In 1975, the ending of the b’ak’tun cycle became the subject of speculation by several New Age authors, who believe it will correspond to a global “consciousness shift”. In his book ”Mexico Mystique: The Coming Sixth Age of Consciousness”, Frank Waters tied Coe’s December 24, 2011 date to astrology and the prophecies of the Hopi, while both José Argüelles and Terence McKenna (in their books ”The Transformative Vision” and ”The Invisible Landscape” respectively) discussed the significance of the year 2012, but not a specific day. In 1987, the year in which he held the Harmonic Convergence event, Arguelles settled on the date of December 21 in his book ”The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology”, in which he claimed on that date the Earth would pass through a great “beam” from the centre of the Galaxy, and that the Maya aligned their calendar in anticipation of that event.

Established themes found in 2012 literature include “suspicion towards mainstream Western culture”, the idea of spiritual evolution, and the possibility of leading the world into the New Age by individual example or by a group’s joined consciousness. The general intent of this literature is not to warn of impending doom but “to foster counter-cultural sympathies and eventually socio-political and ‘spiritual’ activism”. Aveni, who has studied New Age and SETI communities, describes 2012 narratives as the product of a “disconnected” society: “Unable to find spiritu

Galactic alignment

In the mid-1990s, esoteric author John Major Jenkins asserted that the ancient Maya intended to tie the end of their calendar to the winter solstice in 2012, which falls on December 21. This date was in line with an idea he terms the ”galactic alignment”.

In the Solar System, the planets and the Sun share roughly the same plane of orbit, known as the plane of the ecliptic. From our perspective on Earth, the ecliptic is the path taken by the Sun across the sky over the course of the year. The 12 constellations which line the ecliptic are known as the zodiac and, through the year, the Sun passes through each constellation in turn. Additionally, over time, the Sun’s annual passage appears to recede counterclockwise by one degree every 72 years. This movement, called “precession”, is attributed to a slight wobble in the Earth’s axis as it spins. As a result, approximately every 2160 years, the constellation visible on the early morning of the spring equinox changes. In Western astrological traditions, this signals the end of one astrological age (currently the Age of Pisces) and the beginning of another (Age of Aquarius). Over the course of 26,000 years, precession makes one full circuit around the ecliptic.

Just as the spring equinox in the northern hemisphere is currently in the constellation of Pisces, so the winter solstice is currently in the constellation of Sagittarius, which is the zodiacal constellation intersected by the galactic equator. Every year for the last 1000 years or so, on the winter solstice, the Earth, Sun and the galactic equator come into alignment, and every year, precession pushes the Sun’s position a little way further through the Milky Way’s band.

Jenkins suggests that the Maya based their calendar on observations of the Great Rift, a band of dark dust clouds in the Milky Way, which the Maya called the ”Xibalba be” or “Black Road.” Jenkins claims that the Maya were aware of where the ecliptic intersected the Black Road and gave this position in the sky a special significance in their cosmology. According to the hypothesis, the Sun precisely aligns with this intersection point at the winter solstice of 2012. Jenkins claimed that the classical Mayans anticipated this conjunction and celebrated it as the harbinger of a profound spiritual transition for mankind. New Age proponents of the galactic alignment hypothesis argue that, just as astrology uses the positions of stars and planets to make claims of future events, the Mayans plotted their calendars with the objective of preparing for significant world events. Jenkins attributes the insights of ancient Maya shamans about the galactic center to their use of psilocybin mushrooms, psychoactive toads, and other psychedelics. Jenkins also associates the ”Xibalba be” with a “world tree”, drawing on studies of contemporary (not ancient) Maya cosmology.

Astronomers argue that the galactic equator is an entirely arbitrary line, and can never be precisely determined because it is impossible to say exactly where the Milky Way begins or ends. Jenkins claims he drew his conclusions about the location of the galactic equator from observations taken at above 11,000 feet, which is higher than any of the Maya lived. Furthermore, the precessional alignment of the Sun with any single point is not exclusive to a specific year, but takes place over a 36-year period, corresponding to its diameter. Jenkins himself notes that, even given his determined location for the line of the galactic equator, its most precise convergence with the centre of the Sun already occurred in 1998.

There is no clear evidence that the classic Maya were aware of precession. Some Maya scholars, such as Barbara MacLeod, Michael Grofe, Eva Hunt, Gordon Brotherston, and Anthony Aveni, have suggested that some Mayan holy dates were timed to precessional cycles, but scholarly opinion on the subject remains divided. There is also little evidence, archaeological or historical, that the Maya placed any importance on solstices or equinoxes. It is possible that early Mesoamericans had an emphasis on solstices which was later forgotten, but this is also a disputed issue among Mayanists. The start date of the Long Count is not astronomically significant.

Timewave zero and the I Ching

“Timewave zero” is a numerological formula that purports to calculate the ebb and flow of “novelty”, defined as increase in the universe’s interconnectedness, or organised complexity, over time. According to Terence McKenna, who conceived the idea over several years in the early-mid 1970s while using psilocybin mushrooms and DMT, the universe has a teleological attractor at the end of time that increases interconnectedness, eventually reaching a singularity of infinite complexity in 2012, at which point anything and everything imaginable will occur simultaneously.

McKenna expressed “novelty” in a computer program, which purportedly produces a waveform known as ”timewave zero” or the ”timewave”. Based on McKenna’s interpretation of the King Wen sequence of the I Ching, the graph appears to show great periods of novelty corresponding with major shifts in humanity’s biological and cultural evolution. He believed the events of any given time are recursively related to the events of other times, and chose the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as the basis for calculating his end date in November 2012. When he later discovered this date’s proximity to the end of the 13th b’ak’tun of the Maya calendar, he revised his hypothesis so that the two dates matched.

The first edition of ”The Invisible Landscape” refers to 2012 (as the year, not a specific day) only twice. McKenna originally considered it an incidental observation that his and José Argüelles dates matched, a sign of the end date “being programmed into our unconscious”. It was only in 1983, with the publication of Sharer’s revised table of date correlations in the 4th edition of Morley’s ”The Ancient Maya,” that each became convinced that December 21, 2012 had significant meaning. McKenna subsequently peppered this specific date throughout the second, 1993 edition of ”The Invisible Landscape.”

Popularization

In 2006, author Daniel Pinchbeck popularised New Age concepts about this date in his book ”2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl”, linking it to beliefs about crop circles, alien abduction, and personal revelations based on the use of entheogens and mediumship. Pinchbeck claims to discern a “growing realization that materialism and the rational, empirical worldview that comes with it has reached its expiration date…[w]e’re on the verge of transitioning to a dispensation of consciousness that’s more intuitive, mystical and shamanic.” Beginning in 2003, he has promoted these ideas annually in presentations at Burning Man. In April 2010, Pinchbeck and several others released the documentary film ”2012: Time for Change”.

In India, the guru Kalki Bhagavan has promoted 2012 as a “deadline” for human enlightenment since at least 1998. In the United States, the association of December 21, 2012 with a “transformation of consciousness” has also received popular attention in ”The Lost Symbol” (2009), a bestseller work of thriller fiction by Dan Brown, in which the date is associated with references to esoteric beliefs of Freemasonry and noetic theory. David Wilcock, a new age researcher, has gained increasing popularity with viral video-seminars promoting the idea of global ascension, and a golden age, in the year 2012

Adapted from the Wikipedia article 2012 phenomenon, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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According to the ”Popol Vuh”, a book compiling details of creation accounts known to the K’iche’ Maya of the Colonial-era highlands, we are living in the fourth world. The ”Popol Vuh” describes the first three creations that the gods failed in making and the creation of the successful fourth world where men were placed. In the Maya Long Count, the previous creation ended at the start of a 14th b’ak’tun.

The previous creation ended on a long count of 12.19.19.17.19. Another 12.19.19.17.19 will occur on December 20, 2012, followed by the start of the fourteenth b’ak’tun, 13.0.0.0.0, on December 21, 2012. There is only one reference to the current creation’s 13th b’ak’tun in the fragmentary Mayan corpus: Tortuguero Monument 6, part of a ruler’s inscription.

Maya inscriptions occasionally reference future predicted events or commemorations that would occur on dates that lie beyond 2012 (that is, beyond the completion of the 13th ”b’ak’tun” of the current era). Most of these are in the form of “distance dates” where some Long Count date is given, together with a Distance Number that is to be added to the Long Count date to arrive at this future date.

For example, on the west panel at the Temple of Inscriptions in Palenque, a section of the text projects into the future to the 80th Calendar Round (CR) ‘anniversary’ of the famous Palenque ruler K’inich Janaab’ Pakal’s accession to the throne (Pakal’s accession occurred on a Cal

Despite the publicity generated by the 2012 date, Susan Milbrath, curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, stated that “We have no record or knowledge that [the Maya] would think the world would come to an end” in 2012. “For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle,” says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Florida. To render December 21, 2012, as a doomsday event or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.” “There will be another cycle,” says E. Wyllys Andrews V, director of the Tulane University Middle American Research Institute (MARI). “We know the Maya thought there was one before this, and that implies they were comfortable with the idea of another one after this.”

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Mythology and religion

In Norse mythology, earthquakes were explained as the violent struggling of the god Loki. When Loki, god of mischief and strife, murdered Baldr, god of beauty and light, he was punished by being bound in a cave with a poisonous serpent placed above his head dripping venom. Loki’s wife Sigyn stood by him with a bowl to catch the poison, but whenever she had to empty the bowl the poison would drip on Loki’s face, forcing him to jerk his head away and thrash against his bonds, causing the earth to tremble.

In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the cause and god of earthquakes. When he was in a bad mood, he would strike the ground with a trident, causing this and other calamities. He also used earthquakes to punish and inflict fear upon people as revenge.

In Japanese mythology, Namazu (鯰) is a giant catfish who causes earthquakes. Namazu lives in the mud beneath the earth, and is guarded by the god Kashima who restrains the fish with a stone. When Kashima lets his guard fall, Namazu thrashes about, causing violent earthquakes.

Popular culture

In modern popular culture, the portrayal of earthquakes is shaped by the memory of great cities laid waste, such as Kobe in 1995 or San Francisco in 1906. Fictional earthquakes tend to strike suddenly and without warning. For this reason, stories about earthquakes generally begin with the disaster and focus on its immediate aftermath, as in ”Short Walk to Daylight” (1972), ”The Ragged Edge” (1968) or ”Aftershock: Earthquake in New York” (1998). A n

The most popular single earthquake in fiction is the hypothetical “Big One” expected of California’s San Andreas Fault someday, as depicted in the novels ”Richter 10” (1996) and ”Goodbye California” (1977) among other works. Jacob M. Appel’s widely anthologized short story, ”A Comparative Seismology”, features a con artist who convinces an elderly woman that an apocalyptic earthquake is imminent. In ”Pleasure Boating in Lituya Bay”, one of the stories in Jim Shepard’s ”Like You’d Understand, Anyway”, the “Big One” leads to an even more devastating tsunami.

In the film ”2012” (2009), solar flares (geologically implausibly) affecting the Earth’s core caused massive destabilization of the Earth’s crust layers. This created destruction planet-wide with earthquakes and tsunamis, foreseen by the Mayan culture and myth surrounding the last year noted in the ”Mesoamerican calendar” – ”2012”.

Contemporary depictions of earthquakes in film are variable in the manner in which they reflect human psychological reactions to the actual trauma that can be caused to directly afflicted families and their loved ones. Disaster mental health response research emphasizes the need to be aware of the different roles of loss of family and key community members, loss of home and familiar surroundings, loss of essential supplies and services to maintain survival. Particularly for children, the clear availability of caregiving adults who are able to protect, nourish, and clothe them in the aftermath of the earthquake, and to help them make sense of what has befallen them has been shown to be even more important to their emotional and physical health than the simple giving of provisions. As was observed after other disasters involving destruction and loss of life and their media depictions, such as those of the 2001 World Trade Center Attacks or Hurricane Katrina—and has been recently observed in the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, it is also important not to pathologize the reactions to loss and displacement or disruption of governmental administration and services, but rather to validate these reactions, to support constructive problem-solving and reflection as to how one might improve the conditions of those affected.

==General references

*

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Earthquake, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Since Calendar Round dates can only distinguish in 18,980 days, equivalent to around 52 solar years, the cycle repeats roughly once each lifetime, and thus, a more refined method of dating was needed if history was to be recorded accurately. To measure dates, therefore, over periods longer than 52 years, Mesoamericans devised the Long Count calendar.

The Maya name for a day was ”k’in”. Twenty of these k’ins are known as a ”winal” or ”uinal”. Eighteen winals make one ”tun”. Twenty tuns are known as a ”k’atun”. Twenty k’atuns make a ”b’ak’tun”.

The Long Count calendar identifies a date by counting the number of days from the Mayan creation date 4 Ahaw, 8 Kumk’u (August 11, 3114 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or September 6 in the Julian calendar). But instead of using a base-10 (decimal) scheme like Western numbering, the Long Count days were tallied in a modified base-20 scheme. Thus 0.0.0.1.5 is equal to 25, and 0.0.0.2.0 is equal to 40. As the winal unit resets after only counting to 18, the Long Count consistently uses base-20 only if the tun is considered the primary unit of measurement, not the k’in; with the k’in and winal units being the number of days in the tun. The Long Count 0.0.1.0.0 represents 360 days, rather than the 400 in a purely base-20 (vigesimal) count.

There are also four rarely used higher-order cycles: piktun, kalabtun, k’inchiltun, and alautun.

Since the Long Count dates are unambiguous, the Long Count was

Misinterpretation of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is the basis for a New Age belief that a cataclysm will take place on December 21, 2012. December 21, 2012 is simply the first day of the 14th b’ak’tun.

Sandra Noble, executive director of the Mesoamerican research organization FAMSI, notes that “for the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle”. She considers the portrayal of December 2012 as a doomsday or cosmic-shift event to be “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.” The 2009 science fiction apocalyptic disaster film 2012 is based on this belief.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Maya calendar, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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December 2012 marks the ending of the current ”b’ak’tun” cycle of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, which was used in Central America prior to the arrival of Europeans. Though the Long Count was most likely invented by the Olmec, it has become closely associated with the Maya civilization, whose classic period lasted from 250 to 900 AD. The writing system of the classic Maya has been substantially deciphered, meaning that a corpus of their written and inscribed material has survived from before the European conquest.

The Long Count set its “zero date” at a point in the past marking the end of the previous world and the beginning of the current one, which corresponds to either 11 or 13 August 3114 BC in the Proleptic Gregorian calendar, depending on the formula used. Unlike the 52-year calendar round still used today among the Maya, the Long Count was linear, rather than cyclical, and kept time roughly in units of 20, so 20 days made a ”uinal”, 18 uinals (360 days) made a ”tun”, 20 tuns made a ”k’atun”, and 20 k’atuns (144,000 days) made up a ”b’ak’tun”. So, for example, the Mayan date of 8.3.2.10.15 represents 8 b’ak’tuns, 3 k’atuns, 2 tuns, 10 uinals and 15 days since creation. Many Mayan inscriptions have the count shifting to a higher order after 13 b’ak’tuns, or roughly 5,125 years. Today, the most widely accepted correlations of the end of the thirteenth b’ak’tun, or Mayan date 13.0.0.0.0, with the Western calendar are December 21

There is a strong tradition of “world ages” in Maya literature, but unfortunately the record has been distorted, leaving several possibilities open. In 1957, Mayanist and astronomer Maud Worcester Makemson wrote that “the completion of a Great Period of 13 b’ak’tuns would have been of the utmost significance to the Maya”. In 1988, anthropologist Munro S. Edmonson added that “there appears to be a strong likelihood that the eral calendar, like the year calendar, was motivated by a long-range astronomical prediction, one that made a correct solsticial forecast 2,367 years into the future in 355 B.C.” (sic) In 1966, Michael D. Coe more ambitiously asserted in ”The Maya” that “there is a suggestion … that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the thirteenth [b'ak'tun]. Thus … our present universe [would] be annihilated [in December 2012] when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion.”

Coe’s apocalyptic connotations were accepted by other scholars through the early 1990s. In contrast, later researchers said that, while the end of the 13th b’ak’tun would perhaps be a cause for celebration, it did not mark the end of the calendar. “There is nothing in the Maya or Aztec or ancient Mesoamerican prophecy to suggest that they prophesied a sudden or major change of any sort in 2012,” says Mayanist scholar Mark Van Stone. “The notion of a “Great Cycle” coming to an end is completely a modern invention.” In their seminal work of 1990, Maya scholars Linda Schele and David Freidel, who reference Edmonson, argue that the Maya “did not conceive this to be the end of creation, as many have suggested,” citing Mayan predictions of events to occur after the end of the 13th b’ak’tun. Stela 1 at Coba, for example, gives a date with twenty units above the b’ak’tun, placing it either 4.134105 × 1028 (41 octillion short scale years) in the future, or an equal distance in the past. Either way, this date is 3 quintillion (short scale) times the age of the universe, demonstrating that not all Mayans considered the 5,125-year cycle as the most important. In fact, many different Maya city-states employed the Long Count in different ways. At Palenque, evidence suggests that the priest timekeepers believed the cycle would end after 20 b’ak’tuns, rather than 13. A monument commemorating the ascension of king Pakal the Great connects his coronation with events as much as 4000 years after, indicating that those scribes did not believe the world would end on 13.0.0.0.0.

Maya references to B’ak’tun 13

The present-day Maya, as a whole, do not attach much significance to b’ak’tun 13. Although the calendar round is still used by some Maya tribes in the Guatemalan highlands, the Long Count was employed exclusively by the classic Maya, and was only recently rediscovered by archaeologists. Mayan elder Apolinario Chile Pixtun and Mexican archaeologist Guillermo Bernal both note that “apocalypse” is a Western concept that has little or nothing to do with Mayan beliefs. Bernal believes that such ideas have been foisted on the Maya by Westerners because their own myths are “exhausted”. Archaeoastronomer Anthony Aveni says that while the idea of “balancing the cosmos” was prominent in ancient Maya literature, and some modern Maya affirm this idea of an age of coexistence, the 2012 phenomenon does not present this message in its original form. Instead, it is bound up with American traditions such as the New Age movement, millenarianism, and the belief in secret knowledge from distant times and places. Mayan archaeologist Jose Huchm has stated that “If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn’t have any idea. That the world is going to end? They wouldn’t believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain”.

What significance the classic Maya gave the 13th b’ak’tun is uncertain. Most classic Maya inscriptions are strictly historical and do not make any prophetic declarations. Two items in the Maya historical corpus, however, may mention the end of the 13th b’ak’tun: Tortuguero Monument 6 and, possibly, the Chilam Balam.

Tortuguero

The Tortuguero site, which lies in southernmost Tabasco, Mexico, dates from the 7th century AD and consists of a series of inscriptions in honor of the contemporary ruler. One inscription, known as Tortuguero Monument 6, is generally agreed among Mayanists to refer to b’ak’tun 13. It has been partially defaced; Mark Van Stone has given the most complete translation:

”Tzuhtz-(a)j-oom u(y)-uxlajuun pik”

:The Thirteenth [b'ak'tun] will end

”(ta) Chan Ajaw ux(-te’) Uniiw.”

on) 4 Ajaw, the 3rd of Uniiw [3 K'ank'in].

”Uht-oom Ek’-…”

:Black …[illegible]…will occur.

”Y-em(al)…Bolon Yookte’ K’uh ta-chak-ma…”

It will be) the descent(?) of Bolon Yokte’ K’uh to the great (or “red”?)…[illegible]…

Very little is known about the god (or gods) Bolon Yokte’ K’uh. According to an article by Mayanists M. Eberl and C. Prager in ”British Anthropological Reports”, his name is composed of the elements “nine”, ‘OK-te’ (the meaning of which is unknown), and “god”. Confusion in classical period inscriptions suggests that the name was already ancient and unfamiliar to contemporary scribes. He also appears in inscriptions from Palenque, Usumacinta, and La Mar as a god of war, conflict, and the underworld. In one stela he is portrayed with a rope tied around his neck, and in another with an incense bag, together signifying a sacrifice to end a period of time. Despite all this, Eberl & Prager believe that the reference to Bolon Yokte’ K’uh at Tortuguero is a positive one, because the fragmentary word translated above as “descent” seems to be the same one used during building dedications.

Chilam Balam

The Chilam Balam are a group of post-conquest Mayan prophetic histories transcribed in a modified form of the Spanish alphabet. Their authorship is ascribed to a ”chilam balam”, or jaguar prophet. The Chilam Balam of Tizimin has been translated four times in the 20th century, with many disputes over the meaning of its passages. One passage in particular is relevant to the interpretation of the 13th ”b’ak’tun”:

”lic u tal oxlahun bak chem, ti u cenic u (tzan a cen/ba nacom)i (ciac/cha’) a ba yum(il/t)exe”

Maud Worcester Makemson, an archaeoastronomer, believed that this line referred to the “tremendously important event of the arrival of 13.0.0.0.0 4 Ahau 3 Kankin in the not too distant future”, Her translation of the line, runs:

Presently B’ak’tun 13 shall come sailing, figuratively speaking, bringing the ornaments of which I have spoken from your ancestors.

Her version of the text continues, “Then the god will come to visit his little ones. Perhaps ‘After Death’ will be the subject of his discourse.” Makemson was still relying on her own dating of 13.0.0.0.0 to 1752 and therefore the “not too distant future” in her annotations meant a few years after the scribe in Tizimin recorded his Chilam Balam. The more recent translation of Munro S. Edmonson does not support this reading; he considers the Long Count almost entirely absent from the book, since the 360-day ”tun” been supplanted in the 1750s by a 365-day Christian year, and a 24-round ”may” system was being implemented. He translates the line as follows:

…like the coming of 13 sail-ships. When the captains dress themselves, your fathers will be taken.

Other Chilam Balam books contain references to the 13th b’ak’tun, but it is unclear if these are in the past or future; for example, ”oxhun bakam u katunil” (thirteen ”bakam” of k’atuns) in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel. Bolon Yokte’ K’uh appears in in the Chilam Balam of Chumayel to signify an apparent battle and victory over Spanish invaders.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article 2012 phenomenon, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Apocalypticism is a frequent theme of literature, film and television.

Y2K

Apocalypticism was especially evident with the approach of the millennial year 2000, in which some predicted a massive computer crash which would throw global commerce and financial systems into chaos. These predictions did not come true, although a few remarkable isolated events did occur due to the glitches in computer coding on which these predictions focused.

Mayan calendar 2012

The 2012 doomsday prediction is a present-day cultural meme proposing that cataclysmic and apocalyptic events will occur on December 21, 2012. This idea has been disseminated by numerous books, Internet sites and by TV documentaries with increasing frequency since the late 1990s. The forecast is based primarily on what is claimed to be the end-date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, which is presented as lasting 5,125 years and as terminating on December 21 or 23, 2012, along with interpretations of assorted legends, scriptures, numerological constructions and prophecies.

== General

Apocalyptic fiction

Apocalyptic films

” See List of apocalyptic films ”

Christian premillennial apocalyptic writers

* Tim LaHaye

* Hal Lindsey

* James Redfield

Apocalyptic songs

” See: List of apocalyptic songs ”

Apocalyptic movements

* Essenes

* Millerites

* Seventh-day Adventist Church

* The Brethren (also known as The Body of Christ)

Millenarian cults

* A

* Heaven’s Gate

* Order of the Solar Temple

* Peoples Temple

Apocalyptic video games

* ”Fallout” series

* ”KKnD” series

* ”Left 4 Dead” series

* ”Panzer Dragoon” series

* ”Rage”

* ”The Secret World”

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Apocalypticism, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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”Shadowrun” is linked to ”Earthdawn”, and is set in the “Sixth World”, where ”Earthdawn” is the “Fourth World” and modern-day Earth is at the tail end of the ”Fifth World”. Such links are not necessary for play, but they allow crossover potential.

The concept of the “Worlds” is directly linked to the ancient Aztec belief that the world is renewed every five thousand years—a period called a “Sun” (currently we live in the fifth Sun). The date of the beginning of the “Sixth World” is based on the ancient Mayan calendar which will finish an approximately five thousand year long period in December 2012, although Shadowrun puts the date in December 2011.

”Shadowrun” is influenced by the writings of William Gibson (particularly ”Neuromancer”), who reacted in a less than favorable light to its release.

The curse words of the first three editions substituted words for curses that would have been used in a setting like the one depicted, but would equally have provoked criticism when used in a book for adolescents – e.g., “drek” (German Dreck, dirt – short for “Scheißdreck”, substitution for “shit”) and “frag” for “fuck”. This practice — along with the slightly differently spelled “Frack!” (German for “tailcoat”) — was a very popular trait of all ”Battlestar Galactica” serials.

In December 2005 Robert Boyd from Carric

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Shadowrun, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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The first promotional material appeared on May 8, 2007, when a picture was leaked into the internet, containing a poem, a Knights Templar seal, and several sentences in Spanish, Norwegian, French, German and Hebrew. When solved, the poem led to a series of internet pages, one of them with a riddle, and, eventually, to the newly created official forum.

The websites lead to a Flash page with a countdown timer that uses Hindu (Hindu-Arabic numeral system) numerals instead of Western numbers. The timer will presumably reach zero on 12:00 AM on December 21, 2012, adjusted for the location of Funcom headquarters. This date will see the end of the Mayan calendar cycle which is notable in Maya mythology.. Since then, a massive alternate reality game has been established in the forums.

A first teaser trailer featuring the Dragon faction has been released on April 7, 2009, during the GDC 2009. A second teaser featuring the Templar faction has been released on September 4, 2009. Then, a teaser presenting the fictive town of Kingsmouth was released on February 2, 2010. On March 23, 2010 (i.e. 10 days after the GDC 2010 of San Francisco, CA), a short teaser was released, showing some extremely brief in-game sequences and announcing the release of a bigger teaser on March 25, 2010. This last one showed some fights in Kingsmouth. As of May 2, 2010, the teaser featuring the Illuminati faction has yet to be released. According to Gamespot, it presents a monster with tentacles. Most available teasers can be viewed on the game’s homepage, however, Gamespot’s interviews with Ragnar T&osla

Adapted from the Wikipedia article The Secret World, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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*”Journey to the Mayan Underworld” (Four Ahau Press, Boulder, CO: 1989)

*”Mirror in the Sky” (Four Ahau Press, 1991)

*”Tzolkin: Visionary Perspectives and Calendar Studies” (Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, Garberville, CA: 1992/1994)

*”Mayan Sacred Science” (Four Ahau Press, Boulder, CO: 1994)

*”Maya Cosmogenesis 2012” (Bear & Company, Santa Fe, NM: 1998)

*”Galactic Alignment: The Transformation of Consciousness According to Mayan, Egyptian, and Vedic Traditions” (Inner Traditions International (Rochester, VT) 2002)

*”Pyramid of Fire”, co-authored with Marty Matz, Bear & Company, 2004

*”The 2012 Story: The Myths, Fallacies, and Truth Behind the Most Intriguing Date in History” (Tarcher/Penguin 2009)

Adapted from the Wikipedia article John Major Jenkins, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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2012 phenomenon comprises a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events will occur on December 21, 2012, which is said to be the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mayan Long Count calendar. Various astronomical alignments and numerological formulae related to this date have been proposed, but none have been accepted by mainstream scholarship.

A New Age interpretation of this transition posits that during this time Earth and its inhabitants may undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation, and that 2012 may mark the beginning of a new era. Others suggest that the 2012 date marks the end of the world or a similar catastrophe. Scenarios posited for the end of the world include the Earth’s collision with a passing planet (often referred to as “Nibiru”) or black hole, or the arrival of the next solar maximum.

Scholars from various disciplines have dismissed the idea that a catastrophe will happen in 2012, stating that predictions of impending doom are not found in any of the existing classic Maya accounts. Mainstream Mayanist scholars state that the idea that the Long Count calendar “ends” in 2012 misrepresents Maya history. The modern Maya, on the whole, have not attached much significance to the date, and the classical sources on the subject are scarce and contradictory, suggesting that there was little if any universal agreement among them about what, if anything, the date might mean.

Astronomers and other scientists have rejected the apocalyptic forecasts on the grounds that the anticipated even

Adapted from the Wikipedia article 2012 phenomenon, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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