The Chomdi Disaster
In the time before time* something occurred that would change the face of Shanda forever. A cluster of stars near the Shillizon galaxy’s core exploded; no one knows why, no one knows how, but it would alter the galaxy if not the entire Upper Universe forever. The explosion killed billions, erased thousands of civilizations from existence, and on Shanda itself, shook the great Chomashi from their throne.
As the stars blasted themselves into oblivion the force of the explosion sent out a massive load of planetary debris in a radial direction. Much of the wreckage was of standard satellite size, some planetary. These projectiles did almost as much damage as the explosion itself. In the Shandan solar system alone three planets were altered, and two of the three all but destroyed.
The current second planet from the twin stars,Torlii, was thought to have once supported life, and held a position between Sarr and Ushaso. It can be deduced, from the limited Chomashi records available from the disaster, that a planetary sized shard slammed into the planet, shattered Torlii’s surface, and blasted it out of orbit. The planet lost much of its atmosphere and any life that once survived on its surface was eradicated.
Ushaso, another planet drastically affected by the Chomdi explosion, was almost completely broken up. It is believe that the same section of debris that collided with Shanda’s moon, Tono, ricocheted off of the satellite after cracking almost half of the moon off and was aimed at the larger planet. Barely missing Tiisa-Soo, the debris crashed into Ushaso and the already unstable planet was destroyed.
On Shanda the damage was limited, and though it altered the planet’s surface it did not succeed in destroying the life that that small planet supported. The shard of material that is believed to have destroyed Ushaso first hit Tono, the white moon of Shanda. The impact with the moon threw the debris out of its trajectory and saved Shanda from the end that Ushaso suffered, but Tono was split almost in half. The smaller section of the moon was pulled into Shanda’s atmosphere and then collided with the largest continent, then called Unalith.
The moon’s impact split Unalith in two, submerged a great amount of the continent, and rose new land from the ocean, thus forming the Homeland, the Mainland, and Ngenshi, and destroying the ancient continent. The only physical remain of this collision is the Chomdi Crater itself. Not only did the Chomdi Disaster cause new continents to form, however, it also changed air and water currents, split the planet’s surface into plates, and brought about the Sharro and Nonoshan species.
Tono’s fallen half killed thousands of Chomashi, the ruling hnau of the time, millions of animals, and forced the Chomashi to evacuate the sinking Unalith, their ancient homeland, for the foreboding land of Rodapth. Those Chomashi left behind, called the Gushida, with the small exception of those hidden within The Vell, were subjected to high level of radiation. Sickly and driven insane, the abandoned Chomashi were left to the mercy of what animal species were left. Many of them were eaten by the other suffering beings of the destroyed Unalith, but those left were found by the hindalaso, species commonly referred to as semi sentients. Shanda sports many hindalaso species, its several draconic species included, and these species took to the Gushida in a much more civil manner, often harboring them within their numbers.
This coexistence, which was active during the settling of the planet, brought about new hnau, the Sharro and Nonoshan, from the blood of the Chomashi left behind and those species that harbored them. The process was slow, but the strange levels of radiation allowed the Chomashi to crossbreed with the other species and bring about healthy, often fertile, young. Any differences caused by gender were erased as the emerging specie’s numbers grew, and as they moved away from the lingering numbers of Gushida, and the hindalaso.
The last of the Gushida were destroyed after the draconic Gathering of Unalith, during The Massacre of the Gushida, in which all of the draconic species, with the exception of the Cratosan, set out to kill the left over Gushida, and succeeded.
*This refers to the time period in which the Chomashinian calendar was not used. No known dating system was used during this time, and historical records, often kept in massive libraries, are the only evidence that the Chomashi were interested in the past. It was the Chomdi disaster that inspired the Chomashinian calendar, thus the abbreviation PCD, meaning Post Chomdi Disaster.
