Personal Log—[REDACTED]

(Journal Entry 1.999.999.399.902)

Repeatedly over the past few entries, I have referenced the concept of Standard Industrial Collapse (SIC). It’s come up quite a lot, but for some reason, I’ve never elaborated on it. Better late than never, I suppose. After all, I’m nearing the end. So, I’ve decided I should at least give an overview on the term for anyone reading this document, assuming anyone is left to read it after I’m done with all this nonsense. After all I’ve seen, I almost hope not.

So—Standard Industrial Collapse is arguably the most important step in the lifecycle of an industrial society. While few sapient species ever choose to establish themselves on the path toward industrialization, it does happen from time to time. As the presence of livestock and dense populations in agrarian societies creates the perfect breeding ground for diseases, lowering mortal lifespans but affording more material comforts in the meantime, technological growth becomes an enticing idea. Once a society gets nudged toward industrialization, the most common, highly oversimplified arc for that civilization is to swell, devastate its local environment, run out of resources, and enter SIC. Simple enough, horrid for everyone involved.

Generally, the presence of oil and coal is the kickstarter here. These materials only appear under specific evolutionary conditions; for instance, oil only generates when large amounts of dead biological matter fall to the depths of their respective planet’s ocean, coagulate with sediments, and sit undisturbed for a minimum of two cycles. Anything can disrupt that process—a lack of the required sediments, the evolution of waste-eating bacteria, a surge of coastal currents, etc. Coal is even rarer, requiring fungi and bacteria to simply ignore large deposits of dead plant matter for eons.

Nevertheless, without either of these two building blocks, industrial societies would collapse before they started. And yet, they do sometimes develop, and their discovery is a portent of doom for most planets.

Since sapient mortals don’t live for even a fraction of a fraction of a cycle, and since industrial societies consume coal and oil—among other non-replenishable materials—at an absurd rate, industrial societies don’t last long. Not even two Standard Centuries, on average. It’s quite sad to see it happen as often as it does. Larger, agrarian societies are troublesome enough on their own, but at least they aren’t condemned from the start. Even as Feudal societies wage war in the distance, large numbers of rural communes and free cities can always slip by unnoticed. Without rail or automobiles, even the smallest habitats feel massive to mortals. Industrialization shrinks planets, in the end.

In the absence of [REDACTED], these times are all the more unstable for mortals. The [REDACTED] can disrupt these societies, and [REDACTED] obliterate them en masse without a second thought. If [REDACTED] [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and [REDACTED], then mortal species wouldn’t have to live under these conditions, but just try telling [REDACTED] that. Before I [REDACTED], I spent most of my life cleaning up [REDACTED] messes. [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] have been on the run, unable to fight back, and their power has long diminished. In the end, I doubt [REDACTED] would be willing to step in at this point—that miserable fool infuriates me to no end—and even my own “mission” seems unlikely to help much at all. By the Wills, I was doing more for people before this whole affair started. I never should have left home.

But I’ve digressed.

Standard Industrial Collapse. Right. While it isn’t the only path—Wills forbid any society tries to preserve its industrialization by looking toward the stars—it certainly is the most common. In essence, as the planet’s supply of lithium, platinum, helium, and a whole cohort of other nonrenewable materials dwindle, any technological growth made in industrialization will decline, the society’s population will shrink, and over the course of a few Standard Centuries, the society will wind up back in Standard Agrarianism. With the environmental disasters that normally accompany SIC, a lot of the infighting that springs from early agrarian expansion simply becomes unsustainable, while the few remaining industrial technologies—usually rail transportation, plumbing, refrigeration, and medical advances—enable some level of lasting interconnectedness. Indeed, many post-SIC cultures enter long (though sub-cycle) periods of prosperity and happiness. A rarity in this particularly distasteful set of realities we live in.

I find it odd that the most common results for sapient societies are so equitable. Early in my existence, I’d held the idea that mortals—and the fools who look down on them—are beholden to a cruel nature that propels them toward spite and violence. Yet now, I’ve started to realize that, left to their own devices, most sapient species will simply choose to live in peace. It is only through external factors that worse outcomes arise. How heartwarming.

If only it mattered.