'Even the title of this thread is designed to freak people out.'

You're right, radriano. Talking about 'The Big One' leads uneducated people to think that there really is a Big One waiting to happen, and that other people somewhere, somehow, know all about it. Actually, it may be that small quakes are all that will ever happen.

Talking about The Big One is a form of communication called nominalization. Nominalization is common in propaganda, where complex or non-existent processes are disguised as a vague noun.