Yggdrasil-Writes

The writers blog of the Yggdrasil System

[pixelartpeach]

Minecraft’s worlds are cyclical.

The End, called such, is the last place you go to. It’s got floating islands over nothingness. It’s still forming.

The Nether is full of lava, ruin, decay. The monsters don’t hide at night, because they don’t even have a concept of night. Killing the Wither, made fully of parts you can only find in the Nether, grants you an achievement called “The Beginning.”

The Overworld is full of life that’s constantly changing. The terrain is forming bigger and bigger, new entities and old come into/back into existence.

Neither the End nor the Nether are habitable for human life. You can make do, somewhat—chorus fruit and hoglin porkchops can technically sustain you. But there’s no sun, no flowers, no trees.

The Nether came first. It’s dying.

The Overworld is the current, alive world.

The End is still just coming into being.

When the Overworld is no longer habitable, the End will have evolved new landscapes, new horizons. And while the End’s life flourishes and the Overworld’s life dies off, the Nether will have a chance to heal, start over. Like a phoenix, or a forest after a wildfire.

Idk guys I just really like the idea of worlds that live, die, then live again.

[the-yggdrasil-system]

First came a world of Fire and Fighting. The chunk of earth worn away by lava and brimstone, settling into Deltas and eroding into wastes of souls and barren semi-molten rock. Life grew, strange plants and fungi, feeding off the endless heat and plentiful fertilizer in the form of corpses. Fortresses were built, their guards determined to guard it so, to the point of living beyond death. Bastions were constructed and mined out of the deltas, the Black, igneous stone easy to shape but not giving way. Gold was mined, traded, and war fell through to commerce. Greed was their undoing, those fortress-dwellers all withering away into sooty husks. A once grand civilization collapsed, with their bastions crumbling slowly to follow. The world went barren; the wastes took all. There was nothing. It died. But recently, it renewed. The deltas began to form again, with living magma pooling around it. The fungi returned: the new channels carved by lava revealed a civilization locked away, ready to begin anew. Next came a world of Sun and Shade. It was odd, at first. A vast, empty land of strange forests and livestock. The farthest edges of land a chaotic mess. Empty, barren ocean floors. Mostly uninhabited. Soon though, new life began to emerge as the world before it did. New climates came about as time went on. The edges of the world calmed, now naught but a myth. Monuments were built and lost to the tides, or the sands, or the overgrowth. Strange creatures came. The ocean grew coral, and sea travel came. Eventually, civilizations arose here too. The surface held loose, scattered towns, smart, yes, but placid. Pacifistic. They would construct Iron hulks to protect them. Over time, they became more and more prosperous, clothing themselves more vibrantly, and decorating their abodes to boot. But far, far beneath their feet another one rose. Unknown in appearance, they built massive strongholds, cities, and mines. They hoarded treasures unknown, powerful. Strange magic came about, able to harness the life essence of slain creatures. That would be their undoing, as the same civilization fell to a skulking sickness… This world flourished nonetheless, with most hatred and combat only being found where it cannot be witnessed or seen; in the darkest parts of the world, the caves, or when the sun had set. There is exception, yes, but it is rare. They day will come though, when this changes, and this world shall die like the one before it. But perhaps…it will come to grow again, much the same. The newest world is one of Void and Power. Scattered, endless isles. Rocks floating in a void of pure potential; growing with time. This world is new, and very little life has been seeded: but it is there. Strange, shelled mollusks, tall and intelligent beings with a crippling fear of being stared at. A powerful dragon, guarding against any life that would harm this world: that would harm her egg. This world is likely to grow like the one before it; to die like its predecessors; to one day be born anew. Such is the cycle of the worlds.

[yggdrasilwrites]

New [Inserthere]-Punk Idea

Its like a mix of Solarpunk and Cyberpunk where the world is already massively polluted so they use industrial technology to purify the air and water and such with things like “Methane Scrubbers” and “Novopollutors”

[yggdrasilwrites]

Decay: Part 4

Cobalt turned and walked down some nearby stairs. More wandering, they thought. The only thing that there really was to do. Wander endless halls and hope that maybe there were some trinkets that survived. There almost never were though. All that the old world had left was knowledge, most of it encased inside Cobalt’s reinforced skull. 

“Why would they give me so much information, come to think of it?” Cobalt wondered.

“All it does is taunt me with a world that might never have existed.”

Soon after, they passed by one of the crusher lines. Huge mechanical pistons meant to flatten metal sheets, presumably. Stopping for a minute, Cobalt admired the large, heavy sounds of the metal slamming into the belt in a strict rhythm. Belt stops, slam, belt goes. Belt stops, slam, belt goes. Rinse repeat ad nauseum and then some.

Harsh fluorescent light cast deep shadows upon the line. Cobalt liked watching the shade dance across the wall.

Of course, though they didn’t notice, the shadows were also watching Cobalt.

[yggdrasilwrites]

Decay: Part 3

Cobalt’s body was not their own. It was simply a corpse upon which they were grafted; the complex, lead-lined machinations of a supercomputer encased inside an empty skull. Already desiccated and weathered, whatever built them had made the vessel more…suitable. Many mechanical modifications were needed, some so extensive as to remove that section of the body entirely, and replace it.

Cobalt looked back up to gaze outside. It was a rare thing, a glimpse into the surface. Then again, there wasn’t much to look at. Just ash. Constant, constricting, endlessly falling ash that choked out the sun in an eerie greenish glow, piling up in mounds the same grey color of Cobalt’s skin.

“I suppose that’s enough daydreaming for now,” came a crackling, harsh attempt at a voice emanating from the respirator’s speaker. 

“Why would I even need a voice, anyways? There’s no one to talk to.”

[yggdrasilwrites]

Decay: Part 2

In approximately 2105, the world was bathed in so much nuclear hellfire that the very soil was sterilized. Life would fade away in what few bunkers and factories still stood. Earth had died. Life wasn’t coming back from this. And yet, somehow, the factories kept operating, kept working, toiling. The assembly lines pounded and drilled at nothing, uselessly moving and turning and rotating and other stiff, mechanical emulations of life.

One such emulation had dubbed itself “Cobalt-60.” “60,” for the number stamped onto their respirator, and “Cobalt” for the number of years they had been conscious; 5.26 years. They weren’t a part of the factory, no…they were something else entirely. 

Looking down at their hand, they pondered what exactly one would even call them. A cyber-zombie? An amalgam? A mistake?

[yggdrasilwrites]

Decay: Part 1

Atomic Particle Decay is a process in which an atom loses the ability to hold cohesion. The result is the gradual and degenerative loss of subatomic particles, which then break free at a ludicrous velocity.

The emissions from this are largely known as atomic radiation. Most forms of atomic radiation have at least some capability to be harmful in the event it enters an organism's internal systems. 

Atomic Radiation can destabilize otherwise stable atoms, leading to complex chemical damage to large structures such as DNA, and long-lasting irradiation of an area. Atomic Radiation also heavily degrades electrical equipment and other light-sensitive structures, almost always to the point of irreparable damage. 

If even a fraction of the Total Nuclear Stockpile circa 2015 were to go off, Nuclear Winter would be inevitable, choking out all surface-level life. Further detonations could irreversibly irradiate the oceans, therefore snuffing out even the most hardy life in the deepest of trenches. The only surviving remnants of Earth would be brutalist architecture made of several feet of concrete, lead, and rebar; such places being industrial factories. Even then, nothing organic would survive for very long.

Eventually, as Dark Energy continues its inexorable march for expansion, even the most stable of atoms will decay. Heat Death. Stagnancy. The universe will not die, but life will. Matter will. Only subatomic particles. Never to re-coalesce. 

Sometimes, things get stuck on the edge of infinite decay, and refuse to die. They will not be “living” not be “whole,” and therefore, death and destruction does not come.

Only decay.