May/June 2024 Challenge: Ullvi–Vikhus exclusion zone

[lurkjay]

Palette no. 3 with no adjustments (for now).

After a scientific experiment went way wrong, several dozen square kilometres of western Sweden became uninhabitable. The dangerous area has been cordoned off, but this hasn’t quite solved the problem — every now and then the exclusion zone releases anomalies that need to be dealt with. They can be destroyed simply by dropping chaff into them until they dissipate, but this is easier said than done because the anomalies are hard to spot visually, can move pretty fast and change directions unpredictably.

There’s a chain of specialised radar stations running along the Baltic coasts from Finland to Denmark (as well as a few stations in Sweden itself). Norway is protected by mountains, Germany contributes aircraft but relies on Danish tracking, and Canada is so far away the anomalies dissipate over the sea before hitting anything. This screen shows a general overview of the area (more detailed displays are available to guide aircraft to individual anomalies). The northernmost, crossed out anomaly has been claimed by Sweden and is either under attack or soon to be attacked. (The square inside one of the other markers is simply the radar operator’s cursor.)

The presence of supernatural-ish stuff is evidently not the only way this timeline differs from ours — the Soviet Union either doesn’t exist or failed to occupy the Baltics as the texts on the screen, despite the year being 1976, are in Estonian rather than Russian.

Greetz/blame goes to Arkady & Boris Strugatsky and Simon Stålenhag.

### Latest WIP ###
ulvi-vikhus-exclusion-zone-wip-2024-06-20-16-13.png

[lurkjay]

…and by western Sweden I obviously meant eastern Sweden, the side of the country where they keep their Stockholms and sea coasts and stuff like that.

I think I’m done, can’t think of anything I could change. I tried adding a slight fisheye effect to the screen but this didn’t really improve things.

### Latest WIP ###
ullvi-vikhus-exclusion-zone-2024-06-24-07-02.png

[Tiana]

I like the addition of the frame!

[Ink_alpinist]

Such a cool ideia and design!