User blog comment:The Devil's Advocate WP/The Historical Geography of Remnant Part 2/@comment-24891101-20140821013958/@comment-24891101-20140821232351

I mentioned ancient civilizations to discount their possibility, but I am reconsidering. If humans are native to Remnant, with all that entails, then the Grimm would have risen prior to their development of sufficiently large-scale civilization, the survivors of which could accurately term the world Remnant. Since the Grimm predate humanity, per the prologue,  they would have attacked while still in small, isolated communities, before the first kingdoms. This would suggest one of two things: either humans arose away from the vast majority of Grimm, such that they were only attacked as they expanded, or that the Grimm target not souls, as I believe, but rather civilizations. The former raises the possibility that the unaccounted-for continent is the native home of humanity, and as they expanded out, they encountered Grimm, while the latter lends credence to the artificial Grimm theory, a leftover weapon of an unknown civilization. I still think that, at this point, it is difficult to reconcile the ancient civilization with what we know, because how could humans memorialize their survival while simultaneously being byproducts of a forgotten past, unless that does not refer to the civilization?

I certainly agree that Remnant has suffered many, many natural disasters, and it is testament to the quality of the humans there. My climate change hypothesis originates from the confluence of two factors: the state of technology in Remnant, and the required industrial base over time, and your point about sea level rise, for which climate change is an easy mechanism.

And as to "Die", I've not fully processed the ramifications of that song yet, but it is compelling, and needs to be addressed. And a long-ago lunar catastrophe, which has long been my theory, with periodic effects on the planet would certainly provide an interesting backdrop against which to wage an existential war against soulless things.