Dividing up Antarctica

Nicole

What if, rather than simply not enforcing antarctic claims, it was decided that, though Antarctica should be completely demilitarized, that it should be officialy divided?
According to the map on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Antarctica.jpg), Though the Australian, French, New Zealandian, and Norwegian claims do not overlap, the British, Argentinan, and Chilean claims overlap very much so. How would these claims be solved? I can see Chile being given the unclaimed are between its claims and New Zealands in exchange for giving up it's claims on the disputed area, but I don't see how Argentina and the UK can divide up the area without either side making a large concession- which one would be more likely to do so? (It is just a vast icecube, after all... But considering that in OTL Argentina actually invaded the tiny Falkland Islands, would they be willing to compromise on the much larger Argentine Antarctic? I'm not so sure about Britain, either..)
 

Scarecrow

uh antartica apaerently has oil and coal deposits, as well as minerals that can be mined, but there was treaty or something to leaglise it, but none of the countries who have parts of Antarctica signed it...it would be good pracitse for mining in the colder parts of the solar system though
 

BurningWickerman

Their are vast untouched mineral reserves in Anatartica. Their was a ecological treaty between most important nations not to mine, station military forces or lay claim too Anatartica(the latter has mianly been ignored by the countries involved). It is open for research to scientists of all nations.
It is going to run out in a decade or so and their is going to be a major argument as too whether we are going to mine the antartic for minerals and possibly destroy the only prisitine continent or ignore vast reserves of minerals and fuels while their is a shortage of both in the inhabitied world.
If mining and such goes on their will be an interest in staking out parts of the continent and in increased competition military forces could be deployed.
I dont think anyone takes anybodys claims seriously at the moment because their isn't much worth owning at the moment.

In ATL their could be an earlier wider scale industrial revolution or a need for a paticular mineral only found their that could cause a superpower war over the antartic plains.
 
Sargon

Sargon

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Hmmm, there's a large piece of unclaimed land there.....

What I say is we get a ship, load it up with eveything we need to establish a base, supplies etc, land there, and take possession of said land. They can't evict us since military are not allowed there, and we are not a country.....I believe, like the Outer Space Treaty, there is no mention made about INDIVIDUALS taking control over something, since they forgot to put it in.

Of course we'd secretly have arms onboard our ship in case they played dirty...a few ex-Russian nukes would be nice....

Oh, and the 'AH Club' not being signatories of the Treaty or a nation, we could simply ignore it. It is after all just 'ink on a page' (said with Lord Refa type voice).

Where's Doctor What? This is a golden opportunity....


Sargon
 
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Doctor What

Hmmmmm...there's over 600 members on this board--quite a few ex-military guys--a very wide age range--many of us have a wide assortment of employment skills--multiple languages spoken/written/understood--vast knowledge of historical info (including battles, wars, etc)--some of us work for our respective governments.....

This has.... possibilities.......
 
Sargon

Sargon

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Hmmmm, good points.....there certainly are......

And what a great place to have an underground base/secret lab....

More than just possibilities, I was thinking of eventual ....domination.....

Hmmmm, now where's that ex British/Brazilian carrier and Russian sub that was for sale on eBay.....

Sargon
 

Dave Howery

at the moment, modern technology isn't able to recover whatever mineral resources there are in Antarctica. If they had tried to do anything with it in the past, chances are they would only have ruined the place, as Antarctica has one of the narrowest and most fragile ecological strips on the planet....
 

Diamond

Banned
There is a novel by Kim Stanley Robinson called, strangely enough, 'Antarctica', about the dissolution of the treaty and the scrambling to carve up the continent.
 

Grimm Reaper

Well, I see the decision was not to brief Dave Howery on the most recent tech upgrades we have achieved. Sad, sad, so long on AH yet still relegated to the physical labor role...


Yes! Possibilities! Yes! Doctor What is correct, although he failed to mention to Sargon that while a carrier might be nice, we are already deploying our own fleet of U-boats.

I personally find U-boat a much more suitable name than submarine. We want warships, not a large sandwich.

So, where should our first secret lair be located on OUR continent?
 

Dave Howery

the world will unite to stop you and your mad plans, to save the penguins from your nefarious schemes, since they are so cute and lovable....
 
Sargon

Sargon

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Ahhhh, yes, U-Boat...a much better term...sneaky...wolf-like and dangerous....

I must have spent too much time at Subway eating foot long cheese steak combos....thanks for setting me right Grimm....

U-Boats would be much better for our main secret base...Vulcania like, can only be accessed by using a U-Boat...less chance of being discovered...

As for where...well, ultimately it needs to be in a natural cavern, or carved under the rock for maximum survivability....the good Doctor's new lab must be secure from all threats....

Doctor What is right about the penguins of course, what he declined to mention is that the penguins are actually drones controlled by his bio-neural mind probe network....don't be fooled...his spies are everywhere....

Sargon
 

DuQuense

?Why a secret underground Base?

Whe simply buy those Habitat thingies from Arizona. and set them up.
as whe ain't worried about proving their livability, whe can open the door to get fresh air and supplies.


PS whe may build some basement facilities of course
 

Alayta

wasen´t the entry to the hollow earth located in antarctica aswell? Maybe we could claim that aswell?
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Alayta said:
wasen´t the entry to the hollow earth located in antarctica aswell? Maybe we could claim that aswell?
Click to expand...
Symes wanted to mount an expedition to discover a portal to the interior of the earth. His expedition inspired Edgar Allen Poe to write his Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, which is one of my favorite books, and the inspiration for so much fiction (Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, Campbell's Who Goes There?, and Carpenter's The Thing, for starters).

One of my distant ancestors perished during an Antarctic expedition, in fact.

There was also allegedly a portal at the North Pole.
 

Doctor What

Oh sure, we could try to take over the Hollow Earth--but we will have to deal with all the Nazis and their Inner World Alien Masters.... :rolleyes:
 

Doctor What

Glad you appreciated it so much--but trust me, that is not the weirdest link I've come across--not by a long shot.

I have a (scary) reputation on this board of being able to find the most twisted and most beautifully insane links known to humanity--a lot of members see my 'weird links' posting every friday as the highlight of the weekend.
 
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