Map of the Fortnight: Main thread

[Turquoise Blue]

Originally Posted by Kaiphranos

I don't like The Unification of Humanity.

Random thought for a tweak of If I Ran The Zoo: what if heads of state were ineligible?

I like that. More interesting that way.

[Tom Thumb]

Originally Posted by Klisz

What do you mean? "Make a map of an existing Shared Worlds game?"

I mean like a round where you can make a map of whatever you want.

[B_Munro]

Some more:

KABOOM
World 1950 after Yellowstone has a mild, but still devastating, eruption in 1897

LOTSA FLOWERS BLOOMED
Have a world with 5 Socialist Great Powers in it, certainly most of them are to be Marxism-inspired. At least 3 of them must be in allied against a/several common foe(s), and there must be a respectable non-socialist bloc or two as well

ASHES TO ASHES
Show a steampunk society that has run out of or reached peak coal.


THE MISSING REVELATION
Depict a world or region of the world in which a major religious figure (Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad) or philosopher (Socrates, Confucius) never existed.

THE DARK SIDE OF MAN
Create a map depicting a major man-made disaster or atrocity and/or it's effects. Can range from a holocaust or other ethnic cleansing, a nuclear disaster like Chernobyl or a chemical disaster like Bhopal, an ecological catastrophe like the introduction of cane toads to Australia, etc. No ASB maps, future scenarios may be allowed as long as the problem is caused primarily by the failures of human intelligence: runaway grey goo or a terrorist-bombed skyhook OK, the rise of skynet or intelligent apes no OK.

JUST THE TWO OF US
Show a world in which humanity shares the planet with another fairly wide-spread intelligent species. They must have been aware of eachother's existence for at least a couple centuries, so no fair 1492 with American chicken-people. No magical-powered beings, although aliens, colonists from space/another dimension, or odd evolution is OK. PODs, of course, may go waaay back

FOR THE LADIES
With PODs after 1453 (the Modern Era), show a world in which Women's Liberation of some sort succeeded over much of the globe at least a century earlier than OTL.

QUITE A FEW, ACTUALLY
Show a world in which territories governed by the Pope (which need not be in Italy) are pretty formidable militarily. Let's put PODs after 1075, when the Investiture Controversy and the Pope-Emperor conflict kick into high gear.

ON THE RUN FROM THE SCIENCE POLICE
Maps from a world in which rather than Communism, Technocracy (or some other oddball "loser" movement from OTL) was the major 20th century alternate to liberal Capitalism.

Bruce

[Krall]

Originally Posted by B_Munro

Some more:

Please, no more. There's such a thing as too much choice, you know.

[Klisz]

I support They Came From Earth-2 and Time of Legends.

[B_Munro]

Originally Posted by Krall

Please, no more. There's such a thing as too much choice, you know.

Hokay ...

Bruce

[Krall]

Originally Posted by The World Jones Made

For Want of a Shah, PWNED Islam and a Khan for All Seasons are all three a bit too narrow for my tastes (though if PWNED Islam could be broadened to include a scenario in which, say, Christianity is merely the state religion of 21st century Ethiopia and nothing more, it'd be a pretty nifty and difficult MotF I definitely could get behind).

Hmm, so a challenge where a religion that became a major religion in OTL remains/becomes minor and restricted to a small area? That could certainly work! We could call it "The True Believers".

Originally Posted by Kaiphranos

Random thought for a tweak of If I Ran The Zoo: what if heads of state were ineligible?

Would Heads of government still be allowed? I'd love to see someone do a take on Winston Churchill's or Otto von Bismarck's perfect world!


I'd like to add another couple of suggestions to the pile. This is one I thought up whilst researching ancient civilisations recently:

Babylon is Fallen
Make a map depicting an extinct ancient civilisation that did not exist in OTL, or did exist in OTL but becomes extinct in a manner different to their extinction in OTL. You may show the civilisation whilst it still existed (whether it's growing, at its height or in decline), the event - or series of events - that lead to their extinction, or the ruins of the civilisation after their extinction.

And one I thought of just now:

In the Wake of Giants
Make a map depicting the aftermath of the decline of a large empire, powerful civilisation, or major international organisation. (Examples from OTL may include the Khanates that formed following the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire, Europe following the division of the Frankish Empire, the Diadochi following the death of Alexander the Great, the former British empire following decolonisation, and so forth).


Out of the other challenges that have been suggested so far I like "If I Ran the Zoo" the most, though I also like "The Unification of Humanity" and "At the Ballot Box".

"They Came from Earth-2" has a lot of support, but I really don't like it. It requires people to come up with a history for a whole alternate Earth, an explanation of how cross-timeline travel works, and a reason for them to invade another timeline. There's just too much timeline work, and not enough focus on map-making, so I don't think we'd get all that many entries for it. Just to see if I'm correct how many of you have a good idea for an entry for the said challenge, and would be willing and able to enter?

[Kaiphranos]

Originally Posted by Krall

Would Heads of government still be allowed? I'd love to see someone do a take on Winston Churchill's or Otto von Bismarck's perfect world!

Eh, it was just a thought. Maybe it'd be better not to limit it.

Babylon is Fallen
In the Wake of Giants

Either of these would be cool for a future contest.

"They Came from Earth-2" has a lot of support, but I really don't like it. It requires people to come up with a history for a whole alternate Earth, an explanation of how cross-timeline travel works, and a reason for them to invade another timeline. There's just too much timeline work, and not enough focus on map-making, so I don't think we'd get all that many entries for it. Just to see if I'm correct how many of you have a good idea for an entry for the said challenge, and would be willing and able to enter?

I'd be up for giving it a shot.

[Turquoise Blue]

Originally Posted by Kaiphranos

Eh, it was just a thought. Maybe it'd be better not to limit it.

I think maybe we should not allow Hitler, so it would be more interesting.

[Krall]

Originally Posted by Kaiphranos

Eh, it was just a thought. Maybe it'd be better not to limit it.

No, I like the idea of excluding heads of state - it means people have to look for more obscure people with strong opinions on what the world should be like!

[Alex Richards]

Originally Posted by Krall

No, I like the idea of excluding heads of state - it means people have to look for more obscure people with strong opinions on what the world should be like!

In cases where the political views of a person look not so much on borders as domestic politics etc. would it be acceptable to focus on a particular country to show them?

[Krall]

Originally Posted by Alex Richards

In cases where the political views of a person look not so much on borders as domestic politics etc. would it be acceptable to focus on a particular country to show them?

I don't see why not.

[Muwatalli']

I like PWNed Islam/The true Believers, In the Wake of Giants or the Missing Relevation

[The World Jones Made]

Originally Posted by Krall

"They Came from Earth-2" has a lot of support, but I really don't like it. It requires people to come up with a history for a whole alternate Earth, an explanation of how cross-timeline travel works, and a reason for them to invade another timeline. There's just too much timeline work, and not enough focus on map-making, so I don't think we'd get all that many entries for it. Just to see if I'm correct how many of you have a good idea for an entry for the said challenge, and would be willing and able to enter?

I don't know if that's necessarily true (I think too much about the why and how of every map I work on anyway), and in any case, I believe that drawback would be more than outweighed by the fun of being able to deviate wildly from the norm. Also, we could narrow the challenge by specifying that it has to be a map of OTL during/after contact/invasion/whatever, with a map of the ATL optional, or the reverse, with OTL being the invading party. So, us invading Naziworld to eradicate its intolerable evil once and for all, or Aztecworld invading us to convert us all to Cyber-Quetzalcoatl (hello, fellow Tom Strong fans!), but not the eternal global Roman Empire of Continuum56^298 infiltrating Steampunk Victorianworld (although, that does sound kinda cool).

Furthermore, we've had several improvised three-week fortnights so far, why not with a more complicated challenge like this one make that the deadline from the get go? That way, everybody knows they've got lots of time to work on the MotF right from the start.

Anyway, obviously I'm up for it. They Came From Earth-2, can I get an amen, people?

(However, I'd also be fine with Unification of Humanity, True Believers or At the Ballot Box - future history included.)

[My Username is Inigo Montoya]

Originally Posted by Krall

Hmm, so a challenge where a religion that became a major religion in OTL remains/becomes minor and restricted to a small area? That could certainly work! We could call it "The True Believers".

Support this.

[Ares96]

I support "In the Wake of Giants".

[Krall]

So, there are quite a few very good challenge suggestions with substantial support at the moment. What I'll do is go back over the past few pages and tally up everyone's opinions to see if there's one that's clearly the most popular.

If there are a number of different challenges with similar levels of support, I think it might be a good idea to choose one at random, and schedule the others for future contest rounds.

[Krall]

According to my calculations, "If I Ran the Zoo" is the most popular challenge suggestion at the moment. I'm planning on running it with the proposed restriction of not allowing heads of state. What do you guys think?

[The World Jones Made]

Originally Posted by Krall

According to my calculations, "If I Ran the Zoo" is the most popular challenge suggestion at the moment. I'm planning on running it with the proposed restriction of not allowing heads of state. What do you guys think?

Boo! Bad restriction, doubleplus unfun challenge. Also, I count as much or more support for True Believers and one or two other suggestions...

(EDIT: ...but If I Ran The Zoo is fine, really. I just hope the other ideas we've been spitballing these past couple of days don't get lost in the shuffle.)

[Ares96]

I can also support "If I Ran the Zoo", if it is popular.