Oilessia: Our World Without Oil



In what would be the Sixth Millenium of the Common Era, scientists of the College of Sentaeus began studying other civilizations on other planets in a quest to understand why so many grew so quickly but could not sustain themselves beyond a few hundred years. It was not long before they discovered the key to the puzzle: fuel made from fossils. On almost all other habitable planets they discovered, Fossil-Composed Fuel (FCF) was present and in great abundance. The researchers discovered that FCF was generally an extremely potent fuel and could provide massive amounts of labor for minimal input. Thus, they concluded that because cheap and abundant energy was so available, it set the civilizations on a course of uncontrollable growth such that FCF worked its way into the very fabric of the society setting up the stage for collapse at all levels. Their findings stated that

"...it was the finite nature of the energy the civilizations decided to use and which combined poorly with their collective psyches that caused their ultimate downfall. But the planet of Earth was unique: it was never able to produce fuel from fossils. The kinds of minerals present in the crust do not allow for that kind of process. And so rather than taking a few hundred years to industrialize, it took humanity several millenia allowing our species the time to develop and distribute into the fabric of our civilization modes of energy acquisition in which the energy comes directly from the sun. Therefore, because our planet was chemically unique in a certain way we were forced to become acquainted with the long term rather than consumed with the short term."' - On the Success of Humanity, Lester T. Hammond, 4232 A.C.E.

History of the Earth (Brief) In terms of the history of mankind, there are three eras, and nine ages. The three eras are Before Common Era (B.C.E.), Common Era (C.E.), and After Common Era (A.C.E.). In B.C.E., there is only one age: The Precommon Age. In C.E., there are two ages: The Roman Age (0 to 1453 C.E.), and The European Age (1453 to 2550 C.E.). In A.C.E., there are six ages so far: The Age of the Orient (0 to 1081 A.C.E.), The Age of Order (1081 to 1930 A.C.E.), The Age of Equity (1930 to 2531 A.C.E.), The Age of Unity (2531 to 3501 A.C.E.), The Age of Glory (3501 to 4335 A.C.E.), The Contemporary Age (4335 A.C.E to Today [4911 A.C.E.]).

These are their Histories:

Before Common Era (B.C.E)
There is only one age in B.C.E.: The Precommon Age.

The Precommon Age
Once humankind had developed out of nature's mechanisms they began manipulating their environment. As they learned more they realized, once the ice age was over, that they could use agriculture to acquire more food. The idea soon spread across Eurasia and eventually arrived in the New World. Sumer, the first civilization, cropped up around 4000 B.C.E. and in the following millenia others appeared: Egypt, Greece, China, India, et cetera. But soon, one came to dominate them all, that of Rome.

Common Era (C.E.)
There are two ages in the Common Era: The Roman Age, and The European Age. Although Both heavily involve Europe, only the latter involves the entirety of Europe.

The Roman Age
Beginning in the latter centuries of B.C.E., Rome came to a point of enormous power and complexity by 0 C.E. becoming a full-fledged empire shortly before. It was during this time that a religion known as "Christianity" appeared. It was based on the fable of a man later known as "Jesus Christ" who, for nearly two millenia, was believed to be an actual historical figure. It was through this belief that the religion of christianity would come to play a gargantuan role in the Common Era, an era whose beginning is marked by the fabled birth of Jesus Christ.

During this time, the romans were persecuting the Christian cult which began to spread rapidly across the empire in the early centuries of the Common Era. The Roman Empire came to its height in around 250 C.E. and shortly thereafter adopted the Christian belief system and founded the Christian religion via state power. For as it saw its own power waning it was seeking out a way to maintain its level of control and influence over the massive population of the Roman Empire.

But soon, the empire was split in half to make it more manageable leaving the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire as the new bastions of authority. The Western Roman Empire quickly fell to the barbarians of the north, while the Eastern Roman Empire held on for another millenium. During this time, Europe largely wallowed in the so-called "dark ages" having fallen from glory. The Eastern Roman Empire eventually fell in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks thus officially ending the Roman Age.

The European Age
It was by this time that Europe had sprung anew and indeed, in 1492, Christopher Columbus stumbled upon the New World thus setting off a chain of events that would bring glory back to Europe. It was the Renaissance and the subsequent Enlightenment that gave Europe a new perspective on the world. The Christian Religion spread across the world this way in various forms. For after the Reformation, the Catholic Church no longer held as much sway in European Politics. New denominations had sprung up and offered the people of Europe an alternative to Catholicism.

But as the Enlightenment Era dawned, Europeans gradually abandoned the Christian religion altogether. By 1820, only two thirds of Europeans attended church services. That number fell to below one fifth by 1845, and soon reached extreme lows at nearly one in one hundred by 1870. New, resurgent brands of Christianity cropped up in the colonized areas of the world after the Europeans had abandoned religion. It was persecutred by the European royalty having been made illegal in the French Empire by 1887. By 1923, Italia had outlawed the religion making it the last European empire to outlaw religious activities of all kinds. By this time, religion had thus become illegal in four fifths of the world's land areas making the one fifth in which it was legal havens for emigrants. The most prominent of these havens was China.

The explosion of immigration to China in the 1900's caused an economic and cultural boom in the region. The runaway success of China in the mid 1900's is often attributed to this boom. It was during this time that the area experienced a renaissance. But it was eventually thwarted by a coalition of European armies who carried out a series of secular crusades against China beginning in 2004 and continuing until the late date of 2410. During this time the population of the world was gradually reduced from 650 million to 580 million in a series of wars that left the Chinese landscape torn and divided.

In 2410 C.E., The Freedom Treaty of Xinjiang effectively ended the secular crusades and the policies of religious suppression. However, the 2400's saw an overall decrease in religiosity across the globe particularly after the treaty was signed. It appeared to have a paradoxical effect wherein the freedom of choosing whatever belief system you wish for increases the likelihood of abandoning religion altogether. Empires were nearly on the verge of religious Revolution by the time of the treaty's signing, but became highly irreligious by 2480. It is called "The Freedom Paradox".

The world enjoyed an age of peace and prosperity during the early 2500's but in the year 2550 it was met with disaster, one that would commence a whole new era.

[Futuristic History: PENDING]