Policy of History

The Progressive Earth's Policy of History is a guide to the world's policy on historical development and the creation of articles.

Physical Feasibility
Any development must be physically possible. This may seem like an obvious point, but in reality it's a bit more complex than you might think. First of all, it precludes any 'Magical' events- no religious intevention, no Gods, no spells. That is, at least, not in a 'real' sense. Human imagination seems to develop these things as ideas and the basis for beliefs, so writing about magic or a religion as an idea is of course perfectly allowable. The Physical Feasibility rule reaches further than this, though. For example, if you're coming up with a completely original device, you'll have to make sure that it is capable of doing what you have provided it for, which includes being certain that the materials used are correct and that the physical operation is possible. Tools made of poor wood are prone to breaking. Going further, if you are dealing with a new city, town or settlement, look at the area you plan to situate it in. Be sure to check that it would be possible to build there and that there is a sustainable environment (a city on top of a barren, inaccessible mountain, for example, would not be physically feasible). A good way to check areas is via Google Earth and Wikipedia. Remember that this world is physically a twin of our own. The best rule is that you should just simply be realistic. Armies don't march non-stop for a year and fight on the tops of mountains. People need food and water. Cities grow where there's a need for them. Think about what you want to achieve and think of what you'll need to do to achieve it. A lot of what is physically possible will be dependant on the level of technology a culture has attained, so researching this is a necessity.

Background Feasibility
Development must be possible given the materials available. This initially sounds like the first section, but it isn't. Consider the task of reading these words. To you it doesn't seem like a task at all - but does that mean you can write an article where a society of prehistorical humans does the same? of course not. For them to read this article they would need a computer, internet access, the internet, the English Language, the ability to comprehend written words... And that's just the start. They couldn't just invent all of these things. To invent the modern computer you need to first invent copper wire, plastic, the English Language, the stored program concept, binary, electricity... And to invent copper wire you need to first invent metalworking, copper mining, the industrial process, fire... You see, i hope, how this works. For you to create something you must first have to hand all (or at least the vast majority) of the materials and ideas necessary to its construction. That means that the articles for all these ideas and techologies must exist. Of course, you weren't planning on creating a computer here - but the principle remains the same for much more basic things. For example, to justify the invention of a copper sword, you must first have to hand: War, copper mining(which in itself involves a great deal), a society capable of supporting smiths, fire, metalworking tools, sharpening tools, the metalworking process... Not as simple as you may have thought. So in inventing something, look around and check that articles exist for the necessary materials or precursors, either created by others or in the Base Register. This goes for human ideas and civilisations as well - you can't have a kingdom before feudalism is invented. You can't have a general before armies are invented. Try and help other inventors out. Create some functional articles and let ideas spread, so that people can keep building without having to stop and go back to the foundations every now and again.

Access Feasibility
A consideration must be made for the resources available to your inventor or culture. Do they have access to the necessary materials? Just because the materials or ideas exist in the world (articles or Base Register) doesn't mean that they are available to the culture you are operating in. Obviously some ideas will flow from one culture to another, but only if there is sufficient contact. In our time, Chinese inventions weren't used by the Greeks - so similar considerations should be made. Independant development may become necessary, or you may need to attach a section to an invention's page, detailing how it spread and reached your culture. Also, just because something is considered possible by a culture, it doesn't mean that it can be easily produced or produced en mass. Skilled labour and resources need to be taken into consideration, as well as transport and time-frames for development. How many people are going to be involved? How long will it take? What will it cost? In relation to nations, cultures take time to develop, and there is a need for certain population sizes to affect territorial reaches. Consider what one man can do in comparison to a population of 200, and consider what is needed to support such a number of people.

Time Restrictions
Due to the strain of managing what will potentially be a huge world, there will be moving restrictions on how far into the 'future' you can write. The frames will be reasonably loose and a degree of leniency will be be applied, as the time frame is mostly going to be in place in order to hold the world's development at a certain level while it is 'plumped out' and other sections catch up to the ones pushing the time-frame. You should also pay attention to the amount of time processes take - generations are needed for a civilisation to be firmly established. We don't expect you to write something for every single year of a topic's history, but jumping too far into the future and skipping over large, important areas of history should be avoided.

Creation and Re-Creation
Here we come to a bit of a grey area. Let me explain. The Progressive Earth is about rewriting human history - that means creatively working in our own world from 'the year dot' to design a new history, detailing events, inventions and other things as if they were real. What needs to be established is that we are going to try and avoid 're-creating' civilisations and people that existed in our own history. We don't want the Greeks to be appearing in the Progressive Earth, or Julius Caeser. However, certain things are unavoidable, and certain patterns will repeat themselves, even unintentionally. For example - we might not get Greece (the culture) and Athens, but we may well get a civilisation which is forward-thinking and somewhat democratic. We might not evolve a Julius, or a Rome, but we might create a story where that tragedy plays itself out again. So really, as long as you're being inventive, everything's fine. Don't go worrying about whether something you've designed has parallels with something that existed in real-life, just so long as a culture or person isn't from our Earth's history, or a poorly disguised attempt at imitating something from history, it'll be accepted without trouble. Of course, when it comes to inventions, some things are going to be necessary. The development of agriculture, for example, will be necessary if Progressive Earth ever wants to have cities and towns. And the same goes for a lot of tools and ideas. When it comes to items, use the English words for the inventions, please (Although suggesting alternate language equivalents is fine) and when it comes to ideas, we ask you use your discretion. Calling something like feudalism by another name is going to be confusing, but creating an alternative name to some ideal you've invented is perfectly fine