Final Frontiers: a Map and Graphic Timeline

Introduction
Howdy, everyone, and welcome to the home of my newest allohistorical endeavor: Final Frontiers.

FF is a few different things all wrapped up into one suspiciously Australia-shaped package.

Firstly, it's a redux of an older timeline: Earth98, by u/DeFlame. I'll openly admit that I am not DeFlame, nor did I seek any permission from him to create this. Because of this, that's why I don't use the Earth98 name or claim to be some kind of "rightful successor" to the original project. However, I was a developer for parts of the original project during its collaborative phase in 2020, which is why I feel confident in my ability to redux it without either blatantly plagiarizing DeFlame or straying too far from the spirit of the original Earth98.

Secondly, it's what I like to call a "revisionist Americawank." Yes, it's le funny wacky silly goofy Big USA (wholesome poggies 100), etc. 15 stripes, 150 stars, the whole nine yards, and so on. However, unlike many Americawanks, I don't aim to use FF as a vehicle for my own vision of an ideal America, and I don't aim to portray anyone's vision of an ideal America here - neither the world nor the United States are magically made perfect on merit of America being big. Some places are better off, some places are worse off, as makes sense considering this is an alternate world.

Lastly, this is a sort of playground for my various wacky ideas - it's not going to be fully cohesive, and I guarantee you there's going to be butterfly nets and handwavium stashed all over the place, but my main goal is to make something that I (and hopefully y'all!) can find interesting to both develop and view.

With that said, let's get this party started!
 
[CANON] Wikibox: Attempted assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Reddit Link
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[S.O.T.S.] as of December 1 2022
STATE OF THE STATES
as of DECEMBER 1 2022

States on the map: 65/150
Most recent change: Columbia –> Washington

State of the States is a planned monthly progress report for the project, featuring two maps each time. The first map shows the measure of "certainty" on a scale from 1 (red) to 4 (green), with 1 meaning "this will almost certainly be retconned in the future," 4 meaning "this is permanently set in stone," and 2 & 3 being somewhere in-between. The second map shows the aftermath of the most recent change to the project.
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Now that I've got my initial backlog of posts out of the way, the ball is now in y'all's court. If there's any questions you have about the TL, any lore or map tidbits you want to see, or any suggestions you'd like to make – I'm all ears.

I can't promise to always be able to provide every piece of content that's asked of me, nor can I promise to implement every suggestion sent my way, but I can at least promise everyone that I am more than willing to at least hear y'all out.
 
BASED IOWA
Now that I've got my initial backlog of posts out of the way, the ball is now in y'all's court. If there's any questions you have about the TL, any lore or map tidbits you want to see, or any suggestions you'd like to make – I'm all ears.

I can't promise to always be able to provide every piece of content that's asked of me, nor can I promise to implement every suggestion sent my way, but I can at least promise everyone that I am more than willing to at least hear y'all out.
Will this be having the same "Dutch Florida" (And also I remember some of the states were Swedish, tho I might be misremembering from the dozens of retakes of E98) and stuff? Not necessarily in the same place, just the multiculturalism (European) from the original E98.
 
BASED IOWA
It wouldn't be a true homage to the E98 legacy if I changed anything about Iowa ;)
Will this be having the same "Dutch Florida" (And also I remember some of the states were Swedish, tho I might be misremembering from the dozens of retakes of E98) and stuff? Not necessarily in the same place, just the multiculturalism (European) from the original E98.
That's correct! Some of the details are still up in the air, but much of OTL Florida is colonized by the Netherlands ITTL, leading to an eventual American state named New Zealand

And, as far as the Swedes go, New Sweden doesn't survive until the Revolution, but there is a significant increase in the Swedish-heritage population of the Delaware Bay lands
 
I hadn't initially expected to post this tonight, but I simply can't wait. I've made a massive breakthrough in regards to the way I make maps involving alternate geography (which FF has plenty of!)
I mainly use a vector program called QGIS, which stores geospatial information in the form of shapefiles. It's very good for displaying OTL things – political and regional boundaries, watersheds and coastlines, & rivers and the like. I had never imagined that QGIS would be genuinely useful for alternate geography, but earlier this evening I had a massive breakthrough that allowed me to edit the coastline files themselves – even though I've been using QGIS for somewhere close to a year, I only made this breakthrough 2 hours ago! Attached below is a sneak preview showcasing some of these coastline edits

TL;DR, I did a cool tech thing and FF's progress has been accelerated by at least a month because of it

Screen_Shot_2022-12-05_at_1.14.46_AM.png
 
I hadn't initially expected to post this tonight, but I simply can't wait. I've made a massive breakthrough in regards to the way I make maps involving alternate geography (which FF has plenty of!)
I mainly use a vector program called QGIS, which stores geospatial information in the form of shapefiles. It's very good for displaying OTL things – political and regional boundaries, watersheds and coastlines, & rivers and the like. I had never imagined that QGIS would be genuinely useful for alternate geography, but earlier this evening I had a massive breakthrough that allowed me to edit the coastline files themselves – even though I've been using QGIS for somewhere close to a year, I only made this breakthrough 2 hours ago! Attached below is a sneak preview showcasing some of these coastline edits

TL;DR, I did a cool tech thing and FF's progress has been accelerated by at least a month because of it

Screen_Shot_2022-12-05_at_1.14.46_AM.png
Alt-geo has arrived.
 
[MISC] Hiatus Announcement
Howdy, everyone, just wanted to apologize for the recent drop in activity and to post here what I've said on a few other spaces - my last day of finals will be over in a few short hours, and I'm immediately heading home to spend time with family and friends whom I haven't seen in a fairly long while. That being the case, I'm declaring an official hiatus from my usual rate of work on Final Frontiers. I might pop in here every couple days to post minor observations or ideas I've had, so if y'all have any questions or feedback, please don't hesitate to post them! My plan is to return in mid-January, by which time I hope to have the map 2/3 complete (100 states).

Thank you all for your patience and your continued interest in the project, have this QGIS screenshot Midwest map as an apology for my imminent disappearance.
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My grandma was a native of OTL Sutton WV. Weird seeing West Virginia being in Northern California in OTL, and sleepy Sutton being a major city in Appalachia is cool.
 
Working on some demographics and apportionment stuff now, man I forgot how annoying this stuff was, but the detail'll be denser for it
 
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