Terra Australis Incognita - Atlantis

Riaan

Banned
Dear all,

I developed several new theories about ancient history some years ago and posted these on my website for comment by readers. For some reason I missed your discussion board, which I was very pleased to find recently.

My Atlantis theory is summarised here and is based on among others the following observations:

1. Three different but correlated shapes of Terra Australis Incognita ('solid' continent, ring-shaped continent) cannot exist if TAI really is only an imaginary continent. In my opinion these three forms show that the central plateau of the continent had become flooded over time.

2. The submarine topology of New Zealand and Australia matches the continent shown on Schoner's map of TAI.

I present more details on my website (follow the link), which are summarized in the downloadable PDF file.
 
It's very nice, but it's not really the milieu of this forum which focuses on counterfactual speculation as to how historical events might have proceeded in alternative ways given differing points of divergence.

What you have here is an alternative interpretation of history, geology and physics in the real world. I appreciate the amount of work you have put into it, and the dedication you have clearly languished on a labour of love. I also understand your desire to convey your theory to an audience. But this is not quite the right forum or the right audience for you.
 

Hnau

Banned
The name "alternate history" can be confusing. I think "counterfactual history" does a better job at communicating the concept of the genre--what we're creating is not optional interpretations of history but versions of history that do not follow the facts.
 
The important word is 'history': AH is rooted in OTL history up to the POD; from there one tries to elaborate 'logically' the consequences of the divergence. If the POD is too remote in time (as 'WI the mammals never appeared' -btw Dougal Dixon's The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution, while dated on minor points, is still very stimulating) or the divergence too weird ('WI Astounding Conquering Lizards from Outer Spaaace landed during WWII) there is no way to extrapolate rationally from 'real' history, there is too much uncertainty, one is inventing a story, not 'scientifically' building (alternate) history.
Of course the borderline between AH and pure fiction is often fuzzy...

Butterflies multiply like mice or rabbits: the number of possible alternatives (or of 'parallel universes' for a presentation à la Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen) increases exponentially with time. Meaning that even the most unlikely outcomes have a chance to emerge; but from some point support for educated guessing is no longer sufficient, the author has to fill the blanks with assumptions and ad hoc hypotheses, and his work turns to pure fiction. Possibly very good, but alternate history no more, re. Keith Roberts' Pavane for instance.
 
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Riaan

Banned
Re: Yes, I did wonder ...

I noticed that the only category dating far back in time was 'Before 1900 AD', which is quite far from 10 000 BC, so apologies if this is not the right forum. Nevertheless, I hope some of you found it interesting.
 
I noticed that the only category dating far back in time was 'Before 1900 AD', which is quite far from 10 000 BC, so apologies if this is not the right forum. Nevertheless, I hope some of you found it interesting.
Try Alien Space Bats.
 
Well it might not be strictly alternate history, but the user base are still the type of people to be interested so it would be better off in the Non-Political Chat subforum. You can ask a moderator to move a topic to another subforum.
 

Ian the Admin

Administrator
Donor
Dear all,

I developed several new theories about ancient history some years ago and posted these on my website for comment by readers. For some reason I missed your discussion board, which I was very pleased to find recently.

This web site is not for crackpot history theories.

Banned.
 
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