Ruins of Kedon

An environmental concept art for the game "Armour of the Wastes" game that I'm working on.

Kedon is a major industrial metropolis on the planet and nation of Aststoke. When engaged in a war with the "Outsiders", the tide and momentum turned against Aststoke and it was apparent that the Aststoke forces were losing ground and in retreat. It would be in a matter of time until the Outsiders were upon the home planet itself. When the time came for battle, the Aststoke fleets failed to defend their world, as had happened so many times before in so many different locations. Enormous ships crashed to the surface of Aststoke, many in cities, killing thousands and demoralizing the populace. But just as the Outsiders aligned their fleet and charged their particle weapons, the atmosphere was filled with a deafening sound, and the sky became an impossibly vibrant shade of blue. The Aststoke scientists had activated their emitter in desperation and formed a single, planet-wide shield. They announced their decision to their superiors, who in turn prepared a speech to the press of Aststoke while the Outsiders furiously attempted to penetrate the shield with a variety of weapons, to no avail. A great cheer arose from the assembled crowd upon the news of the activation; certainly, they had all been saved from certain death.

Or so they thought. The scientists in their desperation had not thought the plan all the way through -- shield technology traditionally cut heat off from the object inside of it, and without the sun's rays able to penetrate the shield, Aststoke's climate began to shift dramatically in the course of only a few months as flora and fauna slowly withered and died to the extreme cold and permafrost that developed across the world. OUTSIDER ships hung back in orbit, circling the world in case the shield were to suddenly drop, and leaving the government unable to turn off the shield for fear of annihilation. The populace began to dig shelters to last out the siege, but by the time these shelters were underway it was already too late for most of the populace -- the climate was freezing faster than anyone had predicted, and most shelters were only half complete by the time their founders collapsed from starvation or hypothermia. Those responsible for maintaining the shield array had killed the desperate rebels who assaulted their position, believing it better to take their chances under the shield than face certain annihiliation from the Outsider ships above. Some individuals managed to survive in their shelters, but would perish decades or even a century after due to their food stores finally running out or isolation from a geneticaly viable population. After failed attempts to break the shield and with the climate remaining frozen, the population of Aststoke soon perished.

Aststoke has been written off as a ghost world, a curiosity of the galaxy and a relic of war. But as of 2485, the shield has finally gone down. Nobody knows why. Nobody knows how. But there's a lot of resources waiting to be picked up on the frozen wasteland, and it's very close to the Kalonian sphere of influence...

In this environmental art, Kalonian expeditionary forces are trekking/ scouting through the recently opened frozen world with the abandoned industrial metropolis of Kedon.