Atomfall centers around a disaster at the Windscale Nuclear Plant, resulting in a total quarantine of the surrounding area and a complete communications blackout. What seemingly starts as a radiation leak turns out to be much stranger than anything the people of Wyndham could have imagined.
While Atomfall and its story are very much science fiction, the Windscale Nuclear Plant is a real place, and just like in the game there was an accident there in 1957. Here, we’ll explore the actual historical events and how they were adapted for Atomfall.
The Historical Windscale Disaster
The reactors at the Windscale Plant were built in 1950 and 1951 near Seascale Village in Cumberland. While the plant would produce considerable energy, its ultimate purpose was to enrich uranium for the production of nuclear weapons. After the Second World War, the United States stopped sharing many of its secrets with Britain, particularly those related to nuclear energy and weaponry, and the Windscale Plant was one of Britain’s efforts to keep up with the arms race at the start of the Cold War.
The Fire
On October 10, 1957, engineers at Windscale detected strange temperature readings from inside the reactor. Assuming that something had gone wrong with a heat-release process, they turned on the vent fans to help cool the reactor; unfortunately, the anomaly was due to a fire, so the fans only made the situation worse.
As the temperature kept rising and smoke became visible, a crew in radiation suits entered the reactor and discovered the fire, which by that point had been burning for two days. It grew hotter and hotter, burning both magnesium and uranium, as the crew tried several methods – unsuccessfully – to extinguish the flames.
Ultimately, Reactor Manager Tom Tuohy ordered everyone but himself and the fire chief to evacuate, and shut off all air to the reactor, eventually smothering the fire.
The Results
The British Government at first kept the details of the accident secret, with Prime Minister Harold MacMillan heavily redacting the public report. Meanwhile, a 200-mile radius around the Windscale Plant was exposed to radioactive isotopes released into the air, particularly iodone-131 and polonium-210.
The Windscale Disaster is considered the worst nuclear accident in British history.
The Windscale Disaster In Atomfall
This section contains spoilers.
In Atomfall, the Windscale Plant was still built in Cumberland, but near the fictional village of Wyndham rather than Seascale. However, it has a more sinister purpose hidden by the British government.
In the game’s storyline, the Windscale site was originally a blacksite for Axis prisoners of war, used either to contribute to British nuclear research or as slave labor in the nearby slate mine. In 1946, the mines uncovered a meteorite that had landed in the area sometime in the late 16th or early 17th century, which was codenamed Oberon.
Oberon was comprised of a yet-undiscovered element that could accelerate Britain’s materials and energy research, making the United Kingdom the leader in nuclear power; the Windscale Plant was constructed to power a new secret facility dedicated to extracting and studying this “Oberite,” under the guise of providing nuclear energy to the region for purely civilian reasons.
The Oberon Organism
As it turned out, Oberon was hollow, and inside of it was a living extraterrestrial organism; a fungus that could, when processed, expand human consciousness and accelerate learning. However, exposure to the fungus caused people to hear voices, and eventually reduced them to aggressive, animalistic Ferals. The site’s medical team, led by Doctor Alan Holder, began looking for ways to prevent or reverse this process.
The Accident
On October 10, 1957, the fire at the Windscale Plant broke out, causing an explosion that contaminated the surrounding area with spores of the Oberon organism. To limit the spread, the site entered its quarantine protocol, sealing the Windscale Plant and the nearby facility, the Interchange. The British Government immediately sent the military to close off the area, erecting concrete walls to cut off Wyndham and the surrounding countryside from the outside world.
The radiation from the plant and the unknown effects of Oberon caused an interference field, preventing all radio transmissions in or out of the Quarantine Zone, as well as preventing the safe operation of heavy machinery like helicopters.
A military expedition under Captain Grant Sims was deployed to Wyndham to keep the peace under martial law. At the start of the game in 1962, that was the last time anyone on the outside had any news of what had happened inside the walls of the Quarantine Zone.
The Voice In The Soil
Sims did his best to prevent people from being exposed to Oberon, but by the time he arrived many civilians were already hearing – and worshipping – the so-called “Voice In The Soil.” These people, notable by their glowing blue eyes, had been exposed to the Oberon organism and formed a druidic cult in the nearby Casterfell Woods. They see Oberon as a harbinger of global unification as a single entity, though they hardly know anything of its origins.
