Chapter Text
In the middle of Savanna Central, a temporary stage had been set up, and a huge crowd was watching intently. The cameras of reporters and civilians focused intently on the stage, where Mayor Baribal stood in front of a giant projection screen. The mayor, flanked by two wolf police officers, was about to announce the groundbreaking plan she had been building towards her entire political career. She cleared her throat and, after the crowd quieted down, finally began to speak.
"The Weather Walls, invented by our founder Ebenezer Lynxley, have served Zootopia well for nearly a century — but they take such an immense amount of Zootopia's energy production to run that they place a cap on how many households the city can support. To power the Walls, natural gas has to be shipped in from the northern reaches of Darwinia, wasting further resources in the process."
The projection screen displayed a diagram of Zootopia with the Weather Wall infrastructure highlighted. Motion graphics displayed statistics for the energy wasted through its historical inefficient design.
"Rather than continuing this wasteful enterprise, as well as enforcing segregation simply due to our biological needs, my vision is to create a world where Anyone can live Anywhere. This is why I am proud to announce... The Kaleidoscope Project."
Mayor Baribal pressed a remote, advancing the presentation. The infrastructure on the city diagram disappeared. The walls themselves remained, but they now lacked heat vents. "We will be winding down operations of the Weather Walls over the next decade in favor of smaller, greener solutions." Gasps and murmuring from the crowd. The mayor, anticipating this reaction, kept calm and pressed the remote, displaying schematics of a tanktop-like article of clothing next to the map. "The Biometric Temperature Regulator is a garment that—"
"You'll destroy Tundratown! You can't do this!!" a reindeer in the crowd yelled out in anger.
The mayor addressed the concerned. "The case of Tundratown is of top priority. We are currently developing a concrete serum that, upon injection, is able to fully replace pykrete within a wee—"
"Why not use solar or wind to power the walls?" asked a polar bear. An arctic fox yelped "You're not injecting my building with cement! I refuse to allow it!"
The mayor's calm facade began to falter a bit, clearly out of touch with Tundratown's residents. "Please, one at a time—"
The crowd lost it. Chionophiles and their allies alike were up in arms over the implied destruction that would occur to Tundratown's decades-old architecture, which was almost entirely made from a sawdust-reinforced ice compound called pykrete. The subsequent fallout was immense; news stations and papers alike ran headlines such as "MAYOR MELTS TUNDRATOWN" or "SPRINGTIME FOR TUNDRATOWN?" People had warmed up to Evolville and quickly took to its cutting-edge amenities, but this... this was too radical. Particularly in the eyes of a certain lynx with a lot of stake in those walls.
The Lynxleys, from their luxurious mansion in Tundratown, sat and watched a recording of ZNN's broadcast of the mayor's announcement. Milton Lynxley's claw dug into the fabric of the couch's arm and slowly dragged out a long, ragged tear. Mayor Baribal had just declared war.