The Great Calamity

*"Humans became too greedy, too selfish, and too stubborn - The Great Calamity was divine retribution for the crimes they have committed."*

"It was said that the humans of the previous age destroyed one another with technology known as "Hydrogen Bombs," which was said to contain the power of a thousand burning suns - not only does it instantaneously obliterate the landscape, but millions of human lives too, all in the blink of an eye. I cannot fathom such power."

## Overview

The Great Calamity was a disastrous and pivotal moment in human history that occurred in the year 2052 AD of the Old Age Calender, which was approximately five hundreds years before the present day (noting that the New Calender begins at 2053 AD). Documentation of the Great Calamity, despite being somewhat choppy, is fairly accurate though information is limited and a full picture is not quite understood. Most accounts are not of government files themselves, but of eyewitnesses from local populations of the world. The largest reserve of texts related to the Great Calamity are located in East Caribbea, and studied by historians extensively. To the knowledge of the people of the New Age, the Great Calamity was essentially a nuclear war between three rival political powers referred to as the Western, Southern, and Eastern world, with the Western World encompassing what was known as North America and Europe, the Eastern world of China, Russia, and India, and the Southern World of most of Africa and parts of South America. The reasons for the war are clearly due to political competition, as each of these powers had similar economic and manufacturing potential and each were in an arms race to surpass one another. However, the cause of the war was fairly unique, as it is believed that a small, obscure terrorist group known as the "Caos Negra" located in South America was responsible for creating their own Hydrogen weapon, launching it towards The United States and China, which created a diplomatic crisis that ultimately resulted in a barrage of Hydrogen Bombs to be launched to all corners of the Earth. It is during these days of chaos which documentation is most limited, but it can be fairly inferred that as the bombs landed they caused immense destruction and caused at least 99% of the world population to perish within a week. The world was said to be simultaneously in a mass panic, and yet also reserved understanding of their immediate fate. Many prayed, many embraced their families, and many others simply laid down onto the road and stared upward into the skies emptily. All metropolitan cities were reduced to ruins and rubble, and most of the countryside was also completely torn apart due to the immense blast radius of the bombs. Even the natural ecosystems could not withstand the bombs, and it was said that entire grasslands and mountains were reduced to ashes and desert, due to the destructive power of the bombs. Some records indicate that the bombings were able to completely devastate 80% of the world's surface area, causing massive ecological damage which to this day has not recovered - an example of this would be "The Unending Wastes," which supposedly is a vast desert that encompasses practically all of Africa, Europe, and Asia, due to the fact they suffered by far the most concentration of bombs. North America, particularly in the area of the United States, received relatively lighter damage and the ecosystem managed to recover within a few hundred years for the most part. Central America, alongside the north portions of South America, were spared from the bombings due to the fact that they were neutral parties in the war, Hence they contained the largest portion of surviving populations, where most other parts of the world were completely decimated with no survivors.

After the bombs were launched, the survivors of the human population were said to have attempted small scale looting and farming in order to potentially survive the aftermath of the bombings, but it is said that most groups died out within a year. Raiding was commonplace, and surviving human populations turned to savage barbarism in order to ensure the best chance of survival for themselves, stealing and killing from each other. However, this mostly occurred in Europe, Asia, and Africa and cooperation was more the story in other places. A global cooling event occurred, which made growing crops difficult, and many animals and plants were also depleted due to the bombings. Some records state that black clouds covered the entire skies for the entirety of day and night,and sunlight never reached the Earth for years. Coupled with the entire land destroyed, Earth looked no different from the Underworld itself. Of the 1% that survived the initial bombings, only another 25% of them were able to survive another year, and most of them were from Central and South America. Of all the entire populations in Europe, Africa, and Asia, it is said that less than one million of them were able to make it across the seas and settle in Central or South America, which is why their populations are notably lower in the present day. For most historians, the Great Calamity consists only of the event itself, and its fifty year aftermath is its own separate time period, known as the Ash Age, where humans struggled to survive even in Latin and South America, suffering famines, disease, and radiation poisoning but slowly building up stable communities through much toil. It is only in the year 75 AC that most of the impacts of the Great Calamity had faded away, and that societies could properly move forward, despite its small populations - it is said that humanity's population at its lowest dropped down to just twelve million in the year 15 AC, mostly in South America, due to immediate effects of nuclear winter and issues with resource optimization for a while.