AHC: A country on Antarctica

Conditions:

  • With a PoD of any point after January 1 1900, there must be a fully independent soverign state with its centre of population on the Antarctic continent by at least 1985.
  • No ASBs or Antarctic thawing allowed.
 
A fully-independent sovereign state is pushing it but perhaps a conflict between Chile and Argentina following some spur of interest in exploring the peninsula results in a protectorate or local-rule type system on the peninsula where either Argentina or Chile is the protector, or there is a co-administration zone, or the land is ceded to Britain which allows it to be fairly autonomous in its political administration.

It's vague but the best I can come up with.
 

xsampa

Banned
Conditions:

  • With a PoD of any point after January 1 1900, there must be a fully independent soverign state with its centre of population on the Antarctic continent by at least 1985.
  • No ASBs or Antarctic thawing allowed.
Does that include subantarctic islands too?
 
A fully-independent sovereign state is pushing it but perhaps a conflict between Chile and Argentina following some spur of interest in exploring the peninsula results in a protectorate or local-rule type system on the peninsula where either Argentina or Chile is the protector, or there is a co-administration zone, or the land is ceded to Britain which allows it to be fairly autonomous in its political administration.

It's vague but the best I can come up with.
This makes sense. Alternatively if you want something a bit more tongue in cheek you could probably come up with a different World War II scenario that eventually results in an independent New Swabia. If Germany were to found a colony in the thirties and the war ends with some sort of military coup rather than a full-scale bisecting of the country, it's possible the colony would be spun off and bolstered by a small fervent group of political exiles. It would he incredibly sparsely populated but it could work.
 
Argentine/Chilean radicals in the military (probably navy) land themselves and their families at a base in Antarctica and expand it a bit. Right after, a different group leads a coup against the government and the military faction is now isolated. Instead of returning, the radicals declare independence, although their intention is to be annexed to their mother country when the government won't imprison/punish them for illegal activities. The British and US get involved in this matter and the new republic ends up in a state of legal limbo so ends up "surviving" in part thanks to tourism. It's a mostly unrecognized state, although that may change depending on the geopolitics of the day.
 
Deception Island whalers declare independence and Britain decides to make them a protectorate, which they eventually relinquish?
 

xsampa

Banned
Somehow, have Britain grant independence to the Falklands as they were considering back in the 70s before the Falklands war.
 

CalBear

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Can't
Conditions:

  • With a PoD of any point after January 1 1900, there must be a fully independent soverign state with its centre of population on the Antarctic continent by at least 1985.
  • No ASBs or Antarctic thawing allowed.
Can't be done. No way to produce food, fuel, or income to purchase it. Weather condition are such that it takes highly specialized equipment and training just to survive. High summer in Antarctica is considerable less survivable than dead of winter in the Arctic, while dead winter in Antarctica is simply death on a stick.
 
Alright, alright, slow your roll.
Normal colonization might be impossible, but perhaps Frei Otto's Antarctic City get's built. It was planned to house 40,000 people. Say it's built sometime in the 70s. Now, say some internal strife in that nation occurs during the 80s, prompting said city to declare its own government and govern itself independently as a city-state-republic until said home conflict ends.
Just a thought.
Icon131_Arctic-City-inside1.jpg
 
Alright, alright, slow your roll.
Normal colonization might be impossible, but perhaps Frei Otto's Antarctic City get's built. It was planned to house 40,000 people. Say it's built sometime in the 70s. Now, say some internal strife in that nation occurs during the 80s, prompting said city to declare its own government and govern itself independently as a city-state-republic until said home conflict ends.
Just a thought.
Icon131_Arctic-City-inside1.jpg
Sounds like the set up for a CryoShock pun but I suppose it's the most "realistic" scenario. I think any actual settlement in Antarctica would depend on fully enclosed arcologies so this is right up my alley.
 

CalBear

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Alright, alright, slow your roll.
Normal colonization might be impossible, but perhaps Frei Otto's Antarctic City get's built. It was planned to house 40,000 people. Say it's built sometime in the 70s. Now, say some internal strife in that nation occurs during the 80s, prompting said city to declare its own government and govern itself independently as a city-state-republic until said home conflict ends.
Just a thought.
Icon131_Arctic-City-inside1.jpg
See the OP statement about no ASB?

A two kilometer DIAMETER dome built on top of a couple miles of ice by 1985 would require divine intervention.
 
Can't

Can't be done. No way to produce food, fuel, or income to purchase it.
Hmmmm, not really. It depends on how much damage you're willing to do to the Antarctic environment and how much you're willing to disregard the Antarctic Treaty. Food could be resolved through whaling, fishing, and other forms of harvesting sealife as well as greenhouses for growing plants during the summer, fuel--well, there is oil and coal in Antarctica, they're just trickier to get at because of the environment. Income could be obtained through exporting seafood, minerals (besides oil and coal Antarctica has a number of other mineral deposits), and tourism. Most of this would require a flagrant disregard for the Antarctic Treaty, an equally flagrant disregard for environmental damage, and quite a lot of capital that might be hard to get, but it's possible, at least.
 

CalBear

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What about a linked complex of smaller domes? Or even a sea of fullerine houses connected with tubes?
AFAIK the first molecule of fullerene wasn't manufactured until 1985 (the cut-off date from the OP).

As far a complex of domes, the same basic issues comes up, just on a slightly smaller scale, namely it is an engineering impossibility to construct and maintain sustainability. McMurdo Station manages to house about 1,200 personnel. It requires EVERYTHING to be shipped in from elsewhere (the U.S. military ships 6.6M gallons of fuel and 11 million pounds of supplies to support those 1,200 people). Now multiply both of those figures by 40. Now find a way to pay for it as an independent country that has no resources.
 
AFAIK the first molecule of fullerene wasn't manufactured until 1985 (the cut-off date from the OP).

As far a complex of domes, the same basic issues comes up, just on a slightly smaller scale, namely it is an engineering impossibility to construct and maintain sustainability. McMurdo Station manages to house about 1,200 personnel. It requires EVERYTHING to be shipped in from elsewhere (the U.S. military ships 6.6M gallons of fuel and 11 million pounds of supplies to support those 1,200 people). Now multiply both of those figures by 40. Now find a way to pay for it as an independent country that has no resources.
Meant to say buckyballs not fullerine actually, my mistake.
 
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