Interesting idea. My origional plan (well, it was suggested by someone else a while back actually). Was to have the players sent to retrieve an "item" of unknown type that turns out to be a prominent pre fall scientist who's spent the time since the fall either in stasis as a hibernating infomorph/cyberbrain, running on only the most minimal power, or in cryosleep. Either way he would be located in a secured lab beneath the main research complex to avoid Titan detection and await rescue. The intention is for him to eventually evolve into a main antagonist for the players with the rescue giving them some time to get aquainted with him first. So perhaps the "Ice brain" learns of his existance when the players actions in the area bring them to its attention. It then tries to capture scientists and their ego's for assimilation in one go. However there is the question of how exactly one would manage to build a computer out of ice? It strikes me as a most unsuitable material. Perhaps instead the lack of ice can be explained as a sudden extreme variance in local weather paterns due to the seemingly random nature of the leftover titan weather control nanoswarms. That way, with the weather normalizing again, I could have worsening snowstorms and impending extreme blizzards as an additional source of tention while the players are trying to secure their target item. If they dont succeed in time they will be trapped permenantly on the surface by a blizzard of epic proportions.

I wasn't planning on them having access to that kind of backup, and certanly not Promethean support. Unless the players themselves decide come up with a good plan that revolves around heavy nanotech use. They likely wont though as the players and I have not played many games of EP yet, and they (and myself actually) are still adapting somewhat to a non-D&D mindset. In terms of returning from earth well this is another question. They have [i]some[/i] hypercorp backing though they are recruited into firewall before the mission happens (unbeknownst to the hypercorp). Initally I was going to have them do a high altitude dive and then return via egocast, however that presents some problems in terms of taking the scientist back with them. So I had settled on them using a ship and dodging through a gap in the barrier sensor net instead. See I was set on them landing on earth in the ruins of city, cold and snow everywhere but still recognisable with buildings and things still standing. Very quiet and tense as they carefully explore. A sort of frigid post apocalype landscape.

Ah, see in Sunward it says; "France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Britain-they were all there. Northern Europe tended toward the cold and rainy, while southern Europe was sunny and warm. Now? Sub-arctic. All of it. Temperature's down to around -4C, and you dont even want to know what it drops to at night. Snow drifts [b]50 feet deep[/b]-most of the old buildings that survived the fall are [b]so buired you can't even see them.[/b]" What you describe does seem more realistic though, and I can work with that.