The collective consciousness field of Chinese civilization across more than three millennia, derived era by era — from the Shang oracle-bone kings to the present. War years are marked, but the contributing forces are not only wars: the Mandate of Heaven, the Hundred Schools, the Tang and Song flowerings, the Century of Humiliation, and the modern re-rise all move the field. This is the deepest continuous civilizational thread on the map, and where it sits highest — the Tang and Song — Europe sat in its early-medieval trough. The single world line cannot show that divergence; this one can.
This is derived, not measured. Two lines run across the chart. The promise is the era's dominant worldview or professed ideal; the practice is the more binding of its political and economic order — the reality people actually lived under. The shaded band between them is the gap: the distance between what a civilization professed and what it enacted. The Warring States period professed Confucian virtue near 400 — Confucius, Laozi, Mozi all at once — while endemic warfare pinned the enacted order near 150. That chasm is the story, not the height. The Maoist era sat far lower, yet its promise and practice nearly met — an honest floor, the hardship never hidden behind a loftier claim. And a noble peak can still carry a gap: the Tang's soaring worldview outran even its humane order. Where promise and practice converge — whether at a peak or a floor — the civilization was telling the truth about itself. Every input opens on click — argue with the numbers.