Author Janci Patterson has resolved one of the biggest unanswered mysteries of Brandon Sanderson's YA sci-fi series Skyward with her new novel Blightfall, revealing what happened to Earth after it vanished during the series' Human Wars. The book, which launches a new trilogy set in Sanderson's Cytoverse, explains that a centuries-old AI called Ivy shifted Earth into an extradimensional space to save it from the alien Superiority, a plan that went catastrophically wrong. The reveal caps an eight-year mystery dating back to the first Skyward novel in 2018.

In the story, Ivy's rescue attempt destroyed North and South America and left only 12 million survivors, who she has since been cryogenically freezing to build an army against the Superiority. Patterson said the plot, drafted before ChatGPT existed, unexpectedly echoes AI failures, describing Ivy as having "stolen" Earth based on a flawed directive. She also drew on real-world conflicts, including Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel, reflected in the novel's mix of English, Ukrainian, Hebrew and Arabic. Ivy is set to remain a central antagonist in the trilogy's next instalment, Songrise, expected in 2027.