The Collapse

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The Collapse refers to the period of disintegration and disappearance of antediluvian society roughly 8000 years ago around 5000 BCE and lasting until roughly 4000 BCE.

Although the exact nature and origin of the Collapse is unknown, it is believed that it began in Halla and was inextricably linked to the Corruption. The Corruption is believed to be the cause of the severing of connections between Viranos and Halla, either due to the failure of Hallan infrastructure or a self-imposed quarantine measure, and resulted in the plummeting of Mu radiation levels in Viranos and the isolation of antediluvian civilizations from vital Hallan trade networks, making them unsustainable and ushering in scarcity, chaos, and their ultimate downfall. Evidence exists of widespread, devastating warfare taking place during this period, likely caused by rival powers competing for now suddenly scarce resources previously supplied from Halla.

Although some ruins and artifacts remain of the antediluvian world, the archaeological and geological record is inconsistent with a civilization of this size and sophistication existing for nearly a millennia throughout the Vira Star System, leading some to speculate that, towards the end of the Collapse, magical superweapons were employed which not only obliterated most physical traces of antediluvian peoples and structures, but also heavily affected the memories of many people alive at the time. Testimony from stranded gods suggests that, while many remembered significant details such as architecture, infrastructure, and the nature of Halla, other details such as the names and identities of pre-Collapse societies or the specifics of magic or technology have been thoroughly forgotten. This, combined with a lack of useful archaeological evidence, means that most knowledge about the antediluvian world has been reconstructed from the testimony of stranded gods and the collective folk histories of many cultures throughout the world.

The Collapse ended around 4000 BCE, at which point few populations remembered the civilizations which they had been part of just a millennia earlier, and now lived in relatively primitive hunter-gatherer groups or small agricultural settlements. The end of the Collapse also represents the effective beginning of the Bronze Age and Viran history.