DBWI: The Clovis people survived?

[ArKhan]

Don't know much about Vinnish superstitions. Is that the one that makes people think the Plains Vinish had some sort of contact with the Rabbanwe?

(OOC: corruption of "Rapanui" (Easter Islanders), the name for the Polinesians who live in *California, the northern end of their range.)

It is indeed, although it could just indicate they moved further west then we have evidence for, and where describing the Pacific Ocean. Incidentlly, Hudson used it as evidence in his paper where he atempted to debunk the idea of a north-west passage. "The Vinns tell of a land called "Sky-Rim" that is the western edge of the world. If such an edge truly does exist as the Vinns describe (as indeed it must, for the Vinns have allways shown great knowledge of their own lands), then the world must be flat, and the very idea of a north west passage to India folly!"
-James Hudson, writting days before abandoning his mapping of the bay that now shares his name.

 

[smjb]

OOC: I'm sorry, I can't credit the idea that anyone still believed the world was flat by then. Or that intelligent people ever did.

 

[ArKhan]

OOC: I'm sorry, I can't credit the idea that anyone still believed the world was flat by then. Or that intelligent people ever did.

OOC: The world hadn't been succesfully circumnavigated yet at this point in TTL. So there was considerably more debate on the matter, even more so in the Americas due to how influental the Vinish where, as such, in TTL Hudson was out to disprove the idea of a North-West passage rather than prove it as in OTL.

 

[smjb]

OOC: Doesn't matter. The idea of a flat Earth isn't one any educated person ever took seriously. The shape and size of the Earth was accurately calculated in 1000 BC.

 

[ArKhan]

OOC: Doesn't matter. The idea of a flat Earth isn't one any educated person ever took seriously. The shape and size of the Earth was accurately calculated in 1000 BC.

OOC: There are some alive today, in OTL that advocate a flat earth for religious reasons.

 

[smjb]

OOC: So? Those people are not sane, nor particularly well-educated. There hasn't been a flat Earther of any significance since Ptolemy.

 

[ArKhan]

OOC: So? Those people are not sane, nor particularly well-educated. There hasn't been a flat Earther of any significance since Ptolemy.

OOC: In OTL, and in Europe. The Vinish had their own beliefs, which they passed onto settlers after the British defeated them. A great deal of work went into translating Vinish Written record into english and vice versa for example, where as the Natives of OTL had no written language at the time.

 

[ArKhan]

OOC: In OTL, and in Europe. The Vinish had their own beliefs, which they passed onto settlers after the British defeated them. A great deal of work went into translating Vinish Written record into english and vice versa for example, where as the Natives of OTL had no written language at the time.

IC: The fasinating thing about Hudson's Voyage is that he was following a Vinish map made right here in Fordsburg*, 200 years before the British discovery of the City, and that since the map marked that "Skyrim" was just beyond the very same bays he named after himself**, that it would perhaps prove his theory about the North-West passage. You really get in touch with Vinish culture here in Fordsburg, which was a Vinish citystate back then. My apartment building is litterally right next door to the original Vinish wall.

OOC:
*Fordsburg, TTL's name for New York City. Originally a Vinish City called "Fjordborg", Fordsburg is an English coruption. It had a population of over one million when the British Conquered it, and is now much larger then OTL's New York City in population and land mass.
**OTL's Hudson's bay is named "James Bay". OTL's "James Bay" was only described in Hudson's writtings, he never actully sailed it because he turned back sooner. It's called "Hudson's Bay" in TTL, because it's the famous spot where he turned around.

 

[ArKhan]

Sometimes it's amazing to think that a few thousand Norsemen and Norsewomen grew into a civilization of millions by the time the British came, only to be submerged by a tide of British generations later. Still, the Vinish women where 6'8, 200lbs, and frequently gave birth to tens of kids acording to the histories. The men where, and still are, gaints pushing 7 feet. The selection preasures of being an Iron Age People issolated in Virgin territory for over 500 years will do that. I'm only one quarter Vinish and I'm still a good 6'10.

 

[Dave Howery]

if there had been native peoples here, maybe we'd have different names for rivers, lakes, and stuff. They borrowed so many names from the old world to name stuff in the new world, it gets confusing to read the news. I mean, we have three states with 'York' in their names and two with 'Jersey'....

 

[smjb]

(EDIT: ninja'd)

OOC: Oh, come on!!! Must you say something that breaks suspension of disbelief in every single post?

Firstly, not only would no educated person of the time have believed the Earth was flat, it occurs to me that the Vinnish are descended from Vikings. Vikings are sailors. Sailors are the exact last people on Earth who have any business thinking the world is flat; the very fact that you can see farther on the water while higher just as if you were trying to see over a hill (because you are; the hill of the Earth) is confirmation of the Earth's curvature.

Secondly, a Vinnish city of more than one million? Not unless it was the Rome of the New World! Besides, I don't see these people having either the organization nor the knowledge of sewers to sucessfully store a million people in one city.

Thirdly, they were isolated for five centuries, not five millenia!

 

[Berserker]

I wonder iff the horses of the Zaldizko (you know, the Bask speaking nomads who escaped slavery and fled to the steppes) would give the Clovis people a chance of developing a similair culture..

greetings from the Zaldizko motherland

 

[smjb]

I wonder iff the horses of the Zaldizko (you know, the Bask speaking nomads who escaped slavery and fled to the steppes) would give the Clovis people a chance of developing a similair culture..

greetings from the Zaldizko motherland

That's odd, I thought escaped slaves were all absorbed by the Plains Vinnish and other such wild tribes?

Anyhow, it occurs to me that there might not have been any sort of megafauna in the Americas at all. I mean, look at Australia--there aren't exactly very many dire wombats running around these days. Now consider that the Clovis very nearly wiped several North American species from the face of the Earth, and consider that both groups of OTL Native Americans were busy exterminating several more when contact was made; while they were also domesticating several species, a people without a concept of domestication would just see the North American horse as being more predictable (and therefore easier) prey than bison.

That's the problem with this schenario--plenty of fertile ground for speculation, but we know nothing about the Clovis people, when all is said and done. It would be both a blessing and a curse to anyone writing it.

One thing I can say for certain, though--if they were still around, there wouldn't be any of those conspiracy nuts claiming that the reason they're gone is because they all built flying saucers and left (after being the inspiration for Atlantis, of course). Then again, you never know with conspiracy nuts.

 

[ArKhan]

(EDIT: ninja'd)

Secondly, a Vinnish city of more than one million? Not unless it was the Rome of the New World! Besides, I don't see these people having either the organization nor the knowledge of sewers to sucessfully store a million people in one city.

Thirdly, they were isolated for five centuries, not five millenia!

OOC: One thing you'll find about the first humans in a large area of virgin territory, they breed very quickly compared to humans in places where human populations are very well established. Going from a few thousand to a few million in 500 years under such conditions is entirly possible.

 

[smjb]

OOC: I was reffering of course to your making them into giants.

 

[ArKhan]

OOC: I was reffering of course to your making them into giants.

OOC: They come from very tall ancestry, and will have to hunt very large animals, and will be getting a lot of meat from them. Selection presures.

 

[smjb]

OOC: Except that the Vinns (east of the Mississippi, at least) are farmers, and it's still only been five centuries.

 

[smjb]

You know, it occurs to me, if we didn't have Scandinavian maps showing that this big dumb landmass we now call the Americas was blocking the way to India, that would probably have had some effect on Columbus' assertion that he could island hop to the other side of the globe. Question is, would it make the court of Portugal or Spain more likely to try it, or would it make the court of England convinced that he'd be sailing out into open ocean to die?

 

[Berserker]

That's odd, I thought escaped slaves were all absorbed by the Plains Vinnish and other such wild tribes?

no, we are alive and well: we have our own reserve in the south.

 

[smjb]

Huh. I know it's off topic and all, but how much has the Vinnish rubbed off on y'all? Please tell me you haven't absorbed all that hogwash about freedom and liberty the wild Vinns are constantly on about! Governance by mob rule; no wonder they never formed any great empires.