Geographical Changes

I've detailed the maps a little more and made a number of changes, the most tedious of which was a manual conversion of the scanned map into vector diagrams, click by click. There's probably a program out there that could have saved me several hundred clicks, but anyway, since the map is in digitized format now, it's much easier to modify, and when I get around to colouring it by climate, I hope it will be easier as well.

Meanwhile, I'd like to record my ideas about Eldwan's geographical history, ranging from the Age of Harmony to the Age of Rulers, with two major changes happening in between. In the Age of Harmony, all the lands are united in one supercontinent, and this is partly due to the fact that I wish to take the evidence for a supercontinent breakup into account for Eldwan.

Figure 1.1 - Supercontinent during the Age of Harmony

This is the rather hastily sketched supercontinent. I decided not to spend too much time designing it because it really doesn't feature that much in the story, save as a backdrop and to satisfy my desire for detail. I've been trying to devise a way that a creation story might possibly weave between the evidence and be consistent with both a creation mythos and apparent scientific evidence to the contrary in future. This is what I have come up with so far.

The major issues that have to be explained concern the following points : 

- The fossil records showing the distribution of species across now separate continents

- The geologic record of magnetic reversals in the seafloor

- The apparent age of the earth that a supercontinental division implies

The current sequence of events that I am toying with involves challenging one of the basic assumptions of science, that how the laws of the universe are now represents the laws of the universe in the past. Among the reasons why the earth has tectonic activity is the convection of the mantle, and the heat that drives the movement of the mantle comes from the leftover heat from the earth's formation, friction, gravity and most significantly, from radiation.

Since I do have the Yegül, who control the strong and weak nuclear forces, they effectively have control over radioactive decay. Thus, the following progression might just be workable. In the Age of Harmony, there would have been no tectonic activity, perhaps because the mantle was cooler, or there were regulated hot spots that helped to dissipate heat evenly. As a result, there would also have been no earthquakes or volcanism, two natural acts which are extremely destructive and don't befit a perfect world in my opinion.

The interior of the earth clearly cannot be dead cold, because that would imply a paralysis of the outer core and the absence of a protective magnetic field. So perhaps the interior of the earth was hot, but there were just stable ways of dissipating that heat. I'm not entirely sure if there's a way to balance these requirements of tectonic stability and a magnetic field - this calls for yet more research. 

At any rate, on the Day of Rebellion, as the Body of Eleyon destroys Baveris, Eleyon commands Unavo and Oleri to enforce a temporary change in the nuclear forces for a large spike in radioactive decay throughout the whole volume of the planet. This heats the mantle and forces the once stable crust to break up into mobile tectonic plates. The plates, propelled by the sudden increase in heat and convection of the mantle, cause the rapid break of the original supercontinent, and it results in the configuration shown in Figure 1.2

 Figure 1.2 - Divided Continents during the Age of Light

Part of why this has to occur is so that the High Elves can be given a separate continent from the Fallen, where they will be safe for a long era. I guess it makes thematic sense as well, what with a single unified continent fragmenting as the pristine order of Eldwan was fragmented by Rebellion. I have not yet named the continents since that is not really essential at the moment. 

The species distribution issue is resolved because they would have been distributed across the supercontinent during the Age of Harmony, and subsequently separated. It is perfectly possible that a great deal of fossilisation happened during this catastrophic event, and the Elves would have had to work to revive nature.

The magnetic alignment of the rocks would have been unstable given the sudden changes to the heating of the mantle and the outer core. There might have been rapid alternations during the upheaval. Lastly, the very nature of increased radioactive decay accounts for the apparent age of the earth, since our calculations are largely based on radiometric dating and massive backward extrapolation.

At this point, familiar tectonic features would affect the planet, quakes, volcanism, tsunamis, orogeny, seafloor spreading, and so on. The rate of continental drift would have decreased since the radiation burst would have ended and allowed the mantle to cool. Somewhat amusingly, this works very well with Romans 8:22 - 'We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.' I'll admit that was at the back of my mind while I was coming up with this.

Figure 1.3 - After the effects of the Deluge, for the Age of Water and Beyond

The next major modification to the geography of the planet comes with the Deluge at the end of the Age of Light, that leads to the end of Radiant civilisation and Alero's grand experiment. I haven't sorted out all the details of the Deluge just yet, but I do have some ideas in mind that I would like to record here. 

One of the greatest unresolved issues with the Biblical Creation account is the 'water above the sky', which was separated from the 'water below the sky' on Day 2. It has been suggested that 'water above the sky' refers to some vapour canopy that blanketed the earth in a thick atmosphere. The hydrological cycle would have been different in the absence of precipitation. I have serious doubts about this suggestion. If the properties of water were so fundamentally different in antediluvian times that precipitation was impossible, I don't think water would have been suitable for life either. In fact, there is nothing that indicates there was no antediluvian rain. That notion comes from a misinterpretation of the verse Genesis 2:5b - 'For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground.' Genesis 2 merely describes Day 6, and not anything between Day 6 and the Flood. If someone argues that the verse does imply a dearth of raindrops, they might as well argue that man did not till the ground until after the Flood as well.

Next, the creation account clearly states that water was above the sky, not within the sky, so it could not be referring to clouds. This led me to the idea that the water might be in low earth orbit, encased in rock since liquids would not be gravitationally stable. However this was vetoed by the description of Day 4, which stated that the sun, moon and stars were placed in the expanse of the sky, which would seem to imply that they were sandwiched between the water above the sky and the waters below. This spurred me on to the notion that perhaps it would be better if the water was not in low earth orbit, but rather in an ice belt orbiting the sun. Well the stars would not be within the sky, strictly speaking, but at least the sun and moon, the greater lights, are. Overanalysing the text, stars are only mentioned in a short additional phrase after the sun and moon, so perhaps a little leeway is permissible.

During the Deluge, the floodgates of heaven were opened. Just as the fragmentation of the supercontinent involved manipulation of fundamental forces, the Deluge has Ilvesu alter the gravitational balance of the ice belt and cause many of the ice pieces to fall in towards the Cradle. The impacts of the falling ice destroy the landscape of the Cradle and the encircling mountain range, and the augmented gravity also causes much of the land of the Cradle to sink lower than normal. As a result a large inland sea forms, as drawn in Figure 1.3, and this sea serves as my parallel Mediterranean as Alaris rises to power.

After these changes, only normal processes affect the landscape to any significant degree. Weathering, erosion, residual continental drift and volcanism for example. But the time of massive geographical alteration is over as magic is gradually removed from Eldwan, and from the Age of Water and onwards, the land masses remain essentially the same.