View source for Assiti Shards effect

{{redirect|Ring of Fire}}
The '''Assiti Shards effect''' describes the result of a space-time shard created by the [[Assiti]] accidentally hitting a terrestrial location. Typically, the [[Assiti Shard|shard]] permanently transported a large piece of land and everything within it through time. In addition, the land being transported may be rotated so that, from the perspective of the people being transported with it, the Sun will appear to rise in the wrong place. The Assiti Shards effect observes a sort of conservation principle; transporting an area through time apparently requires it to be replaced with an equivalent area from another period.

A temporary side-effect of the Assiti Shards effect is radio interference within the area being transported.

==Known Examples of an Assiti Shard effect==
===Grantville, West Virginia===
{{main|1632 series}}
In 2000, the [[West Virginia]]n town of [[Grantville]] was sent to 17th century [[Germany (1632)|Germany]] during the [[Thirty Years' War (1632)|Thirty Years' War]], creating another timeline. The people of Grantville called the event the '''"Ring of Fire"''', a name which was generally adopted by 17th century Europeans. The shard exchanged a three mile (5 km) in radius spherical bubble including Grantville with part of [[Thuringia (1632)|Thuringia]]. While in the main faint and translucent, at ground level, the sphere appeared as an ephemeral (perhaps 15 seconds) wall of shimmering flames from the outside. Within, those near the edge also perceived something of the flames, but the effect was swamped and overwhelmed by the thunder-like sound blast that shook walls and rattled windows and fixtures like a mini-earthquake and the overwhelming blast of bright white light that was believed by many to be a huge display of sheet-lightning.

The theologians of the diverged 17th century had thought of the Ring of Fire as a divine event. However, many had a difficult time in grasping it as "God's work", while considering the fact that Grantville's inhabitants mostly held religious opinions that were deemed irredeemably heretical by the standards of the time.

===The Timespike===
{{main|Time Spike}}
In 2007, a maximum security state prison in southern Illinois was sent back to the early Cretaceous period, roughly 135 million years ago. Instead of simply transposing land from two different eras, the Shard which caused this event picked up plants, animals, and people that had occupied the area in many different times, and transported them all to the same time. It also appears that the radius of this Shard increased as it penetrated into the past; expanding from roughly .25 miles (.4 km) in 2007 to at least 50 km (31 mi). A group of scientists studying the effect in 2007 used the analogy of a "spike" being driven through time, in contrast to the more "scoop-like" nature of the Grantville event.

The people in the prison initially thought there had been an earthquake, and the prison structure did take some damage, as if there had been a quake. However, it also seemed as though the world had quivered, then settled down, so they came to call the event "the Quiver".

=== Queen of the Seas, Ocean Cruiser ===
Main article: The Alexander Inheritance

In the 2010s, an Ocean Cruiser is sent to the past, two years after Alexander the Great has died
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=== The Crossing ===
''Working Series Title: A More Perfect Union''

In 2008, a squad of ROTC cadets training at Fort Dix, New Jersey are sent back to December 1776, only days before Washington's crossing of the Delaware and attack on the Hessian garrison at Trenton. This may be the smallest example of the Assiti Shards effect yet documented, transporting a relatively small (a few hundred square meters) oblong portion of New Jersey forest containing Cadets Mason, Higgs, Booker, Dunaway, Koch, Stratton, Kennedy, Preston, Murphy, and Martinez. Much like the Grantville event, this is a "scoop-like" event. The 10 cadets are carrying 10 early model M-16s with 2000 rounds of blanks, cellular telephones common to 2008, several textbooks, MREs, cold weather gear and BDUs in winter camouflage, radios, field and Kevlar helmets (depicted on the cover as a later generation Enhanced Combat Helmet or Future Assault Shell Technology helmets, neither which were not in production in 2008).

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[[Category:1632 series]]
[[Category:Events]]
[[Category:Assiti universe]]