Fascinated by Liu Cixin’s work, Isaac takes inspiration from both The Three Body Problem (2008) and The Wandering Earth (2000), where the former defines the overall cadence and objective of this reality, while the latter presents a solution to the objective.
All players form a civilization that resides on Ev, an endangered planet, which is situated in a trisolar system - a solar system with three suns: Böyük, Orta, and Balaca. The planet is susceptible to crashing into suns, upon which the civilization is annihilated.
All players must collaborate to build factory pipelines and power grids to transform natural resources into various devices and, ultimately, into Nuclear Driller & Propulsion Engine (NDPE). NDPE, mounted on the ground, drills the planet and propels the mass upward (along surface normal) with the energy generated from nuclear fission, providing a reverse impulse to the planet, changing its orbit.
Players must position their NDPEs and time the launch strategically, with respect to planet rotation and relative position to the suns, to either (1) change orbit strategically, or (2) escape the trisolar system by driving the planet to escape velocity along a safe escape route.
The thinking of imposing a macro pace - the cadence of approaching extinction events - that shape the experience of player coordination is heavily inspired by Scavengers (2021), elaborated in this essay.