Microstory 697: The Great Earthquake

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Despite making no mention of the Thuriamen, or the fact that the twisted Amadesis faith might have survived in any form, Sacred Savior Sotiren Zahir predicted a great earthquake. For those of you who can’t discern this from the language, an earthquake is a seismic event exclusive to the planet Earth. Though the Earthans are fully aware that tremors can occur on other orbitals, they have a long history of geocentrism, making it difficult for them to truly fathom how things happen outside their sheltered bubble. Rather, they have difficulty relating to things that are too far away to have any observed effect on them. Earthquakes occur all the time. In fact, it’s considered to be a natural phenomenon, with the world’s humans nearly totally helpless to predict one, let alone reduce its damage. This would not be just any tremor, however, in that it was foretold to happen soon after the declaration of the new war, and would somehow be caused by it. For the last several centuries, as we were waiting for the taikon to come to pass, academics couldn’t understand how this would be possible. Quantum Entanglement is one thing, but we know of no region of Fostea that has any connection to Earth, nor do we know of such a region anywhere else in the universe, for that matter. It does have a connection to one at least one other planet, but that’s located in the other universe, and we never thought we would ever have to return there save for our secret trips using the bar catel. Now, with the sudden discovery or our new enemies in the Thuriamen, we have a reason to engage in battle near Earth. We made every attempt to limit this first battle to the Thuriamen dimensions, but were forced to employ the aid of some unlikely allies who used their capabilities to keep the Earthan humans veiled. During the lead up to the Battle Between Two Earths, scholars postulated that the Great Earthquake wasn’t literal. While kept secret from the Earthan natives, it could still be one of the most profound events in Earthan history, having a lasting general effect on their future. They were wrong about this, and really, we were just lying to ourselves about this. The battle itself was so powerful that it ended up creating one of the most devastating earthquakes in recorded history, especially as followed by a series of deadly tsunamis. This catastrophe opened the eyes of our military leaders, and even also those of our new enemies, who were never before worried about illegally deveiling the Earthans. Later battles in the Light Wars would be fought elsewhere in an attempt to prevent something like this from ever happening again.