What was "The Incident" in your world?

You know, the major event that occurred and people generally prefer to avoid discussing.

The Astral War, or more precisely, its conclusion. An interstellar conflict that lasted two months was resolved in just two days, leading to the galaxy taking on the shape of Apple’s logo as a result.

One recent “incident” involved the death of Emperor Ariel IV in Akera. The conquest of this small mountain province had been an expensive imperial endeavor by his great uncle, Ariel III, sixty years prior. However, with the rise of organized goblin armies, the Emperor decided to mobilize the legions to further secure the region.

The official story is that the Emperor led the legions to an ancient city, where he fought and defeated the returned hobgoblin deity in single combat before dying from his injuries. However, Legion Legate Gaius Clio, who had achieved victory against the hobgoblin forces, was soon assigned to dangerous duties in a remote imperial area. The crown was presented to the heir apparent by a low-ranking cleric under suspiciously tense circumstances, and the late Emperor’s body was never found. Unofficial rumors, fueled by the Imperial household’s slander of Clio, contradict soldier eyewitness accounts, but the general never publicly disputed these claims.

Legionaries loyal to Clio have asserted that the late Emperor became reclusive and erratic in the months before the campaign. However, many dismiss these claims as jealousy over the Emperor’s victory, which overshadowed the achievements of their favored legion legate.

Certain human factions strongly dislike having discussions about Scrap City, its inhabitants, or the Inhabitor Massacre.

In the early days of my world, a faction of humans who were hostile toward other abnormal species established a city by driving out and killing many members of a species known as Inhabitors.

Inhabitors are energy beings with a weak core that they protect by residing in objects. As they age, they can control more matter. Most of the Inhabitors killed by the humans were very young and defenseless.

The humans discovered the extent of the Inhabitors’ power when an elder Inhabitor learned of the massacre. This Inhabitor caused a nearby mountain to detach and move toward the city.

Upon reaching the city, the Inhabitor retaliated by destroying it with a single stomp before returning home. To this day, that human faction still refuses to admit any non-human species into their cities and remains in denial about the event.

World War 3

Not many people survived, and those who did were so scarred by the war and consumed by the struggle to survive the aftermath that they never learned the full truth.

What the average person doesn’t know is that the nukes that detonated across the globe weren’t launched by any government. They were set off by a rogue human weapon gone wrong. Shortly before the war, the U.S. had started developing super soldiers with powers, and while they succeeded, those soldiers eventually grew tired of being used as living weapons. When they rebelled, the order was given to eliminate them. One of these soldiers, with the ability to hack electronic devices, simultaneously launched and detonated nearly every nuclear warhead worldwide. Amidst the chaos of global conflict, this catastrophic event escalated everything, pushing humanity to the brink of extinction.

The Fall. This refers to a series of catastrophic events that culminated in the collapse of society in KE 2331. This included a regional nuclear war and the onset of the Third Ice Age, followed by a global post-apocalyptic war that nearly wiped out humanity.

By KE 2847, Camille Nicolsen remains the only person with any memory or firsthand experience of the events. While the details of The Fall have been preserved in books and archives around the world, Nicolsen’s knowledge stands as the last living link to that devastating time.