History of Earth

Introduction

CEN's version of Earth's history is a fictional mix of scientific and biblical timelines and, therefore, considered its own piece of lore. Most events placed in recent modern times—i.e., the 20th and 21st centuries—are not included to allow more freedom in character creation. It is recommended you first read through world creation, as it covers the timeline before Earth's formation and lays the groundwork for later events.

However, if you're making a younger character, say, just a few centuries old, you may jump straight ahead to the post-classical history, or even modern times.

Now, we'll dive deeper into the planet's history and, eventually, into the history of mankind.

Hadean eon

At first, there was no life in the universe—even Earth was merely a molten rock formation orbiting one of the countless stars of the cosmos. As God focused on the first realm, the other primordials kept feeding and shaping the young universe with their presence.

As the macrocosm aged, the very first formations came into existence: galactic filaments and galaxy clusters, nebulae, and planetary systems. Eventually, the universe took the shape we recognize today: in the barred spiral Milky Way galaxy, the Solar System and its contents formed, leading to the birth of several inhabitable planets orbiting a single star.

When God returned to the middle realm, the third planet from the star had created an outgassing of an atmosphere with no oxygen. Frequent collisions with other bodies and intense bombardment of meteorites caused extreme volcanism, resulting in a series of magma oceans and episodes of core formation. The most significant impact was with a planet-sized body, the resulting debris forming a smaller rock to orbit the planet: a natural satellite known as the Moon.

Once the amount of loose matter diminished and the number of planets settled into eight, Earth started to cool down, creating a solid crust that allowed liquid water to fill the planet's surface.

Abiogenesis

As the universe continued to grow but remained dormant, the six primal primordials saw that it would flourish. Matter and Energy delivered the materials needed to the most promising destination, while Gravity, Magnetism, and Light saw that the newly formed organisms could thrive. Earth would turn from hostile to habitable during the next four billion years, granting God His wish and much more.

The first life forms, anaerobic microorganisms or microbes, lived underwater. These organisms fed off the nitrogen- and carbon-heavy atmosphere, used retinal to convert green light into metabolic energy, and aided in warming the planet by turning excess hydrogen into methane. Together with the young central star's faint light, this process started turning the planet's purple surface biosphere blue.

As the unicellular microbes evolved into multicellular bacteria, Earth's atmosphere began to fill with oxygen. This, in turn, forced the evolution of even more complex organisms—mitochondria—and allowed them to reproduce by genetic transmission rather than parasitic cannibalism. These organelles became the building blocks of all life, from plants to algae to fungi.

Red algae introduced a new way to multiply: sexual reproduction. This led to the Cambrian explosion—a.k.a. the Biological Big Bang—where complex life rapidly increased and diversified. Jellyfish and sea anemones were among the first animals to evolve, followed by slugs, clams, starfish, sea cucumbers, worms, tardigrades, and many others. The first fish were eel-like and jawless, some armored with mineralized scales. As they evolved bones and jaws, the ancestors of sharks were born, along with rays, lobe-, and ray-finned fish. They, in turn, gave rise to the next evolutional step: amphibians.

Life faced yet another significant challenge as the more evolved tetrapods had to learn to breathe oxygen. The proliferation of land plants caused the growth of aquatic vegetation by dropping their leaves into streams and rivers, attracting small, grazing fish but making the environment unsuitable for larger predators. Decomposition of the foliage caused less oxygen to dissolve into the water, forcing the early animals to replace their gills with lungs, grow legs, and transition to live on land. This led to the birth of reptiles—and, eventually, the evolution of dinosaurs.

As the primordials fostered God's newest project, He grew increasingly displeased with the life He saw. He'd once filled Heaven and Limbo with handcrafted, extraordinary creatures with magical qualities—the dull, reptilian-dominated Earth was not what He'd planned. He wanted to start over.

Despite the lesser primordials' protest, God's decision was final. However, this time, He wouldn't reset the whole realm—only the planet itself. He grabbed a massive asteroid and hurled it into Earth, wiping out three-quarters of all species and half of all genera. This allowed prehistoric birds and mammals to thrive and take over the planet, eventually evolving into more advanced primates.

After the devastating Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, the six primordials declared their participation in shaping Earth was over. This angered God, but with no authority over the primary elements, he could not force the cosmic entities into obeying Him. Instead, He had no choice but to focus on nurturing the planet Himself, carefully manipulating the evolution of primates into increasingly intelligent creatures.

Yet, despite His best attempts, the primal humanoids still lacked purpose… Until God gave two of them fractures of Himself.

Old testament

The man and woman would be known as Adam and Eve—the first humans to possess a soul. At first, all was well; the human pair enjoyed their life of infinite blessings, God's endless affection and attention, and sovereign rule over Earth's other beings… But by turning His back towards the other realms and ignoring His previous creations, God had made a new enemy: the first archangel, Samael.

With their souls, the two humans had received a gift no other being in the universe had—a concept known as "free will." They knew the rules: obey their creator and live under His blessing, or disobey and face His wrath. After spending eons fighting the deadly sins in Limbo, Samael's true form and personification of Humility had been irreversibly damaged, causing the archangel to grow prideful and resentful. He slipped onto Earth, turned into the first native animal he saw—a snake—and slithered to the blessed humans, addressing the female, Eve.

As Samael learned about the pair's origins, he also discovered they were never to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and learn things they weren't meant to understand. But Samael was cunning and claimed he'd eaten from the tree without ill effects, thus creating the first lie. By the time Eve sank her teeth into the forbidden fruit and called for Adam to join her, Samael was gone, barely avoiding God's rage as His creations turned against Him once again.

Rebelling didn't end with Paradise: without the archangel of Humility, humankind's hubris only grew as time went by. As humans kept reaching for godhood, God's attempts to control His creations failed time after another: despite speaking different languages, witnessing judgment fall upon their kin, experiencing plagues, floods, and miracles—no matter how vengeful, creative, or benevolent God acted, mankind ignored His warnings and wishes. What was supposed to be His magnum opus had turned into a disobedient menace, and the primordial ruler was beyond furious. Whatever His plans entailed for humanity's future would be forgotten as the divided nations failed to find common ground and share the world peacefully.

Post-classical history

Humankind's creativity saw no limit, and as technology evolved, so did the means of traveling. As the territory of different clans grew and continued to conquer new land, several religions began to form within individual groups, and the concept of a shared, universal truth seemed impossible. Suddenly, humanity wasn't interested in overtaking God's place but instead in convincing their enemies of their chosen deity's supremacy. Centuries of bloody and violent religious wars followed as Christians, Muslims, and Romans clashed against one another. During this time, the first erelim were born, as human martyrs were taken to their afterlife and resurrected as angels, regardless of their personal beliefs or religion.

Over the next thousand years, countless wars were declared and fought, converting more and more people to Christianity. However, it didn't unite the people but tore them apart and divided them as the initial, exemplary tenets were twisted to serve those in power. Corruption had taken root and turned impossible to weed out, leaving Heaven powerless against the spreading plague of demonic influence.

While God watched His most precious and cherished creation fall to ruin, kingdoms, empires, and entire civilizations were wiped off Earth. This would invoke the last divine punishment upon humankind—the Black Death—as God attempted to control the unruly masses once more, wiping out almost half of Europe's population.

Eventually, humanity's desire for violence would be replaced with curiosity, and the Age of Discovery would begin with the Portuguese systematically exploring the Atlantic Coast of Africa at the end of the 15th century. Yet, this would only lead to a new problem: colonization and forceful conversion.

Modern times

The Age of Enlightenment and the following Scientific Revolution carried humanity into a new era of knowledge: the emergence of modern science. Mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, chemistry, and understanding of human anatomy changed society's view of nature and themselves. Learning and observation slowly replaced fear of the unknown, leading to new inventions like gunpowder and modern banking. Despite people still fighting and enslaving one another in an endless battle of factitious superiority, they were heading into a new world filled with abundance and opportunity. Europe was enamored with the Renaissance; China entered the Qing Dynasty; Japan experienced its Edo period; America fought and won independence against the British colonies in the Revolutionary War under George Washington's command.

As the Industrial Revolution transformed the global economy, machines took over hand production, accelerating production and population growth. Ideas of socialism, communism, and anarchism were born, and the standard of living for the general population began to increase. With industrialism came capitalism, creating even more contrast between wealthy and poor countries. Steam power gave birth to engines, vehicles, and locomotives, leading to the taming and death of the American frontier, also known as the Wild West.

The Western world kept advancing and expanding its power; European imperialism brought much of Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Africa under colonial rule. Japan was the only Eastern country that managed to follow Europe's industrial advancements with the Meiji Restoration—both China and the Ottoman Empire failed in their attempts to keep up with industrialization. As the United States created an empire of its own with Japan behind it, the world entered the 20th century, bringing forth unprecedented scopes of warfare.

By the time World War I began, it had become painfully clear humanity was not going to be God's final, perfect masterpiece but a cesspool of flaws and sin—a failure of a project that drove away its creator. It would take a miracle to steer humankind away from their inner pride and bring God back to the universe…

Or another mass destruction of primordial proportions to restart it all over again.