The city beneath the glass desert

Survey crews crossed a scarlet plain that looked like ordinary impact glass until a fracture exposed habitation terraces stacked nearly a kilometre deep. Repeated ramps, service ledges, and worn thresholds suggest the settlement expanded downward as the surface hardened overhead. Then the lowest chamber yielded a violet mineral bloom identical to the glass cap—except it predates every occupied layer. The ‘catastrophe’ may have been part of the city’s construction.