Map Thread XIII

[Lowtuff]

I'm not sure, there's some lands that were well north of the Arctic Circle (or below the Antarctic one) that were practically subtropical in the Cretaceous.

Really? Huh! You learn more about the nature of prehistoric climate every day, I guess. (jokes aside, looks like I'll have to read up some more about how polar climate works!) Thanks for the protip all the same, beedok.

Thanks for the kudos, lowtuff!

My theory was that Tibet would retain an ice-cap, but the Himalayas would still peek/peak out above it. The plateau itself would be a few hundred meters higher than on Earth thanks to the ice, an Antarctic landscape. Most of the rain would be coming up from the south during the summer, and a lot of it would fall on the ice-cap after having been elevated. The Great Siberian Rivers would flood dramatically.

Just as an aside, I have started to prefer retaining OTL geographical names as much as possible, except when they're explicit directions. North America becomes West America, West Africa becomes South Africa, the East Indies are the North Indies; Australia remains Australia, not Borealia (it does mean southern, but it's already translated); The Arctic Sea remains the Arctic Sea, not the Tropical Sea, Antarctica remains Antarctica, not Tropica (Arctic comes from arctos, for bear, it has cold weather connotations, but a tropical sea could easily be named after bears). And just to complete the examples; China is still China (there was no Qing here), and America is still America (there was no Amerigo Vespucci here).

Your thoughts on glacial dynamics seem solid! That comment about rivers (aside from the impacts it will have on a region liable to be the heartland of the tropics) does point towards a general theme here, this is going to be a very wet world, at least in comparison to ours. Might be an idea to mark down the main mountain regions and the currents, to have an idea where those few deserts that will pop up will be. (I feel as if any dry areas in newly-southern-asia will still be pretty well watered. Maybe a great eurasian steppe analagous to OTL's?)

Totally on board with what you're saying about placenames. What with the world _literally_ turned on its head and all the geographic and climate-wise changes, some familiarity is needed to keep your grasp on things steady.


Lots of islands that'd probably remain above the waves were too small to be marked on the basemap this is derived from, and I've been trying to add some via eyeballing the map, but this only goes so far. Just an FYI in advance if anyone tries using a tilted map only to find a lack of, say, the azores.
Current wip is here: Only have South America, Antarctica (most liable to be redone later, but at least will be a starting point) to go, thankfully. This is being traced by hand and climate, projection caused distortion and various slights of hand tend to mess things up. If anyone thinks anything looks off here, please point it out!

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In addition to that, 1925 in the hemicycle-verse's North America.

 

[Beedok]

That's amazingly fast tracing.

 

[Lowtuff]

That's amazingly fast tracing.

Thanks a bunch! As fiddly as it can be, I've yet to find anything automatic that can draw out a border better than just sketching it out can.

 

[Beedok]

Thanks a bunch! As fiddly as it can be, I've yet to find anything automatic that can draw out a border better than just sketching it out can.

I know that, I tried to get something to work many times, but it never goes well.

My tracing efforts are so slow though. (Also I get bored of it fairly quick.)

 

[Petros >Peter Fergus<]

-deserts-

Salt Flats at OTL Pinsk/Pripyat marshes could be one of the driest places, they have the Urals to their west, and no other way for water-laden wind to get to them. West America seems to be like ours but upside down, so the Yukon Desert would be quite dry. South Australia would be dry like our Australia, but the coasts below the Great Dividing Range would be verdant. Siberia would be quite dry like you say, but the yearly monsoon would water the central regions to steppe conditions, but Yakutia would be a desert-steppe. I think Egypt and Sudan would be deserts too. As for the rest of Africa, or East America, or Antarctica, I don't know. I had a map of precipitation for the thread a few years ago, but it was swallowed up into the save file of a later work in progress for the climate in general before I could finish or post it.

Another big question in my head was where the water from the Tarim basin is going to end up. The Tibetan icecap directly feeds it, and as a basin, it will form a lake, but I can't figure out if the outflow will go west to China or south to Siberia.

 

[BionicWilliam]

The water will either build up or flow to Central Asia

 

[Lowtuff]

...And here we are, it's finished!

 

[iori]

...And here we are, it's finished!

Now we just need someone to draw the OTL borders onto it.

 

[Lowtuff]

Now we just need someone to draw the OTL borders onto it.

Actually, luckily enough I've already started on that! It's an approximation, though in areas such as Scandinavia the raised land means the borders are new.

 

[Thande]

For a bit of a laugh I decided to dredge up my very first AH efforts from 2002 (before I understood things like the butterfly effect and, er, borders) and make a new map. Ironically, this is a much better basemap than any that were available to me in 2002 - I still remember it being a revelation that Newfoundland was an island Oddly enough I tried to make it from memory before remembering I had an old map to work from, and it was interesting to contrast what I had remembered and what I hadn't.

CPLR stands for Commonwealth of Puritan Levelled Republics, incidentally.

 

[Thande]

Actually, luckily enough I've already started on that! It's an approximation, though in areas such as Scandinavia the raised land means the borders are new.

I used maritime borders for that when I did a lower sea level map.

 

[Lowtuff]

I used maritime borders for that when I did a lower sea level map.

Thanks for the tip, Thande - that'll probably be what I aim for. Might as well take the opportunity to add still-above-sea-level islands and some ice caps as well.

 

[Utgard96]

For a bit of a laugh I decided to dredge up my very first AH efforts from 2002 (before I understood things like the butterfly effect and, er, borders) and make a new map. Ironically, this is a much better basemap than any that were available to me in 2002 - I still remember it being a revelation that Newfoundland was an island Oddly enough I tried to make it from memory before remembering I had an old map to work from, and it was interesting to contrast what I had remembered and what I hadn't.

CPLR stands for Commonwealth of Puritan Levelled Republics, incidentally.

Since you said this is old, I'm going to forgive the "Union of Kalmar". This time.

 

[Thande]

Since you said this is old, I'm going to forgive the "Union of Kalmar". This time.

That's what you complain about?

I remember my moment of awakening in realising what the butterfly effect was when I thought 'ooh, I could go back and change the Roman Empire to the Reman Empire, too!'

 

[TheseusDeuteros]

For a bit of a laugh I decided to dredge up my very first AH efforts from 2002 ...

I find the Hegemony of Lublin intruiging...

 

[Thande]

I find the Hegemony of Lublin intruiging...

I basically independently invented the idea of Piłsudski's Intermarium (never having heard of the real one). Supposed to be former Russian (er, Kievan) possessions that broke away after a war and formed an alliance.

 

[Beedok]

We need Bruce to do a cover.

 

[Thande]

We need Bruce to do a cover.

I was actually thinking that myself! Though trying to make that semi-realistic would tax even his powers...still, by deliberately not writing any background, I suppose he could come up with alternative origins to what they actually were for these countries originally.

 

[Asami]

I basically independently invented the idea of Piłsudski's Intermarium (never having heard of the real one). Supposed to be former Russian (er, Kievan) possessions that broke away after a war and formed an alliance.

I did that once. In an "alternate future" in which I had stuff like Greater Slovenia, Franglia, et al; I created a totally unique nation wedged between an enlarged Poland and a rump Russia.

I said, "Poland-Russia? Prussia!"... and then found out a short time later that, well, Prussia was a thing.

 

[B_Munro]

I was actually thinking that myself! Though trying to make that semi-realistic would tax even his powers...still, by deliberately not writing any background, I suppose he could come up with alternative origins to what they actually were for these countries originally.

Kinda busy right now (I have 3-4 maps in progress) but I'll add it to my "to rework" maps folder.