Technology and warfare go hand-in-hand. In Sid Meirer’s Civilization games, players must discover the crossbow in order to build the printing press, and invent dynamite in order to connect their civilizations by railroads. In the same way that enhancing one’s army in Civilization can improve the happiness and gold outputs of cities, war-time can lead to technological leaps and bounds in the real world.
During the Second World War, both the Allied and Axis powers were heavily invested in attempting to gain a leg-up on the opposing side through better military technology. Aircraft were utilized for bombing runs over great distances during ‘The Blitz’. The Germans developed the Enigma code, a means of encrypting information that was almost deemed indecipherable, if not for the work of Alan Turing and his team. German rocket scientists further developed rocketry, creating the earliest prototype of the jet engine, and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Meanwhile, the Americans constructed the ultimate payload for such missiles, the Atomic Bomb. First known as the Manhattan Project. A weapon of mass-destruction so powerful it forced Japan to surrender within the week two bombs were detonated.
After the war, these German rocket scientists were split between Russia and the United States. In the wake of this deadly conflict, the Cold War between these two super-powers pushed technology further than ever. Both sides rushed development on the nuclear bomb, forcing an arms race that, at a moments notice, could result in the mutually assured destruction of both countries and render most of the Earth uninhabitable. The Cold War came to a close with the conclusion of the Space Race. Russia placed the first satellite in orbit, Sputnik, launched the first living creature into space, Sputnik II/Laika, and the first manned space mission, Yuri Gagarin aboard Vostok 1. Many Americans saw Russia and Communism as the enemy, and at this point in history, the enemy was winning. NASA scientists needed an end goal to beat Russia to. And so the Apollo Luna program landed on the surface of the Moon, and safely transported its crew back to Earth, in what truly was one giant leap for mankind.
Even with the Space Race won, the threat of the ‘Nuclear Checkmate’ still loomed over the world. If mankind were to survive a war with no victors, then it would need to store its collective information on a distributed network, rather than in single information centres. Thus, the Internet was developed…
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