee without proper preparations. It is suspected that they did not make it to their objective.

Though subsequent exploration crews were unable to determine the location of the other Molten Orbs, it is known that the Molten Sun remains securely fixed in location. By this point, the temperature at the plant has risen to over two hundred degrees Fahrenheit at the farthest point of influence, rapidly rising to more than two thousand as one closes with the Orb. Thermal Scanning was unable to gauge the temperature of the Orb itself, however, for reasons as yet unknown. These crews, using a specially loaded Train, were able to bring a number of important readings back, however. Their use of X-Ray spectroscopy, for instance, revealed that the metal making up the Orb is no longer conventional steel, but rather an as yet unnamed alloy, possibly created by the inclusion of microscopic amounts of the anomalous ice in vapor form.

Solomon's Precipice:

Storage Depot 194:

Gertrude's Despair:

Rourke's Whirlwind:

Orion's Stars:

The Mountain's Eyes: