Topic Battle

Volcanic systems operate on timescales that render even Titan lifespans insignificant. Olympus Mons has persisted for billions of years. Earth's volcanic activity predates complex life by several billion years and will continue long after humanity's extinction. Stromboli has maintained near-continuous eruption for over two thousand years—a duration exceeding multiple human civilisations. Volcanoes do not die; they merely enter dormancy measured in geological epochs.

Volcanic fear operates through lived experience accumulated across human history. Civilisations have worshipped volcanoes, sacrificed to volcanoes, and been destroyed by volcanoes. The fear is encoded in cultural memory from Iceland to Indonesia. Residents of volcanic regions live with perpetual awareness of potential eruption—monitoring equipment, evacuation routes, and emergency protocols form the fabric of daily existence. This fear is tangible, present, and justified.

Major volcanic eruptions reshape global systems through climate modification. The 1815 Tambora eruption eliminated summer across the Northern Hemisphere, causing widespread famine and mass migration. Volcanic winters have triggered civilisational collapses, altered migration patterns, and influenced human evolution itself. Unlike the Snap, volcanic impact unfolds over months and years, allowing for adaptation but preventing reversal. The effects are permanent alterations rather than temporary disruptions.

Volcanic activity requires no proclamation of inevitability because geology does not negotiate. The Yellowstone supervolcano will erupt—the question concerns timing rather than occurrence. No superhero team can prevent tectonic plate movement; no Infinity Stone can halt magma chamber pressurisation. Volcanic inevitability operates through physics rather than philosophy, rendering it immune to narrative intervention. Pompeii learned this lesson with considerable finality.

Volcanic destruction operates on planetary rather than cosmic scales, yet within that domain, it demonstrates absolute authority. The Siberian Traps eruption 252 million years ago eliminated approximately ninety-six percent of all marine species and seventy percent of terrestrial vertebrates—the greatest extinction event in Earth's history. Supervolcanic eruptions release energy equivalent to thousands of nuclear weapons simultaneously, reshaping climates for decades and rendering continents uninhabitable.