My Rifts: What I have Changed and Why (part 1: How the HELL did we get here?!?)

[Blackwater Sniper]

How did Rifts Earth come about? Well, there was a Great Cataclysm that literally shook the Earth to its core. Due to the nature of the event, no one actually knows what happened and everyone’s guesses are “a Credit a dozen.” Did the Ley Lines cause the Cataclysm or did the Cataclysm bring the Ley Lines? My answer to this is as simple and complex as this; When the island continent of Atlantis reappeared, it caused immediate, dynamic changes to the surface of the Earth.

As it instantly reappeared on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, the island immediately displaced nearly half an ocean’s worth of water causing tsunamis to wash out the entire Eastern Seaboard of the US, only being stopped by the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The entire state of Florida, whose maximum elevation is only 350ft above sea level, would be almost wiped clear. With the average elevation of Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas being under five hundred feet, those areas retained much of the retreating ocean water, after the tsunami hit, to become swampy lowlands (future home to The Dinosaur Swamp).

Simply because there would be no warning and no chance for evacuation, I would guess all cities within one hundred miles of the east coast of the US would be instantly depopulated. Over one hundred million people would instantly die, just in the US Eastern Seaboard alone. Similar damage would occur to the northern coast of South America, England, the Benelux region (Belgium/Netherlands/Luxembourg), and the Iberian Peninsula. To give a little perspective on tsunami damage, look up the 2004 Indonesian Tsunami where 250,000 people died from a wave height of only 65 ft (20 m); I would imagine the Atlantis tsunami would easily reach upwards of one thousand feet high.

Due to the added weight of an entire continent suddenly stressing the North American Plate, I have surmised that ALL key tectonic fault lines would be affected resulting in global earthquakes ranging from major to catastrophic. The shockwaves through the mantle would also cause fault lines on the Pacific, Australian, and western North American Plates to shift, releasing any stored energy producing Pacific tsunamis. Imagine multiple 9.0+ magnitude earthquakes all around the Pacific Rim shifting within a matter of hours of each other.

The Yellowstone Caldera would explode, covering the land with five to ten feet of magma and ash up to one thousand miles from its epicenter. The sulfur cloud would block out the sun for months, perhaps years, causing a nuclear winter across the globe and cooling the planet. Any waterways within this area would be contaminated and clogged for months to years depending on the source of water and volume. Smaller tributaries would be completely blocked, while the major water ways, specifically the Missouri, Mississippi, and Ohio Rivers would slow as the ash settles into the river basins.

On the plus side, volcanic ash (in small doses) is good for soil, replenishing nutrients only found deep in the earth’s crust. You will also see this in areas which have frequent floods; water spreads nutrient-rich sediment from rivers onto the land adding to the topsoil. During the time of “current Rifts Earth,” the earth and soil would have had time to heal and acidity reach a level where sustainable farming could be achieved. Some crops thrive with a higher pH level and flourish. It’s why so much of our coffee comes from Central America, an area rife with volcanoes.

Dams, while engineered to withstand earthquakes, may fail (I’ll leave that up to the specific dams and GMs). Few modern dams have failed due to earthquake damage, but this is an extreme event and infrastructure can only be assessed up to a certain point. If a dam of significant size were to collapse, look downstream to determine if any populations would be affected. Significant amounts of rushing water won’t always follow the current river path.

Immediately, due to the aforementioned “natural” disasters, the population of the US would drop from a “pre-Rifts” high of ~400 million to less than 50 million within a few short days.

Jump forward an indeterminate period of time; The Coalition is on the rise.

My Rifts: What I have Changed and Why (part 2: Magic? Of course there's Magic)