A Nation at the End of the Earth: Rough Idea for a TL

Dorozhand

Banned
In 1948, a slightly eccentric multi-millionaire American and a group of like-minded adventurers set off for Antarctica on a private ship laden with supplies. Weatherproof shelters, greenhouses and plant soils, generators and heaters with ample supplies of fuel, and food to last for 1 year. They are off to realize a daring dream. To found a permanent settlement in Antarctica.


They land on the coast near the Ross Ice Shelf and trek their supplies inland. They set up their settlement, called Kadath, on the Onyx River in Wright Valley, building permanent shelters over a period of a few months, using greenhouses and livestock to procure food, and the river for water.
After their initial fuel begins to run low, they begin experimenting with solar, wind, and biomass power. This is a huge success, as wind energy is ample at all times in the Antarctic and solar energy during the summer is constant.

The colony gains international attention, but the cold war prevents any authorities from caring much about it. However, more colonists come to Antarctica and arrive both in Kadath and in new settlements built along the length of the Onyx.


In 1949, the first Antarctican baby is born, named Notos Onyx Palmerson, and more are to follow in the coming year as more immigrants come in bringing supplies and building new towns.


In honor of its first anniversary, the colonists meet in their impromptu governing council building and declare the Republic of Onyx, with Kadath as its capital, claiming the entire area of the Onyx River and Lake Vanda within a radius of 20 miles. They draft a constitution and design this flag, raised over the government hall on 29th November, 1949. This gets the UN talking...

Antarctica flag.jpg

Antarctica flag.jpg
 
Colonizing Antarctica. The real Antarctica, would be like colonizing the Moon. It would require huge amounts of continual re-supply. In the 40's there was no such thing as solar power or biomass as a credible energy source. I'm dubious about windpower, too. The katabatic winds would make mincemeat of any windmills. Greenhouses and hydroponic farming would be needed for food production. The Wright Valley supports no vegetation.
What is the motivation for colonization?
OTL attempts to colonize by the Argentines have come to naught due to drifting priorities and the huge expense of maintaining any credible non-scientific presence.

One final thing: The 40's POD works for avoiding the difficulties posed by current International treaties that make officially sanctioned settlements problematic. But the tech I think you need to make a colony viable is only extant after those treaties came to be. Sort of a Catch 22.
 
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Dorozhand

Banned
Colonizing Antarctica. The real Antarctica, would be like colonizing the Moon. It would require huge amounts of continual re-supply. In the 40's there was no such thing as solar power or biomass as a credible energy source. I'm dubious about windpower, too. The katabatic winds would make mincemeat of any windmills. Greenhouses and hydroponic farming would be needed for food production. The Wright Valley supports no vegetation.
What is the motivation for colonization?
OTL attempts to colonize by the Argentines have come to naught due to drifting priorities and the huge expense of maintaining any credible non-scientific presence.

One final thing: The 40's POD works for avoiding the difficulties posed by current International treaties that make officially sanctioned settlements problematic. But the tech I think you need to make a colony viable is only extant after those treaties came to be. Sort of a Catch 22.

Well, the original group consists of only 20 or so individuals, all hearty mountaineers and polar explorers who are captivated by the idea of living in the cold serenity of Antarctica, and led by an eccentric multi-millionaire. They bring along a very large initial food supply (plus greenhouses and livestock) and fuel supply. I could also see them experimenting, out of necessity and by logical deduction, with burning waste material and using the sun to boil water to turn power turbines.
I was originally going to have them land on the antarctic peninsula, but the Onyx river seemed like the best bet because of its fresh water and the relatively managable ice levels around the Onyx. The power supply question also got me thinking about hydroelectric energy. Might it be feasible to build a primitive dam on a wide section of the river? Even if not, might Wright Valley shield them from some of the wind, perhaps allowing for a well-built windmill if it could be protected by some kind of windowed enclosure?

It seems like it might be possible to use such local resources to build a relatively self sustaining colony with an initial food and fuel supply to get things going and allow time to brainstorm the possibilities. With greenhouses and livestock for food, hydroelectric power, and the Onyx and lake Vanda for water supply, I think it could work.
 
Solar, hydroelectric and greenhouses are all only going to work during the summer months. The "six months of darkness" of winter aren't going to let any of those work.

Wind power in winter is going to be extremely problematic too.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
Solar, hydroelectric and greenhouses are all only going to work during the summer months. The "six months of darkness" of winter aren't going to let any of those work.

Wind power in winter is going to be extremely problematic too.

Hmm. That's the big question isn't it.
I've heard that there are open methane chimneys and clathrate deposits in Antarctica, could one of those be conceivably used to harness some power?
Also, one might be able to grow a store of plants in the summer to be used for fire in winter, that could at least reduce the need for energy.
That also raises the idea of harvesting a large store of food for the winter. It would only need to be refrigerated by the ambient temperature.

If enough electricity can be generated, sunlamps might be able to supply a marginal supplement to stores already in existence. This could be used to feed livestock, which would provide a long lasting supply of milk. Perhaps they could even drink the animals' blood like the Mongols did :D

Another idea: could a well-built windmill survive and work if one placed it in an enclosure with a few portholes? A farm of these might be able to get some juice coming in.
 
My father went "off-grid" many years back. His experience was that wind power was the least reliable of any of the off grid methods available (this after two wind generator meltdowns. He currently runs on a mixture of solar power with battery storage and micro-hydro electric - none of which are of much use in a polar winter).

I doubt any methane deposits would have been found by 1948. Polar exploration hadn't been particularly extensive at that point, but I guess if they somehow lucked into one and were prepared to use it, that might work.
 
Windmills? Just, no. In Wright Valley, just, no.
There are coal deposits in the Transantarctic Mtns. Your best bet for an endemic energy source if you both find them and can exploit them.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
Windmills? Just, no. In Wright Valley, just, no.
There are coal deposits in the Transantarctic Mtns. Your best bet for an endemic energy source if you both find them and can exploit them.

Now that's interesting! If there are surface or near-surface coal deposits in the Olympus range, that might just make this work. A steady supply of coal-based electricity to supplement hyrdoelectric power in the summer (it might be possible to store some of that in batteries too) could definately power sunlamps in winter to feed livestock, and stores from summer growing can cover any deficits there. You could even harvest the summer algal blooms to burn in winter.
With all that in place, a colony on the Onyx River just might be able to sustain itself.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
whats the explanation for the flag?

Bright Cyan for the strikingly clear blue sky of the Antarctic summer, White for the glaciers, Yellow for the piercing sunlight of the summer. All very prevalent colours of Antarctic landscape.
The symbol in the center is the "Star of Boreas", the chosen emblem of the Republic. A seven pointed deep-blue star with a yellow sun in the center.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
I'm thinking that you should look at later colony proposals. OTL there have been several over the years.

Yeah, I'm particularly intrigued by the idea of large-scale systematic colonization with temp-controlled enclosures around buildings powered by nuclear generators. That would require a totally different scenario, though, and I really like the idea of a bunch of intrepid explorers founding a settlement in the Onyx River's Xanadu-ish serenity.

Maybe moving the whole thing to the 70s might work. The technology available would be much more promising, and, in the wake of the counterculture, the social aspect of both the original settlement and the whole colonization movement it spurrs seems more plausible.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
In 1976, an American multi-millionaire adventurer with experience exploring the polar regions and climbing in the Himalayas, along with a group of other male and female like-minded adventurers and explorers, and some refugees volunteering to tag along (totalling about 60 people), sets out from Argentina on a large private ship, bound for Antarctica.

The group of colonists anchor the ship on a low-ice portion of the coast near the Ross Ice Shelf and treks inland, with the help of pack-animals, the supplies of the colony. The arrive at the Onyx River, about midway between Wright Galcier and Lake Vanda. Carrying:

-The ingrediants for making bricks of concrete, to be poured with insulating hemp fibers, and tools for increasing the supply of materials by carving the local stone into bricks.
-The ingredients for mortar.
-Large supplies of insulating clothing.
-Food supplies to last for one year.
-Sheep and goats to provide food, milk and (from the sheep) wool to make more insulation and warm clothing.
-A large supply of seeds, and the materials with which to build several greenhouses.
-Fuel (mostly Natural Gas and Kerosene) to last for one year.
-Vertical Axis Wind Turbines to be attached to the sides of buildings and supplement power supply.
-Photovoltaic Cells to be affixed to the roofs of buildings.
-Stirling Engines for use in Concentrated Solar Power, and power generation in winter, fueled by biomass specially grown in the greenhouses, human and animal waste, and algal blooms harvested from the Onyx River in the summer.
-Materials for building a small dam on the Onyx.
-Cold water crabs and fish to experiment with filling the reservoir created by the dam.
-Batteries for storage of elecricity during winter.
-Sunlamps with which to grow some plants during winter to supplement livestock feed.
-Large stores of medical supplies to last for an indefinate time.
 
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