Thande's Secret Project Revealed: The ATL Map Database!

Yes, guys and...er...other guys, I've decided to finally unveil my (dun dun dun!) SECRET PROJECT.

I had hoped to have a few more maps ready before now, but I've had trouble finding information, so I hope others will be able to help out. Anyway - the idea behind this project is that it's just like the OTL Maps Thread(s), except that it's dedicated to standardised UCS maps of alternative timelines.

Now I may have mentioned that this was my entire reason behind joining AH.com. I was always kind of disappointed that most historical maps (unless you're German, apparently) don't use a consistent colour scheme and this is particularly difficult when tracking the age of European colonial empires, which at the time used to be my favourite period of history (since then I've started moving backwards into the 18th century). But regardless - when I first started reading AH in 2003 or so, I immediately began drawing maps - crappy thing by today's standards, of course, based off a shoddy basemap and done in GIF format on Windows 98 MSPaint - to try and get a picture of what the timeline setting looked like. Sometimes there were even maps in the front for me to get an idea of.

And this is in fact why I joined AH.com in January 2005: I'd lurked for a little while and then someone posted a map of Turtledove's "In the Presence of Mine Enemies" which I knew was wrong, so I simply had to join to present my own effort. From that starting point, I then realised that good standardised OTL basemaps are hard to find, so I created the original OTL Maps Thread with the most primitive version of what eventually became the UCS, after lots of help from others.

Now we have a pretty good UCS and a hell of a lot of very detailed basemaps in the OTL Map Thread(s), thanks to tireless workers such as Lord Sander, Knight Templar, Roberto, euio, and Qazaq2007.

And now it is time to move on.

The UCS for OTL was always only a first step. It's how I work. First get the OTL maps in order, understand real history. Then move on to AH.

It's taken almost five years, but we've finally reached that point. Let's Get Dangerous...

Huzzah! If there's anything that really helps one get to grips with an unreal world, it's being able to see it in its entirety! I applaud this move!

Of course I intend for everyone to contribute to this thread, so let's just lay down some guidelines.


Standardised UCS. I have had to make some modifications as I went along, so maps may need revision when we agree on additions. In particular there are ATL nations that show up often enough to deserve their own colours, such as the CSA, an independent American nation descended from French colonists in the same way the USA was from British ones, Zionist Israel, etc. I'll explain as we go along.


Use a good basemap. All the ones I've currently done are off Diamond's celebrated Worlda basemap that most of the OTL maps are also done on. Other alternatives include Qazaq's ENORMOUS world map - only of much use for TLs with a LOT of detailed information about precise geography, such as Decades of Darkness - and the excellent Europe BAM, you know, the one with the quite thick borders. It would be best if we could avoid too many overly unique maps as the point is that these should be easily comparable: it's fun to click through all the world maps and watch a country's size and layout change along with its fortunes through all timelines.


That's pretty much it, so let's begin!

Does these ATL maps constitute a single alternate universe or multiple ones?
and does it show each timeline for each era, or just a certain date?

Right. Here's the standardised format I'll use for entries -

Name of timeline:
Creator:
Current year:
Notes:

I have generally done the latest year for which there is clear worldwide information about borders. I may do more than one year for some timelines. Notes will cover modifications to the UCS for that timeline and so forth.


So here's the most obvious example


Name of timeline: OTL
Creator: God
Current year: 2009
Notes: Well, you have to start somewhere...

Having done pretty much every world map for every main forum SW game since 2007, would it be OK to add those? They would need some editing of course, but...

Name of timeline: Decades of Darkness
Creator: Kaiser Wilhelm III aka Jared
Current year: 1935
Notes: Original map layout by Scarecrow. Here the Confederacy's dark grey colour is used for the Republic of New England (as both are countries which seceded from the USA). Of the former British Empire successor states, the pale pink is used for the Kingdom of Australia as it presents itself as the heir to the original Empire; the dominion colour is used for Ceylon as it is a less powerful state; and the Kingdom of South Africa naturally uses the RSA's pale orange colour.

Name of timeline: Monarchy World
Creator: Tony Jones
Current year: 1995
Notes: Some people colour the fragmented French, German and Italian states all the colour of those OTL nations, but I think that would be misleading. Prussia has German grey, Savoy has Italian brown, and if you look very closely you'll see there's just one dot of French blue on the map, the city state of Paris.

Name of timeline: A Greater Britain
Creator: EdT
Current year: 1976
Notes: It is not my custom to mark supranational entities, so the European Union and Indian Union are not demarcated. I also do not show internal colonial divisions, but the states in India and French Africa are apparently distinct components IIRC.

Name of timeline: Puritan World
Creator: Tony Jones
Current year: 1996
Notes: I have used the American colour for the New Commonwealth of the Americas, as the two are at least vaguely analogous.

Name of timeline: The Franco-American War of 1798
Creator: Blochead
Current year: 1938
Notes: I admit I had some trouble following Blochead's notes on this one, so if anyone has any corrections to my interpretation, feel free to point them out.

Very Interesting Thande, consider me subscribed, maybe someday one of my TL's will be a part of this database as well.

Name of timeline: Cliveless World
Creator: Tony Jones
Current year: 2000
Notes: This one is a bit complicated. "The Union" is shown as striped British and Prussian colours for the main full member states with self-rule, and striped dominion and HRE colours for the areas still ruled as colonies from Hanover. Columbia has the US colour (naturally) and you'll note my first use of the pale blue colour for a French-American successor state.

Finally, the day has arrived . But i must take you up on one point, is this not the latest version of UCS. (Well' it's the on ei use for my maps anyway.)

Name of timeline: TL-191
Creator: Harry Turtledove
Current year: 1914
Notes: This is about the last year in which, thanks to Turtledove's butterfly net, we can be pretty much certain of where all the borders lie.

Name of timeline: TL-191
Creator: Harry Turtledove
Current year: 1925
Notes: This postwar map has far more speculation thanks to HT's inability to tell us anything coherent about the world outside North America.

Name of timeline: Tellus
Creator: Tony Jones
Current year: 1475
Notes: This shows Tellus with its three space-filling empires before the Nex.

Name of timeline: Tellus
Creator: Tony Jones
Current year: 2335
Notes: The 'current' year in Tellus after the recovery, with all the successor states as well as the shrunken remnants of the old empires.

Name of timeline: The Coronation of the Hun
Creator: Thermopylae
Current year: 2006
Notes: Thermo's crazy alternate ethnic migrations mean that it's very debatable about what colours to apply, and I've taken a conservative viewpoint here, which means a lot of white countries.

Nice! Keep going, and wow us all!

I can only dream of the day one of my TLs is honored in this thread...