In the last two years it has become increasingly apparent that Korea does not have enough energy - not just because of all the late nights and drinking - but because politicians have been so busy with their own internal power struggles that they failed to plan ahead for the country's power needs. Meanwhile, the public demand for power has been an issue none of them naturally wanted to address.
But on 15th September last year, South Korea's power reserves mysteriously dropped minutes after the Korea Power Exchange (KPX), which is part of the government-owned Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO), took several power plants simultaneously off-line for scheduled maintenance in the middle of a heatwave. As danger levels were breached, KPX made the decision to cut off power to domestic users with a series of rolling blackouts, in order to protect its industrial customers and ensure Hyundai cars kept rolling off the production lines.
However, the intermixing of residential and commercial properties in parts of the grid also meant some businesses were also affected by the unscheduled blackouts, and the situation became more serious than a few thousand people suddenly stuck in elevators without working emergency lights - multiple PC rooms lost power, leaving many people stuck in virtual words - unable to get offline.
The breaking of the link between the online and offline worlds led to an unprecedented ceasefire between the Terrans, the Zerg and the Protoss as the 26th century's three major powers agreed to engage in search and rescue operations for their 21st century operators. But several gamers were reported lost during the blackout, as once the portal to their physical husks in the real world had closed, their online presence became disoriented - sinking so deep into digital space they were unable to find their way back when power was restored.
Specialists from KEPCO attended several major PC rooms and removed the gamers along with their computers, and they are now housed in a special facility near Seoul where it is hoped that one day a way can be found to bring them back to what people have been told to believe is the real world.
According to the online KPX emergency procedures manual, it will take two to three days to partially or fully recover the electricity supply in the event of a total blackout, because it takes this long to raise voltage to the proper level. In order of priority, electricity would be restored first to government offices, followed by military bases, telecommunication facilities, the media and then the subways, as it is important to ensure K-drama broadcasting is restored before people are rescued from being trapped underground. After this, power would be later be restored to residents of high-rise apartments, and then later, people in low-rise apartments who should live somewhere nicer.
In a handwritten note because his computer is turned off to save power - and it runs slowly due to being full of North Korean spyware anyway - 63 year-old Prime Minister Kim asked for “active participation” in the blackout before going on to add something which was undecipherable. But ministers have previously asked for people to stop demanding so much power. Government officials say they are doing their bit for the country by using as little energy as possible.
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