The Chernobyl Anomalous Zone (AKA "The Zone")

What is ultimately known as "The Zone" began its life as the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and its surrounding region, including the nearby city of Pripyat. The power plant began construction in 1972, with assembly of Reactor Four finishing in 1983. Reactors Five and Six would never be commissioned prior to April 26, 1986 - an event that would be known as the largest nuclear disaster in history.

A dumbed down of the disaster is the following: Power plants like the CNPP had three emergency diesel generators as backup. A test by an under-trained nighttime reactor crew  reduced the reactor output to 700 Megawatt was meant to simulate a blackout and to test to see if this was sufficient to power the cooling systems until the diesel generators could kick in. However, a buildup in Xenon gas caused the power output to drop below the desired figure. The RMBK reactors of the period were notoriously unstable when operating at low power, but running it as such was not technically against regulations.

As the reactor crew tried to maintain a delicate balance between cooling the reactor and powering it, things slowly got more and more out of hand. The explosion occurred when after several desperate corrections, the side controlling the graphite-tipped control rods noticed that things were going wrong, and put too many control back into the reactor all at once, triggering the disaster. The end result was a detonation similar to a boiler explosion, blowing off the top of the containment vessel as well as the plant roof. News was slow to come out, but when it did, all nuclear power production halted.

A 30 kilometer Exclusion Zone was set up around the CNPP, and the region was evacuated as a haphazard containment structure (The Sarcophagus) was built around the remains of Reactor Four. The remaining reactors were cautiously decommissioned, with the plant fully closing down in 2000.

When did the Zone as it exists now start? March 4, 2006. A phenomena of blinding light illuminates the sky high above the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The incident lasted two full hours before subsiding, with witnesses saying that it disappeared as if power suddenly failed. The phenomena repeated a month later, with the skies illuminated by an intolerably bright light. However, the clouds rapidly evaporate. This is followed by a tremendous thunderous crash, lasting far longer than normal. After the thunder fades, there was an ominous silence, followed by a 6.9 magnitude earthquake. The glow in the sky continues, spreading over the entire region, while deadly energy disturbances raged through the Zone, making any rescue effort impossible.

Subsequent investigation turned up the fact concluded that the center of the explosion was at least one kilometer away from the CNPP, and was caused by the nuclear fuel dump going up in flames. This became known as "the Second Disaster". The Zone expanded five kilometers two months later, and this is where the signs of the first "Anomalies" began to be reported - areas were the laws of science were defied outright. The military that manned the perimeter of the newly named "Chernobyl Anomalous Zone" had almost completely perished. In an attempt to contain the phenomenon, a military unit was dispatched to detonate a nuclear weapon at the center.

The expedition was horribly unprepared for the unique dangers the new Zone presented, with anomalies killing most of the ground team, and the few troops that reached the CNPP killed by a psychic emission less dangerous than the last one. Most subsequent expeditions ended in tragedy, with the few survivors reporting mutated animals with unusual abilities in the region. In 2010, an unauthorized camp was found in the Zone, and word began to spread upon the possibility of habitation in the Chernobyl Anomalous Zone, itself now a 60 kilometer No Man's Land. The very first "Artifacts" appeared around this time.

With news of the possibility to survive in the Zone leaked, several individuals ranging from amateur researchers, marauders, poachers, scavengers, looters, and adventurers begin to make their way to the Zone. Tearing a page from the novel Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers, the illegal trespassers into the Chernobyl Anomalous Zone were pegged with the moniker of "Stalkers".

Everything about the Chernobyl Anomalous Zone is a threat to the average traveler, from the mutants that wander it, to entire fields of anomalies, to bandits and opportunists preying upon others. Given relative lawlessness within the Zone's borders, the area is a popular stop for black market trading and criminals on the run from the law.