Map Thread V
- Thread starter Ian the Admin
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Oh, I was just being silly...not sure it will turn out any better, but it's not necessarily going to be _less_ stable than the mess we got OTL.
Bruce
A map and a bit of blather based on Gordon Eklund's "The Rising of the Sun", in the collection "Beyond Time", editor Sandra Ley.
This is a world where the Chinese discovered America in early Song times, stayed to trade but settled slowly enough for the locals to adapt, and the dominant powers in 2009 are now China and the native American states.
China is no. 1: to the Chinese, Europe, Africa, and west Asia are little more than an amusing ethnographic zoo, and currently far more interest is focused on the Mars expedition rather than who is at war with who in Europe or Africa. More noteworthy are the native American states, which in some ways are _more_ technologically advanced than China: it was the Great-Lakes centered federation that first developed an atom bomb during their long mid-century war with the Mexica empire. However, the relatively small populations of the Amerindian states means that China still has a far larger economy than any of them (heck, none of them can afford a space program as fancy as the Chinese, leading some Chinese skeptics to suggest the whole space program is just a bunch of national powdered rhinocerous horn).
In the Americas, the Hotinohsavannih Federation is nowadays the dominant power, boosted by a ring of allies closely tied economically and universally in agreement that the three squabbling chunks of the old Mexica Empire shouldn't unite. The Americas are politically diverse, including more-or-less democracies, monarchies, oligachies, and still a couple of divine kings. The mostly Quechuan-Andean state reemerged from 57 years of Mexica rule, shorn of it's northern and southern territories: of late there has been some talk of "reunification" that worries it's neighbors. The richest of the south American states is the princely trading state in central OTL Brazil, originally founded by adventurers from the Caribbean region, and the most commercial-minded of the American states. All American states have been strongly influenced by their long contact with China: aside from a lot of Chinese genes, Chinese-style robes are popular, and many states use Chinese-style symbolic writing: the Federation, with it's own phonetic alphabet, is an exception. Chinese/Confucianist ideas on government are widespread.
Science actually first developed in a larger and more prosperous than OTL Islamic world, building on an intellectual flowering beginning in the 1500's. However, while Chinese and Amerindian scholars took Islamic ideas and ran with them, a nasty religious reaction set in the 19th century as such ideas as the "unimaginably old" earth and evolution entered into the debate. In the end, by the 1880's scientific speculation in a number of fields had been suppressed, and a great number of Muslim scholars and freethinkers emigrated to China and the Americas ("Abuland" to the Muslims) and helped kickstart modernity. The Islamic world, once the world's leader in science and new technology, has slipped badly behind. (Native Americans gratefully acknowledge their debt to Islam: the Chinese - not so much).
Western Europe is squabbling, if moderately prosperous Islamic states, of which the Andalucian Sultante is the most powerful. The area is nowadays pretty solidly majority-Muslim, save for Ireland, where a still-Christian majority took advantage of a north American invasion to rise up and make themselves the masters with some traditional massacres (well, admittedly they are still under the thumb of a bunch of _pagans_, but at least the Federation's protectorate is pretty light).
East of the Rhine, "Catholic" (aka Greek Orthodox) Christian states survive. Even less tolerant than the Muslims of ideas which disturb religious orthodoxy, in these countries "modernity" is something which is bought from the Chinese and Amerindians: absolutist monarchies ruling over impoverished peasantry with Chinese-built weapons and living in fortified castles flickeringly illuminated by power plants built under Quisquey supervision, from which they travel on rails built by Hotinohsavannih engineers and local hard labor. An exception is Russia, where long contacts overland with China have convinced the Czars of the need to modernize: of late, they have crushed dissent in the church and embarked on an ambitious program of modernization, with results as yet ambigous.
The Islamic lands, from Andalucia to India, are turbulent and poor by American or Chinese stadards, increasingly under the thumb of the Amerind states economically (and occasionally militarily). (Recently, there has been a bit of a scramble for oil concessions in the gulf region.)
It's not that there is no science and technology in the Islamic world: it's simply that certain fields of research are suppressed, and excess "materialism" is frowned upon enough that a career in the sciences is not popular: good schools are few, and most Islamic countries have trouble producing on their own anything much beyond, say, 1930's state-of-the-art. (Persia is a bit of an exception to this, although it still doesn't have a computer industry). The Sultan of Zanj needs little foreign help to build railroads to the unconsolidated territories of the interior, but for any electronics, he has to Buy American or Buy Chinese.
India is a place of growing Chinese influence: with imported eastern technology, (and a fair number of Indonesian and Japanese mercenaries), the sout Indians have embarked on a war of Hindu liberation against the rather torpid and backward Muslim states of N. India. This has led to a call for Jihad, and a number of Muslim states have cheerfully provided passage eastward to the whackier (and therefore revolution-prone) elements in their society, in the hopes the won't come back.
The world is generally undemocratic: even among the Hotinohsavannih, the great and powerful leaders of the founding clans, bolsterd by Confucian notions of social order, dominate politics. The struggle for social justice and a better world goes on, led by monks and madmen in the Orthodox lands, Shamans and scientists in N. America, and by reformist Confucians in the Chinese realm, who advance the radical notion that justice is better advanced by impartial laws than by trusting in the personal virtue of great men.
Bruce
This is a world where the Chinese discovered America in early Song times, stayed to trade but settled slowly enough for the locals to adapt, and the dominant powers in 2009 are now China and the native American states.
China is no. 1: to the Chinese, Europe, Africa, and west Asia are little more than an amusing ethnographic zoo, and currently far more interest is focused on the Mars expedition rather than who is at war with who in Europe or Africa. More noteworthy are the native American states, which in some ways are _more_ technologically advanced than China: it was the Great-Lakes centered federation that first developed an atom bomb during their long mid-century war with the Mexica empire. However, the relatively small populations of the Amerindian states means that China still has a far larger economy than any of them (heck, none of them can afford a space program as fancy as the Chinese, leading some Chinese skeptics to suggest the whole space program is just a bunch of national powdered rhinocerous horn).
In the Americas, the Hotinohsavannih Federation is nowadays the dominant power, boosted by a ring of allies closely tied economically and universally in agreement that the three squabbling chunks of the old Mexica Empire shouldn't unite. The Americas are politically diverse, including more-or-less democracies, monarchies, oligachies, and still a couple of divine kings. The mostly Quechuan-Andean state reemerged from 57 years of Mexica rule, shorn of it's northern and southern territories: of late there has been some talk of "reunification" that worries it's neighbors. The richest of the south American states is the princely trading state in central OTL Brazil, originally founded by adventurers from the Caribbean region, and the most commercial-minded of the American states. All American states have been strongly influenced by their long contact with China: aside from a lot of Chinese genes, Chinese-style robes are popular, and many states use Chinese-style symbolic writing: the Federation, with it's own phonetic alphabet, is an exception. Chinese/Confucianist ideas on government are widespread.
Science actually first developed in a larger and more prosperous than OTL Islamic world, building on an intellectual flowering beginning in the 1500's. However, while Chinese and Amerindian scholars took Islamic ideas and ran with them, a nasty religious reaction set in the 19th century as such ideas as the "unimaginably old" earth and evolution entered into the debate. In the end, by the 1880's scientific speculation in a number of fields had been suppressed, and a great number of Muslim scholars and freethinkers emigrated to China and the Americas ("Abuland" to the Muslims) and helped kickstart modernity. The Islamic world, once the world's leader in science and new technology, has slipped badly behind. (Native Americans gratefully acknowledge their debt to Islam: the Chinese - not so much).
Western Europe is squabbling, if moderately prosperous Islamic states, of which the Andalucian Sultante is the most powerful. The area is nowadays pretty solidly majority-Muslim, save for Ireland, where a still-Christian majority took advantage of a north American invasion to rise up and make themselves the masters with some traditional massacres (well, admittedly they are still under the thumb of a bunch of _pagans_, but at least the Federation's protectorate is pretty light).
East of the Rhine, "Catholic" (aka Greek Orthodox) Christian states survive. Even less tolerant than the Muslims of ideas which disturb religious orthodoxy, in these countries "modernity" is something which is bought from the Chinese and Amerindians: absolutist monarchies ruling over impoverished peasantry with Chinese-built weapons and living in fortified castles flickeringly illuminated by power plants built under Quisquey supervision, from which they travel on rails built by Hotinohsavannih engineers and local hard labor. An exception is Russia, where long contacts overland with China have convinced the Czars of the need to modernize: of late, they have crushed dissent in the church and embarked on an ambitious program of modernization, with results as yet ambigous.
The Islamic lands, from Andalucia to India, are turbulent and poor by American or Chinese stadards, increasingly under the thumb of the Amerind states economically (and occasionally militarily). (Recently, there has been a bit of a scramble for oil concessions in the gulf region.)
It's not that there is no science and technology in the Islamic world: it's simply that certain fields of research are suppressed, and excess "materialism" is frowned upon enough that a career in the sciences is not popular: good schools are few, and most Islamic countries have trouble producing on their own anything much beyond, say, 1930's state-of-the-art. (Persia is a bit of an exception to this, although it still doesn't have a computer industry). The Sultan of Zanj needs little foreign help to build railroads to the unconsolidated territories of the interior, but for any electronics, he has to Buy American or Buy Chinese.
India is a place of growing Chinese influence: with imported eastern technology, (and a fair number of Indonesian and Japanese mercenaries), the sout Indians have embarked on a war of Hindu liberation against the rather torpid and backward Muslim states of N. India. This has led to a call for Jihad, and a number of Muslim states have cheerfully provided passage eastward to the whackier (and therefore revolution-prone) elements in their society, in the hopes the won't come back.
The world is generally undemocratic: even among the Hotinohsavannih, the great and powerful leaders of the founding clans, bolsterd by Confucian notions of social order, dominate politics. The struggle for social justice and a better world goes on, led by monks and madmen in the Orthodox lands, Shamans and scientists in N. America, and by reformist Confucians in the Chinese realm, who advance the radical notion that justice is better advanced by impartial laws than by trusting in the personal virtue of great men.
Bruce
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I'd suggest making the GEEU outline or the background for ordinary states darker. The contrast isn't that good on this screen...
Otherwise
.
Thande
Donor
Proposal: it seems like a lot of maps just vanish into the chatter on this thread (but that's not to say the chatter doesn't include a lot of useful and interesting comments). So why don't we split it like in the map contests or the writer's forum - have one map thread for posting maps, and another for posting comments about those maps?
I don't really like that idea.
If such a proposal is implemented, it's no longer possible to derail the thread with Mexicans force-feeding polar bears to warm Canada!
It's just not the same, y'know?
It also makes it less convinient when commenting on maps. This way is simple.
How do the maps "vanish into chatter", anyway?
What did you think of B_Munro's map? I bet a lot of people would have forgotten he'd even posted one. This isn't a dig at Bruce, it's because there was a lot of discussion between the map and the "post reply" button. That's how they "vanish into chatter".
I like it, by the way, Bruce. Your maps always have a pretty feel to them - not a Photoshopped Mona Lisa, but something simple that you put time into.
I understand. I still just think it's more convenient this way, and don't think that's enough of a reason to change it. I posted an insane WWII map way back when in Map Thread II, and it was completely ignored. I decided to try again a while later, and people thought it was really neat. You can repost it to get it recognised.
I concur with your thoughts on B_Munro's map. It's amazing. I'm glad Germany survived teh evol msulims11 and I love that South America.
Hmm, how come Australia and New Zealand left the Empire/ Commonwealth yet the likes of India and South Africa did not?
What do you think of this map?
It's a future map, after the Third World War, which went nuclear after a couple of hours, mankind has after thousands of years started to make a comeback...
35% of the worlds population is in South America, and what could've been known as the Fourth World War has begun...
It was kinda easy to make, as most of the world isn't occupied by any state...
It's a future map, after the Third World War, which went nuclear after a couple of hours, mankind has after thousands of years started to make a comeback...
35% of the worlds population is in South America, and what could've been known as the Fourth World War has begun...
It was kinda easy to make, as most of the world isn't occupied by any state...
Alternate Latin America
Here the Spanish and Portuguese settled the north and not the south.
Mapkey translated:
North America after the end of the independence wars 1880
Legend:
F. - Free state within the Spanish Empire
Vkgr. - Viceroyalty
Gkpt. - Capitancy-General
Kt. - Crown territory
Kgr. - Kingdom
1875 - Year of independence
1879 - Year of autonomy
- National capital
- Provincial capital
- Town
- Steamtramline (the German word is hard to translate)
- State's border
- Provincial border
Here the Spanish and Portuguese settled the north and not the south.
Mapkey translated:
North America after the end of the independence wars 1880
Legend:
F. - Free state within the Spanish Empire
Vkgr. - Viceroyalty
Gkpt. - Capitancy-General
Kt. - Crown territory
Kgr. - Kingdom
1875 - Year of independence
1879 - Year of autonomy
- National capital
- Provincial capital
- Town
- Steamtramline (the German word is hard to translate)
- State's border
- Provincial border
Hapsburg
Banned
It...it's a jpeg?
It's a jpeg.
ITS A JPEG??!!
Nah, but seriously. It's a good map. Interesting blurb that goes along with it, too.
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And that doesn't matter. It's awesome.It...it's a jpeg?
It's a jpeg.
ITS A JPEG??!!
All my maps are jpeg, too.
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