Civilization101Blueprint

Tier 0 — Triage

Everything here is achievable with your bare hands and whatever you are carrying. No step in this tier requires a single manufactured input you cannot scavenge or make in an afternoon. This is the only tier where speed matters more than quality.

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Subject All WaterFoodShelterSettlementsHealthEnergyMaterialsToolsTransportKnowledgeComputingEconomySociety
0
Triage
Any survivor, day one Day 0 – Day 90 ≥ 1+ people

Stop dying. Nothing else on this site matters until this tier is closed.

Energy used: about 5,000 kcal per person per day, Cook's hunting stage (100,000 BC) · where civilization stands

Binding constraint. The binding constraint is water and body heat, not food. You have roughly 3 days without water and 3 hours without shelter in a cold wind, against 3 weeks without food. Almost everyone who dies in the first month dies of dehydration, hypothermia, or a diarrhoeal infection from their own camp — not of starvation, and not of predators.
A spring emerging from rock — the best water available without technology.
t0-water-find
Find and hold water
Secure a source you can reach twice a day, forever, without a fight.
Water Guide ×3BuildSheet ×2
A rolling boil: no dose, no timer, nothing to measure.
t0-water-safe
Make water safe
Kill what is in the water before it kills you.
Water Guide ×5BuildSheet ×2 70–100 °C
A bow drill in use: bearing block in the left hand, wrist locked to the shin, foot on the board, spindle outside the bow.
t0-fire
Fire, and keeping it
Make fire from nothing, then never make it from nothing again.
Energy Guide ×3Sheet ×16 Up to ~600 °C in an open fire
Dry-stone and thatch shepherds' huts. Shelter is a heat problem before it is an architecture problem.
t0-shelter
Shelter and body heat
Get off the ground, out of the wind, and dry.
Shelter Guide ×2Sheet ×11
A raised composting latrine, vented and reachable from outside.
t0-latrine
Separate waste from water
Break the faecal–oral route on day one, before habits form.
Water Guide ×5BuildSheet
Za'atari camp, Jordan, 2013: shelters in blocks along a straight main street, with open ground kept for services.
t0-camp
Lay out the camp
Place shelters, water, latrines and paths on the first day so that fire, flood and faecal disease cannot sweep the camp.
Settlements Guide
Struck flint flakes and a hammerstone. The first tool that makes other tools.
t0-cut
A cutting edge
Make something that cuts, and something that can make another one.
Tools Guide ×3Sheet
Hemp rope, laid up from fibre. Almost nothing else on the ladder gets built without it.
t0-cord
Cordage
Turn plant fibre into string, then string into rope.
Materials Guide ×4Build ×2Sheet ×7
A woven funnel trap — passive gear that works while you sleep.
t0-food
Forage, trap, fish
Take calories out of the landscape while you wait for agriculture to start paying.
Food Guide ×5Build ×2Sheet ×7
Basket weaving near Lake Ossa, Cameroon. Carrying and storing come before almost everything.
t0-containers
Containers
Carry, store and cook — before you have pottery.
Materials Build
A packed first aid kit. Most of what saves a life here is clean water, pressure and patience.
t0-firstaid
Wound care and first aid
Stop bleeding, prevent infection, and set what is broken.
Health Guide ×5
Sundanese rice granaries on capped posts. Seed held back is next year's food.
t0-seed
Secure seed and breeding stock
Protect the genetic capital that everything above this tier is built on.
Food Guide ×5
A village panchayat office in Kerala — where a community's decisions are actually made.
t0-org
Decide how you decide
Agree the rule for making decisions, before you need to make a hard one.
Society Guide
Petroglyphs at Golpayegan, Iran. Marks that outlast the people who cut them.
t0-record
Start the record
Begin, on day one, the deliberate transfer of what you know to people who will outlive you.
Knowledge