Talk:The Great Lakes

Talk page for The Great Lakes. We are open to ideas from anyone and about anything. Have fun!

Ideas Anyone?
Any contributor (or non-contributor for the reckless of you out there) got any swish ideas that we could add or change about the map, the game, the idea, anything really? ~ FP

Maybe expand the Great Salt Lake in North America to be like the size of the Aral Sea - wipe out the Aemerican Western desert. Although if you're adding fertile land - we should try to figure out where desertification WILL happen. Commandante Lemming (talk) 21:00, February 10, 2014 (UTC)

Move the lake in the himilayas to the gobi desert. ~Toby

Well, the point of this TL is to reduce the deserts of the planet. However, me and FP have been talking about this, and we have decided on the deserts. South America will contain the Atacama as well as another - much larger desert which will combined take up the regions of Argentina and Chile. If the Sahara exists, it will be around the size of the Namib desert of OTL and the deserts of Arabia still exist in their entireity. Imp (Say Hi?!) 21:01, February 11, 2014 (UTC)

Based on the Map, I'm guessing there will also be desert in North Australia. The actual rock and soil that makes up large pieces of the Australian continent is some of the worst in the world. In many areas you have desert or grassland going right up to the sea (especailly in the Northwest). Putting a big lake there will eliminate the "Red Centre" and wipe out some of the driest parts of the desert, but you're going to have to retain a lot of deert on the northern half of the continent, methinks. Commandante Lemming (talk) 21:12, February 11, 2014 (UTC)

Yeah I think you're right there. I would think maybe some of the Great Plains in the US would be desertified, effectively pushing the desert in the west further east, because of the greatly reduced sizes of the OTL Great Lakes in North America, and the fabled Dust Bowl would become a full-on desert. - FP

I thought we were going to put a lake in the Midwest? And Australia is pretty large so some desert is not out of the question. Plus, I plan to enlarge a few Pacific islands as well as a bit of Indonesia and Iceland. :)  Imp (Say Hi?!) 22:08, February 11, 2014 (UTC)

Many of the North American deserts are rain shadow deserts, meaning that they only could form in the shadow of large mountains, such as the Rockies, Cascades, or Sierra Nevada. The major lake would offset that, greatly limiting the deserts of the region. The Pueblo would probably develop further, as they had their own settlements. Just a thought. More coming soon. Yawgmoth, Lord of the Wastes

We still plan to have the rockies - just with Lakes in the region present - so many of these "rain-shadow" deserts might not exist. We would probably end up giving this area to you. :) Imp (Say Hi?!) 20:59, February 12, 2014 (UTC)

Time Period
So I'm thinking that fore this to work it needs to start early - like Neolithic early, or maybe Ancient Civ early. We could do turns in 500-100 year increments until we get to like the Middle Ages and then clow it down. Thoughts? Commandante Lemming (talk) 20:53, February 10, 2014 (UTC)

Maybe. Not too sure of the concept, however, so it will need to be looked at definitely. Btw, could you give us the names of the Oceanic tribes? :)  Imp (Say Hi?!) 22:10, February 11, 2014 (UTC)



You mean like we talked about on chat for Oceania? You have three broad groups, Polynesians, Micronedians, and Melanesians.

Melanesians are very dark skinned and related more to Australian Aborigines than to Polynesians. Their cultural area includes Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanesians

Polynesians most people know so I wont go too deep in there. Note on maps that there are Polynesian enclaves in Melanesia and Micronesia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesians

Micronesians have a mix of cultures emergin from a misx of Polynesian, Melanesian, and Filipino influences - not exactly a united cultural area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronesia#Culture

Commandante Lemming (talk) 22:26, February 11, 2014 (UTC)

So you see what I mean now about your new islands giving the Melanesians a big advantage they didn't have OTL? Commandante Lemming (talk) 22:36, February 11, 2014 (UTC)

Most definately, lol.

I once read that the Melanesians were displaced from their homelands and then moved to Australia and become isolated - becoming the aboriginals. Is this true in any regard?

I see the Polynesians still have control of New Zealand. I believe the Polynesian advantage will increase too as I make the islands bigger. However, I am not sure about Micronesia - they might just stay the way they are lol. :)  Imp (Say Hi?!) 22:41, February 11, 2014 (UTC)

I have no clue if that's tue but it doesn't sound right. And the Polynesians were always explorers who specialized in colonizing far-flung islands in search of living space. Giving them bigger islands might make them more sedentary and less exploratory. (Yes they have NZ but that was a late find for them - first colonized around 1200 AD I think) Commandante Lemming (talk) 22:45, February 11, 2014 (UTC)

My vision for the Melanesians this timeline is that they don't become an "Oceanic" culture at all, but rather a competing culture with the Javanese, and Asianized Culture, and a rival for power in OTL Indonesia with a lot of wars with the Javanese. Commandante Lemming (talk) 22:48, February 11, 2014 (UTC)

You are the man on the region, so I guess that should be ok lol. The word is might. Larger islands could also give them increased competition against each other and lead to them developing larger ships earlier on and getting to New Zealands earlier too! It works both ways lol. :)  Imp (Say Hi?!) 22:55, February 11, 2014 (UTC)

Clear
Lemme be clear:

Just because the TL has the ASB-Environmental tag does not mean we can go crazy with it. The objective is to create a fun, yet plausible, sequence of events. We want this to stand as an example to others someday. :P  Imp (Say Hi?!) 20:53, February 12, 2014 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that the Common Red-Nosed Space Bat will go extinct very early in this timeline? Commandante Lemming (talk) 21:21, February 12, 2014 (UTC)