Frostpunk: Master Archivist Guide

Engineer’s Lament

If I had a penny for every letter we got from well-wishers convinced that a machine built to their specifications could face the Great Winter, I’d be a rich man. I’m all for people trying things outside of their domain, but you need a feel for this, or at least a bit of common sense.

One look at these abominations is enough to tell they’d topple before they took a first step. With the centre of gravity this high, two legs won’t do! And what were they supposed to grab with these hands? Perhaps a shovel to dig themselves out of the snow they’d be constantly sinking in.

Life-saving equipment

[…] of biggest concern is the ability to manufacture the device described in this patent in large numbers, while meeting a very strict timeline, and, most importantly, to continue manufacturing on site, where proper workshop tools and supplies might not be readily available.

The device affords the user a source of light and heat, and a means to sound a distress signal. As such, it is considered vital for survival, as its malfunction in typical operating conditions is essentilally a death sentence.

Therefore it is in necessary to provide maintenance training for every engineer assigned to the Expedition and to equip every dreadnought with a set of blueprints and operation manuals.

The last of Queen’s jewels.

James, Ihave already used my connections to secure the other jewels, but you are the only man I know I can trust with this. Now that alomst every single piece of the Queen’s most prized collections has been auctioned away to fund the expeditions, the Exchequer is starting to mention the unthinkable. The Crown Jewels must not be sold! If I have to steal them in order to save them, so be it.

Home is where the heat is.

Snow huts were deemed beneath the dignity of the English people, and they were also impractical, as they tended to melt in liveable temperatures. The chair was pushing his “London house”, designed to remind people of the streets of our capital, but I knew that they wouldn’t have the means to build the kind of housing Sir Edmund considered adequate.

A much more practical, if ugly, sheet metal hut designed by Jenkins also brought London to mind, just its less fancy districts. I added more insulation and dropped the triple bunks at the advice of admiral McClintock, whose people built snow huts to escape the confines of their ship during their wintering in the Arctic.

Then I forged Sir Edmund’s signature and the Bunkhouse was born.

To the finder of this treasure

“Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud;
And after summer evermore succeeds.
Barren winter, with his warthful nipping cold;
So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.”

Remember: not all is lost. The spring will come. Have hope, and endure.
With this I leave you, and wish you courage.
Henry Wetherby, bookworm

“If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride,
And hug it in mine arms.”

Robert’s horsie

[…] the ship was going down, we were about to board the lifeboats, when I noticed that Robert had disappeared. You can imagine my thoughts. I rushed back into our cabin, wading in ice-cold water to my knees, but he wasn’t there. Desperation seized me, but then I heard the patter of his feet above. He emerged from the tangle of smashed crates. I caught him in my arms and ran. We barely made it. As we cast off, I noticed that Robert was clutching something tightly in his hand. “I didn’t wanted him to drown,” he said. “He can’t seim, see? Because he’s a horsie, but with wheels.”

So here it is: the story of how this part of the collection was saved. The rest now lies at the bottom, and Ipray that the crates which werem’t crushed by the ice hold until we can retrieve them.

The Peculiarities of Hunting in Frostland

The first thing We learned was that the barrels of rifles carried the usual way become jammed with fine, windborne powder. The second – that when carried muzzle down, rifles get stuck into the snow whenever we stumble or sink to the knees. Thereafter, an old sock put on the business end of the barrel was the preferred solution, although when the picture above was being taken I had removed the sock to preserve my image as a fearless explorer.

We soon discovered that hunting in Frostland is an aactivity every unlike our favourite pastime back in England. Although the game is not skittish, it is scarce that to bag anything at all, one has to search for hours upon hours, wading in knee deep snow. I volunteered, being the adventurous sort (rumours about the existence of a bet are entirely fanciful). We fashioned a string of sturdy kites and soon I found myself dangling from it like a hare in eagle’s talons, staring at the faces of my friends looking up at me, their poorly concealed concern rapidly rising in direct proportion to my altitude. Whipped around by the icy wind, I tried to look for prey while at the same time not looking down, a feat which I found quite impossible.

Upon my happy return to terra firma, I let my friends know in no uncertain terms that while the idea has promise, we are going to need a more stable platform for it to work, and also another volunteer. Until both can be secured, We’ll have to rely more on lowly traps and less on our rifles.

Forbidden fruit.

It deeply saddens me to say that while the design is elegant and highly practical, I cannot recommend implementing it. Hard liquor is the least dangerous among the variety of substances an unscrupulous leader could use to keep the people in check, and this plant is capable of turning out many drugs and stimulants as well.

It is our duty to weigh the benefits for the colony the various chemicals that can be produced in this plant against the mortal danger some of them pose not just to the well-being of the populace, but to their immortal souls!

[a comment in another hand] Remove from official circulation, but do not destroy. Transfer to Proposals under Consideration.

Function above form

We are greatly indebted to the late Mr Henry Heather Bigg, particularly for his seminal book “On artificial limbs, their construction and application” published by the Royal College of Surgeons of Englang. Building upon his work, we were able to restore to the patient most of the lost functionalitym including not only the action of the elbow joint but also that of the wrist in its several motions of pronation, supination, and rotation. The appearance, as can be seen in the drawing above, was deemed secondary.

The motion of the artificial limb is assured by small motors, which use the motive power of the Lamp device, or, when the Lamp is removed, of internal springs that can be wound by locking the elbow joint and bending it repeatedly, for example by leaning on it.

Hellish Kitchen

[…] truth be told, I don’t envy anyone who’d have to work there. The design was supposed to be easy to build with rudimentary tools and materials, while being as comfortable as possible, but Mumford’s team focussed entirely on the former criterion, neglecting the latter. The result is an abject failure: a cramped hovel where the dinners would get frostbitten while the cooks would get burnt, turning meals into a particularly cruel torture. I intend to insist on a redesign that meets all of our requirements.

But I fear thar even in a proper kitchen there will soon be no ingredients nor time to make proper meals, not when hundreds have to be fed every single day. And concerning spices – they’re frowned upon as a waste of precious space on dreadnoughts. It is estimated that the average consumption of salt alone exceeds 10 pounds per capita per annum, which means that in less than a year it will be gone.

My dear, can you imagine life without salt?

Abandoned Fishing Village

[…] The gale hit when we were in the open. It was the strangest blizzard I’ve ever experienced, although I cannot say what made me feel that way, if it was the eerie wailing of the wind or the monstrous dark shapes formed by the billowing snow.

When we finally got to the village longing for a warm welcome, we found only ice and silence. The disappointment was all the more hard to bear since I remembered the fishermen living there so well. They were cheerful, if somewhat coarse folk, hardened by the cold and work at sea; a close- knit community, but friendly to the outsiders nonetheless. We’ve looker for cluse to their disappearance, but found none. Apparently the whole village has moved out, taking everything they could with them and, to our astonishment, locking the doors.

They were good people. I hope they will come back someday.

The tragic loss of Dragonfly.

[…] the chest with the model was waterproof and remained afloat, but the safe containing the blueprints and other documentation presumably sank with the rest of the wreckage at a depth of at least a thousand fathoms.

The cause of the accident is at present unknown, but as it’s exceedingly unlikely that anyone will ever read this report, I wll allow myself the liberty to speculate that it was tither a mechanical failure or pilot error. Contributing factors include weather, inadequate crew training and the experimental nature of the aeroplane.

It was sheer folly on the part of Mr Hawkins to attempt the crossing in a largely untested machine, and utter, criminal madness to let him board it.

Unthinkable theory.

The main objective is establishing and following a set of robust security procedures, and enlisting as needed the help of the technical staff, to protect the scientific members of the expedition from dangers posed by the ferocious Arctic fauna and weather. […]

The follwing part of your mission is considered a state secret. Report all mentions of anthropogenic sulphur aerosols or the term “Saffron Cloud” while doing your best to refute any and all rumours concerning them. Our operatives have failed to uncover any conclusive evidence of the mere existence, much less use of this alleged doomsday weapon. You must not allow such unfounded theories to distract the scientists from finding out the real reasons behind the recent cooling.

My everyday tools.

As a field surgeon I saw my fair share of horrors that required amputations, but nothing could prepare me for the dreadful reality of liveing in this Hel of Norse mythology. Merely trying to survive in such temperatures is like being on a battlefield. Frostbits is as common as a bullet wound and likewise as dangerous.

So it’s not surprising that the tools we received in London could have come straight from my field chest, with emphasis on spend and brutal efficiency. For anesthesia I got a small bottle of ether and a wooden gag. God have mercy on us.

A Utopia for our times

I cannot stop thinking how obscenely wasteful this whole endeavours is. To put such an astonishing amount of materials and so many months of hard work into building this marvel here, where nobody but a handful of selected scientists, financiers and assorted notables can see it – words fail me.

Supposedly they don’t want to get people’s hopes up in case the whole project ends in a fiasco. But I can’t see how such a simple and elegant mechanism could fail. The Generator is the key to our future. Once the concept is provem, we can provide everyone with shelter and basic sustenance, using the vast resources of the Empire. We only need time.

Sir,
I am hereby tendering my resignation from the position of the administrator of Third Colony.
Thank you very much for the opportunity you’ve given me to acquaint myself with the operation of this settlement. Thanks to your inventive scheduling of the deliveries, the usual questions an administrator faces most days weren’t troubling me too long. For example, the answer to “what will my people eat tomorrow?” was often simply “nothing”, and the reply to “how are we going to stay warm?” was “by huddling together”.
I would not presume to know your intentions for cutting our supplies, nor would I second-guess your decision. You must certainly have had your reasons. Nevertheless, Ibelieve I can no longer in godd conscience lead our people when I am not able to answer their questions as to the outlook of our colony to their satisfaction.
I remain your humble and obdient servant.
Frederick Stockton