What is "The Great Mistake"?

[s0nny80y]

Overpopulation and consequent resource depletion. I think Nat'l Geo reported predictions of roughly 10 billion people by 2050...imagine the world pop in 2500 (BE).

Planned and unplanned parenthood could both be considered a "Great Mistake" .

 

[awesome]

great or greatest mistake?

 

[DarkestOnion]

The Great MIstake could be a Containment Breach at the SCP Foundation

http://www.scp-wiki.net/

 

[Aeson]

The invention of true VR devices. A glitch in the caretaker system wipes out most of humanity when the AI tasked with keeping our IV stocked so we never have to leave our fantasy word confuses drums of lubricants for saline solution. The only survivors are those who had philosophical or religious objections to the technology, and we enter a dark age of (perhaps warranted) technophobia. Over time the "Great Mistake" becomes less about technology in general, and more a singular event with no real meaning to future generations, who will eventually decide to invent VR again as one of the late game techs in a forthcoming expansion. Researching this tech will of course lead to an automatic loss, forever squashing the complaints about how, "Tech is too powerful!"

 

[gunnergoz]

When I finally got around to actually reading the 8 faction leader comments over at 2K blogs, I got some interesting hints about the Great Mistake, though no conclusive answer.

First, the designers commented early on that they will not define the Great Mistake but will give hints and allow the individual player to fill in the story based on his/her perspective and tastes.

Second, there is repeated mention of "the Inflection Point." I had to look that up but basically you could think of it as the point in which a graphed curve changes direction...what is graphed on that curve is never mentioned, but several of the leaders state that Earth has only so much time left before the Seeding Project (to the new planet) will no longer be affordable to the nations of Earth, due to population pressures and resource depletion.

There is mention of "fallout" as an aspect of the GM (and fallout of course implies use of nuclear weapons.) There is also the mention in the essay about the KP that the fictitious writer of the essay was standing on the doorstep of the GM...and at the time he appeared to be in India.

Wars and revolutions are also mentioned by the Slavic Federation and Pan Asian Cooperatie leaders - the former describing several wars and revolutions that ravaged the former Soviet lands; and the Pan Asian essay mentioned the "Korean Crises" and the "South China Sea War."

So it looks to me now like the GM was a series of miscalculated wars leading to global chaos and extreme resource depletion, coupled with the effects of Global Warming like rising coastlines. I think the Inflection Point idea is a big clue that led me to think that Earth was about to go into an era of forced poverty and resource shortages, so much so that the opportunity to leave the planet and seed others might be lost forever if not taken immediately...and thus setting the scenario for the game.

That's my current take on it - yours may differ and that's fine too. I like the open-ended nature of it because it made me think a lot about modern events and trends and where they might lead us in the future.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

When I finally got around to actually reading the 8 faction leader comments over at 2K blogs, I got some interesting hints about the Great Mistake, though no conclusive answer.

First, the designers commented early on that they will not define the Great Mistake but will give hints and allow the individual player to fill in the story based on his/her perspective and tastes.

Second, there is repeated mention of "the Inflection Point." I had to look that up but basically you could think of it as the point in which a graphed curve changes direction...what is graphed on that curve is never mentioned, but several of the leaders state that Earth has only so much time left before the Seeding Project (to the new planet) will no longer be affordable to the nations of Earth, due to population pressures and resource depletion.

There is mention of "fallout" as an aspect of the GM (and fallout of course implies use of nuclear weapons.) There is also the mention in the essay about the KP that the fictitious writer of the essay was standing on the doorstep of the GM...and at the time he appeared to be in India.

Wars and revolutions are also mentioned by the Slavic Federation and Pan Asian Cooperatie leaders - the former describing several wars and revolutions that ravaged the former Soviet lands; and the Pan Asian essay mentioned the "Korean Crises" and the "South China Sea War."

So it looks to me now like the GM was a series of miscalculated wars leading to global chaos and extreme resource depletion, coupled with the effects of Global Warming like rising coastlines. I think the Inflection Point idea is a big clue that led me to think that Earth was about to go into an era of forced poverty and resource shortages, so much so that the opportunity to leave the planet and seed others might be lost forever if not taken immediately...and thus setting the scenario for the game.

That's my current take on it - yours may differ and that's fine too. I like the open-ended nature of it because it made me think a lot about modern events and trends and where they might lead us in the future.

Very interesting... one point is that when Kozlov talks about 3 revolutions and four world wars.... all the revolutions can be considered to have happened already (1905, 1917, 1991)... but that is still 2 More world wars that Russia is involved in.

 

[omniclast]

The LHC creates a black hole at the center of the Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_%28Brin_novel%29

 

[gunnergoz]

One more thought: if my take on it holds up and Earth is in store for centuries of poverty, privation and all that goes with that, then the Supremacy idea of bringing "technical liberation" or (whatever they call it) to the hapless downtrodden masses of old Earth might well have some basis in fact. The Supremacists can offer a life that is (at the most extreme) very free from want, since your personality can be uploaded into a digital/robotic human analogue or a even into a Matrix-style digital world where you live as a disembodied personality in the circuits and servers of some vast machine state...either way, you need almost no physical resources to live happily. Or so the Supremacists would have you believe.

 

[GeoModder]

That's my current take on it - yours may differ and that's fine too. I like the open-ended nature of it because it made me think a lot about modern events and trends and where they might lead us in the future.

I think it's pretty much spot on.
If the German Let's Play video is any indication, it seems the expedition leaders and sponsor civipedia entries might give a bit more detail.

 

[gunnergoz]

I think it's pretty much spot on.
If the German Let's Play video is any indication, it seems the expedition leaders and sponsor civipedia entries might give a bit more detail.

Yeah, I do hope the released game gives us more beefed up information about the setting for the GM and subsequent events. I'm enjoying getting into the world that the BE designers are creating for us. Unlike most fantasy worlds, this fictional one has some real world connections and implications that are intriguing if not absolutely terrifying.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Yeah, I do hope the released game gives us more beefed up information about the setting for the GM and subsequent events. I'm enjoying getting into the world that the BE designers are creating for us. Unlike most fantasy worlds, this fictional one has some real world connections and implications that are intriguing if not absolutely terrifying.

I have a feeling (and a hope) they won't have too much detail.

Keeping it vague is better for people to fill in the gaps...and harder to find plot holes.

It would also imply that the people of the time don't agree on what really was/caused the Great Mistake (like the fall of the Roman empire)... leading each faction/affinity open to criticize others for potentially repeating it

 

[gunnergoz]

I have a feeling (and a hope) they won't have too much detail.

Keeping it vague is better for people to fill in the gaps...and harder to find plot holes.

It would also imply that the people of the time don't agree on what really was/caused the Great Mistake (like the fall of the Roman empire)... leading each faction/affinity open to criticize others for potentially repeating it

According to the developers, they won't spill the beans too much.

From Civilization.com:

Q: What is ‘The Great Mistake’?

The Great Mistake is a mysterious event that is partly interpretive to the player. We want them to discover the backstory by playing through the game and using their imagination. Playing through the game will provide a lot of insight as to what the event could be, but we don’t outright say what happened. Games by Firaxis have always been about setting the stage and giving players the props to act out their own story.

 

[defiler]

After reading most of the comments here, and re reading the short stories on civ site, I tried to make a time line doing some nods of the best ideas and some great games around. Hope you enjoy it, here we go
2020 - Scientists discover a terran planet in the Alpha Centauri system
2030 - A UN project called Unity, mobilizes many nations to launch the first extra solar mission
2040 - Riots arise on many countries in protest to the small number of colonists "chosen", influence of great corporations, and the great cost of investment.
2050 - USS Unity leaves to a mission to Alpha Centauri, many of the great minds of the generation left Earth on the project, many economies around the world collapse due the end of the enterprise, and lots of unemployment and unused infrastructure cause many riots and competition between old enemies. On India an specialist in cryogenics, Amar Thakur spends all his economies earned on Unity work and buys a military bunker on New Delhi
2051 - Pakistan and India start a skirmish on their border rising from old conflicts, the conflict escalates quickly with the Indian leader launching a nuclear missile, the Pakistan forces detect the attack and retaliate, the event further known as 9 minutes War left most of the area around the great cities on the both countries destroyed.
2052 - Smoke and nuclear fallout start to cause most of the northern hemisphere temperatures to drop, international commerce decrease with must countries turning their economies internally to repair most of the difficulties
2053 - Nuclear winter take places on the northern hemisphere, coal and oil prices rises to new records. Southern hemisphere nations rise their economies from the food commerce since they are the few remaining arable land
2060 - Oil reserves end, most of the Arab countries economies collapse, intercontinental commerce stops due lack of fuel.
2062 - Arabian countries launch an invasion on the northern and eastern countries, Eastern Europe and the left of India and Pakistan territories, are invaded.
2063 - Most of Europe and Asia countries are locked in conflict trying to defend or invade territories, most of the European countries around Russia form an alliance to protect against the invaders, great areas are polluted due the high usage of coal, temperatures start to rise
2065 - An accelerated green house effect starts to rise temperatures globally, ice caps start to melt at an alarming rate.
2068 - Floods and extreme meteorological events ravage most of the Earth, coastal cities are most affected, some insular nations are threatened to disappear.
2070 - Most countries are now isolated states, living from internal economy. Many borders are changed due war and floods. A new dark age falls on Earth, disease and famine are global.
2075 - Temperatures keeping rising, desertification spreads. Northern hemisphere is warm again.
2080 - Scientist discovery a way to create stable nuclear fusion, the new source of energy starts to help many nations to recover
2085 - Most South American nations unite under a great economic and political block called Brasilia, due to little side effects suffered from the global warming and wars, their water and food reserves let they have great global influence, the UN Peace corps are now under their leadership and they start a project to recover land and stop wars on Europe and Asia
2090 - Indonesia and other insular nations around the Pacific, uses the new fusion energy to power projects of water desalinization and hydroponic plantations, now that most of their territories are flooded
2100 - Most of the wars on Europe and Asia are quelled, France starts a project to revitalize their urban centers
2110 - Population start to return to Indian territory, a cult is formed around a religious figure supposedly found in New Delhi alive after all this years on the nuclear fallout
2120 - China enters in a new isolationist policy, with heavy militarization on their borders, and state propriety companies, bureaucrats are the new leaders
2130 - Indonesia, Australia and other Pacific nations creates an economic block called Polystralia, their success on hydroponics make them the number 1 exporter of food, high immigration from damaged areas make the population on the area grow
2140 - Other states on South Asia starts to collapse due high prices from imported food and water from Polystralia. Laos, Cambodia, Korea and others pledge alliance to China, they create a Pan Asian Cooperation treatise
2150 - Russia starts to use most of the now fertile Siberian region to became self sustained, their quality of life increases, and most of their govern is militarized, they start to invest in a space program to look for new resources from Moon and asteroids.
2155 - Spain, Portugal and Italy ask France to help them to revitalize their cities after the success of its program. Paris is the most cultured center on Western Europe, investing in tourism, archeology, renovation and arts
2160 - Neighbor countries on the intent to gather resources starts to stage military units on Russian borders. On a preemptive strike, most of the other Eastern Europe nations create an alliance and invade Russian territory, after humiliating defeats most of the Eastern Eurasian cities turn loyalty and join the now called Slavic Federation, with bigger resources from the many former countries they found the first permanent colony on Moon
2170 - Franco-Iberia is created and develops many cultural and scientific progress, the intellectual elite and aristocrats migrates in great numbers to the new country their money finances most of the projects
2180 - Even with the resources from the moon colony of Khrabrost the Slavic Federation needs more resources to their space program
2185 - After developing new boreholes technologies and quelling most of tribal and ethnic conflicts most of Africa countries unite and became the top seller of natural resources, great ecological damage spreads on the continent.
2190 - American Reclamation Company develops a terraforming technology that allows most of flooded areas to be recovered, many countries contract the services, and the company makes fortunes. After recovery most of the flooded areas on eastern USA and the offering of many new jobs, most of Mexico and Caribbean Nations migrates to those regions in search of jobs
2192 - Slavic Federation creates small colonies on most of the bodies of the solar system, they create the first colony on the most distant body of the solar system beyond the Kuiper Belt, a small asteroid where an array of deep space telescopes identifies many extra terrestrial planets, long range space travel technology improves
2194 - Scientist alert that the rising temperatures will not stop, and the greenhouse effect may turn Earth on a Venus like planet
2195 - Brasilia starts a secret project and redirects most of their resources to the industrial centers of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. They send military platoons to Sahara, Amazon, the few remaining glaciers on the center of Antarctic continent and irradiated areas in Karachi for survival
2200 - Pan African Union starts to finance many other countries and companies natural resources needs
2205 - Franco Iberia starts to build the Cannon, a collection of work of arts and history of the Western Civilization
2210 - Brasilia launches Aguia, the first seeding colony.
2211- Slavic Federation launches their Seeding Colony
2212 - Small countries and conglomerates rush to buy small versions of Aguia, most of them financed by PAU resources
2214 - PAC launches their Seeding Colony
2216 - Franco Iberia finishes the Cannon and launches their Seeding Colony
2217 - ARC launches their private Seeding Colony
2218 - Kavithan Protectorate launches their Seeding Colony
2219 - PAU launches their Seeding Colony financed by the money earned by the resource sells to the other countries
2220 - Scientist start to talk about Inflection Point, a theory that the resources left on Earth can’t support the number of habitants or big constructions anymore
2225 - Polystralia launches their Seeding Colony
2250 - Temperatures keep raising, resources keep diminishing, future on Earth is uncertain

 

[Monthar]

Nice timeline write-up.

 

[Camikaze]

So the lineup for Firaxicon has been announced, and one the panels will be:

The Great Mistake: The Beginning of Beyond Earth
Speakers: Will Miller, David McDonough
In this panel, co-lead designers for Civilization: Beyond Earth, David McDonough and Will Miller walk you through the chain of events originally laid out at the onset of development for Beyond Earth that would come to be called ‘The Great Mistake’ and its aftermath. Come learn how it might have happened, and how these calamities led to the formation of the eight colony sponsors, the Seeding, and the future of mankind in space.

 

[gunnergoz]

Darn, sure wish I could be there for it...

 

[Darsnan]

Here is what I had posited back in 2010 in regards to the downfall of civilization and the necessitation to colonize new planets:

As the survivors of the great drought which destroyed the Mayan civilization experienced, the thin veneer of civilization is all too easily peeled away when a society is stressed beyond its means to cope: in the latter half of the 21st century the world came face to face with the specter of global famine as the Malthusian Equation became a reality. The Intelligentsia of societies coined the phrase of "Chronic Deprivation" to describe the billions of gaunt corpses which still persisted in living and eking out a subsistence on the fringes of society, while those closer to the cataclysm called it "The Great Sadness". Finally, when the governments of Earth failed to respond to the crisis and provide relief, whole civilizations rose in revolt, toppling their governments in orgies of chaos not seen since the French and Russian revolutions. With no central forms of government remaining, the four horsemen of the apocalypse rode across the world, and humanity sank into chaos and barbarism. Now, in the ashes of civilization, you have initiated Project Phoenix: the re-building of civilization.

The LHC creates a black hole at the center of the Earth.

This comment produced a new train of thought for me regarding this topic of “what is the Great Mistake?”, and got me to thinking on how to rationalize the producers being vague in regards to the Great Mistake, as well as accommodating the various theories posited here regarding what the Great Mistake is.

So what if the “Great Mistake” was a Schrödinger’s Cat style experiment gone wrong? Say that at time X into the experiment, the radioactive material in the sealed box does fission creating a new universe in which calamity X occurs (such as the LHC creating a black hole which will ultimately destroy Earth) in this newly created universe. Then in the original universe (where the radioactive material had not originally fissioned) then at time Y the radioactive material does fission, creating yet another new universe in which a different calamity (calamity Y) occurs (such as an asteroid hitting Earth and disrupting society to the point where mass extinctions occur).
The backstory here would be that our scientists are smart enough to understand that the focal point of the disaster was the beginning of the failed Schrödinger’s Cat experiment, but because they don’t know which universe they ultimately reside in, then they don’t know which calamity will befall them.

Here would be the timeline from the beginning of the Schrödinger’s Cat experiment:

t+1: Radioactive material fissions creating Universe +1 in which calamity #1 occurs
t+2: Radioactive material fissions in original universe creating Universe +2 in which calamity #2 occurs
t+3: Radioactive material fissions in original universe creating Universe +3 in which calamity #3 occurs

Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum....

D

 

[gunnergoz]

Well, anything is possible in the Civ BE universe, and quite possibly IRL as welll...

My money is on Occam's Razor and the GM arising from a more mundane event or set of them. But that's the great thing about this GM idea, it is entirely open to each person's interpretation. If we do see consensus about the GM in these forums, it lets us form our own opinions about what that implies, too.

 

[Skorpios]

It is fun to imagine what events lead up to the Seeding. Here are some of my thoughts:

2025: A nuclear device is detonated in Afghanistan. The group or nation responsible is never identified. Panic and/or opportunistic aggression leads to a limited nuclear exchange between the surrounding nuclear states of the Middle East. Fallout spreads across the region, making many areas uninhabitable. Millions of refugees flee in all directions spreading chaos into Africa, Europe and Asia. This is the 'Great Mistake'.

North Korea takes advantage of the chaos and invades South Korea with conventional forces and in lieu of a direct attack against the US, launches a nuclear attack on Japan. China is forced to take action and occupies the entire Korean peninsula. This prompts Taiwan to officially declare independence. China invades Taiwan as well. Their desire to secure their borders leads to further annexations across South-East Asia to 'restore order' including sending 'aid' to Japan.

Only luck and desperate diplomatic maneuvres prevent further launches across the world. India and Pakistan are brought back from the brink of nuclear war through the influence of a relatively unknown guru Raj Thakur who has followers in both nations.

The humanitarian disasters and military conflicts push the UN to the limit until collapse is inevitable. The US tries to restore order but fails as the ranks of its allies evaporate as more and more countries struggle to enforce law and order within their own borders.

The horrors of the Great Mistake radicalises the anti-nuclear movement, spawning the Damocles Group - dedicated to ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Based primarily in Europe, they launch attacks on nuclear weapon stockpiles in Germany and the UK resulting in nuclear detonations in both countries. The European Union collapses as member states scramble to protect themselves. Similar attempts in the US are foiled but push the US in an increasingly isolationist direction. In India and Pakistan, Thakur prophesies that by joining together, their weapons of destruction shall be reborn as the instruments of their salvation.

Ash and dust from the various nuclear explosions cause decades of 'long winters' and also disrupt the monsoon cycles of the tropics. Global agriculture collapses. The northern ports are icebound for much of the year, disrupting transport and trade. Fuel reserves are exhausted trying to support heating and power generation with the Middle Eastern oilfields inaccessible. Most of the world's remaining forests are cleared for fuel or in desperate attempts to open up new arable land.

Then the climate flips into rampant greenhouse warming, causing catastrophic melting at the poles and the seas begin to rise.

The Northern Hemisphere is hardest hit both by the extreme weather and waves of refugees desperately seeking safety and stability. Tensions spill over into skirmishes and wars as many nations collapse entirely into anarchy. Warlords rise and fall across the globe for nearly a century as humanity struggles to survive.

Slowly, new geo-political entities begin to coalesce around the last remnants of the former superpowers of the Northern Hemisphere and the rising power of the rapidly recovering Southern Hemisphere. The citizens of these new power-blocs have finally realised that they need to co-operate if they want to survive.

Now, at the dawn of the 23rd century, they fear that their world may be too gravely wounded to sustain their current way of life for much longer. Faced by this grim truth, they are gambling their last remaining resources on desperate attempts to secure a future for humanity by seeding new worlds before it is too late.

 

[Fabio1701]

@defiler

I do like the idea of UNS Unity and SMAC existing in the same timeline as CBE. So when both extraterrestial colonies themselves become spacefaring, and they meet, who will the winners be? How would ARC react to Morgan Industries, with a hostile takeover or a merger? Would the Gaians be OK with all the Harmony factions or disagree about process?