Geo Descent Labs - The story so far
Terra Swoop Force • Monsters of the Deep • Monsters from the Ice
Warning - This article contains spoilers for Terra Swoop Force, Monsters of the Deep and Monsters from the Ice. Please play the maps first if you want to experience the story for yourself!
Way back in 2016, Noxcrew released Terra Swoop Force, a game-changing map for both the Noxcrew and the wider Minecraft community, showing off the incredible technical feats that Minecraft could accomplish but in our own Noxcrew way.
For those unaware of Terra Swoop Force and its story, here’s a quick recap. The Player becomes a member of Terra Swoop Force (TSF), an elite team of the Geo Descent Labs (GDL). They’re tasked by head scientist Dr Sir Mrs Alan Columbus III and his assistant Sasha, with recovering a drill at the centre of the Earth that the team lost contact with over 30 years ago, losing two of its brightest scientists, Dr Barney and Dr Minnowski, in the process.
To complete this mission, they receive a special suit, the Thermal Flight Armour 1541, made from a material called Noxesium that will protect the team from the intense heat and pressure of the Earth’s core. The team travels through the Earth, following the path that the drill made on its initial descent. When they finally reach the centre of the Earth, they find the drill intact and still semi-functional, though battered and broken. To their surprise, Dr Barney is still alive, having survived by eating pages from ‘Dr. Wulf’s Motivational Speeches.’ Minnowski is now a skeleton, Barney seemingly unaware of his colleague’s demise.
Driven mad by years of starvation and isolation, Barney believes that tunnel pirates are stealing slices of the Earth’s core to eat, so he and Minnowski built a cannon on the side of the drill. Barney tricks the team into handing over one of their suits and fires himself out of the cannon, killing himself in an attempt to eat the Earth’s core. This desperate act sets off a chain reaction that leads to the core exploding, plunging the world into a frozen apocalypse. The fate of the Terra Swoop Force, GDL, Alan and Sasha are unknown.
Ever since its release, we have been inundated with requests for a Terra Swoop Force sequel. At time of writing, I’m afraid the answer remains the same: there is no planned sequel to Terra Swoop Force.
Rather than looking forward to what happened after the end of the world, we want to look back. To examine the perfect storm of events and try to piece together a story. A story that led GDL to create Terra Swoop Force; that led to Barney getting his starving hands on the suit, that led to the end of everything.
In May 2018 we released our first prequel: Monsters of the Deep.
Set before the events of Terra Swoop Force, GDL is running a research facility somewhere deep under the ocean. The base is under attack from various aquatic creatures that have damaged three of their remote generators — disrupting power to the base. Alan recruits a new engineer to defeat the monsters and restore power, giving them a GDL scuba suit and a trident, which allows the engineer to move swiftly underwater, and sends them on their way.
The engineer defeats the Shipwreck Shark, the BigClaw Crab, the Sea Dragon, and restores power to the facility. Exploring the base, the engineer discovers a memorial for Barney and Minnowski, the GDL staff still mourning the tragic disappearance (and assumed loss) of their colleagues.
With the power fully restored, Alan takes the engineer to the real reason for the facilities construction: the laser drill. Alan once visited a fortune teller at a renaissance fair, who told him that he would find a new material deep under the ocean. So naturally, he dedicated all of GDL’s resources to exploring the depths and finding this new material. They had tried to power up the drill previously, but the monsters shut it down and prevented further exploration.
As the drill burns through the rock, Alan excitedly announces the drill as a masterpiece destined to bring him the wealth that had been prophesied. However, the laser hits a material that it cannot destroy and begins to overheat. Alan panics but manages to cut the power and shut down the drill.
The drill has revealed a new material, capable of withstanding the highest temperatures known to man. Alan considers that if they could make it light enough, they could finally have a safe way of travelling to the centre of the Earth. He leaves the engineer to enjoy the facilities, eager to begin experimenting.
And now, we pick up the story once more with our most recent prequel: Monsters from the Ice.
Alan and Sasha have come to the frozen wastes on an expedition ‘for the betterment of mankind’! Alan’s colleague/rival, Ivan de Gamma, once ran a methane gathering and research facility in the area. But the lab has gone dark, and there has been no word from Ivan or Ivan’s Drill Corp (IDC) about what’s gone wrong.
GDL, sensing an opportunity, recruits an explorer to descend into the depths of the arctic landscape and repower the facility so that they can harness the power for themselves. And find out what happened to Ivan and the IDC, of course.
As the explorer journeys through the IDC facility to turn on the generators, battling through the dangerous wildlife, they start facing strange worms that have infected the poor IDC scientists and turned them into horrific zombies! They also find evidence of a giant creature moving in the ice, which has wreaked havoc on the outer portions of the facility and seem to be connected to these ghastly worms.
As the facility starts to power up, revealing more and more of IDC’s research, Alan braves the cold and makes his way to the IDC base only to be kidnapped in the storm by a terrifying beast. Sasha urges the explorer to brave the trek up the mountain, with the help of a snowmobile, to rescue him.
They soon discover that Alan wasn’t kidnapped at random, but was taken by Ivan who had transformed into a terrifying were-yeti and now leads a tribe of yeti high up in the mountains. Ivan believes, correctly, that Alan is here to steal his research and demands that he leaves his mountain.
Alan offers a trial by combat. If Alan wins, he gains ownership of the IDC facility and all of Ivan’s research. If Ivan wins, Alan will admit that Ivan is the better scientist and leave. Ivan agrees, and Alan offers the explorer as his champion. The pair fight and Ivan is slain, giving Alan control of the mountain and all of IDC’s technology.
Returning to the facility, Alan discovers that the last generator is behind a security door that requires two people to unlock. Frustrated by Ivan’s ‘absurd’ precautions, he orders the explorer to help him open it then turn on the generator to get the facility in full working order.
They find the tunnel devastated by the massive creature they’ve glimpsed previously and overrun with worms and zombies. While they battle through towards the generator, Alan finally looks through Ivan’s research and learns about a creature called Drugar, which should have been contained in that portion of the facility, but appears to have broken loose, causing a complete shutdown of that wing to hold him. But now, with the doors open, Drugar is free.
The explorer activates the generator, fully powering the facility but comes face to face with Drugar, a giant frost worm, bent on destroying the facility and ruining Alan’s plans. A fight ensues, with Drugar being seemingly invulnerable, save for several growths on his neck. After a long fought battle, the explorer triumphs, but thanks to all the chaos, the containment wing starts to collapse, forcing them to flee.
They manage to escape and re-contain that part of the facility, safely returning to Alan and Sasha. However, despite the facility now being back under control and fully powered, the destruction of the containment wing released tonnes of methane gas into the atmosphere, predicted to alter the planet’s atmosphere drastically and caused significant flooding throughout the world. But look on the bright side, there’s a new renaissance fair coming to town, and it sounds like they have a fortune teller…
Such is the current timeline of Alan, Sasha, and the scientists of the Geo Decent Labs, from a frozen facility to depths of the ocean, to an icy apocalypse.
Who knows where the past will take us next, what questions will be answered, what new lands we will explore.
All we know is that digging into the past is not of the past.
It’s of the future.