Discussion What Caused the Stone Age?

[Belserion]

3689 years ago Earth experienced a phenomenon that turned humanity into Stone. What caused this is still up in the air. Was it a Science attack? Military weapon? A new Strain of Virus? What do you think happened?

 

[HereNThere]

I think the birds are a big clue to the phenomenon, but I just can't put my finger on it. I'm also interested in seeing if any Reptiles survived the phenomenon.

 

[Belserion]

I'm hoping it's a science experiment gone wrong. The series has gone out of it's way to show Science in a positive light, and Senkuu is obsessed with it and thinks it's going to be the salvation of mankind. It would be a great twist if science was at fault to begin with, and since his nemesis is anti science it would put them on a sort of level playing field. Both would have strong cases for their individual empires.

 

[Hermit]

My first bet would be a science experiment gone wrong, but a small part of me hopes that whoever is behind the Stone Age did it intentionally. Like his/her own twisted version of natural selection, a mad scientist character would be a fresh touch for this manga, especially since all the scientists we've seen so far have all been good natured, e.g Senkuu and Chrome. An evil scientist would fit well here. They'd probably end up being the last boss as well.

 

[TotalEconomist]

I think it's was Senkuu's fault when he was experimenting with swallows.

 

[Arjuna]

I think some scientist's experiment went horribly wrong.

 

[Styx]

It has to be an experiment gone wrong, by some world government. It would be interesting that way, though I can't lie if it turned out to be alien related that would be really cool too.

 

[Kato756]

I think we can rule out magic, and maybe even alies

I am no scientist, do we and birds have something in common that we don´t have with other animals?

 

[hai_Priesty]

It has to be an experiment gone wrong, by some world government.

I wonder if the opening scene that also included (what looks like) the US President turning into stone has some significance, as in, an alibi that it's not the deed of a big world government of the "old world order" that did it.

Dr. Stone is full of lampshades including that Psychology book by Gen months before his appearance, so :O

I think we can rule out magic, and maybe even alies

For the whole story's narrative there's nothing that science couldn't explain so out with Magic
Unless we're talking about Senkuu : "What-others-call-magic-I-call-it-science!" (just like Chrome's chemical "sorcery")

I'll be disappointed if this all turns out to be alien invasion. But if it's Alien trying to "preserve" earth and human civilization like a specimen, or because human is going to be wiped out by a virus that 2017 people didn't knew of yet, I can accept.

 

[kkck]

My guess: Aliens. But this page spoils the ending:http://readms.net/r/dr_stone/012/4286/9

It wasn't an attack, turning everyone into stone was meant to save humanity. Perhaps even hide it.

--- Double Post Merged, Oct 16, 2017, Original Post Date: Oct 16, 2017 ---

And perhaps that also plays out into why everything disappeared from earth. Realistically speaking 4000 years is not enough to make cities and everything in it disappear. Which is what made me think of aliens, aliens could conceivably have the technology to make this happen. I guess the big question would be what exactly humanity was being protected from. Other aliens, itself, solar radiation...

 

[Ninjaz]

I think it's more likely that it was a science experiment gone.... right.
And the birds were a test.

 

[kkck]

More tibbits regarding what happened:

Assuming the birds were a test it means whoever did this had the capacity to turn specific species he aimed for into stone. That's... very odd and disturbing.

There was a huge light when people were turned into stone. I am guessing the light itself was not what turned people into stone given that the light itself didn't cover the entirety of earth. It also does not look like that was an explosion.

based on the initial chapters it kinda looks like the phenomenon started at or at least near japan. Strong evidence that the plot will take us in that direction, literally.

Trump appears at the start of the manga meaning there is a good chance whoever triggered this could actually just have objected to him being president of anything THAT much.

No one's clothes were turned to stone.

If the petrification vanishes over time then there is a good chance this is intentional. I think there is a good chance senku is correct in regards to what caused him to wake up early. But even people who haven't been conscious for the past thousands of years are actually alive. Odds are people like senku just woke up faster but it is likely the entirety of humanity will awake naturally at some point. Though that would be a catastrophe as we are talking about millions of people waking up in less than ideal circumstances. Even those who are lucky enough to not be underground would wake up to a world with literally no infrastructure of any sort. It's not a stretch that this was also intentional so that there would be people over time that would prepare earth for humanity's return.

 

[Hermit]

Alright, I posted something short on this in the Village thread, but I'm going to expand more on that in here.
The person responsible for the Stone Age is related to Senkuu, that much is a given by now. But is there a chance that the people who are behind it did something to preserve themselves afterwards? The actual event lasted milleniums (3700 years?), if it was something they did on purpose, would there be any point in carrying out an experiment like that? The normal human shouldn't even be able to live that long, so they wouldn't be able to live to see the results of their work.
So this is my new headcanon. They petrified themselves along with others, but had their own means of breaking out. Once they broke out, they started other civilizations in an attempt to restore humanity to its former glory. A good example of this would be the village that Senkuu currently is in. I expect that there are other establishments like this out there.
@Belserion Your cue

 

[Belserion]

Alright, I posted something short on this in the Village thread, but I'm going to expand more on that in here.
The person responsible for the Stone Age is related to Senkuu, that much is a given by now. But is there a chance that the people who are behind it did something to preserve themselves afterwards? The actual event lasted milleniums (3700 years?), if it was something they did on purpose, would there be any point in carrying out an experiment like that? The normal human shouldn't even be able to live that long, so they wouldn't be able to live to see the results of their work.
So this is my new headcanon. They petrified themselves along with others, but had their own means of breaking out. Once they broke out, they started other civilizations in an attempt to restore humanity to its former glory. A good example of this would be the village that Senkuu currently is in. I expect that there are other establishments like this out there.
@Belserion Your cue

So you're saying a science experiment gone wrong or right? In your theory the fact that they petrified themselves shows a bit of awareness instead of the accidental big bang some of us are thinking. Or are you saying the petrification wasn't the experiment but a way for them to live to see the results of the true experiment?

 

[Hermit]

So you're saying a science experiment gone wrong or right? In your theory the fact that they petrified themselves shows a bit of awareness instead of the accidental big bang some of us are thinking. Or are you saying the petrification wasn't the experiment but a way for them to live to see the results of the true experiment?

It was a science experiment gone wrong, horribly wrong. The village is an attempt to have a fresh start, or make ammends. But since they were the only one who could make those ammends, they wanted to live that long to the point where they wouldn't die before fixing their mistakes.
But if it was intentional, yep, They wanted to preserve themselves along with the rest of humanity and create a new age.

 

[kkck]

Dunno, I don't expect this to be a case of a horribly gone wrong experiment. What sort of experiment could do something this ridiculous even if goes wrong? At least when it comes to science the manga has been somewhere in the vicinity of grounded so far... And the manga has already hinted that this wasn't necessarily an attack. With that in mind, I would be weirded out if it turns out senkus ancestors created the village to make up for an experiment gone wrong. It makes sense that the village was created by people who knew senku of course however the village isn't necessarily 3000 years old. The village is relatively close to where senku spent his time as a statue, it makes sense th village would have been started by people who woke up and knew senku.