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the 100 - How did Shallow Valley survive Praimfaya?


Spoilers for The 100 seasons 3, 4 and 5, but actual spoiler-markdown would hide the entire question. You've been warned.




Right before shutting A.L.I.E. down in season 3's finale, Clarke learns that a second nuclear apocalypse is coming, and that "96% of the Earth's surface will be unhabitable".


After trying (and failing) to counter that, at the end of season 4, the remaining nuclear power plants melt down, burn, explode, whatever post-apocalyptic nuclear power plants do, and a worldwide radioactive wave (Praimfaya) storms Earth, instantly killing any flora and fauna life.


Second Praimfaya


However, in season 5, we learn that Praimfaya spared the cosy-looking "Shallow Valley" pictured below.


Because nuclear death storms making Geiger counters go crazy, poisoning the soils, waters and air, and messing with the atmosphere enough so that ground-space communication doesn't work anymore, tend to spare a random valley, just like that.


Shallow Valley, also known as Eden


Out-of-universe, this was done so that season 5 could have a plot revolving around a "Battle for Eden" between Wonkru and Eligius prisoners.


In the episodes, as far as I can remember, they skimmed over the details by basically saying that the death wave somehow spared Shallow Valley. Leaving aside that the "96% of the Earth's surface will be unhabitable" doesn't mean much here, since





  1. a good chunk of the Earth surface is oceans anyways,




  2. Shallow Valley is seemingly far less than 4% of Earth,




was there a better "scientific" explanation given for Shallow Valley surviving, rather than sheer luck? 1


I'm mainly thinking about some kind of interview with a reply along the lines of "oh, you know, conflicting winds, magnetic fields, Indian burial grounds2...", given that I really don't remember any science being conducted in season 5 to find out (the characters had other things to take care of), and given where season 6 will take place3, they probably won't talk about Shallow Valley again.




1 Even if the "science" in this show is... Well, there's a reason it's called science-fiction.


2 Related to above note, Indian burial grounds could totally be a science in this show.


3 That is to say, at the end of season 5,



since Shallow Valley was destroyed by the Damocles bomb, the characters entered cryo in order to go back down some years after. However, it could not be done, and Monty headed the ship to the planet Eligius 3 was sent to explore three centuries ago.



The explanation above probably means that Shallow Valley won't be brought up again.




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