The Great Shattering

Scholars Soliloquy

It is unknown when exactly the world changed as everyone that went through that event lost every memory associated with said event outside of one thing. The sound of shattering glass. Unofficially called the Great Shattering by us scholars and the general public, this event was said to be the cause of the evolution of the entire planet as well as one of the most life ending events known to affect mankind. By our estimates, approximately 40% of the human population ceased to exist within a day of the Great Shattering followed by another 30% of the remaining species within the next 2 weeks. While the exact date is unknown, the Great Shattering was about 2 thousand years ago at the very beginning of the age of Neo as well as the creation of the new calendar that we use today. Despite the memories of the event being eroded within the known witnesses, literature of the period did document the event, or so we thought. At the very least physical writings did narrate the event to some point but, because of the discrepancies in stories, we have to incur that the entirety of the human race was not conscious during the Great Shattering. We were very lucky that not all of humanity was unconscious during those first 2 weeks and the timing of awakening was different for each person. The bare minimum of time one had been unconscious was 2 days while the longest one had been in a coma state was 2 weeks as per the high death rate until that moment. It is known that all of the original 40 percent of deaths were within the first day due to carbon dating the bodies of the majority of the ones we could find. The peculiarity of the unconscious state was that the awakening of each person was not completely random. At first we thought it was based on age as the older one got, the longer it took for them to awake and all those about 60 did not survive however, upon further investigation. Survivability was the main correlation. More specifically, it seemed as though they could adapt to the world without the help of a society based infrastructure. In short, the higher chances you had of surviving in the harsh world directly correlated on how early you would wake up from the coma. That said, those that could not adapt were killed up before their awakening. The basics of what was necessary that we could compile was, physical fitness, resistance to trauma, and the most important was a will to live. Because of this information, we scholars are prone to believe that the coma's were not completely natural but artificially enticed by nature during the Great Shattering as a way of giving humanity a chance to evolve as during the coma-like state, the intake of food and water was not necessary. Another peculiarity was that babies under the age of 2 years, did not fall into that state, signally that it has something to do with being capable of complex thought. The Great Shattering was something that could have been foretold as many religions did document a world ending event. One being the rapture. However, as these prophecies of sorts were so vague as to be interpreted as whatever the knowledge wanted it to and as such it could not be used as conclusive evidence that the cause of something as a higher being, not that such a thing mattered as we have other evidence to prove that higher beings such as gods do exist. Nonetheless, while very specific cultures and traditions were lost, most of them were not. This also included most of the history that they had recorded. Outside of relics and ancient sites, there are not many written historical records that were saved at the time. Luckily, the vast majority of history was saved through school books and such that a certain society decided to keep for the future. Thanks to that, we were accurately able to compare and contrast the information that we have recorded on our own to figure out how life was before the Great Shattering. We had found something very peculiar. The acceleration of technological advancement was much faster than our time period. Common sense would indicate that due to the information saved in the past, technology would evolve faster but the opposite was true and then we found the difference. Something was missing from the world 2 thousand years ago. Something that only started to happen after the Great Shattering. The introduction of a new form of energy, but at the same time it was not. It could be said as energy fundamentally, but there are discrepancies to that of energy of the past. The most important being that this "energy" was living. Not in a cellular way but a conceptual way, completely different from the world of the past. Due to the absence of what our community likes to call "Neo", the world had to use a different form of energy. This energy wasn't worse in any way outside of one. The energy which was called "electricity" could not be taken directly from the world, but converted from the by-products of the world. This fundamental difference made the pre-Neo era much less efficient and yet the difference in technological evolution is apparent. We have not been able to figure out the reason for it yet. In fact, most if not all differences in the human pre Neo and now would indicate an increased efficiency in technological growth. From the individual life span to the understanding of conceptuality. Everything would indicate that we would be growing faster. Yet we do not. Even taking into account the average ingenuity of humans of the pre Neo era and other forms of energy we haven't talked about yet, it still doesn't compare. Until one of my coworkers said something to us. War. The last time a true war had occurred was during the early years of the Neo calendar and everything clicked into place. The main reason for the technological growth was the incessant amount of wars that had happened throughout the Pre Neo era, forcing their technology to grow at an abhorrent rate. After looking over the history records again. One of those wars which were but a few decades rapidly grew war machines to the point of obtaining aircrafts where semi-automatic weapons had been created just a scant decade before. Of course the Neo era wasn't without its squabbles but, due to the strong balances of power and the loss of a need for battle outside of friendly sport and protection from outside beings, we have never had a real war. Continuing with the Great Shattering, we do not know the cause of the event but it is quite well known that it was not a natural occurrence as nothing of the sort has ever happened in human history. Furthermore, after the Great Shattering had an interesting effect on atoms. As most know, atoms are the very building blocks of reality but the "Neo" does not seem to mingle with atoms very well. In fact, many people from the time of occurrence had a very hard time doing things such as starting fires and use electricity because the "Neo" would interfere with the conversion of energy. Eventually, the ratio of "Neo" and atoms had changed to that "Neo" replaced it entirely, with only a few samples of atoms existing in this world all of which come from outside of the planet. From our investigation, Only the Earth had all of the atoms replaced with "Neo" and everything outside of Earth has a perfect 50:50 ratio. Once again we do not know why such a thing is happening but it has not troubled us with space travel. Another things that happened after the Great Shattering were the mutation of all living species with the Earth, changing them into either partial "Neo" or full "Neo" beings becoming nearly spiritual in concept as they are immune to all forms of sickness and have extreme long lifespans having most beings that are pure "Neo" beings being still alive from the time of occurrence outside of the ones that died in the war. Humans were the only creature that did not become "Neo" beings and stayed completely atomic in nature. Despite this, personnel that were born before the Great Shattering and have lived through it have only recently shown signs of aging past their prime. They are not the only humans with long life spans however the longest a Neo era human has lived is 8 hundred years, much less than the 2 thousand years that the pre Neo era humans are currently living through. There are many theories to explain this phenomena but I will not be saying them as they are not my expertise. During my research of the pre Neo era history I came across 2 well known theories. One is the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin and the Great Filter Theorem by Robin Hansom, a response to the Fermi paradox. This is what I believe that the Great Shattering was, a Great Filter or test to see the limitations of life in this world and to evolve them even further. While the Fermi paradox is based on extraterrestrials, Great filters are based on concepts and limitations. While, as I said before, the cause of the Great Shattering is unknown, we can conclude that it is the latest and the most apparent Great Filter to happen to humanity. Unfortunately, much like religion, Great Filters can be construed as anything that could cause a change in the effects humanity can have on itself. Something as simple as a protest could be contributed as a great filter so I have coined the name True Filter for the Great Shattering specifically. Even after all of this, My coworkers and I haven't scratched the surface of what the Great Shattering could entail. It drives me mad that I cannot know everything but at the very least, I must know what the cause of the great Shattering is. But it's not just me, but every being is searching for the answer. Because we want to recreate it.