How It Happened

The Myth

This is what Malcolm believes happened to end the world. It's what many wastelanders belive, due to a corruption in their oral history and the widespread presumption that Aempis was to blame for Earth's many climate disasters.

A long time ago, Aempis found Earth. They sat among the stars with cold hearts and watched us, envious of the peak of our civilization — of our accomplishments and advanced technologies. Unable to bear their envy and incapable of fighting us head-on, they instead corrupted and sickened our world. They salted the Earth and the Sea until both boiled and baked beneath the glare of the sun, and when we were at our weakest they came for us, came down with magic and conniving cruelty to keep us down.

Now they exploit us, digging up the last valuable ores and minerals of this earth before they will abandon us to die.

The Truth

The myriad climate disasters which wastelanders attribute to Aempis predate First Contact by at least a hundred years. While Aempis did use Torkh Sajhu Veath in the final stroke of the Advent War to trigger worldwide cataclysms, everything before that point is purely the outcome of the Holocene Collapse.

Malcolm's collision with this knowledge will trigger cognitive dissonance. It'll be hard to get past this one.