| “ | It's gonna be a long, cold war. | ” |
| — Layton at the beginning of the war in The Time of Two Engines | ||
The Snowpiercer-Big Alice War was a war between Wilford Industries two trains as Joseph Wilford successfully fought to take control of Snowpiercer with the help of his various supporters.
History[]
Shortly after the victory in the First Snowpiercer War, the supply train Big Alice arrived while Snowpiercer approached its starting point of Chicago. Believing that they desperately needed the supplies on Big Alice, Bennett Knox hid its arrival from Melanie Cavill who knew that the train likely contained the real Mr. Wilford who would want Snowpiercer back. Despite an attempt to outrun Big Alice, the other train latched onto Snowpiercer hacked into its systems and began bringing it to a stop. Melanie headed outside in an effort to break Wilford's control over Snowpiercer, but was thrown from the train when Wilford shut down its systems and brought it to a halt in the middle of Chicago.
Cutting into the tail of Snowpiercer, Alexandra "Alex" Cavill, Melanie's believed-dead daughter, emerged to demand Snowpiercer's surrender on Wilford's behalf. The passengers reluctantly provided Big Alice with a list of items demanded by Wilford while Melanie, after recovering from her fall, used a small axe to cut Wilford's uplink into Snowpiercer's systems, restoring system control to the Engine. However, Melanie had drained Snowpiercer's batteries too much trying to outrun Big Alice, meaning that Snowpiercer could never move on its own again. Melanie planted a bomb on the connecting mechanism of Big Alice and before boarding the other train, noticed that it was snowing outside despite the planet being too cold for snow.
Onboard Big Alice, Wilford demanded that Melanie surrender Snowpiercer to him, but she refused as it was now Andre Layton's train. On Snowpiercer, Layton had the rebel army set up a border in the Tail and reluctantly declared martial law. Layton authorized Ruth Wardell to work on diplomacy, but later led a failed incursion into Big Alice to rescue Melanie, capturing Kevin as a hostage. In retaliation, Wilford stopped the trains and attempted to disconnect from Snowpiercer, leave the passengers to die and then return to retrieve the train afterwards. However, the bomb that Melanie had planted earlier destroyed Big Alice's connecting mechanism as Wilford had overbuilt it, something that Melanie had warned him about before. As a result, Snowpiercer and Big Alice were left permanently connected. With no other choice, Wilford reluctantly started the trains moving again.
Wilford warned Melanie that even with the trains still linked, they could slow down and choke off Snowpiercer's power supply and ecosystems which Melanie pointed out will also negatively effect Big Alice. Wilford explained that Big Alice had been through some tough times and the crew was used to living below zero so they would survive, but Melanie is undeterred. On Snowpiercer, Layton and Roche interrogated Kevin using the promise of fresh food and learn from him that there was around a hundred people on Big Alice and that they were hungry, having no fresh food, just canned stuff. Wilford later traded Melanie for Kevin and subsequently compelled Kevin into committing suicide for betraying information about him.
At the same time, Bess Till, promoted to Train Detective by Layton, investigated an attack on Lights in which two of her fingers were brutally amputated with an axe. Till later realized that Lights' fingers were severed in such a way as to mimic the W for Wilford that Wilford and his supporters flashed as a salute. Till and Roche came to believe that the Breachmen, fiercely loyal to Wilford, were responsible. However, Bojan Boscovic insisted that he at least had nothing to do with it despite his loyalty to Wilford.
Upon her return to Snowpiercer, Melanie revealed her discovery, although Alex had destroyed her snow sample. Melanie believed that it meant that CW-7 was breaking up in the atmosphere and falling to Earth, meaning that the planet was warming and could potentially be recolonized in their lifetime rather than in a thousand years as all of their previous climate models had predicted. Javi launched a weather balloon into the upper atmosphere which proved that temperatures were rising. Needing supplies from Big Alice, Melanie and Layton invited Wilford to a scientific summit in First Class Dining where Melanie revealed to the population of both trains their discovery. Wilford's scientists, the Headwoods, confirmed that Melanie's theory was in fact possible and she proposed a plan to use a research station in the Rocky Mountains to study the climate change and hopefully find a place that they could recolonize. This would require Melanie going for a month to man the station and in exchange, Wilford agreed to cease hostilities between the two trains. As he left, Wilford called off Alex's planned assassination attempt on Layton.
After the summit, the two trains began negotiating and trading with Layton offering food in exchange for the much-needed supplies to repair Snowpiercer. After a harrowing journey on the stretch of track known as Neckbreaker, Melanie departed for the research station, having bonded somewhat with Alex and reassured her that if Alex chose, she had people on Snowpiercer that she could rely on. During this time, Wilford had the Headwoods work on lowering the temperature that Icy Bob could survive at, warning them to expect to have maybe half of the month to succeed in his request.
Three days after Melanie's departure, Wilford offered to have the Headwoods treat Snowpiercer's frostbite patients, of which there were 14, including Josie, the rest being from the failed incursion into Big Alice. Layton became suspicious of the nature of the offer due to Josie's condition and suspected that Wilford had someone passing him that information. Layton ultimately accepted the offer and in turn invited Wilford and some of his crew to a night out on Snowpiercer. However, Josie's condition was such that the Headwoods determined that she needed a more dedicated treatment on Big Alice which Josie accepted, both because it was her only chance of recovery and in the hopes of finding out some useful information while on the other train. Wilford, Sykes, Alex, Oiler Bob, Emilia and another passenger enjoyed a night out in the Nightcar while Wilford reconnected with Miss Audrey, his former paramour. Emilia bonded with Murray, both having previously believed themselves to be the last Australian while Alex and LJ Folger bonded. Snowpiercer launched the first of its weather balloons and after a tense moment when it reached the correct height, Melanie made contact, proving that she had in fact survived her journey to the research station. However, the crew lost contact with Melanie after launching the last balloon, leading to fears that she had perished.
As time went on, the situation on Snowpiercer began to spiral out of control due to the actions of Wilford loyalists. Things got worse when Miss Audrey defected completely to Wilford's side and the Breachmen, aside from Bojan Boscovic, were assassinated by Wilford loyalists which looked to the rest of the train like retaliation for the attack on Lights. At the same time, Layton had Terence assassinated by Pike for threatening Josie. Till managed to identify Eugenia as the murderer of Cherry Sherry and Pastor Logan as the mastermind behind the attacks, but Pastor Logan committed suicide after getting caught. People all throughout the train signaled to Wilford using red lanterns and Wilford had Icy Bob prepared.
On Wilford's orders, Icy Bob sabotaged Snowpiercer's port intakes, but the cold proved to be too much for even Icy Bob to survive unprotected. Healed of her injuries, Josie discovered that she had developed a cold resistance similar to Icy Bob as a result of the Headwoods treatment while rumors surfaced that the surviving Jackboots had rebuilt a command. After removing a railroad spike from the water intake, Boki realized that Wilford was in fact responsible for the events and switched sides completely to Layton. Due to damage to Snowpiercer's God module from the sabotage, Layton was forced to allow Wilford back onboard in order to fix the problem, but Melanie's modifications forced him to allow Wilford to orchestrate a manual restart of the Engine in order to fix the problem. With Snowpiercer now on Wilford's side, Layton lost control of the train and was arrested by the once again active Jackboots while Roche and his family were put into the Drawers on Big Alice.
After taking control of Snowpiercer, Wilford had a census performed which Alex, now completely disillusioned from Wilford, revealed was intended to help him cull the train's population in order to save on resources as Wilford had done with half of the crew on Big Alice following the Freeze. Wilford opened a carnival on Snowpiercer while Layton was forced to work in Compost on Big Alice and Josie's new abilities were tested by the Headwoods. Having learned that Snowpiercer had lost contact with Melanie, Wilford used it as an excuse not to go back for her. After Ruth refused to announce this to the trains, Wilford had her sent to Compost with Layton. However, Javi, now working under guard in Big Alice's Engine, received a radio message from Melanie that he hid from Wilford and managed to send a note letting Layton and Ruth know.
Working together, Layton and Ruth were able to kill their guard and escape and found Alex who directed them to a secret entrance into Big Alice's Engine. As Alex distracted Wilford, Layton and Ruth killed two Jackboots and helped Javi take control of the Engine and coordinate with Bennett to go back for Melanie. Bennett was able to overpower and capture Sykes while Layton and Ruth were smuggled back aboard Snowpiercer. However, LJ Folger saw through Alex's deception and warned Wilford. Wilford and the Jackboots managed to break into Big Alice's Engine and Javi was mauled by Jupiter. Wilford overpowered Bennett's efforts to stop the train, leaving Melanie behind at the side of the tracks. Wounding Wilford, Alex managed to escape to Snowpiercer through the subtrain.
Linking up with Layton and Boki, Alex proposed separating the first ten cars of Snowpiercer at The Aquarium, in effect creating a separate Pirate Train, in order to go after Melanie and her data and resist Wilford outside of his influence. Boki confirmed that Big Alice would be able to handle powering all of the remaining cars, but it would hobble Wilford while leaving Layton's crew with a smaller, faster train to evade him with. Having captured Miss Audrey, Layton decided to take her along as a hostage due to her importance to Wilford while Zarah chose to remain behind due to the danger to her and Layton's baby. Wilford sent Josie to breach Snowpiercer's Engine so that he could retake control of the train completely, but Bennett made radio contact with Josie and redirected her to the Aquarium. An attempt by Boki to disconnect the cars was interrupted by a Jackboot attack while Wilford realized what Layton was up to. On Bennett's orders, Josie breached the Aquarium, destroying the entire car and apparently killing Boki and the Jackboots still in the subtrain but separating the first ten cars of Snowpiercer from the rest of the train. However, Ruth was left behind after being delayed from reaching the others in time by Kevin and leaving Layton with Bennett, Josie, Till, Alex and the captive Audrey and Sykes as his crew.