Tiberium

Tiberium is a fictional crystalline substance of extra-terrestrial origins featured prominently in the of the "Command & Conquer series" of real-time strategy video games. Within each "C&C" title set in this story arc ("Command & Conquer" Tiberian Dawn), ' and '), the Tiberium crystals represent both the tools and spoils of war and are used by players to purchase new units and buildings, with each of the series' factions either directly or indirectly battling for control over the crystals. Tiberium comes in a variety of forms, mostly the common green crystal, but also comes in the form of more rare blue crystals or in a liquid state.

Tiberium is presented as a double-edged sword within the context of the story arc of the respective video games. While it is the greatest mineral resource ever encountered, conveniently gathering many potent elements into an easily harvestable form, it also brings with it considerable hazards: areas rich with the rapidly spreading Tiberium substance are eventually exhausted of their native ecosystems, and become too toxic to support normal carbon-based life. In the context of the gameplay, Tiberium can also be seen this way with its obvious tactical advantage as a resource, and its destructive effect on infantry.

Tiberium can be thought of as, in effect, a commodity, with everything that one builds in the game costing Tiberium-based credits. It can appear anywhere on Earth except in areas of extreme cold climate, but can only be regenerated in-game by special Tiberium-generating "Blossom Trees"; infested trees that release Tiberium spores into the air, or by "Tiberium Fissures" in the Earth's crust, and is harvested by the vehicles called harvesters. Those vehicles seek out and harvest the material. As a currency, Tiberium is collected to build structures and train units. [cite book|title=Multiplayer Game Programming|author=Patricia Pizer, Andre Lamothe, and Todd Barron|pages=17|date=2001|publisher=Thomson Course Technology|id=ISBN 0761532986] [cite book|title=Strategy Game Programming With Directx 9.0|author=Todd Barron|pages=10|date=2003|publisher=Wordware Publishing, Inc.|id=ISBN 1556229224] [cite book|title=Game Design: The Art & Business of Creating Games|author=Bob Bates|pages=11|date=2001|publisher=Thomson Course Technology|id=ISBN 0761531653] In "Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars", Tiberium is generated exclusively from fissures in the Earth's crust, with Tiberium growing from underground veins within these fissures.

The substance is named as such because it was first discovered near the river Tiber in Italy, although Kane, who claims to have discovered Tiberium, said he named it after the Emperor Tiberius.Fact|date=September 2008

Conception

Tiberium was first introduced in the original 1995 "Command & Conquer" game to replace the "spice" from "Dune II" as the mined resource for building and expanding, and was inspired by the 1957 B-movie "The Monolith Monsters".cite web |url=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=183584&skip=yes |title=Command & Conquer - Origins |accessdate=2008-05-29 |publisher=Computerandvideogames staff |author=Will Porter] [cite web | url=http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=49038 | title=Games that changed the world: Command & Conquer | author=Paul Mallinson | accessdate=22 December | accessyear=2006 | publisher=CVG magazine| date=2002-05-31] According to Westwood Studios co-founder Louis Castle "It solved one of the fundamental problems we had with making an RTS, which was that we wanted to have a central resource that everybody was fighting over. "Dune" has spice, which made perfect sense - and it was also used when we came to the idea of Tiberium. It became the anchor of the "C&C" universe because people were arguing over a limited resource that represented wealth and power". For the development of "", Electronic Arts commissioned scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to provide a white paper describing the biophysics of Tiberium, its atomic structure, its method of transmutation, the form of the radiation that it emits, and the way to harness it for powering machinery and weapons — giving it the same treatment as would be suitable for a scientific journal article on a real substance.

Mike Verdu, executive producer for Electronic Arts, describes Tiberium as being at the center of the fictional "C&C" universe as well: "This enigmatic crystal is at the core of our gameplay as well as our fiction. [...] Tiberium is our Force, our Spice, our One Ring, and our Matrix. Everything in our game world is defined by its relationship to Tiberium."cite news|title=E3 2006: Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars Exclusive Interview|url=http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/705/705757p1.html|author=Dan Adams|date=2006-05-09|publisher=IGN Entertainment, Inc.|work=IGN.com]

Concept of Tiberium

In the game universe, Tiberium crystals proliferate by infecting plantlife and mutating them into so-called Blossom Trees which seed the substance across large areas of land, or, in later "C&C" games, by growing out of the ground from Tiberium fissures within in the Earth's crust. Verdu describes these Tiberium concentrations as "oddly beautiful fields of green crystal that [kill] everything around them". The substance is radioactive and is extremely toxic to carbon-based life, causing either death or severe genetic mutations in plants, humans and animals alike. It replicates by converting everything around it into more Tiberium either through oddly directed mutation of plantlife, or through direct assimilation of other substances on the atomic level, through this gradually covering the whole surface of the Earth. It gives off radiation, which in the game universe is harnessed both for energy and as a weapon. In Verdu's words it is both "a gift and a curse — a resource and a plague".cite news|title=Tiberian resurrection|author=Ahmad Azrai|url=http://www.mmail.com.my/Current_News/mm/Cache/CGamesreviews/20060619122238/Article/index_html|date=2007-03-25|work=Malay Mail]

Verdu gives the following scientific analysis of Tiberium from the perspective of the game universecite web|work=ign.com|title=Command & Conquer 3 — Living With Tiberium|author=Mike Verdu|date=2006-07-26|url=http://pc.ign.com/articles/721/721138p1.html|publisher=IGN Entertainment, Inc.] :

Tiberium is extra-terrestrial in origin and was introduced to the world through a meteorite impact near the Tiber river in Italy, in the year 1995. Exposure of human beings to Tiberium, which can be through touch or inhalation, either results in death or extreme mutation, the mechanism (or purpose) for the latter not being revealed in the game. Verdu describes Red Zones as being "like the surface of an alien world". Part of the game storyline comprises scientific speculation that an alien species is using Tiberium to terraform Earth to its own requirements. This speculation is borne out in "", when the alien force known as the Scrin arrive at Earth to mass-harvest Tiberium.

This effect on both humans and materials has consequences for harvesting. Unprotected infantry passing through a Tiberium deposit are at risk, both from direct exposure to Tiberium itself and thus conversion into Tiberium and from secondary radiation burns and radiation poisoning as others are contaminated and converted around them. Soldiers, tanks, and other vehicles in "Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars" thus have protective shielding against Tiberium. However, this shielding is imperfect, since it simply slows down the process of conversion, it being based upon the fact that some materials take longer for Tiberium to convert than others. (There are other shields against Tiberium. "Sonic resonators", devices that emit sound at particular frequencies, stop the spread of Tiberium and are used in Blue Zones to ensure that Tiberium deposits there are contained.) Partial contamination of a human, which can occur within 20 seconds, requires immediate treatment in properly equipped medical facilities.cite web|work=ign.com|title=Command & Conquer 3 — Tiberium as a Game Resource|author=Mike Verdu|date=2006-08-01|url=http://pc.ign.com/articles/722/722462p1.html|publisher=IGN Entertainment, Inc.]

Tiberium, is, in Verdu's words, a "simple" and an "elegant" piece of game design. It is a resource that drives both the overall storyline and the economy of actual gameplay. Its several properties, including the tradeoff between harvesting it and the damage that it does to infantry that come in contact with it, make game strategy more complex for players. Tiberium deposits provide foci for conflict, and the depletion and regrowth of such deposits both controls the pace of game play and prevents a runaway economy.

External Links to more recent images of Tiberium Crytals

Tiberium Field with GDI Harvester (Tiberium Wars / Early Scrin Era) [http://www.cncgeneralsworld.com/cnc3/images/screenshots/harvester.jpg] C&C3 promo image of TB Crystal [http://www.cnc-i.net/files/media/tiberium_wars/concept_art/tiberiumcyclediagram.jpg]

References

Further reading

* — a general discussion of harvesting in strategy games

External links

* [http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Tiberium A comprehensive overview and analysis of Tiberium (C&C Wiki)]
* [http://www.ea.com/tiberiumearth/ Tiberium Earth] (Google Earth kmz showing Red, Yellow and Blue zone distribution)
* [http://planetcnc.gamespy.com/View.php?view=encyclopedia.List PlanetCNC Encyclopedia, containing information on Tiberium]