Medieval America Mark III
- Thread starter Flashman
- Start date
I do like the idea of a nation in the Carribean descended from tourists, though.
Perhaps the tribes of the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos? More savage and regressed than your average islander due to the lower institutional knowledge of island living among holiday makers, potentially practiced cannibalism for a sizable period of time in the "Dark Ages" (2000-2300). They've largely been depopulated by slave-raids.
Good idea.
What's the status of Cuba? There should be a western nation, a central nation, and an eastern nation. There'd be a nation based out of Guantanamo and one of the former communists. I have no idea what the other one would be.
I’d had the thought of Cuba being a Byzantine Empire stand-in, with Havana as the Caribbean Constantinople. Perhaps the remnants of an old Caribbean Empire, destroyed by successive invasions - once the beacon of civilization in the Dark Ages (perhaps it was more prepared to survive the regression due to Cuba’s historical isolation and need for self-sufficiency?), now sliding into decline as other nations, such as Louisiana, rise up, but still placed on important trade routes.
tehskyman
Banned
I don't know if the old communist regime would still hold sway. Considering that Cuba would have at this point been under the rule/ been a tributary of various Caribbean empires, any symbols of power would derive from that
Theres probably a nation in the west surrounding Havana, Another one around Santa Clara province , another around Camaguey province, maybe another comprising Holguin and Granma provinces and Guantanamo and Santiago de Cuba are each either independent merchant cities or part of the wider Caribbean thassolocracy
Isla de Juventud is either its own little nation or an outpost of a wider Caribbean empire.
So all in all 4-5 states and two city states
Considering how most of Cuba's coast is mangrove forest, interior Cuba is resistant to being a part of the thassolocracy. Instead you'll see areas around ports being directly controlled by the empire and the interior being ruled by tributaries or vassals. This extends to the other islands of the Greater Antilles as well, so you might see a Venice style thassolocracy where the empire consists of a string of ports along the big islands and all the little islands. That might be a degenerate form of a once much more prosperous empire which has declined and now allows it's former interior provinces to become more independently minded states
Richard Drummond
Banned
I liked the idea proposed earlier in the thread that Havana was as big and important as New Orleans.
I've argued against a united Cuba because I think it'd just outshine its neighbors. With its location, size, and population it could exact tolls on pretty much all Caribbean trade bound to the US or Mexico. I'd rather have the Yucatan, New Orleans, and Haiti tear Cuba apart (and so three regions get to experience glorious histories for the price of one), but the island itself could have a fairly coherent identity (baseball? vintage... well not cars, but horse-breeding and crafting horse armor?) that can be its own topic of interest (and source of anxiety for the reigning empires).
I also think the tendency toward communism would be offset as Florida's Cuban exiles try to stage triumphant returns, which maybe destabilizes Cuba enough for its neighbors to get the jump on it in the first place.
I also think the tendency toward communism would be offset as Florida's Cuban exiles try to stage triumphant returns, which maybe destabilizes Cuba enough for its neighbors to get the jump on it in the first place.
Someone suggested that Guantanamo would be a significant port earlier in the thread and I just rolled with it. I like the idea of a country lead by an aristocracy descended from the US military at the base. What, if anything, happened to the prisoners is another question.
Perhaps the major powers in the region have various coastal cities under their direct control, while using puppet regimes in the native states to keep the other Cuban states to busy fighting each-other, and buying up foreign weapons and such.
Couldn't agree more with this, a fractured Caribbean with a musical chairs of hegemons is just so much more interesting to play with.
Actually, baseball is probably extremely common all throughout the Caribbean being the dominant sport of the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela.
The prisoners probably ended up getting used for slave labor, along with the Cubans who tried to invade the port. Come to think of it, it would be interesting to see Gitmo build their entire economy around slavery with the Non-Denominational English-speaking elite selling Carribean slaves across the Gulf Coast. I might write an entry about the US transforming Gitmo into a tributary state and the slaves incorporating elements of Salafist extremism into their religion.
I like that. I’m thinking that it’d also be interesting to mention Gitmo’s time as an independent state before the US reconnected. Like how their particular kind of “American” culture would evolve in the centuries since the fall.
Gitmo’s underclass probably speaks a mix of Spanish and Arabic.
I’ll be keenly awaiting that story when you write it.
I think it's best we have a general reference doc on man-made structures on the Colorado River and effects of their destruction. Because in the Take II thread there's a post on Bajo Colorado which says that every man-made structure on the Colorado River is gone but also that the Imperial Valley still has water, which should be impossible since before man-made structures were built the Imperial Valley was an uninhabited desert.
First off, San Diego gets 20% of water from local sources (rainfall, groundwater); Los Angeles gets 11%. This could even be enough for both given the reduced population, less use of water in pesticides or whatever, and no industrial use or plumbing/sewage. Tijuana gets 98% of water from Colorado River, pumped up a canal from Mexicali. I'm assuming that it's not possible to do that with preindustrial tech, the population of SD-Tijuana has probably shrunken and consolidated into a single town. Ensenada gets almost all water from aquifers filled by rainfall, they chillin I guess.
Also, Northern California will definitely cut off any aqueducts it maintains from Sierra or Central Valley once the Free Zone goes independent. This could actually be a very traumatic event that leaves the Free Zone alive but irreparably changed. Saddam Hussein's or Ruhollah Khomeini's governments both evolved a particular way in response to the Iran-Iraq War (which began literally 1 year after both leaders attained the top spots in their respective countries); NorCal turning off the tap could be just the thing that makes the Free Zone Revolution take a darker turn as the government institutes rationing, lets unfriendly communities die, commissions forced labor, and generally goes Peak Hydraulic (and even the other Western states should if anything mellow out/decentralize after their infrastructure projects have been completed and can be maintained with the labor of local communities, as happened in Persia).
Below is a list of major dams, reservoirs, and canals and their likely fates. This doc should be updated depending on subsequent debates. If someone else with more hydrological knowledge wants to take charge of this venture instead please go ahead, you can copy/repost this and I'll delete my copy. I'm not really familiar w/ this field at all
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Lake Powell/Glen Canyon Dam, STATUS: Collapsed
Lake Mead/Hoover Dam, STATUS: Collapsed
First off, San Diego gets 20% of water from local sources (rainfall, groundwater); Los Angeles gets 11%. This could even be enough for both given the reduced population, less use of water in pesticides or whatever, and no industrial use or plumbing/sewage. Tijuana gets 98% of water from Colorado River, pumped up a canal from Mexicali. I'm assuming that it's not possible to do that with preindustrial tech, the population of SD-Tijuana has probably shrunken and consolidated into a single town. Ensenada gets almost all water from aquifers filled by rainfall, they chillin I guess.
Also, Northern California will definitely cut off any aqueducts it maintains from Sierra or Central Valley once the Free Zone goes independent. This could actually be a very traumatic event that leaves the Free Zone alive but irreparably changed. Saddam Hussein's or Ruhollah Khomeini's governments both evolved a particular way in response to the Iran-Iraq War (which began literally 1 year after both leaders attained the top spots in their respective countries); NorCal turning off the tap could be just the thing that makes the Free Zone Revolution take a darker turn as the government institutes rationing, lets unfriendly communities die, commissions forced labor, and generally goes Peak Hydraulic (and even the other Western states should if anything mellow out/decentralize after their infrastructure projects have been completed and can be maintained with the labor of local communities, as happened in Persia).
Below is a list of major dams, reservoirs, and canals and their likely fates. This doc should be updated depending on subsequent debates. If someone else with more hydrological knowledge wants to take charge of this venture instead please go ahead, you can copy/repost this and I'll delete my copy. I'm not really familiar w/ this field at all
List of dams in the Colorado River system - Wikipedia
Water in California - Wikipedia
Lake Mead/Hoover Dam, STATUS: Collapsed
- debates over this: page 8, page 9
- Vegas is still around as a shrunken town
- Colorado River Aqueduct; serves LA, but water has to be pumped up several times to 1800 ft; for comparison, China Grand Canal’s greatest height difference is ~131 ft/40 m
- All-American Canal; dam needed to raise the water level by 25 ft, after that it gravity-flows for entire length of canal (source 2)
- Coachella canal and all the other Imperial Valley canals; also use gravity flow for entire length (more info on those here
- groundwater under Imperial Valley recharged mainly from canal seepage and agricultural runoff, discharges into Salton Sea; if no water getting there in first place, aquifer and Sea will go too
- Mexicali aquifer declines by 12% from loss of All-American Canal seepage; Mexicali, Calexico probably the western limit of Bajo Colorado agriculture
- Mexicali aquifer could lose a lot more from loss of Baja California canals (page 6)— don’t know if Morelos Dam is necessary for those canals? maybe with higher water level along river (higher flow rate) there’s no need for dam?
- Los Algodones populated before canals built; guess living in Mexicali still practical, but it’s last stop before Imperial Desolation
Last edited:
Richard Drummond
Banned
I don't know much about the other structures but we could perhaps have Hoover Dam as a waterfall-esque site with a major portion of the wall still surviving. The imagery of this great wall from pre-Regression times is too good to give up on.
I don't think any old world dams should survive - Hoover Dam was the strongest of them all, it being wiped out by the Glenn Canyon surge must have blown out all other dams down the Colorado.
I think there are three possible solutions to the Bajo Colorado problem: 1) the Bajo Colorado have built a new set of canals to irrigate the Imperial; 2) the Colorado has diverted its course slightly to water the Imperial: 3) we retcon and the Imperial Desert, rather than the Salton Sink, is the limit of Bajo Colorado territory.
I think there are three possible solutions to the Bajo Colorado problem: 1) the Bajo Colorado have built a new set of canals to irrigate the Imperial; 2) the Colorado has diverted its course slightly to water the Imperial: 3) we retcon and the Imperial Desert, rather than the Salton Sink, is the limit of Bajo Colorado territory.
tehskyman
Banned
Looking at the geography, Santiago de Cuba is a better harbor than Guantanamo Bay, Guantanamo Bay seems to be ringed by mangrove forests, except for the area of the Naval Base.
The Spanish also established a port in Santiago de Cuba first, so it's probably better as a harbor. Guantanamo the town isn't on the bay itself and is half the size of Santiago de Cuba, Santiago DC also being the second largest city in Cuba.
The Spanish also established a port in Santiago de Cuba first, so it's probably better as a harbor. Guantanamo the town isn't on the bay itself and is half the size of Santiago de Cuba, Santiago DC also being the second largest city in Cuba.
Maybe the way the second option comes about is that the surge after the dams break just breaks down whatever elevation difference the Imperial Dam is there to help the water overcome, but wouldn't that require the whole canal floor to be deepened, which is only possible if water is going through it in the first place? I'm also skeptical of the first option since there's no method to pump the water to the adequate level, and a new dam may not be possible with how powerful the Colorado's flow will be once all the upstream dams are gone.
However, in order to be functional the Imperial Dam includes desilting basins to remove sediment which would clog the canals going into the valley. And deposition of massive amounts of silt is apparently what first cut the region off from the Gulf of California. We should probably just go with the third option-- Mexicali is the last stop for agriculture, all beyond it is the Imperial Desert. However, Bajo Colorado still maintains forts through the Imperial Desert to keep out the Free Zone, and the border between the two powers is in the San Gorgonio Pass.
Either way the aqueduct from Lake Havasu to LA is gone, which I'm disappointed about since I thought maybe the Free Zone could be one of the few states to make an effort to rule the deserts, sending Mojave patrollers out to protect the aqueduct. Without that, they'll probably just stay on the coastal side of the mountains.
The Hoover Falls are a famous Dineh landmark, the waterfall is flanked by two concrete walls
After as a brief stint as a dark slaver-society during the Mass Death era, Gitmo probably just gets reduced to local folklore-- rumors of beasts in the mangroves and hunters who become as bad as what they hunt...
Last edited: