Resources in Warfare

Remember yesterday's talk about me trying to come up with a reasoning behind why things are the way they are? You don't, do you?

After a discussion with one of my friends last night, I think I came up with a believable idea. While I could tell you about it now, I'm not. Rather, I'll just give you a rough backdrop of the world I've created... and more of it will be coming soon as I keep working.

Remember this map I made back in March?

What follows below is a short little summary of Terani. I think it works out, both in a "realistic" and an "in-world" sense. It easily gives a backdrop of what to expect inside the world without revealing the technology and what not behind the world. That revelation is for another day coming soon. For now, I give you this little bit I typed out for your reading pleasure:

Many historians have stated that Terani is "a world consumed by war and nothing else." Some argue against this statement, saying that the years of peace far outnumber the years filled with conflict. While the numbers do prove this argument true, the frequent conflicts are bloody enough to make every person agree on one thing: war is anything but rare.

Battles have been fought for many reasons over the years (with some justifications more reasonable than others), but many agree that the term "natural resources" is a primary trigger for modern war. Vast forests and numerous deposits of ore, coal, oil, and other naturally-occurring minerals have been squabbled for across the six continents - often to the point where entire civilizations have paid in blood.

These bloodied resources, however, have contributed to the advancement of humanity. The past few hundred years have witnessed an unprecedented amount of industrial, technological, and economic growth, and the societies boasting the most growth often cite their hard-earned cache of whatever resource(s) they have under their control. With this growth came an unusual air of peace - only a handful of years were marred by war during this time. For once, it seemed that the world could focus its efforts at bettering the lives of its citizens rather than killing them.

Twin volcanoes... not a fun sight to see if they're erupting.

That changed in the summer of 1863 with the violent eruption of the Devil's Horns in Casasia. The twin mountain peaks exploded with such force that the majority of the island nation sunk underneath the sea. While the world mourned for the many victims of the tragedy, they soon realized that human lives weren't the only things that were lost. Casasia was home to a gargantuan deposit of nitrates - minerals used for agricultural and military purposes. More than seventy percent of Terani's nitrate mines were located on Casasia, and only a handful of the remaining mines were reporting any significant output of the now-precious resource.

Governments began to realize that if a similar-scale disaster were to occur in another resource-rich area, it could devastate the world economy. Research began on alternative sources of any non-renewable resources, but many promising endeavors proved to be in vain. The more militarized countries began conquests of weaker territories with rich resources, while those with their own resource deposits began to invest in military defense to protect themselves from any would-be thieves. A number of conflicts arose from these actions of greed, but it seems that the worst is yet to come...

The year is 1947, and war seems to loom over the horizon yet again. Tensions are rising to an all-time high. Some countries are beginning to exhaust their natural resources while others are eyeing their neighbors' supplies. A few conflicts have already broken out in several countries (both for resource-related reasons and otherwise) while the remainder of the world braces for the bloodshed that will come. Terani is about to experience global warfare for the first time.

Unfortunately for y'all, I have actual work to go work at in a bit, so I'm afraid I can only offer you this small token of faith in the meantime. I hope you enjoyed it.

Until the 'morrow!