Rememberences of Map Contests Past

islander:

Double POD, a group of people who died out migrate and A hefty black Plague sends Europe into a reactionary death spiral.

The red lines represent a unique Incan invention, cloud-lines. A cloud liner can carry up to twenty people between cities at relative speed. They use a very basic steam engine that burns coal. This was figured out in 1511 and a network was quickly constructed around the empire, funded by the emperor himself. The empire was hit by Plagues in the late 1400's caused by drifting Spanish Refugee ships, but held together by the skin of its teeth. The plagues left most cities with vast empty quarters, that were rebuilt with wide streets and basic sewer systems. After the discovery of steam power in the late 1450's the emperor commissioned the construction of the town of Yupay, which housed 10,000 academics in the worlds largest centre of learning and study.

 

mumby:

Meant to be in the style of a dull school wallchart.

In the 2020s, it was identified that dolphins were in fact human-level intelligences, held back only by the difficulty of establishing sedentary agriculture under the sea, and their lack of hands as manipulators. While most countries satisfied themselves with banning dolphins from sea life centres and a very stern UN treaty banning dolphin hunting, little else was done. In the 2020s, climate change began to ravage the planet rather badly, but Britain emerged relatively unscathed. Under a series of liberal governments, immigration was opened up and the aging population was undermined by tens of thousands of young refugees from countries like drowning Bangladesh, desertifying Spain and politically turbulent Poland. For a time, Britain boomed, and the growing population saw the seabed colonised with steel and concrete cities, farming algae and plankton to feed the industrious populace. Britain was the Warehouse of Europe, a continent otherwise torn by ethnic tension, climate change and turbulent economies.

Then the Great Storm occurred in 2032. Arising in the Atlantic, a colossal hurricane caused untold damage to Britain, overwhelming flood defences, ruining crops, entire cities were drenched in mud. For almost half a year, the island suffered, before a baking hot summer set in, further ruining food supplies. A bitterly cold winter left the nation's economy in tatters. And in that atmosphere, as Britain's bulging population chewed on bland plankton bars and shivered in chilly pre-fabs which clustered on the high ground, the Hard Ecologists took power. At first a National Government was formed, including a small Green contingent, but overtime, they absorbed members from other parties and a populist line of Hard Ecologism was pursued.

Massive reforms saw the country entirely remade. The British don't tend to do things by halves. But while most of the reforms carried out over the seven years of the Hard Ecologist government were overturned or watered down under the Anthropocentric Reaction, aside from the massive agricultural self-sufficiency projects, ecosystem recovery, and urban concentrations, the most obvious legacy of Hard Ecologism was 'First Contact' with dolphins. The Hard Ecologist government pursued 'delphine acculturation' with utter ruthlessness, seeking to absorb dolphins into the human polity as a stepping stone to full integration of the industrial state into the ecosystem.

The delphine acculturation saw the construction of sedentary settlements, the training of the few remaining captive dolphins in tool use, then their release into the wild to teach their brethren. At the end of seven years, scattered 'seaweed hamlets' existed at various positions around the British Isles. Under the Anthropocentric Reaction, delphine settlement and industry intensified. Seabed colonisation stepped up and commerce between humans and delphine became common. By the 2050s, a sophisticated network had been established between humans and delphine, and by the end of the decade delphines were participating in British democracy (such as it was).

The emergence of the multi-species polis was unique across the world, and Britain's extreme experience of Hard Ecologism was considered highly unusual, even alien. Nowhere else was delphine citizenship seriously pursued. From the 2050s to the 2070s, human-delphine relations became ever more complex, with the seabed cities of concrete becoming home to the seaweed constructs of delphines, the cities becoming mixed metropolitan hubs. 'Colonial' government was phased out in favour of proper democracy, and the first actual delphine MPs were elected in the 2060s, attending Parliament via holo-link. It seemed that a Wonder Age was just around the corner.

Then tragedy struck. When Britain's economy collapsed in the 2030s, those shaky economies in Europe collapsed, and while the Hard Ecologists restored something of Britain's prosperity, they made Britain somewhat autarkic, leaving Europe to suffer. The Anthropocentric Reaction saw an opening up, but Britain's strange multi-species state saw them alienated by an embittered and increasingly intolerant continent. On the opposite side of the globe, the Cybernetic Socialism of Gran Boliviana stood in stark contrast. A new Cold War began, as the reactionary Europa Federacy and her allies in Africa and the Middle East, aligned against Boliviana and the technocracies of East Asia and Latin America. The US remained isolationist, suffering from the Great Drought and the ever-enlarging Dustbowl, similar to the Australian Badland phenomenon.

The Third World War broke out in India between European backed Pakistan and Bolivianan backed India. The conflict quickly turned nuclear, and tensions went out of control. While Britain was technically a legally neutral country (a legacy of Hard Ecologism), they were an observer to the Bolivianan Conchord of Intellect. Britain's highly liberal social mores, and multi-species nation-state marked them out as one of the worst offenders of 'blaspheming nations' in the eyes of Europa. Under the Hard Ecologists, Britain's nuclear defences had been scrapped, and the governments following the Anthropocentric Reaction had failed to engage with quite how much they were detested on the Continent. The Europeans destroyed the major British cities with nuclear weapons and used chemical and biological weapons with abandon, declaring faith would save the worthy, and that those innocents who died would enjoy the fruits of Heaven, as justification for their atrocities.

WWIII was over in only a couple of years, but the conflict ended global civilisation as global communications systems collapsed as Europa detonated dozens of devices in the Van Allen belts as its dying breath. Technology was maintained but it would take decades before 21st century communications could be restored globally. It was worse for mainland Britain. The urban population pretty much died out, and the rural population either regressed to a primitive state due to isolation and lack of mobility, or were evacuated into the seabed cities.

But Europa had singularly failed to destroy Britain's undersea civilisation. The European ideology had held that delphine intelligence was a lie, and had aggressively backed whaling and dolphin slaughter, further encouraging delphine acculturation in Britain's waters. The Europeans believed that if the mainland was destroyed, the dolphins would naturally revert to an animal state. This was not the case.

It is now 2112, and the world teeters on the brink of a New Rennaisance. For some forty years, each continent has been left to its own devices, but a Chinese satellite has begun the process of reconnecting the world together. But unique across the globe is the Kingdom of Great Britain, the only majority non-human polity on Earth. While humans are the plurality, the various delphine species that live and work in British waters totalled up add up to be greater, just, than the human population. This is reflected in the House of Commons, located in the Irish Sea, off the coast of the Isle of Man, where a majority of MPs are delphine.

Technology in Britain has remained pretty much static in some fields, but in the field of biotechnology it has raced ahead in leaps and bounds, seeing the emergence of cities of genetically modified coral. Energy is mostly geothermal and tidal, and down here, electricity is transmitted by modified nerves rather than copper wires. Submarines are the most common method of travel. Cybernetics has also been advanced considerably, giving some delphines their own arms, but also enabling both humans and delphines to remain submerged for far greater lengths of time than normal. Delphine tribal culture has come to impact upon human culture and social conservatism has somewhat returned as the religious beliefs of the many delphine groups feedback into human society. Delphine language, which remains separate thanks to differing vocal chords and throats, has been standardised and is known as Delphine English. Some delphine words have been replicated in the English language proper. Nudity amongst humans is much more common, particularly in the shallow sea regions where it is warmer, and few bat an eyelid at a naked person walking down the street. Humans tend to shave themselves bald in Britain, partly for streamlining in the water, partly due to acculturation with delphines. A lot of people wear little more than jewellery and a few fabrics to conceal their genitals. Clean up operations are ongoing on the mainland, but the bulk of the population are comfortable in their underwater homes. Clashing with the more advanced aspects of technology, most communications are carried out via telegraphy or telephone exchange. The autarkic elements have carried on in the economy, and there is a certain fear of outsiders which has contributed to the rising social conservatism.

 

Mumby map:

 

Future8:

Americans were always destined to move west. What they didn't realize was that America would move west with them.

It happened so subtly, that it was hard to even notice for a long time. With the War of 1812, the majority of New England was lost. Many New Englanders moved to the new territory bought by the U.S.–the Louisiana territory. From there, many Americans continued moving west, into Mexico. When the northern areas of Mexico filled up with Americans, they declared their independence. The Mexican-American War was be fought. The United States gained most of the land west of the Rockies, but lost the Great Plains. With the country split in two, the U.S. encouraged the remaining Easterners to move West, where the Mexican government allowed them to pass through their country. The capital was relocated from Washington, D.C. to Sacramento and the Eastern states were sold to the United Kingdom and the Second French Republic. From Sacramento, the U.S. continued looking west, across the Pacific, first to Hawaii, which was traded to them by the French for Georgia. Still wanting to complete the Manifest Destiny, Americans continued on to the East Indies, where they captured the Philippines first, and then conquered or bought some territories from the British and Dutch.

For a long time, things remained that way: most Americans lived in the Eastern part of America, some in Hawaii, and the East Indies were administered as territories. However, following the Second Great War, and the invention of air travel, and the quickening of sea travel, the government began to encourage moving to the Indies. Areas from the Philippines began becoming states, as long as they met an extra unofficial requirement of at least 65% White population. Some massacres occurred to clear natives and become states, but for the most part it was peaceful. Muslim areas rebelled a few times; however, the government soon made amendments to allow for "Muslim territories" with limited Sharia law and Islamic courts. Finally, in 1956, the capital was shifted, a second time, from Sacramento to a planned city in the Eastern Visayas called New Washington. The Indies, formerly one big territory in the Great American Empire were now the Mainland of the United States of America.

 

lock:

The Story of the American Federation

“Then let them go. There will be no war.”
US President William H Harrison, 1839.

Slavery was the reason for secession. Well, slavery and Texas. No one was surprised by that. But in the end it was only five states, plus the territories of Florida and Arkansas, that chose to leave. The border states of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri -- as well as the Upper South states of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee -- all chose to stay. Many, including President Harrison himself, were surprised by that. Within the next year, a booming economy and his speeches extolling a “God-Given Destiny to reach the Pacific” (later to be dubbed by others as ‘Manifest Destiny’) brought him a second term, even if the Union had splintered under his watch. The Union looked west toward its future, not south to its past.

But this is not a story of the Union. This is a story of the Federation.

As Manifest Destiny took hold in the Union, it also took hold in the newly-formed American Federation as well. Its gaze drew to the southwest, across the sparsely populated areas of Northern Mexico. And it saw what it decided should be theirs.

Texas was eager to join. Texas had just fought Mexico to a draw in the War for Texan Independence. The three states that made up the Rio Grande Republic and the Republic of the Yucatan were next. The Federation was quick to give support even though it meant war with Mexico. It was a long, drawn out, costly war, but by 1860, the Federation added the states of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, and Yucatan, as well as areas that would make up the future states of Pecos, Santa Fe, Chihuahua, and Sonora. In addition, Great Britain’s exit from the Miskito Coast in 1863, allowed the Federation to gain an additional foothold in the Caribbean.

A second war with Mexico was, perhaps, inevitable. Mexico’s Emperor was presiding over a country that had seen better much days. It had sold California to the United States three years before the California Gold Rush of 1855, and it had seen European intervention on its internal affairs – even if that intervention into internal affairs were how its Emperor came to power.

The spark for the Second Mexican War was a small uprising in Zacatecas in the spring of 1872. Sixteen miners from Coahuila were killed in a military crackdown in the Zacatecas’ capital city. The Federation sent in troops to keep the peace, which ironically led to a declaration of war by Mexico. By early 1874, Federation troops were in Mexico City and Durango, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosi were on their way to becoming Federation States.

Did I mention slavery was the reason for secession? In general, if a Federal lived south or west of Corpus Christi, they were in all likelihood opposed to slavery, due to either moral objections brought by the Catholic Church or economic objections brought by the mountainous regions of the Federation’s Southwest. By the early 1880s, the Western states began pushing for abolition nationwide. South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama saw the writing on the wall. If it worked once, why not do it a second time: They declared independence and took their Capital City with them.

This time, the other Federal states did not oblige them with an easy way out. The American Federation’s Civil War of 1883-1887 was hard-fought. When Mexico tried to take advantage of the situation and intervene, it was slapped down. In the end, slavery was abolished and the Federation took Veracruz.

By this time, the demographics of the country were changing. Fourteen of its 21 states were formerly part of Mexico. Its population was nearly a third mixed-race and less than half spoke English as their primary language. Although Alabama provided a good share of the country’s steel output, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas production were expanding quickly and Veracruz had the port facilities to keep the south growing.

By 1920, a war with Spain had given the Federation the island of Cuba (but not Puerto Rico or the Philippines which went to the United States, the Federation’s ally in the war). Guatemala applied for statehood in 1935. Sinaloa declared independence from Mexico in 1950 and applied to be the Federation’s 24th state shortly afterward.

Between 1940 and 2000, seven of the Federation’s eight presidents have come from areas south or west of Texas. Although the nation’s Capital sits surrounded by the magnolia trees of Georgia, the true power lies in the cypress far to the south and west.

 

And Da Winner was Future8, with lock being second, and third Mumby. A fairly close contest.

 

MOTF 113: Tickled Punk!


The Challenge
Make a map showing a "punkified" world, where the technology and culture of a specific era has survived and become exaggerated.

The Restrictions
There are no restrictions on when your PoD or map may be set. Fantasy, sci-fi, and future maps are allowed, but blatantly implausible (ASB) maps are not.

The rules on ASB are very relaxed for this round, as all entries should be implausible to some extent, but extremely nonsensical entries may still be disqualified.

You must "punkify" an era of real human history - taking the technology, cliches, fears, hopes, and prognostications of that time and exaggerating them - but your map does not have to be of the real world (so, for example, maps of clockpunk fantasy worlds are permitted).

 

Transparent Blue:

20 years into the future…

THEN CONQUER WE MUST, IF OUR CAUSE IT IS JUST

Exhausted. Helpless. Hopeless. The optimism at the turn of the new millennium faded as it became clear that the 21st century would be our last. The Doomsday Clock is at 23:59 as the world undergoes a slow motion apocalypse.

Where do we begin?

Most would say it all started when the USA took the idea of a “New American Century” a bit too seriously. The USA currently has 51% of the world’s wealth and spends more on its military than every other country put together. Doubled. Afghanistan and Iraq were followed by many more campaigns to bring freedom and democracy around the world. The war with Iran was instigated in 2006, a nightmarish slog against a massive, mountainous, industrial economy. Not long after came Cuba, Syria and North Korea. Of course, this all came at a tremendous cost – 5 million lives and 8 trillion dollars.

But who’s complaining? The war effort necessitated unprecedented political centralisation and propaganda campaigns. I’m talking rigged elections, state governors being assassinated, no presidential term limits, and protestors, bloggers and draft dodgers being jailed indefinitely for treason. The CIA and FBI directly dick around in media organisations and any dissenting staff or whistleblowers quietly disappear. If that doesn’t frighten them, threatening their families usually does. The latest Pew survey shows that over 70% of Americans still believe the Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. As for other countries, France considered leaving NATO until the Eiffel Tower was pulverised.

Others would say the process was already in motion with the institutional inertia of fossil fuels. Runaway climate change exploded in 2012 (literally) when methane deposits erupted. Much of the world has been desertified or flooded, 90% of species are now extinct and people are nostalgic for the times when they didn’t have to wear face masks outside. These stresses have caused the area from the Sahel to Central Asia to succumb to the “Cradle Crisis”, an orgy of radical Islamist terrorism, nuclear proliferation, slavery and ethnic violence. For example, Wikipedia has just changed its article on “Palestinian people” to use the past tense.

If you think that corrupt, militaristic states are to blame, you may be glad to know that in the Cradle Crisis, the borders and governments only exist on maps and in the deluded minds of the United Nations. The real situation is about as mappable or describable as the Syrian Civil War crossed with the Holy Roman Empire. The main problem of the surrounding area is to contain the Cradle Crisis and its refugees. Reactionism to the influx of Middle Eastern migrants to Europe has led to far right Bushist-Cheneyist-Blairist ideologues entering the mainstream, abandonment of neutrality and expansion of NATO.

Not that the oil companies care. Once a supplier falls to shit and oil reaches $200 a barrel that’s only a wake up call to invade another country and leech it dry before moving on to the next. Well, that used to work until it suddenly became clear that there was no oil left to safely extract. Now on the other side of peak oil, and with no investment in alternatives, the world is in the midst of a second Great Depression. Unemployment ranges from 30-95% and Western Europe is on the level of OTL southern Italy (including crime rates). After the fall of India and Turkey, fears of the Cradle Zone expanding to Europe were realised when Spain collapsed into civil war and the European Union dissolved.

Has anything good happened? The exponential rise and spread of digital technology is truly a marvel. Nearly every person on the planet has a cellphone and can record videos of government abuses, organise protests through MySpace, run online petitions and spread their views on their Angelfire site. Even more impressive, it’s all monitored in real time by a single AI and suspicious activity is relayed to local agents. Entertainment technology is also remarkable as millions use their iPods to beam the latest episode of The OC (courtesy of LimeWire) directly into their brain. Either that or replaying the best memories from their lives, though many are wary after reports of users being unwilling to stop and subsequently dying of thirst. At least the children are safe from this moral panic as they have no good memories worth replaying.

“Multipolar future? Not on my watch!” MAD has been replaced by SAD, Singularly Assured Destruction. The space system Ragnarok (nicknamed “Chuck Norris”) was developed based on the 10/10/10 specification – “Within 10 minutes of the command, there should be 10 megaton blasts, in any 10 simultaneous locations (we’ve long since improved on this baseline of course). The enemy should not be able to mitigate the attack. The enemy should not be able to launch their own space weaponry. Here’s some Apollo/Manhattan level resources – Go!”

Ragnarok’s railguns and lasers are also used to instantly eliminate any other countries’ missile or space launches, forming a perfect blanket of security. At one point the rationale was about protecting the planet from North Korean missiles and asteroids, now it’s just “what are you going to do about it?” especially when Jakarta and Beijing complain about tests in the oceans near their cities. Turns out when you can hold entire countries hostage, SAD is too effective. The world economy and order really should have collapsed a long time ago if not for the fact that it is being held together by sheer force (think of the pseudo-stability of OTL North Korea).

Forget about identifying the “sick man of Europe” or “sick man of Asia”, the entire world is sick and dying, and we’re all just waiting for someone put it out its misery. Luckily we will get that as a Christmas present in the form of a nuclear terrorist attack on London, auto-triggering Ragnarok

 

lock:

Grungepunkd 2021.

Yeah. This is a world that has been Grungepunkd, set 30 years to the day after the release of Pearl Jam's "Ten" album. It supposedly has the "technology, cliches, fears, hopes, and prognostications" of the 90s. Whatever.

Anyway, this is Grungepunk. So there's no fancy GIS and Inkscape used here and there's a lot of pixelization. Also, it doesn't use the one-pixel border rule that "people" say people should use. The lines are thick because I like them that way. Third, it doesn't use any "politically correct" color scheme. The colors are dark and full of angst. Like my soul.

Last, it doesn't even use proper latitude and longitude. I moved Australia about 15 degrees east of where it should be just to fit my title in. Subvert the dominant mapmaking paradigm, dude.

So deal with it. Or not. I don't care. In the end, it doesn't matter anyway. I'll be over here drinking coffee and listening to Stone Temple Pilots.

 

rvbomally:

Last minute entry. I normally don't do worldas for MotF, but with the amount of time I have, I'm surprised I even got this much done. This is a 1960s-punk future, inspired a little by B_Munro's Sixties Future. Since I'm already quite sleepy, I'll keep the description spartan:

Jetpunk

• The PoD is Oswald being a worse shot, and missing Kennedy. Kennedy then commits far more to Vietnam, which extends the war throughout the rest of his presidency. He is remembered as the man who started the next Hundred Years' War.
• The counterculture gets nasty. The civil rights movement becomes a full-on race war in the South when leaders on both sides are assassinated (MLK and George Wallace are assassinated within a week of one another). By the 1980s, tensions are so bad that all-out civil war breaks out. In an attempt to jettison the most chaotic bits of the country, the federal government allows California and "New Afrika" to go their own way.
• The protests of 1968 become violent, and governments are overthrown in both the East and the West. While the Western governments retreat to Britain and Spain, the Soviets just send in the tanks and Moscow gets a few more SSRs. They get even more when the Chinese decide to attack in the 1980s, which ends in the People's Republic of China being transformed into the Worker's Republic of China, losing a few provinces and a hundred million people in the process. Europe's anarchist communes begin their decades-long war against one another.
• Pan-Africanism and Pan-Arabism manage to succeed, and serve as a primary counter to the Western powers in Africa and the Middle East. The Indians get hit with a communist revolution. The Soviets capitalize on this, and support these movements.
• The early 21st century is the era of greater federalization. As the African and Arab federations mature, other blocs start jumping on that bandwagon. The United States annexes Canada, and then its closest East Asian allies, to form closer ties with these states and to stand as a bulwark against communism. The Amerasians encourage the federalization of what remains of NATO. The Union of European Communes stabilizes under a strange pseudo-pagan socialist cult.
• By the mid-21st century, just about everyone is a nasty dictatorship of one stripe or another. Amerasia is dominated by conservative forces which vow never to allow the Union to be jeopardized from within or without, and ruthlessly use the FBI to root out political dissidents while the Department of Culture ensures that everyone in the Union is a good, patriotic Amerasian. The Soviet Union has become a pseudo-fascist Slavic nationalist state, which is busy suppressing the peoples of Europe and Asia by playing musical chairs with national homelands and taking children from their homes to be Russified. That being said, inequality is bad and society has been in a state of disrepair for decades, with many city sectors closed off because they are just too full of crime. Radical political movements and cults love to recruit from the destitute, and are powerful and pervasive enough to constantly cause trouble without getting stamped out by "The Man."
• Tech is amazing. There are already cities on the Moon, with self-sustaining bases on Mars. Space travel is widely available, with middle-class families easily affording annual trips to the Moon. Fusion power was unlocked in the 1980s, and so clean energy has been available for everyone and stopped a lot of atmospheric pollution in its tracks. Nukes have gone out of style, with defensive and offensive satellites replacing ICBMs. Energy shielding, phasers and photon torpedoes are standard for all military units, and just about everything that had wheels or tracks hovers now; drunk driving is a major problem with flying cars. Robots are widespread, from military bases to houses, although women in both East and West are still expected to stay in the kitchen; to be fair, nobody's figured out artificial intelligence, so robots need constant supervision. Most urban areas are starting to build "starscrapers," habitats propped up on antigravity-maintained spires, for the ultra-wealthy. Nobody wants to even see the chaos on the streets.

 

Gryphon:

A rather simple map made as a last-second entry, because, why not.




netpointer:bellwest1.253.555.0103 password: ********
access:WORLD NEWS (TEXT)
access granted

IN THE NEWS, March 29, 2015 (Pacific Time Zone)

21:53 SAN FRANCISCO. An illegal supercomputer has been seized by police
forces. According to the SFPD, the computer was used by local gangs to
optimize drug distribution. So far, more than 200 megabytes of RAM have
been removed from the warehouse on the north waterfront.

21:59 DAKAR. Following reports of violence in Guinea, French and American
special forces- including a number of Augments- were inserted via
helicopter into Conakry, where they secured a route to the airport to
evacuate several embassies.

Long days at the office got you down? Try commuting on the
INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY- with Virtual Reality!

22:14 WASHINGTON. It was revealed today in an announcement by Vice
President Bolton that NATO command has assumed responsibility for the
former UN missions in Somalia, Iraq, and the South China Sea. This brings
the total number of former UN missions under NATO control up to eleven.

22:15 LONDON. Prime Minister Mandelson announced the military of the
United Kingdom would be deployed to Saudi Arabia and Turkey to support
the no-fly zones over Iran. This announcement comes mere hours after it
was confirmed Iranian F-14s downed two Soviet fighters near Tehran.

Get news updates, relay chat, and access to your American networks at
twice the speed! Upgrade to Bell West HyperNet today!

22:19 LONDON. The European Community projects unemployment to
increase as much as 3% over the next five years in Italy and Spain unless
immediate measures are taken to incentivize job creation.

22:31 TOKYO. A man was found deceased in his apartment, connected to
several virtual reality devices, making the fifth case in Tokyo this week.
Authorities blame the deaths on the slow speeds along the Tokyo-Osaka
connections during construction of the new high-volume data links.

Want the security of a retirement fund without the risk of the standard
772(a)? Contact the American Association of Credit Unions and ask about
our retirement accounts.

22:35 LONDON. A series of bomb blasts today in Belfast that killed nine and
wounded more than forty has been traced to a faction of the IRA.
Residents of Belfast are reminded to obey curfews and present papers
immediately upon questioning by military or police officials.

 

lock came in first, Gryphon second, and Transparent Blue third.

 

Man, time flies. Will update tomorrow.

 

And here we go again.

MOTF 114: From Sea to Sea


The Challenge
Make a map showing a country that borders two major bodies of water.

The Restrictions
There are no restrictions on when your PoD or map may be set. Fantasy, sci-fi, and future maps are allowed, but blatantly implausible (ASB) maps are not.

What constitutes a major body of water is open to interpretation, but the Contest Overseer reserves the right to disqualify entries where the bodies of water are unreasonably small. Basically use your common sense and ask me if you're unsure.

 

Cevolian:

The King across the water

(Hey Guys, long time lurker first time poster here!)

The American Empire was founded in 1770, following the British Revolutions of the 1760s and the establishment of the British Directorate in 1768. The American Empire's foundations had already been lain by Lord Bute (whose failure to step down in 1763 provoked the initial revolt) and King-Emperor George I in the Compromise of 1764. The Empire is composed of a number of semi-autonomous provinces, each with her own Parliament and House of Lords, although an elected Parliament directed by the Emperor does exist on the national level.

It was long the ambition of the King-Emperor and his subjects to border two oceans, a goal that was achieved with the foundation and expansion of the Province of Oregon on the Northwest Coast of the Pacific Ocean. This did not sate their desire to stretch from sea to sea and, with the Californian Rebellion beginning in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the Empire saw its chance, intervening in what later became the Second Spanish-American War (the first had been fought over competing claims to the Louisiana territory).

As well as bordering the Atlantic and Pacific, the Empire also borders the Caribbean through her southern provinces and through the Kingdom of Louisiana (a French Monarchy in exile under the protection of the Emperor), and claims George III's lands prior to the British and Hanoverian revolutions. The Empire has grown strong, but reclaiming the old homelands is still a long way off, but the day is still young and stranger things have happened than success in the wave of counter-revolutions sweeping Europe in the 1850s...

 

lock:

One of the three superpowers on the planet, Canada stems from a humble beginning as a colony of France. Following the Seven Years War (known as the French and Indian War in North America), the province of New France transferred to Great Britain.

After the American Revolution, the Treaty of Bruges gave the upstart colonies the lands east of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio Rivers, with the exception of the Floridas. Within 20 years, the new United States of America had dissolved, with the northern states joining together as the American Confederation and the southern states as individual republics.

During that period, British Canada grew. The Continental Wars (1799-1807) following the First French Revolution saw Great Britain victorious over the French Republicans and their Confederation allies, granting Canada the large Louisianne Territory, including the port of Nouvelle Orleans, and establishing the border with the American Confederation at the Appalachian Divide. Canada also received a large portion of the disputed lands in Northern Massachusetts.

Following the establishment of the French Republic after the Second French Revolution (1819), French settlers flooded both Quebec and southern Louisianne. Today, French is the primary language in the provinces of Quebec, Orleans, Louisianne, Missouri, and Lorraine.

Meanwhile Canada settled westward. The seven original provinces (Illinois, Louisianne, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Somerset, and Quebec) presented a large and sprawling territory reaching from Halifax to Nouvelle Orleans to the Rocky Mountains. To ensure ease in governing, Queen Charlotte declared the colony a dominion in 1840, choosing a capital and administrative center that was all at once centrally located, on a Great Lake, and defensible from attack if the American Confederates would ever threaten again. She chose the still small, but rapidly growing city of Detroit as the country's new capital.

As Canadian relations with the Atlantic Confederation stabilized, conflict escalated to the south: The Empire of Mexico found revolution in its outlying territories. Supported by North and South Carolina as well as France, Texas won its independence in 1843. Both California and Yucatan followed suit in 1848.

New provinces were created as the larger western provinces grew in population. Ontario, Illinois, and francophone Louisianne were each split into four provinces, while Somerset was split into the three provinces we know today. Manitoba and Saskatchewan were carved out of Hudson Bay Territory. During this time, Canada established some of today’s important commercial centers: Marquette, in Charlottania; Atchafalaya, in Louisanne; Dublin, in East Somerset; Carlisle, in West Somerset; and Alsace, in Lorraine.

To the south, the turbulence in Texas, California, and Mexico worsened. Rebels along the Rio Grande were aided by militias from Texas, California, and the Carolinas. The war was short, with Texas and California expanding their territory in North Mexico, and the Carolinas staking short-lived claims in Guatemala and near Veracruz.

With Mexico occupied with war, Canada and Russia alone vied for control of Columbia Country. Although Russia made a token military showing, Russian settlers never made much of an impact. What would become the provinces of Columbia, New Devon, and Mariana were in Canadian hands by the end of the 1860s.

The Depression of 1883-1896 presented problems for nations around the world. France had its third and fourth revolutions, restoring the monarchy in 1885 before abolishing it again in 1889. The Russian Civil War split Finland, Poland, and Ukraine as independent nations. The Caribbean nations (except Haiti) merged to form a federation of their own to protect themselves from “European influence.” The Republic of California had four elected Presidents in 1887 alone. In Canada, rioting was widespread in Marquette, York, Montreal, St Louis and even for a short time Detroit itself.

However, one of the greatest events in the Canadian story was the British Revolution. The British Revolution of 1890, saw Unionism take hold in several major cities before London fell and the Unionist Republic of Great Britain was declared. In the midst of the revolution, King Henry IX was killed, and the Heir Apparent, Princess Charlotte, was brought to safety in Canada.

Queen Charlotte II was crowned as Queen of Canada in Detroit in early 1891. While the current Regent still today claims the British throne, it is generally acknowledged that Canada is the monarchy's primary home, both at Hanover Castle across the river from Detroit in Georgetown and at the Mackinac Estate on Mackinac Island in Lake Huron.

By the end of the 1890s, Canada had purchased the Yukon Territory from Russia, sold to finance Russia's debt from their civil war. Later, the heavily Russian-speaking coastal area of Alyeska chose free association in a plebiscite in 1906, and full independence in 1929. Even so, Canada and Alyeska are close partners to this day.

The peace of the first decade of the 20th century was short-lived. Alliances developed after the Depression brought the world to war in 1909. In North America, the technologically advanced Texan empire and its allies, North Carolina and South Carolina, declared war on Canada and its allies, Mexico and Georgia. Fierce fighting occurred in the trenches of Lorraine, throughout the Sabine Valley and in the high valleys of New Devon. When fighting with North Carolina closed the Mississippi River, supplies bound for Nouvelle Orleans flowed the long way around -- north through the Saint Lawrence. Ultimately, it was the sheer size of Canada’s industry that proved Texas’s undoing. The Treaty of Boston (1915) awarded Salinas and the Sabine Valley to Canada and the Bahamas to Georgia.

Today, Canada stretches from sea to sea to sea. It has ports from chilly Nova Scotia to rainy Columbia to the warm waters of Nouvelle Orleans. The country's two high-speed trans-continental railroads use cutting edge technology to transport people and cargo quickly and efficiently. From royal Detroit to metropolitan Montreal, to bustling Marquette, to agricultural Alsace, Canada is a power for the 20th century.

 

The map of lock:

 

JoeyB2198:

The Second Battle of Hoover Dam left the Legion's leadership destroyed. Caesar and the Legate, as well as most of the high-ranking centurions were dead, and the once-mighty empire fell into disarray. It might have fallen outright, if not for the sudden appearance from upriver of a living legend. Two days after the defeat at the Dam, the Burned Man sailed into the Fort from upriver with a new army of tribals and declared himself the new Emperor, igniting a brutal civil war with rival emperors in the East.

The year is now 2282. The Burned Man has subjugated the last of his rivals, and the Legion has begun the long transition from a tribal confederacy into a solidified state. Borders have been solidified, provincial boundaries have been drawn, laws have been codified, and an 'understanding' (if not a peace) has been found with the NCR. Now, the first caravans have begun to cross peacefully and safely across the border, for the first time since thesis and antithesis first met across the concrete wall. For the first time in centuries, peace and prosperity reign in the land between the Colorado and the Rio Grande.

 

Gryphon and Ares96:

A joint entry by Ares96 and Gryphon; I came up with the idea, and he did the hard work and made the map.




Surprisingly often, the records of the world's great empires disappear, to be found only in scattered fragments and references for thousands of years, until modern archaeologists, deciphering unknown texts, unearthing new artifacts, and rediscovering objects deep in the archives of the world's museums, piece together enough information to find something they didn't expect.

Such was the case several years ago, when a small number of prominent figures in the archaeological, historical, sociological, and linguistic communities, led by Dr. Daniel Evans of Dartmouth College, presented a new hypothesis that took the academic world by storm.

They announced that, in the course of their studies, they had discovered a previously-overlooked civilisation, and in doing so tied up a number of archaeological inconsistencies, and completely redrew the timeline of Eurasian history.

For years, the study of the premodern people of Eastern Europe and the Steppes was marred by biased and incomplete studies, with results often chosen specifically to reinforce the racial or religious predilections of their patrons. Dr. Evans and his associates, in addition to new field studies made possible by the opening of Russia, went back over the archived records with a critical eye, often revisiting the locations of the original studies and comparing the records with the physical artifacts wherever possible.

The new record showed the existence of a nomadic empire stretching across Eastern Europe and deep into Asia, between three and four millenia old. Unlike more traditional nomadic empires, that typically merged with their conquered territories as a new ruling class, this empire continued its nomadic ways even after it conquered a territory.

The parallels with the contemporary situation several hundred miles south of the research teams did not go unnoticed by political scientists who, citing everything from Tacitus to Mancur Olson to Robert Fisk, developed a theory sitting just under the edge of their previous studies. The theory of the raider state was the second major innovative theory of the post-bipolar era after Mead's sea control, and helped spark some of the most original thoughts in the field in decades.

The historians, taking a cue from the sociologists and lacking a better option, took to calling their newfound empire the Raiders, and much to the chagrin of some, the name has stuck.

The most unique fact of Raider society appears to be the way in which the whole society was kept together, even over extreme distances. There did not appear to be individual, separable tribes; instead, Raiders seem to have traded members amongst neighbouring tribes. Local leadership appears to have been held by some form of elected chiefdom, and the existing records show a perhaps surprising level of egalitarianism amongst those elected, especially as regards women. Additionally, there appears to have been a permanent office of lawkeeper.

The tribes themselves were extremely diverse, often containing members from across whole regions. They tended to split into two sections- the raiding parties and the non-raiders. The raiding parties maintained a rough chain of command separate from the elected chiefdoms, and it appears there was some sort of taboo regarding making the leader of the martial forces the chief of the tribe. Raiding forces often included new recruits and old, and may have included women. Nonraiders who stayed behind appear to have made up a logistics tail and secure avenue for retreat for the raiding parties, and usually consisted of wives, children, and those who for various reasons- often injury- were unable to be part of the raiding party.

The whole society, from Baltic to Baikal, appears to have maintained some level of continuity, through the use of a highly mobile and very small administrative corps- divided into small sections of five or so people, who moved amongst tribes across huge areas, providing judicial and arbitrative services.

The Raiders maintained dominance over many regions and competed for power in many more, attacking towns and villages with useful resources or that posed a threat. The highly mobile nature of their society meant often several tribes could band together to attack a particularly tough target, collect the spoils of war, then disperse.

Not much is directly known about the language spoken by the Raiders. Inscriptions found in likely Raider tombs dating to the period might bear some relation to the recently-translated Linear A script, but since very few such inscriptions are known, translation is difficult.

However, given their location and era, it seems likely they spoke some form of Indo-European; Doctor Jerry Miller, of the University of Northern Washington's Department of Archaeology, has speculated based on migration patterns that they may have spoken some form of pre-Germanic or a language ancestor to Germanic and Balto-Slavic. Some earlier scholars suggested the possibility of a Turko-Urgic language, but subsequent study has ruled out this possibility.

The Raiders were a highly advanced society for their time. Charles Berlitz suggests a possible connection with the advanced central Atlantic diaspora of approximately 3500 BC, but this early date combined with the Raider's probable origins deep inland does not lend credence to the theory. Archaeological evidence does suggest the Raiders were early adopters of chariots for warfare, and used significant combined-arms tactics in a highly mobile military force; infantry, archers, and cavalry were all mounted. Furthermore, the weapons found buried with warriors show an early adoption of iron for swords, spear points, stave caps, helmets, axes and- interestingly also found buried with some warriors- shovels, indicating what may be amongst the earliest known dedicated combat engineers.

Evidence from various sources both internal and external to the Raider society has suggested the presence of a surprisingly simple religious system. The number four appears to have been sacred, and there appear to have been four main gods- a chief, sky god who may have also been a god of fire; a weather and war god; a goddess of knowledge and fertility; and a goddess of death, who also had domain over the oceans and possibly the hearth. They appear to be opposed by evil creatures, most notably serpents, and aided by dogs, eagles, ravens, and horses, respectively.

How do we know what we know about the Raiders?

Our first and foremost selection of evidence comes from graves unearthed across the Steppes, especially at the sites near Astrakhan and Novosibirsk. Many of them had been assigned to other cultures or unexplored prior to the Raider hypothesis, but with the new understanding, they provide considerable evidence for the lifestyle of these people. Many of the graves found so far have been low tumuli, often containing grave goods as noted above. It seems they were familial grave sites, as many appear to have been reused, with multiple sets of bones contained within them. From these bones we understand that Raider family units tended to be large and possibly polygamous, and likely patrilocal.

The grave goods contain many indications about the important aspects of Raider life, including as noted above weapons and tools, but many of the Raider graves have also contained the bones of animals- typically dogs and horses- as well; some, nearer to the coastal regions, also contain bark or, rarely, dugout canoes, indicating the presence of seafaring in the Raider history. How far they traveled is a matter of speculation, but some possible references to invading forces from the east occur in surviving runic inscriptions in Scandinavia, and some authors have put forward theories that some artifacts found on the coasts of England and the Low Countries may have been the result of Raider contact.

The civilization of the Raiders remains relatively unknown compared to some of its contemporaries, but the records we have suggest a complex and vibrant society that managed to remain surprisingly well coordinated over a vast geographical region. Further study may eventually disprove some of the claims made above, or it may add to their weight, but the effect of the Raiders on our understanding of history is pronounced, and its study will become a model for future archaeologists.

 

Their map: