Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-98.189.181.249-20160213004821

The world of Remnant might have been Earth in the past, before the "event". There is sufficient similarity in the planet surface, where maps have appeared, to make out that most continents are either submereged, or not illustrated in the series, and that parts of North America (Vale and Vacuo), Western Canada (Menagerie), the Arctic (Atlas), and Western Europe (Mistral) remain.

The shattered moon suggests that whatever caused that destruction is also responsible for the current configuration of land masses on remnant. As shown in the four trailers, the Moon and its fragments are spinning, indicating that there was some kind of indirect impact with enough force to send some fragments down to the planet, but not so much so as to send the fragments outward beyond escape velocity. This event could have also brought the creatures of Grimm down to the planet's surface, along with the Dust crystals. Did the event originate outside the solar system? On (or inside) the moon? Who knows?

It is interesting that mankinds dependence on dust in the series has seemingly prevented orbital space flight, since the dust seems to need proximity to something on the planet in order to function (rockets lose power when leaving the atmosphere). Does this mean that fossil fuels, and other alternatives like Hydrozine, and solid fuels have never been discovered in this new era, or do they simply not exist in large quantities. Maybe the presence of dust prevents combustion of these other potential forms of energy. 