Articles: Origins and History of C&C: The Essence of Tiberium


By Blbpaws
05/21/2006

Save for perhaps Kane, the most defining element of Command and Conquer's story is Tiberium. Tiberium is a plant-like substance that spreads all over the planet it infests: Earth. Tiberium is also an immensely valuable resource. Both Nod and GDI harvest it and use the profits to fund their respective war machines--though we are told Nod is more willing to do so than GDI is--and as such Tiberium figures heavily into the outcome of the war. Here, we'll look at the people surrounding Tiberium, its supposed secret, as well as its dangerous and unique composition and structure. In addition, we know enough to speculate about its alien properties and their causes, and to compare it to a similar substance seen in another Westwood Studios game.  

We know that Kane embraces Tiberium more so than any C&C character. He repeatedly states that it is the next evolution for the human race, and, especially in Tiberian Sun and Firestorm, attempts to test it on various human subjects, including Umagon. We are also led to believe that a lot of Kane's rather unique qualities are the result of extensive use of Tiberium. Kane's group, the Brotherhood of Nod, was the first group to successfully harvest Tiberium, creating a tremendous financial windfall and funds for its war machine. In addition, Nod later uses Tiberium as a weapon in missile warheads. Ostensibly, Kane understands Tiberium's secrets better than anyone else, except for perhaps the Scrin, a race of aliens speculatively involved with Tiberium’s transfer to Earth. This could explain Kane's strong advocacy for Tiberium's extensive use.

At the end of Firestorm, we are told that GDI, having discovered the second portion of the Tacitus, is now on its way to unlocking the "Tiberium Secret," a secret they have tried to unlock throughout the series. What this secret is we don’t know, but it’s probably something relating to how Tiberium spreads, and how to control this spread across Earth. It is also mentioned that the only being other than Kane capable of understanding and decoding the Tacitus is CABAL, an enigmatic “character” in C&C who appears to be a sentient supercomputer but who is probably some sort of alter ego of Kane himself. Kane, a strong advocate of the use of Tiberium to mutate DNA and life, is, we are told in the dying words of General Vega, the creator of the Tacitus. The Tacitus, the Tiberium Secret, and its solution are probably intricately tied to the composition of Tiberium, and just how this composition defines its unique and alien properties.

Tiberium is also a very dangerous substance. It can cause mutations in humans after long term exposure, and releases an odorless gas that is very poisonous. Green Tiberium is composed of 42.5% Phosphorus, 32.5% Iron, 15.25% Calcium, 5.75% Copper, 2.5% Silica and the remaining 1.5% is unknown (blue Tiberium has a different composition that results in different properties). This combination, with high amounts of Phosphorus and an interesting mix of elements is quite volatile, perhaps explaining some of the more explosive properties of Tiberium. Tiberium is an inorganic substance lacking many common central elements, a stark contrast to most life forms on Earth, especially plants, which generally feature large skeletons composed of nonmetals. It is believed that many of Tiberium's deadly effects on humans and other Earth life forms are due to this inorganic nature. In addition, none of the common elements seen very often in Earthly life are present in Tiberium, reminding us once again how alien it is.

This alien nature may imply different things. Tiberium is not composed of any elements heavier than copper, which, scientifically, is significant. This may date Tiberium as a substance that has been around for a very long time, perhaps even at the beginning of the universe; all of the heavier elements are believed to have been created in stars, through a process of elemental fusion. If Tiberium pre-dated this, it can be considered a core substance of the universe, or the result of a combination of core substances. Of course, this is speculation that fits scientific fact, and has not been confirmed by any information in the games or from the developers. As such, we can only consider it just one possible line of logic for the explanation of Tiberium and its alien properties in Command and Conquer, albeit a very interesting one. Furthermore, Kane, the master of Tiberium, is considered by many in Nod to be the son of the Biblical Adam. Is there a coincidence in how a supposed early human embraces a substance that could have been around early in time?

The most distinct property of Tiberium is its ability to rapidly spread and transmutate other substances. This is something we don’t know much about, but a short piece of the June 2006 PC Gamer article on C&C 3 gives us some clues, and we also see the process in action in some FMV clips from the games. The article states that the root of the transmutation process lies in the elements of Tiberium’s unique crystal lattice, which, as mentioned before, differs in composition and structure from anything seen on Earth. When the muons or tauons (elementary particles in the nucleus) of the heavier elements in the lattice interact with substances nearby, their mass and energy combine to smash the nuclei of the substances, resulting in either complete fission, or the dislodgement of quarks in the form of protons or neutrons (quarks are the elementary particles of protons and neutrons). Tiberium’s uniqueness is in its ability to retrieve and accept the dislocated particles, in whatever form, and incorporate them into its crystal lattice, allowing Tiberium to grow. While this may appear to be an overly scientific treatment, it can be summarized essentially in less scientific terms: the unique structure and composition of Tiberium allows it to break down nearby substances at a subatomic level. Some of the products of this breakdown are captured by Tiberium, allowing it grow and expand. It is possible we’ll see some more of this process explained in C&C 3, as EA has reportedly hired MIT scientists to analyze the properties of Tiberium and fit them to scientific fact, and to do so at a more technical level than we have here.

The origins of Tiberium, we have already said, likely lie in the early universe. This fits with the method of transportation to Earth proposed in the games, a meteor crash, as it is not inconceivable that there could be an unknown substance on the meteor naturally. However, we are at times led to believe that the Scrin, an alien race we see briefly in Tiberian Sun and Renegade—and can expect quite a bit more of in C&C 3—are in some way involved with this meteor and its alien payload. There’s not much we know about what their involvement is, but it’s not farfetched to assume that such an involvement does exist, and that the Scrin may even be the creators of Tiberium.

The name "Tiberium" has two different explanations. The first one, the one given to the public in Command and Conquer, is that it is named after the Tiber River, where the meteor landed. The more accurate one is that Kane himself named Tiberium after the Roman emperor Tiberius Drusus Caesar. It's unclear what the connection is between the Emperor and the substance, but, if Kane did indeed name Tiberium, it is likely he knew about it before any elements of GDI did; Kane was seen in the prequel to Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert.

In the minds of the creators of Command and Conquer, Tiberium is probably most closely related to Spice, or Melange, from the Westwood game Dune II, published in 1992. Melange is a drug that spreads and exists on only one planet in that game, Arrakis. It increases key attributes of the user, including awareness. Perhaps most importantly, it also unlocks the power of prescience in some. Prescience is considered to be the ability to see the future. Dune takes a slightly different spin on it, though. In Dune, the idea of prescience is not seeing what will happen, but all the possibilities of what could happen, depending on how various events unfold, as well as seeing how these possibilities change as events do unfold. In Command and Conquer, Kane, one who believes in Tiberium as a drug, like Spice also believes he can see the future, and makes his beliefs clear to General Solomon in a confrontation on the Philadelphia. There is no doubt that there lies at least a conceptual connection between the two substances.

Overall, Tiberium is something uniquely C&C; it draws its roots (no pun intended) from various sources, but has its own twist to things, as most things C&C do. In the end, Tiberium cannot be seperated from the other mysteries of C&C: Kane and the Scrin. For a proper understanding of Command and Conquer, we must understand this essence of Tiberium. If the original story continues to be told in C&C 3, aptly named Tiberium Wars, we will learn more about this alien substance, its essence, and how it relates to the underlying Command and Conquer story.



Note: Most of this article was written prior to the announcement of Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, and the publication of the article in PC Gamer. Except the cited PC Gamer article, all sources are the Command and Conquer games and manuals. Hopefully, the supposed Tiberium Bible written by EA in preparation for C&C 3 will be available at some point in the future for more confirmation. This article should not be taken as the official story, as I have no ties to Electronic Arts or Westwood Studios.

The next topic we'll be examining is the origins of the Red Alert series of games.