Previously —
Oming resources were poured into the race to adapt the blue fire war weapon for the battle to replenish to the sky’s carbon. It made some Oming uneasy.
‘The ancestor fuel and fire is dangerous,’ was the warning. ‘And it will run out eventually. This is no solution… What if something goes wrong?’
‘Nothing will go wrong,’ the technologists and leaders replied as they lit the black fuel.
There was one accident. And in the densely layered cities, fire easily blazed pathways from Oming to Oming. There was no longer any need for twenty Lower Omings to sacrifice themselves to spread fire. Without help, the fire itself consumed millions.
After that, those that grieved most joined the dissenters to call for the blue fire to be buried under the mountains, as it once was. The technologists also grieved but they knew what had gone wrong and they knew how it could be fixed. The technology could be made safe.
The technologists did their work well. There were no other major accidents.
Indeed, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air did start to rise. At the same time, the constantly burning fuel spat out soot, which was carried by the winds and coated Oming leaves. Lifespans in the worst affected fields were shorter. Oming died younger, as they struggled to shake off the black carbon that didn’t make it to the air. Sometimes, rain would wash the soot away but the rain also pitted wood with acid.
The blue fire was fed for hundreds of years, stabilising carbon dioxide in the air. It could have been called a success but the price of a warmer planet was soot and acid damage to previously productive fields. The planet now supported billions of Omings in a poorer state than when it supported millions.
The coal ran out.
The cooling restarted.
As the planet plunged towards an age of frost, billions of cold-stressed Oming drew on the planet’s reserves of nutrients and thermal heat. But overcrowding in the cities meant that fields were being sucked dry before the natural cycle of death, decay and weathering could replace the soil. Within a generation, fields near the Poles and on the winter islands were desolate stands of Oming stumps.
Those that could retreated to the equator. However, even the equatorial cities had been impoverished by the cooling. With more refugees drawing on the soil’s nutrient reserves, Oming leaders realised that even the carrying capacity of the rich equator could be exceeded.
They were beyond the tipping point. The lesson was learned too late. Every time technology was used to extend the planet’s limits, they encountered another limit. The Oming could have chosen to battle layer after layer after layer of limits, or they could have pulled back to live within them. The survivors lived to regret the choice that was made.