Well, not the main reason. Our planet has 7 billion people, and if this happened 2000 years from now, one would expect to find all kinds of remnants of our civilization within the walls (which I calculated to have an area at least twice as big as Germany). You would have tons of archaeological ruins everywhere. Look at the Roman ruins many from 1500-2300 years ago spread from England to Iraq. Their roads are still in use. The decay of our civilized world would be everywhere. Which it is not in the series. It is simply a lot easier to explain the setting of this series as not a future of our world, but it's own world similar to our 18th century (except the whole 3D Gear thing, though we should try that IRL, cause that'd be wicked, and maybe deadly).
You have a very good point there.
It's a long shot but the reason why there are no remnants of this is probably:
-they selected an area with little major cities and ruined them ( I am talking about wall cult, there is something very suspicious about those guys ).
-titans leveled them up, one by one ( since as you said they appeared 1893 years they had lot of time to destroy every major city on Earth )
-Cities just fall to the test of time ( modern building are not as tough and standing as our ancient age houses are, look at Pripyat. It is abandoned from 1986 and half of city is already gone due to wildlife taking over, give it 200 or 300 more years and there will be no more city at all ).
And to be fair we didn't see anything outside the main walls so who know what is out there in the world ( after all Reiner mentioned some kind of Titan city, a place where they will return after all that is over ), maybe the world itself is full of ruined megacities. We will know more one day when manga get's to it, so far it's just speculations...
Not saying to bash, but it is just too cumbersome and hard to find reasons for why the setting is as it is if it were 2000 from us now rather than just having it be it's own world.
It's ok, I love good arguments myself when they are civil of course. I don't know why just 2000 years, that gives us nothing at all. I use it for the future because that is the only logical assumption I could get. For everything else it is pointless to number a year, especially for world other than our Terra.
Also, just a note. Technological degradation would only happen if all the countries with modern technology were destroyed. And since the Titans appeared 107 years before the story, that leaves 1893 years of no progress built on our own? That just wouldn't happen.
Titans appeared 107 years at the walls, who knows how long they terrorized humans before that ( we have 7 continents so they would need at least several centuries to cover everything up, maybe even more ). In addition to that technological degradation begins when people stop remembering how machines they build work and as a result lose all knowledge about it and eventually the machine itself. Good example for this is Metro 2033 and Warhammer 40.000. ( especially Metro 2033 where only two decades after nuclear holocaust people forgotten how to build the most essential things. It's like that chick from Metro 2034 said "Now we are the last to know how this train works, our grandchildren will probably think that gods made this." ).
Titans probably terrorized humans a LOT more than 107 years, and because mankind found nothing to stop them they just concentrated to survive losing many experts and as a result all advanced technology in a span of several centuries.
But this is also just a theory, I could be wrong for all I know. We shall see in the future releases
For now your 'other earth' theory sounds more logical than mine to be honest
One more question: is this reliable information?
Wikipedia said:
One hundred years prior to the beginning of the story, giant humanoid creatures called Titans have forced humanity to devolve to a medieval level of technology and to retreat into a system of concentric Walls known as Wall Maria, Wall Rosé and Wall Sina. Inside these walls, humanity lived in peace for one hundred years, but in the beginning of the story, a sudden attack by a gigantic sixty-meter Titan and a smaller Titan covered in armor plates causes the outermost wall to be breached, forcing mankind to abandon the land between Wall Maria and Wall Rosé, which leads to famine and turmoil.
