When energy was abundant and uranium was incredibly easy to extract, no one was willing to spend the massive amounts of money and effort required to research controllable nuclear fusion, even though they knew it might be necessary in the distant future.
By the time energy grew scarce and their entire economic foundation teetered on the brink of collapse, the Nix Civilization suddenly realized that controllable nuclear fusion was still hopelessly out of reach. In fact, they hadn't made any real progress at all!
The project required an astronomical amount of energy and capital, far beyond what their stagnant civilization could bear. Even if the entire world pooled its remaining resources, the project simply couldn't be completed in time. What could they do?
It was a paradox! An impossible mission!
