Eighth Era: Catastrophe

Roughly 10.000 years ago, at the onset of the last Golden Age and triggered by the sudden overwhelming return of the energies, the ongoing violent conflict between the last two remaining Anu escalated.

Before, the God and the Goddess were content to attack each other’s armies and cities with their own human armies, or sometimes with the non-human creatures the Anu had created. At this point, however, they stopped adhering to the rules of the ugly game they had been playing.

Millions of people were wiped out, generation after generation. In their hatred for each other and their paranoia, everyone was the enemy, and no place was safe.

Those among the humans who had been taught by the Serpents of Wisdom, those who were wise and travelled the world, were very in tune with the energies of the world. They sensed that something very bad was about to happen, hundreds of years before it happened.

In preparation, they went to the leaders of their great civilisations, the city states, the technologically advanced, and advised them to prepare for these events. Whether it was the wandering wise or their own sages and mystics bringing them warning, many listened.

In many places across the world, large caverns were dug out deep under great cities or in the mountains, and filled with anything survivors might need. Often, they contained their sacred writings and ancient histories.

In this final age of destruction, the two remaining Anu bombed many of the places that the Anu once built on the surface. Fearing that any leftover Anu technology – or even newly developed human technology – might be used against them, they bombed entire nations back to the stone age.

Several times, they nuked an entire city, causing radiation to poison the area for many years to come. On four or five occasions, they caused extinction level events and killed 90-95% of the human population.

It was no big deal to them.

They were crazy, and paranoid, and at war with each other.

Eventually, the inevitable happened. In their madness, one of the two remaining Anu set off a terrible weapon of mass destruction that nearly ended all life on the planet.

What followed was a cataclysm that shook the Earth and changed it forever.

The cataclysm created a shift in the Earth’s rotational axis. It caused massive climate changes all over the world, and the extinction of many animal and plant species.

In the chain reaction of events that followed, Niagara falls were created, and large deserts emerged in Africa.

As the cataclysm tore through the Earth, something happened that even the Anu did not know was possible.

The powerful explosion, originating from advanced Anu technology that had never before used been for this purpose, fractured the Earth and split her apart.

It created five different worlds, occupying the same space, but phase shifted slightly in such a way that they cannot connect. It was at this time that entire cities, even entire continents, disappeared from the world as we now know it, although stories of them remain.

At the same time, two slivers were shifted away, one a place that is only darkness, the other a fragmented place.

The cataclysm and the fracturing of the Earth that followed also meant the end of the ancient Gods in the world as we know it.

Yahweh and Ashara survived the destruction, but managed to trap themselves in one of the other worlds that were split off.

It is unknown for now what happened to them there, but they were unable to return. Likely, they spent the time since in stasis, if they are still alive.

After a quarter million years, this finally signified the end of the Anu’s direct meddling in the affairs of our world. The Anu were gone, and could not return. It was the final end of the Gods being present on Earth.

The Earth after the cataclysm was in ruins. Much of the surface was inhabitable for human life, the planet’s crust was unstable, and resources were scarce.

What followed was a long period of silence.

Eventually, the dust settled, but for a long time there was no one around to see it. Ecosystems slowly re-balanced, and radiation levels eventually dissipated.

In the aftermath of the cataclysm, many of the ancient cities and monuments were wiped from the face of the Earth. The few that survived were badly damaged, buried under debris, or covered by water when the sea levels rose.

What remained of humanity after the cataclysm had fled into the caves and underground structures, finding sanctuary there.

For many generations, humanity stayed hidden, unsure what had happened on the surface, and unsure where the gods had gone or if they would come back.

In the caves that had survived the cataclysm, the refugees lived for many generations. They taught their children their ancient histories and mythologies, and passed on what technology they had managed to salvage.

Life was hard and resources few, and over time, knowledge of the past started to fade, technology broke down, and civilisation became more primitive.