As you all probably know, the Nether, with its boiling, spitting lava practically everywhere, is presumably the most hellish place in all of Minecraft. Weird enough, the Nether possesses a wide variety of inhabitants, from ghasts to magma cubes...this led to my thinking, why did those creatures choose to LIVE in this dump? Come to thought of it, where did those creatures even COME from? Logically, no monster or creature of any sort would choose willingly to reside in the Nether. On the other hand, what if the Nether was once a pleasant environment just like the overworld?



Actually, that theory would be quite plausible indeed. Signs of vegetation, such as the red and brown mushrooms we occasionally see growing from the netherrack suggest that the Nether was once suitable for plant life. Also, take note of the Zombie Pigmen and (Wither) Skeletons you see hanging around in the Nether. Being undead, they must have once been ALIVE. In fact, it is highly plausible that Zombie Pigmen were once as civilized as we players are now, perhaps even more---for one, they probably knew how to forge weapons, and could construct fortresses to defend themselves against the creatures of the Nether. The rest concerning them we do not really know, but the transformation of the Nether from pleasurable haven to lava-filled hellhole might have been caused by the following events:

• Overpopulation. Once their population had reached a certain height, the Pigmen could no longer sustain their entire population with their old, limited ways of food-harvesting. This probably led to their over-harvesting of plants and over-hunting, affecting the ecology and causing mass extinction.
  

• Plague. This is actually a very reasonable theory---a massive plague could have led to mass extinction, which not only wiped out most life in the Nether but also could’ve wiped out the Pigmen.
  

Following the extinction, a gigantic eruption could have occurred, explaining the large amount of lava in the Nether. After contact with the cooler air in the upper parts of the Nether, the ash and magma from the eruption solidified into netherrrack, sealing the Nether in the red, flammable substance from top to bottom. In order to survive, the remaining mobs and creatures eventually developed immunity to fire, and learned to use it for themselves.

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