An armored warrior walks through a snowy, desolate city under a full moon, with ruined skyscrapers in the foggy background and graffiti on a nearby building.

By September–October 2048, the Martian-Russian Winter Virus (M-RWV) had reduced humanity to a scattered, traumatized remnant struggling against extinction. The pathogen was extraterrestrial in origin, estimated to be approximately two million years old, originating from a frozen subsurface lake beneath Mars’ Planum Boreum. An ancient asteroid impact ejected viral spores into space, and a fraction of these eventually reached Earth, embedding themselves in the Siberian permafrost where they remained dormant for roughly two thousand years. On 1 January 2040, Dr. Vladimir Chekov recovered the virus from the permafrost, unknowingly initiating the collapse of global civilization and becoming Patient Zero. M-RWV spread with extreme efficiency through bites and aerosolized infected air. Once active, the virus mutated rapidly and thrived in cold environments, accelerating global collapse as planetary temperatures dropped. Satellites fell from orbit, infrastructure failed, and centralized governments disintegrated. Eastern Europe collapsed within the first month, major Asian nations followed by month two, and the United States reported widespread infection by month four. Within twelve months, half of the world’s population was infected. Over subsequent years, continued mutation produced increasingly aggressive infected forms, reinforced exoskeletons, and resistance to conventional weapons, rendering survival localized, violent, and profoundly uncertain. The virus manifested in three Mehr sehen