1195-1247 CE (Superpowers)

The reign of Magnus II was the peak of the Roman Golden Age, which took the Empire to a new high point in culture, civilization and technology. He far superseded even the achievements of his great-grandfather and has gone done in history as the greatest Emperor since Sapiens in the IVth Century. Even if not all the advancements of his rule can be attributed to him, his patronage of Roman scientists and education reforms created a firm new foundation for the future of European science.

Civil Events
Magnus was put on the throne at the age of 23, already full of plans in his head of how he was going to help the Empire. Coming onto the throne he immediately pushed the Senate to raise taxes for the upper-classes in preparation for his plans. Just a month later he got Congress to pass an act which called for the creation of a Ministry of Roads, which was dedicated to maintain the new higher standards of intercity and trans-city roads around the Empire. At the same time he subsidize both Municipal and Provincial government to help them to keep up with the new established standards. These improvements, which included a 0.5 meter tall concrete wall along all intercity roads 4 carriage widths or more across, were eventually completed towards the end of his rule, in 1241.

Magnus' reformation of the Ministry System between 1195 and 1212 was perhaps one his most significant streamlining of government affairs. In addition to the Ministry of Roads, 11 more Ministries were created by Magnus, adding up to a total of 80. Under his changes Praeministra (Ministers), the heads of each Ministry, became official observing members of the Senate, with no right to vote but with the power of Tacite, where they may call a silence at any time to make a speech and point something out to the rest of the Senate. The Emperor personally liked this new power and made certain to grant it to his position as well, occasionally making of use of it to the chagrin of the other Senators.

Several of the other founded Ministries included: Ministry of Electricity, for maintaining standards on electrical equipment and later electricity transportation; Ministries of Upper and Lower Education, leading organizations of Magnus' new education system, divided into Upper (Universalis) and Lower (Grammaticus); Minister of the Columbias, correspondent between the colonies and the Emperor and Ministry of Technology, advisory council to the government on recent technology and potential implications to the Empire. The two aforementioned ministries of education were created as part of the Emperor's Glorious Reform. The issue that was solved here was that the Empire had no formal public education system, and in fact nearly all children living outside of the cities received no education whatsoever, except for what they learned from their family. Furthermore, even many people in the city couldn't afford education for themselves or their children, and many of the crafts and knowledge that people acquired was achieved through apprenticeship programs or again from their families. All in all, only about 19% of Romans could attest to having attended a school of any kind.

Starting in 1197, Magnus funded the construction of 14 Grammatici in Rome, facilities which provided education from the ages of 3 to 16. All costs for these schools, once completed, were taken upon by the government, allowing anyone with a Roman citizenship to send their children there for free. The same year, he held a dinner with some of the heads of various Academies around the Empire, and managed to convince many of them to go into the business of creating their own private Grammatici, thereby helping to enlarge the Roman private education system as well. Then, over the course of the next 25 years, Magnus worked to create thousands of public schools in every single major city, and many minor cities, all across the entire Empire. Though never able to take the time to visit, he even commissioned for the construction of a Universalis in the colonial city of New Rome.

These Universalis were another one of the marked features of Magnus' reforms. Before him, facilities known as Academies, such as the Architectural Academy in Florence and the Military Academy in Carthage were places of higher learning dedicated to the study of a particular subject. Magnus hit on the idea in 1197 that a single facility could instead provide joint educations for several, even dozens of these subjects, providing their students with a universal education of sorts. Beginning construction just outside the borders of Rome, in an area which his predecessor had cleared away an entire hill, Magnus ordered the construction of the Grammaticus Universalis, the first universal school. With the extensive use of slave labor, the main part of the University was completed in 1199 and the first students began to arrive. The GU houses 8 different academies, each provided a full education on a particular subject, for example "Philosophy" or "Law and Politics".

The next year Magnus and the two education ministries finished the Nova Doctrina Populare, the New Civic Education System, formally organization the independent schooling systems into an Imperial standard. All schools both public and private, and of course all Academies were obliged to follow this new system or be shut down. In short, the new order of things was that Roman children were to receive a general education from the age of 3 to 14, after which their Grammaticus was to give them specialized education on at least 4 subjects, to a maximum of 10. Following two years of this the child a Diploma Grammaticum, showing that they had passed all of their lower schooling. Then, the child can go into specialized education for whatever they are going to do later in life.

At this point not enough Academies or Universales had been built around the Empire yet and so many children would simply stop and go into apprenticeships again. However, they could now do so with far greater amounts of knowledge. Magnus wished to correct this and from 1200 to his death, Magnus managed to have more than 100 Universalis built, all providing low-cost Upper education to Romans from across the Empire. In the new order of Upper Education, students took 3 years of intensive and detailed education on between 1-5 subjects. From there they received their Diploma Scholaris in all the subjects they had completed and then had the option, usually if they were rich, to continue their education at an Academy and become a Doctor or essentially an "Expert" in some field. The amount of time to get their Diploma Doctore varied, but for things such Medicine, could take up to 7 years.

Next to his foundation of Universales, Magnus subsidized the creation of more than 60 dedicated Academies, which now were designed to provide expensive but more extensive education on a particular subject, and later provide Doctorates as well. As well, through his continued insistence, most Academies now hosted a Grammaticus, one which provided education on the same specific subject of the Academy, for instance Agriculture or Masonry. As for the poor, the farmers and such who would be much better off staying in the fields to help their family, the Emperor ensured that all public schools provided a quick education on language and philosophy from age 12-14. This allowed the poor to have an education whilst not greatly comprising their ability to provide for themselves.

His patronage for education did not stop at construction of schools and reforms, he was also a known sponsor for scientists working in Parisium, Alexandria and Carthage, even paying for this from his family's private treasury. Amazingly, not only did all of this spending not bring the state into debt, but his reorganization of the Empire actually resulted in a net profit by the end of his rule.

One of his favorite scientists to sponsor was the now famous Lucius Parellus Volta, a Gallian scientist working at the Electrical Academy in Parisium. To the shock and great pleasure of the scientific community, Volta came out with his two Magna Opi in 1210, first his Theory of Electrical Generation by Magnetic Induction and then his Theory of Electromagnetism in November of that same year. These two detailed journals finally provided an acceptable and verifiable explanation for the action of motors, and the newly invented generators. As well, Volta reasoned, generators were not very useful in the production of a direct current, the kind batteries used, and instead provided much better power when making alternating current. In his tests with one of the three working DC generators at the academy, and other tests with a makeshift AC generator, he found that there was less power loss over distances with AC and that it also had far more applications than the older DC.

Volta was also quite the polymath, and in 1211 he released his Tabula Typica de Elementarum, an educational table which organized the known elements at the time into rows and columns. Begun purely out of interest in 1204, Volta gradually realized he was on to something and in 1209 applied for a grant to further research what he was in the process of discovering. Although this violated the "1 grant per person" policy of the Academy, the Emperor personally intervened, allowing Volta to finish his table. Not only did this Periodic Table classify all the elements into groups with similar properties, and periods which followed through each group once, but he also left holes in his table where he predicted later undiscovered elements would later fit. Furthermore, he disproved the nature of water and limestone as distinct elements, and later in 1238, proved that air was made up of at least three different substances, one for breathing, one for plants and another which did neither but somehow made up more than half of its composition.

Anyway, with the theories of electromagnetism established, Volta set about building the first AC generator. Although it took him another three years after the development of his theories, he finally built his first prototype in late-1213. The device doubled the power production of the DC generators which were in use before, completely blowing all potential competition out of the water.

Since Volta managed to patent his new invention of the AC Generator in 1214, he had now set himself up to a life of great fortunes, since until his death he had sole rights to the use of the technology. In somewhat paranoid move however, he prohibited allowing the use of the device in research by other scientists, giving himself the sole right to advance the technology, and if anyone else did so, they had to forfeit the rights to him. This reflected his shrewd business style, the one thing which many have criticized him for. The problem here was that although he had the generator and the theory, large scale application was impossible with the device which he had.

After another three years of work, Volta created the first Waterwheel AC Generator in the river running by his villa in Lugdunensis. Using the electrical energy he was generating from the waterwheel, Volta powered a large ceiling fan in the main hall of his villa which cooled the room down noticeably on hot days. That same year, Volta was declared by Magnus II as Chairman of the newly built Societas Scholaris de Scientiae (Imperial Society of the Sciences), an organization founded at Volta's bequest which managed and discussed all scientific matters in the Empire.

The SSS was controlled by the Concilium Scientium, a board of the most highly respected scientists in the Empire, selected to their position by the current members of the board every New Years Day. Usually people applied for the position and the members either accepted them or put them on hold, but on certain rare occasions the Society suck out potential candidates itself. The Provisor (Chairman) was of course selected by the Imperial government, usually either the Emperor or Minister of Technology and then if he was accepted by the board, kept the position. Any other scientist could attend meetings of the SSS, by reserving a spot at any of their meetings, though as usual the board could reject a reservation. In any case, the entire goal of the Imperial Society was to stimulate scientific discussion and keep the Empire on the right track to advancement, very much like the OTL Royal Society of London.

Volta was now the most influential member of the Roman scientific community, both in rank and in terms of respect. Using his many contacts, he was able to convince four Gallian Senators to have one of his Waterwheel Generators built on their Villa properties, for a very high price of course. One of the biggest things which Volta had going for him was the cost of electricity at the time. Only huge guilds could afford it as batteries had been the only source. As a single generator was projected to be able to provide power for decades, Volta could put practically any price he desired on his product, which he did. Each of the units he sold, not including the waterwheel and wiring, cost around 9000 Dn, or ten times more than most Roman citizens made in a year.

Over the next 12 years, Volta had another 70 generators built at the villas of more of his friends in the Senate and he had been using many of the funds he was gaining in this to further his research into electricity. In 1224 for instance he developed a small electrical device which he theorized would be able to act as a kind of "gate" for the electricity. Consisting of two metal plates with a removable insulator between them, the device shocked Volta when he found out its actual use. Instead of stopping and releasing the electricity when the insulator was removed, it allowed the current to pass unhindered. Confused, he tried it with DC current instead, and whilst this did stop the current, it did not act as a gate as he expected. Over the next two years he discovered that the Condensatrum (Capacitor) responded to what he termed "electrical potential" differences, and could be made to store and later release a charge depending on these factors, acting kind of like a battery.

Inventions like the capacitor though were only a distraction, albeit a persistent one, from his primary work on the generator. By 1228 the technology had been greatly improved, and in the next year he had a deal with the resort town of Baiae near Neapolis to build his largest generator yet to heat some of the Thermae (Public Baths) which were so popular there. This time he tried out a Windmill design for his generator, something which required far larger magnets than he would have liked, bringing the generator cost up to about 28,000 Dn. That same year, at the insistence of a close friend in the Imperial Society, Volta created his own guild, Eletrika Generalis so that his family could continue to reap the benefits of his inventions even after he had died. Ironically, it was because of this action that his family would ultimately lose access to a lot of that money. However, the guild did allow him to pay his own people to build the devices and the wheels or mills for him, so it did have its advantages at the time.

GE built 14 Waterwheel generators near Parisium in 1230 providing almost 28,000 W of power to the the city. The next year 3 were built to supplement the Windmill in Baiae and then in one of the largest deals of his career, the Viceroy of Aegyptus commissioned for 22 generators to be built outside Alexandria in 1233. In general, the power provided by the generators was used by printing houses, electroplating industries and the all popular public bathing houses. The problem at the time though was that a lot of power was still being lost in bringing the electricity from the generators up to the cities. Even with large amounts of electrical insulation, energy was being lost as heat in the wire and nothing it seemed could be done to stop this.

Further construction projects stopped for the next two years whilst Volta worked on solving the problem. Right off the bat, he reasoned that the heating originated from the "movement of electrical fluid" in the wires and that since he had earlier discovered that the power generated was a product of the electrical current and the electrical potential, all he needed to do was lower the current whilst simultaneously increasing the voltage. Although the solution eluded him for all of 1234, mid-way through the next year he realized that it might lie in the number of wire loops used in the generators. After trying several combinations of wire in different places, he finally tried to loop wires around a metal ring and then pass the current onto a more looped wire on the opposite end. He realized that this was perfectly in line with his theory of electromagnetic induction. Volta had invented the first transformer.