Civilization101Blueprint

Society, Law & Governance

Decide how you decide before anything else is contested. The chains here run from the group's first rule to boundary and tenure, published law, contract, the registers and a constitution that binds the rulers; and from the first public good through the census, the health authority and a civil service to the front counter and independent audit. The health authority is on the record the largest life-expectancy gain of any institution, almost all of it before antibiotics. The institutions guide lists every public institution in founding order, with the safeguards that keep each honest.
15 steps 9 field guides 0 builds 1 reference sheet 40 books and archives

Tracks

Each track is one line of development climbing the eight levels. A cell holds the step written at that level; cross-listed steps have their home in another sector and are shown here because this subject depends on them. Dashed cells are planned and not yet written; blank ones have nothing planned.

Deciding together

How the group decides, the institutions an advanced civilisation runs and how each is governed, institutions that outlive their founders, and at the far end, what not to rebuild.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
t0-org Decide how you decide Guide
Level 1: nothing planned
Level 2: nothing planned
Level 3: nothing planned
Level 4: nothing planned
Level 5: nothing planned
Level 6: nothing planned
t7-institutions Institutions that outlive people Guide t7-choose Decide what not to rebuild Guide ×2
Open the track, level by level →

Land and law

Boundary and tenure, published rule, contract, the register, and constraint on the ruler.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
Level 0: nothing planned
t1-property Boundary and tenure Guide ×2
t2-writtenlaw Published rule and the court Guide
t3-contract The enforceable promise Guide
t4-registry The register: land, birth, company Guide
t5-rights Constraint on the ruler Guide
Level 6: nothing planned
Level 7: nothing planned
Open the track, level by level →

Public works and administration

The first public good, counting, the health authority, standing administration, the front counter, and the audit and statistics that check them.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
Level 0: nothing planned
t1-commonworks The first public good Guide ×2Sheet
t2-census Count before you administer Guide
t3-publichealth The health authority Guide ×5
t4-service Standing departments and a civil service Guide
t5-citizen Citizen services and the front counter Guide
t6-accountability Audit, statistics and the published number Guide ×2
Level 7: nothing planned
Open the track, level by level →

Security

The rule for force, the watch, alarms and the refuge. Weapons and fighting technique are deliberately excluded.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
Level 0: nothing planned
t1-watch Keep watch and defend the settlement Guide
Level 2: nothing planned
Level 3: nothing planned
Level 4: nothing planned
Level 5: nothing planned
Level 6: nothing planned
Level 7: nothing planned
Open the track, level by level →

Everything in Society, Law & Governance

Gathered from the steps above: the guides and builds that serve them, the reference sheets those carry, and every book the steps, guides and builds cite.

Field guides

Level 0
Institutions: what to found, and how to run them

Every public institution an advanced civilisation runs, in the order a rebuilding one can found them: what each is for, when it becomes possible, and the rules that keep it honest, useful and no bigger than its job.

 Level 3
Earth sciences

Water in and on the ground, the air and weather, rocks and time, earthquakes and tsunamis, and the climate: each result with what it lets you do and who first found it.

 Level 3
Calculating by hand

Four-figure logarithms and trigonometry, square roots by Newton's method, and the two instruments that did the world's arithmetic before electronics.

 Level 0
Wild water and wells

Surface water is a treatment problem every single day. Groundwater, reached and sealed properly, is a treatment problem once.

 Level 0
Sanitation and disease

The distance between a latrine and a well, a bar of soap, and a covered pit prevent more deaths than every hospital on the ladder combined.

 Level 3
Micro-organisms

The two dozen that decide who lives where there is no doctor: what each does, how it spreads, what kills it and which step stops it.

 Level 1
The body's numbers

Normal pulse, breathing, temperature and blood pressure; the signs that mean danger in a child; and how much water a body needs.

 Level 3
Biology

Life from the cell up: the human body, microbes and immunity, inheritance and epidemics. Each result with what it lets you do and who first found it.

 Level 6
Computer science

What can be computed and how fast, how signals carry information without error, how secrets are kept, and how machines learn from data: each result with what it lets you do and who first found it.

Reference sheets

Drawn overview sheets, each with its corrections printed under it. They orient; they are never the thing you identify from.

A lever hand pump in section — pump head, rod, piston and its valve, rising main and foot valve — with the parts, the stroke cycle, installation, maintenance and design notes.
Hand pump On: The first public good · Wild water and wells: Lifting the water

Books and archives

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