Where do I begin? If you're not caught up with the goings-on of Fortnite, check out our Fortnite Season 5 primer first. But the short of it is this: a countdown timer possibly (very likely) attached to the launch of a huge missile on Fortnite's map has showed up on some televisions and in the evil lair where the missile is housed.
A simple theory would posit that once the countdown finished, the missile will launch and, like last season's meteorites, destroy an unpopular portion of the map.
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But Reddit user MHC_Sweedee has another theory. The countdown timer might still be tied to the missile, but they posit that Fortnite might be shifting and changing in accordance with an old Inca myth.
You can read their entire spiel here, and there's quite a bit that doesn't totally line up for me. What I can't ignore is the importance of the Winter Solstice in Inca tradition, and how llamas are inexorably weaved throughout the culture and mythology.
The Winter Solstice for the southern hemisphere is set for June 21 this year, just a few days away, and perhaps coincidentally, on the day Epic pushes out the final updates and new challenges each week. More interesting is that the countdown appears to align with Inti Raymi, a religious ceremony in the Inca Empire instated to honor the sun god Inti. Llamas, Fortnite's mascot, were often sacrificed on this day, a celebration held on June 24. Llamas were also nerfed this season. Coincidence? (Probably.)
Despite the connection between the timer's end and the Inti Raymi celebration, we don't really know what it's pointing to.
MHC_Sweedee tries anyway, making some shakier connections between iconography in Fortnite's Battle Pass, recent skins, and celestial Incan mythology that doesn't quite stand for me, though some of the parallels are hard to ignore. A terrible flood might be on the way, and the missile might not be what we think. It's an entertaining read, if you want to believe.
I'm drinking the Kool-Aid, even if it's been sitting in the sun all day. Who doesn't like a far-fetched Wikipedia-sourced Reddit thread from time to time? Whether the connections are real or not, that countdown timer is real, and it's running out soon.
