Civilization101Blueprint

Tier 5 — Current

Two inventions in this tier — the generator and synthetic ammonia — did more for human numbers than every other technology combined. About half of all nitrogen in your body today came out of a Haber-Bosch plant. Reaching this tier is what turns a town into a civilization.

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5
Current
Second industrial revolution Year 45 – Year 110 ≥ 20,000+ people

Move energy without moving matter, and break the nitrogen limit on food.

Energy used: about 230,000 kcal per person per day, Cook's technological stage (AD 1970) · where civilization stands

Binding constraint. The binding constraint is copper, insulation, and clean chemistry. Electricity is conceptually simple and materially demanding: it needs drawn wire in quantity, an insulator that does not fail wet, and — for anything past lighting — sulphuric acid at industrial scale. Haber-Bosch, which decides how many people you can feed, needs high pressure and a catalyst, and is the single hardest process on this site.
A hydroelectric generator hall. Energy that can be sent down a wire instead of a shaft.
t5-generator
The generator
Convert motion into electricity, and electricity back into motion.
Energy Guide ×4Sheet ×21
An aluminium smelter. Electricity makes metals that heat alone cannot reach.
t5-electrochem
Electrochemistry and light metals
Use electricity to do chemistry that heat cannot.
Materials Guide ×2Sheet ×6
An oil refinery. One feedstock, separated into fuels, lubricants and chemical precursors.
t5-oil
Petroleum and refining
Get a liquid fuel — dense, portable and pourable.
Energy GuideSheet ×16 Fractions from 40 °C to 400 °C
A sectioned diesel engine — combustion moved inside the cylinder, and power went mobile.
t5-engine
Internal combustion and mobility
Put a compact engine in a vehicle.
Transport Bore and piston within ~0.02 mm
A replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer: the pilot prone on the lower wing beside the engine, chains to two pusher propellers, the elevator in front.
t5-aeroplane
The powered aeroplane
Add an engine and propellers to a controllable airframe, keep weight and balance inside limits, and fly only proven, inspected designs with trained pilots.
Transport GuideSheet ×7
Line handlers wait as the Virginia-class attack submarine USS Hartford comes in on the surface, 2009. Even surfaced, most of the hull sits under water.
t5-submarines
Submarines and submersibles
Take a hull under water and bring it back: trim it with ballast, build it for the pressure at its depth, and dive only a classed, tested design with a trained crew.
Transport Sheet
A nitrogen fertiliser works. Roughly half the nitrogen in your body passed through a plant like this.
t5-haber
Synthetic nitrogen
Pull fertiliser out of the air.
Materials Guide 400–500 °C at 150–300 atmospheres
Penicillium under the microscope. The mould that made bacterial infection survivable.
t5-antibiotics
Antibiotics and vaccines
Make infection survivable.
Health Guide ×3
A communications receiver. Messages without wires, and without permission from the terrain.
t5-radio
Radio
Communicate with no wire between you.
Computing Guide ×4Sheet
Everyday polymers. Cheap, formable, waterproof — and the waste problem arrives with them.
t5-polymers
Polymers
Make materials with properties no natural material has.
Materials
Venlo-type glasshouses in the Westland, the Netherlands: rows of narrow glass roofs on steel columns, with hinged roof vents.
t5-greenhouse
The modern greenhouse: film, glass and climate control
Hold the crop's temperature, humidity, light and carbon dioxide within range all year, at a heating and cooling cost worked out before the house is built.
Food GuideBuild ×2 Crop air 17–27 °C; below 10 °C or above 35 °C most crops stop
Lettuce on floating rafts in a greenhouse (2016): the roots hang in a pond of aerated nutrient solution, a large, stable volume that buffers mistakes better than a thin film.
t5-hydroponics
Soilless growing: hydroponics and substrates
Grow greenhouse crops with their roots in a flowing nutrient solution or an inert substrate, with the solution's strength, acidity and oxygen measured every day and held in the crop's range.
Food GuideBuild Air for lettuce about 24 °C by day and 18 °C at night EC and pH read every day; NFT channels at 1.2–3.0 % fall with no dips
Reinforcing bars laid in mats across a bridge deck before the pour, CSVT River Bridge, Pennsylvania (2020); a gantry robot ties the crossings, and every bar is set on chairs to hold its cover.
t5-concrete
Steel frame and reinforced concrete
Build frames of reinforced concrete or steel, or confined masonry, that carry their loads with the steel where the tension is, the concrete mix, cover and curing the exposure needs, and the earthquake detailing the region needs, each stage inspected before it is hidden.
Shelter Guide Keep fresh concrete damp for at least 7 days; structural steel keeps about 60 % of its strength at 550 °C Cover to the bars within the drawing's figure; hoops 75–100 mm apart in earthquake zones
A polling station in Thailand, 2023, laid out in the open: voter lists posted on the board at left, the check-in table, screened booths, and sealed ballot boxes in plain view.
t5-rights
Constraint on the ruler
Put the rules that bind the rule-makers into a supreme, published law that they cannot change alone and that courts enforce against them.
Society Guide
A Poupatempo counter in São Paulo, 2023. One building issues identity cards, driving licences and other documents from several departments, by appointment, at one counter.
t5-citizen
Citizen services and the front counter
Give every person one place to get any public service, with published requirements, fee and deadline, and someone independent to complain to.
Society Guide
The seat of the European Central Bank beside the River Main, with the Frankfurt skyline behind, 2015: the bank sets interest rates for the euro area to hold inflation at 2 % over the medium term.
t5-monetary
Reserves and the price level
Measure the price level every month, give an independent central bank a published inflation target and the tools to meet it, and make banks safe enough that a run on one does not become a run on all.
Economy Guide Inflation held close to a published target, such as 2 % a year
A Galton board: balls bouncing at random off rows of pins pile up in the bell-shaped normal distribution, the curve behind the 1.96 in a 95 % confidence interval.
t5-statistics
Knowing whether a result is real
Draw samples at random, state the uncertainty of every estimate, fix the plan before the data arrive, read significance tests for what they are, and believe a finding only when it has been replicated.
Knowledge Guide
The rotary press of the Basque daily newspaper Euzkadi, preserved in the Orconera building at Lutxana.
t5-press
The press, and who gets to speak
Let anyone publish without a licence, protect what they publish from punishment for criticising the powerful, keep the media many and independent, protect journalists and their sources, and hold the press to correcting its own errors.
Knowledge
Chinese cabbage under drip irrigation (2023): a drip line runs along each row, wetting the soil at the plants and leaving the paths dry.
t5-drip
Drip and sprinkler irrigation
Put each crop's water at its roots through pipes, in the amount the crop uses, when the soil says it needs it, with every emitter on a line delivering within 10 % of the others.
Food GuideBuildSheet Emitter flows within 10 % of each other along a line; pressure within 20 %
La Plata, Argentina, from the air (2019): a planned city whose square grid of blocks and broad avenues was laid out before it was built, with the countryside beyond.
t5-city
Plan the city before it grows
Before the city reaches its fringe, reserve the land it will need for 20–30 years, secure an arterial grid about 1 km apart with its rights-of-way, lay a street hierarchy and utility corridors inside it, and publish the plan.
Settlements Guide ×2