Environment (Superpowers)

The Environment, in a broad sense, is the collective state of the Earth's life, resources, relief and climate. This includes, but is not limited to: plants, animals, minerals, water, atmosphere, plate tectonics and the way in which all of these things are influenced by humanity. The effect that humans have on the environment is an especially important concept and is perhaps the most fundamental factor in understanding both the planet's future and immediate past, next to only the effect of the environment on the actions of humans, a concept known as geopolitics.

For billions of years, the Earth has followed its own natural path, chaotically shifting from burning rock to tropical paradise to Ice Age and back and forth between the latter. Until the XXth century, natural forces were the only causes of these shifts, but it was during that time period that the first simple intelligent beings began to mold the planet to their own wishes. Although this group primarily includes the Romans, the effects, though mostly unintentional, that other nations have had on the planet are equally as important a fact to discuss as the deliberate terraforming of the Imperium Romanum. This page outlines these facts and more, giving a greater sense of the world those people live in, and the ways it differs, from others that may exist elsewhere.

Hydrocarbon Fuel
The two primary organic compounds extracted from the earth for use in human industry are petroleum and natural gas. Four thousand years ago, or so records say, crude oil was first used by the Babylonians in the creation of asphalt and for use in oil lamps. This usage expanded to other civilizations and by the time of the Empire, in Rome, the province of Dacia had become the main producer of what the Romans called Picula. Still, this was used only for lighting and construction, keeping exploitation at incredibly low levels.

From the IVth century onwards, the Chinese began drilling "wells" to more easily remove the oil and burn it in the evaporation of brine for the salt that it was saturated with. By the 1000's and 1100's, petroleum, which most East Asians call by a derivative of the word "Shíyóu", was in extensive use by the upper class in Asia and the market for the exploitation of this resource, as well as natural gas, was an extremely lucrative one. In the Middle East, oil was even more important than it was to the Babylonians, extracting thousands of gallons of the stuff for the production of naphtha, an incredibly highly flammable compound.

At the same time the Chinese were drilling wells, the Romans had developed their own practical use for all of that oil they were producing. An old technology was discovered that sent a stream of flammable liquids onto an enemy, essentially acting as the first flamethrower. Though its components were a closely guarded secret for centuries, historians know that its primary ingredients were crude oil and several of the substances that could be produced from it, such as naphtha. Following the improvement of the technology in 647, its use became even more widespread and nearly every Deceres ship and several major border defenses were equipped with it. Though the Arabs managed to imitate and use the technology in the 1200's, the extraction of petroleum never reached particularly high levels, and it was able to be extracted in as great a quantity as they could use it, with no fear of it running out.

In Columbia, the Mayans discovered crude oil in 777, immediately developing innovative uses for the substance. By 800, they were using it for lighting and already, several hundred wells were built to increase their rate of extraction. Its per capita use by the Mayans exceeded China in the 850's, the Mayan Conglomerate having built extensive ceramic and metal pipe infrastructure for the materials transport across the nation. The third nation to build pipelines was Japan, using them to transport its meager natural gas reserves for use in salt extraction and house lighting, around 1050. Rome only built these systems in the Balkans in order to transport the oil products being produced in Dacia to the coastal shipyards for its use in the Greek Fire weapon, the first network being completed there in 802.

Oil consumption in Eurasia, until the 1200's, never reached more than about a tenth of a liter per day, per capita, and was almost exclusively for personal lighting. In 1242, the Turkish Empire ramped up production suddenly after a prominent middle-class merchant popularized kerosene lamps in shops when he started keeping his stores open all day and all night with the use of these lamps. By 1260, every market building in the empire was using it to some extent and its use was catching on in the home. Back in the Conglomerate, the Mayans had already discovered kerosene in 940, a century after the Muslims, and it were already putting it to heavy use in the public sector by 1030. All army generals used kerosene lamps to light their tents and the first street lamps using kerosene were built in 1074. At the same time that the Turks first started using kerosene lamps, that device had become common place in all Mayan homes in the city and their consumption of oil was on the order of a quarter of a liter per day, per capita.

Throughout the XIVth century, oil lamps use expanded throughout the old world and per capita use by the Mongols, Turks and Indians had hit around a liter per day. This industrialization continued in the East, the Romans undergoing their own separate changes, until by 1600, per capita oil production in Asia was at half of what it was in the Conglomerate, or around 3 liters per day. Coal was also a commonly used hydrocarbon of the time period, especially in the Mongol and Roman empires. It had been used for over a thousand years in those nations for the heating of homes.