When Perfikot encountered a research bottleneck, the first large-scale snowfall of the year silently arrived in the Northern Territory.
This caught many people by surprise, as when the snow fell, it still should have been deep autumn according to the Northern Territory’s climate.
But for Perfikot and those aware of this doomsday disaster, the snowfall wasn’t particularly surprising; on the contrary, they all felt a pressing urgency.
For the climate had already begun to collapse.
This isn’t hard to understand, even though the global cooling has been persistently decreasing bit by bit, it is not a smooth linear decline.
Rather, it is a parabola, starting with a steady and gradual decline, leading to a cliff-like drop at the point of collapse.
Evidently, now is the time of the cliff-like drop.
With nine years of sustained cooling, the energy of the planet’s surface atmosphere has gradually been depleted, and the original meteorological system has begun to collapse.
Under such circumstances, although the sun outside continues to supply energy to this planet, the increasingly cold weather and, most critically, the collapse of the meteorological system will lead to the emergence of extreme weather, with such occurrences becoming more and more frequent.
Until finally, the whole planet freezes into a block of ice.
For Perfikot, this is certainly bad news, but also good news.
Because it means that the secret she has borne for more than three years can finally be disclosed, and it also means that she and the Empire can finally act openly with the premise of defending against the apocalypse.
This will greatly improve their operational efficiency; at the same time, projects that previously required cover-ups or needed to be cleverly named can now be brought out directly. The rightful source is novel✦fire.net
Under these circumstances, even Perfikot feels much better.
However, alongside the good side, there are also downsides. At least due to this snow, Perfikot’s originally anticipated free time for research has been significantly shortened, forcing her to put her research aside temporarily and return to the pile of clerical work at the Lord’s mansion.
This snowfall has a massive impact on the Northern Territory, as many construction sites and settlements weren’t prepared for winter.
Especially the critically important winter clothing, though Weir and the Witch Workshop have developed synthetic fibers, there is still some way to go before they can be made into fabrics and mass-produced into clothing.
Originally, all of this was meant to be prepared before winter, but no one expected extreme weather to come so quickly.
"Inform Weir to come up with a practical solution in the shortest time possible to make the synthetic fibers into cold-resistant clothing. I don’t care how she does it or what costs are involved; I just want all the citizens of the Northern Territory to have sufficient cold-resistant clothing before the next snowfall." In the Lord’s office, Perfikot gave the order in a cold, unfeeling tone.
At this moment, her expression was severe, like the cold wind and snow outside, sending a chill down the spine.
Perfikot was always serious, but never as frightening as this time.
Her face was almost ashen, and her lips were tightly pressed together, showing that she herself was very tense at this moment.
No one found anything amiss about Perfikot’s attitude; even those who typically had minor complaints about her being too serious were, at this moment, fully absorbed and highly focused on listening to her orders.
This snowstorm disrupted everyone’s arrangements in the Northern Territory and posed the most severe test ever to its entire administrative system.
Even though it has only been a few years since its establishment, the current situation truly tests the crisis management abilities of these civil servants.
"Lord, currently, the food supply in all established settlements remains normal, although some settlements aren’t receiving supplies temporarily due to traffic disruptions. However, the recently deployed compressed biscuit machines have now come into great use, and the residents of these settlements are currently using the compressed biscuits to stave off hunger." An official reported to Perfikot, subtly flattering her in the process.
Upon hearing this, Perfikot showed a hint of satisfaction, but it quickly returned to tension.
She rhythmically tapped her fingers on her desk, and after thinking carefully, she spoke again: "The issue of traffic interruption must be resolved promptly. I don’t want to hear of any settlements facing fuel or food supply problems due to traffic disruptions during this snow disaster."
"Rest assured, we have already mobilized elite teams to restore all interrupted traffic at the earliest possible time. Additionally, we’ve gathered a batch of supplies from the New Continent colony, which will soon be shipped to the port of Beloburg." Another official, responsible for this task, took over and updated Perfikot on the situation: "Currently, we have drawn all available Flying Airships from the Northern Territory and are using these airships to supply all temporarily disconnected settlements.
From the current situation, all areas are relatively stable, and local public sentiment remains calm, with no immediate problems anticipated."