resource-exhaustion

The chapter details the collapse of the first world-civilization due to the exhaustion of coal supplies, which had been the foundation of its energy and industry. Despite clear signs of impending disaster, societal and religious adherence to ritual flying and belief in divine power prevented rational responses, leading to widespread economic and psychological crisis, civil wars, plagues, and ultimately the near-total destruction of civilization and a return to natural wilderness.

This chapter describes a prolonged period of human decline following the collapse of the First World State, termed the First Dark Age, lasting about one hundred thousand years. During this time, humanity regresses from civilization to savagery due to a combination of an epidemic of insanity, loss of social cohesion, physiological degeneration, and depletion of natural resources. The chapter also explores how cultural memory of a glorious past persists through myths and symbols, even as the species faces decay and stagnation.