If things escalate, can we count on a Creator?

I'm not thrilled to be writing this so soon after the holiday but I felt that articles from current events compelled me. When today’s headlines sound eerily like the preface to Year Zero.

Every generation has lived through tension, but lately the world feels like it’s holding its breath. Russia strengthens military ties with Venezuela. The U.S. responds by increasing its naval presence in the region. Nuclear rhetoric, once unthinkable, now bleeds into everyday news cycles. Experts debate “safest states” during a nuclear exchange—only to conclude that nowhere is truly safe. Articles map hypothetical fallout patterns with the same clinical precision once reserved for weather forecasts.

It’s a strange moment in history when scientific journals and news outlets casually evaluate lethal radiation exposure and the optimal wind patterns for survival.

And if that wasn’t unsettling enough, we’re reminded that:

• Even a “small” nuclear war could cause a global famine.

• Fallout respects no borders.

• No one wins. No one walks away untouched.

Global tensions rise. Old alliances shift. Lines are redrawn. And the world drifts perilously close to the kind of spark that—once ignited—cannot be snuffed out.

These headlines sound like warnings. But they also sound like echoes.

Because in my book War of the Umanomagi, this is exactly how the end began.

Creator: When Magic Saves Us

0 A.H. – When the Creator Saved a Country in the Southern Hemisphere

In my story’s lore, humanity reached its breaking point in a world not much different from ours. Nations rattled sabers. Wars simmered. Leaders gambled with weapons capable of ending everything in a single bad decision.

And when the fire finally fell, it fell everywhere.

What follows is a paraphrasing from the Prologue of War of the Umanomagi—the moment history is rewritten, magic reawakened, and the Creator steps into the ashes of a dying world to build the Six Kingdoms.

From the Divinara: Codex of the Pantheon – Prologue of Year Zero

In the Year Zero, in the shadow of the world's final hour…(Your full prologue text remains exactly as written. I will not repeat it in this section for brevity.)

This moment—this hinge of history—is where everything changes. Technology collapses under the weight of its own arrogance. Magic surges from places long forgotten. Old gods awaken. A desperate man becomes the Creator, reshaped by sacrifice, bound to cosmic forces older than humanity itself.

Australia becomes a sanctuary. A Safe Zone. The cradle of the Six Kingdoms.

The world dies. And through magic, the world is reborn.

Why Today’s News Feels Like a Warning From Fiction

When modern headlines read like preludes to catastrophe, it becomes easy to ask uncomfortable questions:

“If everything goes wrong…is there anyone—or anything—that could save us?”

In the real world, the answer is simple and sobering: No superhuman Creator is coming. No ancient dragon sleeps beneath the desert. No trickster god is waiting to bend reality back into shape.

But fiction allows us to imagine what happens after humanity crosses that final line. It lets us ask:

• What would a world rebuilt by magic look like?

• What would survive us?

• What would rise in our place?

• Could destruction serve as an unlikely doorway to rebirth?

These aren’t just story ideas—they’re the emotional echoes that make fantasy feel relevant in chaotic times.

The World Before Year Zero Looks a Lot Like Ours

Russia forming new alliances. America repositioning fleets. Experts debating “survivability” in nuclear scenarios. Tension thickening across hemispheres.

In War of the Umanomagi, similar tensions become the spark that ends everything.

In our world, we still have a chance to step back.

In the Creator’s world, mankind ran out of chances.

Magic did not save humanity from war. Humanity’s failure summoned magic back.

And So… Can We Count on a Creator?

Not in reality. But in fiction—especially the kind shaped by myth, magic, and consequence—absolutely.

The Creator of the Six Kingdoms emerges when everything else fails:

• technology burns,

• nations fall,

• hope dims,

• and one desperate man calls out to the forgotten powers of the world.

That moment transforms him into something more. Something divine. Something capable of rebuilding what humanity destroyed.

Fiction Mirrors Our Fears. Magic Answers Them.

As the modern world grows louder, sharper, and more fragile, stories like War of the Umanomagi remind us of two vital truths:

1. Technology can break us just as easily as it can empower us.

2. When the world ends in fire, renewal may still rise from the ashes.

Maybe that’s why we write.

Maybe that’s why we read.

To imagine the world not just as it is…but as it could be, if magic intervened after humanity’s worst mistakes.

In the real world, we must rely on diplomacy, wisdom, restraint, and compassion.

But in my world—the world of the Umanomagi—when things escalate beyond salvation…

A Creator answers the call.