Namazu

(Also referred to as “Paradise Tossed”)

Current Year: 640

Classification: Hell World

''“The surface of Earth heaved and seethed in fecund restlessness. Earth was most fertile where the most death was.” ''

 -Kurt Vonnegut , The Sirens of Titan

The world of Namazu is a version of Earth, almost completely free of visible human civilization, which is constantly devastated by massive, violent earthquakes. Volcanic and tsunami activity that coincides with these quakes are also a common element of this parallel Earth’s ecology, making it one of the most unpredictable and outright dangerous alternate Earths discovered so far.

The Fault in Our Earth
Tectonic agitation resulting in surface-quakes occurs at varying intensities in varying locations daily on the planet’s exterior. In an individual location on the planet’s surface, it is roughly at most a year or so between when it is going to experience one quake and then experience the next. It is usually far shorter, however, as the location of quake occurrences seems almost completely random and doesn’t seem to be exclusively tied to what can be identified as tectonic fault lines. There has not yet been discovered a location on this version of Earth that seems to be immune from quake occurrences. Quake intensity can vary from mere ominous tremors to unfathomably violent upheavals that don’t conform to the measurements on our universe’s Richter scale. Especially violent quakes can be vicious enough to rearrange the landscape of the Earth’s surface, even forming jutting hills out of previously flat terrain or opening nightmarish sudden fissures and sinkholes. Such violent seismic activity would almost certainly be uniformly lethal to any humans caught in it. Particularly intense quakes sometimes herald the opening of a new volcanic vent (and sometimes the closing of an old one, alternatively) on the crust’s surface. While new volcanic vents are fairly small and a relatively uncommon occurrence, they have had a drastic effect on this world’s global ecology. Massive areas of this planet’s naturally occurring forestry are blotted black, having been burned down by newly-arrived volcanic activity that starts uncontrollable fires that can burn for months on end, and sometimes for years. The high number of volcanic vents on this Earth’s surface, combined with the effects of regular uncontrolled forest fires has caused the formation of a layer of ash in this planet’s atmosphere, periodically blocking-out sunlight, causing drops in temperature and altering the globe’s meteorological patterns. The consistent release of Sulfate Aerosols and other volcanic gases into the atmosphere has lead to widespread instances of hazardous acid rain as well. The shape and arrangement of continents on the Namazu version of Earth are unrecognizable compared to our own due to the violent tectonic activity that has been occurring for an unknown amount of time, potentially for millennia.

The coastlines of these continents are battered with massive tsunamis as often as the surfaces of these continents suffer quakes. Mountainous or even just hilly regions of the Earth are prone to utterly devastating mudslides and landslides, and areas that receive snowfall can frequently suffer avalanches in addition to that.

Under the Crust
The origin of the horrendously violent geological nature of Namazu’s Earth is still unknown and the topic of heavy research.

The leading theory postulates that there may have been a difference in the composition of planetary matter that formed this version of Earth compared to our own that may have never truly exited the violent geological settling of Earth that occurred during and after the Late Heavy Bombardment period.

Another theory states that the violent geological activity we see may have started relatively more recently and be a result of an alternate composition to this Earth’s liquid metal core. The liquid metal core of our Earth, which is rapidly spinning on its axis, may have come to be composed of two different materials of differing density during the formation of this planet. The spinning core and its composition of differing mass may have initially been spinning in balance, but may have become destabilized as they rotate within the past several millennia or so, sending massive vibrations through the Earth’s mass all the way to its surface.

Survivors of the Planet’s Wrath
Namazu was initially thought by researchers to just be a Blank Earth with a particularly violent and unstable geological nature, but research into this parallel has caused it to be reclassified as a Hell World due to the discovery of people living on this version of Earth. Smatterings of human societies in various continents exist in very small numbers as for what would be expected of the global population in the Current Year. These communities exist almost exclusively on flatland, savanna, desert or prairie areas of the Earth’s surface away from the coastlines and hills or mountains, still vulnerable to the violent tremors but safe from tsunamis and landslides. In addition to being numerically small for the Current Year, these populations are extremely technologically and culturally stunted. All exist in semi-nomadic forms of tribalism with only the most basic and intermittent use of agricultural science, instead mostly relying on hunter-gatherer structures for sustenance as well as varying degrees of animal domestication (including specialized dog-breeding, as well as the keeping of livestock such as pigs, cows, chicken and goats). While possessing knowledge of fiber-weaving, the wheel and cart, basic food preparation, pottery, written language, basic sanitation and medicine, horse-riding and Bronze Age metallurgy, the ash-choked atmosphere of this planet has reduced the dependability of farming to consistently produce food and thusly retarded progress in that area and its related venues. Crop-rotation, irrigation and other important agricultural developments are still undiscovered. The harshness of this world’s seas has also negated progress for technology like boating and reduced the viable areas for fishing to places like small lakes and rivers. Architecture is also predictably simple, due both to the general underdevelopment of technology and the obvious challenge the Namazu parallel presents to construction. Human civilization largely hasn’t moved past the hut, similar to those common to the Native American and Hun tribes of our universe. The violent and unpredictable nature of the quakes has prevented large, stationary societies from forming and developing, robbing this world of the cultural and technological progress such societies provide. This is a world that even by its Current Year has never known the rise of a great civilization like Egypt, Greece, Carthage, China or Rome.

The cruel nature of this Earth has had an effect on the culture and religion of these societies. While they vary from tribe to disconnected tribe, many societies have a deity or deities associated with earthquakes, and many practice some form of appeasement in the belief that pleasing the deity will continue to spare them from the constant threat they know encompasses their existence. This can vary from rituals and animal-offerings to outright human sacrifice within the cultures observed so far.

The Possible Future of Namazu
Due to the lack of understanding of the nature of the geological violence present in Namazu, our scientists are currently uncertain about this parallel Earth’s ultimate fate. Whether the geological activity will eventually settle down and cease, continue for the entirety for the planet’s existence, or eventually intensify to the point where it literally shakes the planet apart, is currently unknown.