A city in only the loosest sense of the word, Port-aux-Français and its several hundred semi-permanent residents live a melancholy existence on frigid foggy shores at the edge of the world. While the claim on the territory by the French has existed for centuries, with the place occasionally being visited by whalers and scientists, it took the scramble for Antarctica in the 50s for anything resembling civilization to take root on the Kerguelen islands. Hastily assembled on behalf of the Germans as a transit point in their conquest of Neuschwabenland, a flurry of activity and investment turned the rocky islands into a functional military base, complete with an airstrip and harbor.

Manned primarily by the French with a small German garrison, life has changed little for the residents of Port-aux-Français. Struggling to hold together a fracturing empire, Paris has put only the bare minimum investment into the base to maintain their role as a glorified, though essential, supply depot for Neuschwabenland. Attempts have been made to make the residents feel at home, from the concrete chapel of Notre-Dame des Vents to the ramshackle local pâtisserie, though none are truly successful. Barbed wire and fortifications litter the coast, but few hold anything more than penguin droppings these days. Chances of invasion are remote, and the weather worn German garrison has diminished in the wake of redeployments to more crucial theatres.

It would seem the only people not miserable in this darkened land, are the small group of civilians seeking their fortune in the whaling industry or the burgeoning field of oceanography, most prominent among them filmmaker and adventurer Jacques Cousteau. However, even the magic of film cannot obscure the misery of Port-aux-Français, proving Jacques was wise to focus his attention on seals and penguins rather than their human neighbors.