Star Wormwood, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Backstory

Note:  Before you read below and assume I’ve gone completely batshit insane and have joined the ranks of those predicting the end of the world in 2012, I want to warn you that this is all backstory for the game I’m working on.  I’m still crazy, but the following is just one possible explanation I will be including as to what causes the incredible conditions of the game world.  I will explain more in a near future post.

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“On the 17th of June, around 9 in the AM, we observed an unusual natural occurrence. In the N Karelinski village (200 verst N of Kirensk) the peasants saw to the North-West, rather high above the horizon, some strangely bright (impossible to look at) bluish-white heavenly body, which for 10 minutes moved downwards. The body appeared as a “pipe”, i.e. a cylinder. The sky was cloudless, only a small dark cloud was observed in the general direction of the bright body. It was hot and dry. As the body neared the ground (forest), the bright body seemed to smudge, and then turned into a giant billow of black smoke, and a loud knocking (not thunder) was heard, as if large stones were falling, or artillery was fired. All buildings shook. At the same time the cloud began emitting flames of uncertain shapes. All villagers were stricken with panic and took to the streets, women cried, thinking it was the end of the world.

The author of these lines was meantime in the forest about 6 verst N of Kirensk, and heard to the NE some kind of artillery barrage, that repeated in intervals of 15 minutes at least 10 times. In Kirensk in a few buildings in the walls facing north-east window glass shook.”
– Sibir Newspaper, 2 July, 1908

30 June, 1908 – 0 hours, 13 minutes, 35 seconds Greenwich Mean Time: A powerful explosion occurs near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in a sparsely populated region of Siberia.  The cause of the explosion sparks decades of debate, with the most commonly held explanation being the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment approximately 3-6 miles above the Earth’s surface.  The energy of the blast is believed to have been the equivalent of 10-15 megatons of TNT, or about 1,000 times as powerful as the atomic bomb that would later be dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.  The blast leveled more than 1,000 square miles of forest.

“Kezhemskoe village. On the 17th an unusual atmospheric event was observed. At 7:43 the noise akin to a strong wind was heard. Immediately afterwards a horrific thump sounded, followed by an earthquake which literally shook the buildings, as if they were hit by a large log or a heavy rock. The first thump was followed by a second, and then a third. Then the interval between the first and the third thumps were accompanied by an unusual underground rattle, similar to a railway upon which dozens of trains are travelling at the same time. Afterwards for 5 to 6 minutes an exact likeness of artillery fire was heard: 50 to 60 salvoes in short, equal intervals, which got progressively weaker. After 1.5 – 2 minutes after one of the ‘barrages’ six more thumps were heard, like cannon firing, but individual, loud and accompanied by tremors.

The sky, at the first sight, appeared to be clear. There was no wind and no clouds. However upon closer inspection to the north, i.e. where most of the thumps were heard, a kind of an ashen cloud was seen near the horizon…”
- Krasnoyaretz Newspaper, 13 July, 1908

13 August, 1930 – 08:00 local time: During the annual Perseid meteor shower, three house-sized meteorites fall from the sky near the Curuca River in Brazil, close to the Peruvian border.  The blast energy, which registered on seismographs in La Paz, Bolivia, is believed to have been close to 1 megaton of TNT.  Less than a tenth of the energy released in the Tunguska Incident, but still many times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.  The resulting fire burned in the Brazilian Amazon for months, deforesting an extremely large area.

“When the sun began to rise on the morning of 13 August 1930 like any other morning, little did the inhabitants along the banks of the River Curuçá in the Brazilian Amazonas region, near the Peruvian frontier, realise what was about to happen. The women of the community had started washing clothing and the fishermen and rubber-tappers had begun their days work. Suddenly, at about eight o’clock, the sun became blood-red and a darkness fell over the region. A large cloud of red dust filled the air, and then a fine white ash descended to cover the trees and plants. There then followed ear-piercing whistling sounds, three in total, after which three mighty explosions were heard in rapid succession. Immediately after the explosions, the whole forest became a blazing inferno which lasted for several months, depopulating a large area. These terrifying events caused the inhabitants to believe they were about to face death.”
- John McFarland, The Day the Earth Trembled

6 June, 2002: As India and Pakistan stared each other down with nuclear threats over the disputed Kashmir region, early warning satellites detected an explosion in the Earth’s atmosphere roughly the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.  Instead of occurring in the disputed region, this blast took place over the Mediterranean Sea.  It was the result of the atmospheric entry of an asteroid about 30 feet in diameter that had approached the Earth undetected until the blast occurred.  If the explosion had taken place 3 hours earlier, on the same latitude, India and Pakistan are likely to have escalated their conflict into a nuclear war.

“And this is the Ninth and Last Sign: You will hear of a dwelling-place in the heavens, above the earth, that shall fall with a great crash. It will appear as a blue star. Very soon after this, the ceremonies of my people will cease.”
- White Feather, Hopi Elder of the Bear Clan Tribe, “Prophecy of the Blue Star Kachina”

¹When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. ²And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.
³Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. ⁴The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel’s hand.⁵Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
⁶Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them. ⁷The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
⁸The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, ⁹a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
¹⁰The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— ¹¹the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.
¹²The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night.
¹³As I watched, I heard an eagle that was flying in midair call out in a loud voice: “Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the trumpet blasts about to be sounded by the other three angels!”
~ Revelation 8 (NIV)