The Challenge
Make a map depicting a country or singular polity that has existed for a long time.
The Restrictions There are no restrictions on when the PoD of your map should be. Fantasy, sci-fi, and future maps are allowed.
If you're not sure whether your idea meets the criteria of this challenge, please feel free to PM me or comment in the main thread. Sometimes it isn't as clear as I intend it to be.
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Entries will end for this round when the voting thread is posted on Sunday, December 3rd, 2017. ---
ALL DISCUSSION ON THE CONTEST OR ITS ENTRIES MUST TAKE PLACE IN THE MAIN THREAD. PLEASE.
Any discussion must take place in the main thread. If you post anything other than a map entry (or a description accompanying a map entry) in this thread then you will be asked to delete the post. Remember to vote on the previous MotF round!
Scenario: The Sentinelese people, considered the world's most isolated tribe, resume contact in 2020, initiating it as a show of gratitude towards a government that has finally respected their desire to be left alone. Through oral traditions, anthropologists are able to learn how and why the Sentinelese seceded from the outside world and withdrew from society over a period of nearly 1,000 years.
This map is from my usual 'Greek Napoleon' scenario
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As stated on previous maps, because Napoleon was crowned the King of Greeks in 1800 the OTL Directory never was overthrown during the coup of 18 Brumaire leading to a defeat against the Austrians who restored the Bourbon Dynasty. With many Revolutionary leading political and military leaders leaving the restored French Kingdom for Napoleonic Greece, the populace who were too poor to travel and were stuck under oppressive Royalist rule again rose up for a second time.
Although returning Paris to Royalist Rule was relatively simple, they had problems regaining control of the edges of the Kingdom; especially in the North, Brittany and Normandy who had become accustom to the equality instead of being run as food production areas of the Aristocrats. The French Kingdom reached out to his neighboring states to help 'deal with the problem' by promising small but reasonable land concessions.
Civil unrest died in Brittany and Normandy not long after the first sight of the mighty British Navy because the local populace knew they were no match for a combined French and British attack. Britain saw this as a change to get back some former Medieval possessions and was granted the Calais and the Cherbourg areas. Cherbourg, unlike Calais, was made a 4th Crown Dependency in recognition of the shared heritage with Guernsey and Jersey.
With a failed harvest in the Autumn of 1805 the hungry and disgruntled populace rebelled again, only with this time the equally starving army joining the rebellion. By the Winter of 1805, with Royalist Control limited to the Loire Valley with it's castles, the King of France once again cried out for help to his neighbors; who being rather reluctant to go keep the peace in France once again only did so after the promise of yet more land concessions. In the Congres of Orléans, which took place before foreign intervention as to assure favorable conditions, the Dukedom of Normandy was restore as a British royal fief and the said Dukedom was extended with the shown Bailiwicks.
Ichitsá Rýznttim zi Nixix Náffy. The Kingdom of Infinite Peace
Fýga izí yi ni fyga izýf yi ni fyga yi ni izizy. All there ever is, all there was ever was, all there ever will be.
Ichitsá Rýznttim zi Nixix Náffy, the Kingdom of Infinite Peace, lives up to only one of those. Peaceful, the Kingdom is, from the brimming homeward of Mitib to the distant orbitals in the Trojans of Ychilv. There has not been a major war in the system since before men knew of iron. But though the Kingdom is peaceful and ancient, infinite it is not. For a species that has been civilized nearly since we came down from the trees, the Tuzum are remarkably primitive, content to stay around Diaptaz, their red sun, until trillions of years from now, it burns out.
Though no technological insights are to be had from this remote, primitive backwater, they contain many societal insights. They have achieved a level of stasis and order that most sociologists believe impossible for humans. In a civilization of two hundred billions, they were thirty-seven murders last year, and other crimes are similarly low. Their economic and population growth is indistinguishable from zero. It seems that if uncontacted, Ichitsá Rýznttim zi Nixix Náffy might have remained unchanged for a billion years. Now, of course, that has all changed.
(If my accompanying notes aren't acceptable I'll happily remove them, but I thought they were helpful in dissecting the scenario.)
The Kingdom of the Angels
The origins of Angelcynn are shrouded in legend and folklore, with tales of guiding maritime fairies, alizarin wyverns and the causeways of the gods. In actuality it is thought that the great Germanic tribe of Anglii were evinced of it's existence and subsequently migrated there in the wake of Khristian[1] missionaries as the Celtic petty kingdoms rallied and Slavs invaded Preten[2]'s east coast. Regardless of the kingdom's beginnings as either a utilitarian exodus or a clairvoyant gallivant across the sea, it is abundantly clear that the little kingdom has existed since at least the Post Imperial Period.
Isolated and sparse, the Kingdom has changed rather little since their initial settlement and Khristianization. There have been periods of intermittent, internecine warfare, royal coups and even a brief republic; but the culture, language and disposition of the Angels has remained constant and so alien to much of the outside world. Though they regularly traded with such neighbours as Skotland and Telemarke[3] in woollen cloaks, dried cod and birch sap, this droll commerce rarely imbibed foreigners with a sense of wonder for the icy northern isle and the Angel traders themselves were historically infamous for their inscrutable jejunity[4].
It was only within the past four centuries that they became relevant to the outside world, primarily in the discovery and colonization of the Hesperides[5], and herein they became especially well known for their boat building. Angelcynn's birch wood forests were and are meticulously kept, concomitant with their historically strong central government and bookkeeping tradition adopted from the Abbots of Saint Wigmund[6]. Having bred and experimented with these woods for over a thousand years, they had developed a remarkably durable and light material[7] that could be applied to the boat building practice en masse. And so they became key to the exploitation of the Hesperides.
Later, their shipbuilding practice would see their merchants flood abroad to warmer ports as far afield as Cina and Hindoostan[8], where the one most lasting and exceptional cultural evolution would occur; the adoption of tea. It proved incredibly popular with the Angels, so much so that it would entice an adventurous consortium of Hindoostani shreni[9] to arrive in the state and plant the roots of the country's first and largest expatriate community; Wúscbearn Zæstræn (Little Zastrayana).
When the colonial period waned and the world's great powers gradually fell, Angelcynn remained and subsequently remains to this day. They are the only country in the world to have an uninterrupted 2000 years of existence.
~
[1] - Christians with a K.
[2] - The term for this world's Britain.
[3] - Roughly OTL Norway, but bigger.
[4] - Y'know, just like real British people pre-Empire.
[5] - The Americas.
[6] - Historically, Iceland's birch forests were cleared away due to unbridled clearing and consumption as fuel during the Medieval period, that has not occurred here.
[7] - An early form of plywood.
[8] - China and India.
[9] - A form of ancient Indian guild, the term is more widespread ITTL.
~
Now, every single one of the names of the towns and cities on this map were developed by flicking through an Old English dictionary and smashing words together, and I imagine you'd all be quite interested in as to what they exactly mean. They are (roughly) as follows, in no particular order:
Angelcynn - England
Atlantshaef - Atlantic
Niðerecg - The lower edge of the brink
Cúéage - Eye of the cow
Ísgeblædell - Ice blister hollow
Abbodríburh - Abbey town
Brycgweard - Defender of the bridge
Benorþanfeor - North of Feorbuend
Scýn - Shy
Sanct Ethel - Saint Ethel
Stángefeall - Pile of fallen stones
Wealhmærburh - Wealhmær's town
Weatendell - West end hollow
Angelcotlíf - Fishing hook village
Feorbuend – Far off dwelling
Wæterhelm - Covering of ice
Dismburh – Town of steam
Fierddæl - Campaign dale
Fengeládcotlíf - Village on the fen
Æfnoðcotlíf - Village of Æfnoð
Súþdældell - Southern hollow
Bælegsacroft - Fire croft
Acsanmúða - River mouth
Langeástæp – Long southern shore
Brecanóra - Broken shore
Sanct Wigmund Abbodríce - Saint Wigmund's Abbey
Æblæc – Bleak
Gicel – Ice
Æg – Water
Scrínburh - Box town
Gáraburh - Cape town
Áglæcwífcotlíf - Crone village
Ásweartianbeorg - The hill that turns black (at night)
Wúscbearn Zæstræn - Little/Childlike Zastrayana (founded by Indian merchants)
Cynrio – A Germanic king
Fægre Cniht - Beautiful boy
Hereburh – Harbour
Efesmere - Lakeside
Healhsæburh - The maritime town in the nook
Mægenwundor - Striking wonder
Smiþþan - Smith's workshop
The Arab and Berber armies of the Aghlamid empire completed their conquest of the isle of Sicily in the year 962. The island would face great waves of migrations from the African continent, becoming majority Arab as early as 1201.What the Aghlamids and later the Fatimids would not be able to anticipate was how much of a maritime and trade power Sicily would become, with the Sicilians overtaking their masters economically as their products moved into reluctant but willing European markets. As they achieved de facto sovereignty, political and economic power continuously grew in Balarme. This power manifested in year 1112 when Muhammad bin Abd Al-Reman led an invasion of the now Masmuda controlled Tunis. By 1200, much of Ifriqiya would be under Sicilian control.
By the 1500s, Sicily was one of the dominant trade powers of the Mediterranean, rivaling even Venice and Pisa. These years would be the peak of Sicilian power and influence. However, the next 400 years would slowly chip away at Sicily's territory and influence, losing Tripoltania to the Alawiyyids of Egypt in the 1700's. Still, at 1900, Sicily remains a prominent regional power, certainly when compared to the political turmoil in Rome and Lombardy above them (a turmoil that, as the 20th century would prove, would plunge the peninsula, and then the continent, into war). Apart from its stability, the region is also known for its tourism as well as its arts, stemming from the melting pot of cultures and ideas that would occur within her borders.
Sicily's official language is Arabic, however most speak Sicilian, a hybrid language taking from Arabic, Berber, vulgar Latin, and Greek among others. Arabic is primarily used in the courts and government, as well as more formal situations. Its culture represents its position as a crossroads of civilization. Still, there is some underlying ethnic and religious tension, especially among the Berber population. This would become a source of turmoil in the future as nationalism rises.
The Roman Republic, mostly free of the corruption and greed that would come from a non-democratic system, managed to hold out against the Germanic Hordes for much longer. They set up defences along four of Italy's major rivers and held the barbarians back there. Even after the heart of the empire held, the rest was lost.Rome would never again be a great military power. Instead, the Roman Republic became a cultural and technological centre in Europe. They managed to keep their independence right up to the modern day. Rome's population has grown to a massive 17 million and is now one of the largest, most prosperous, cities on earth.
Inspired by an old Paradox Grand Campaign game, a modern-day Byzantine Empire. The Empires of Britain and Byzantium signed an alliance in the mid-10th century at the beginning of the Crusades and together they conquered much of the Middle East, reducing Islam to an interesting historical footnote. Throughout the coming centuries, the British and Byzantines remained allies against all odds, following much the same path of expanding empires around the globe (the one overseas colony Byzantium had was in Indonesia), and creating democratic societies. And while the alliance used to be known as the Crusader Axis during the Middle Ages, the more popular name for them today is the Imperial Twins. Traditionally the first overseas trip of every new British emperor/empress is to Constantinople, and vice versa for every Byzantine emperor/empress.
With the millennial anniversary of the alliance coming up, the councils of London and Constantinople are both getting ready for festivities like none either city has ever seen. The centre of these celebrations will include a symbolic coronation of Ariadne, Empress of the Hellenes, in Westminster Abbey, symbolically making her a second monarch of Great Britain, and Malcolm V, Emperor of Great Britain and Egypt, will likewise be crowned Emperor of the Hellenes in the Hagia Sophia. The ceremonies are expected to draw a television audience in the multiple billions all around the world.
Following near collapse in the early VII Century, the Sassanid Empire was blessed with a series of decent rulers and great weakness from potential enemies. The Gökturks had proven unable to actually take down the Iranian fortresses to the east, and the rising Malikate, weakened after succession wars posterior to the death of the empire's founder, Muhammad (who did not manage to get the same amount of followers as iOTL). Succession wars deeply weakened the Malikate and resulted in the creation of an extremely weak confederal structure. The religion wars, of course, continued anyway, and Iran was deeply destroyed: the Zagros, a natural point of defense, was the end of the strength of Islamic advances. The Sinai and Cicilia were the limits of the expansion of Islam within the Byzantine Empire's borders. Weakened and torn apart from Egypt, Rome soon lost all but its heartland in Greece and Anatolia: Egypt became an independent state - the Coptic "XXXIII Dynasty" which ruled Egypt until the late 800s.
All states in the Middle East, even Byzantium, have, for differing periods of time, been occupied by other States or annexed into largest empires. Even the proud Roman Empire was annexed in the mid-900s by a short-lived Avar Empire, and then usurped by Slavonic-Viking warriors in the early 1000s. Only Iran has remained unoccupied, and under the rule of the same Sassanid dynasty (and after the extinction of its main line in 1237, by the Sassan-Mihranid cadet branch). The collapse of the Malikate made Iran a dominant power in the Middle East.
Today, Iran has evolved into a parliamentary monarchy and the world's wealthiest country. The Iranian government, originally Zoroastrian (until Shapur VIII's conversion to Mazdakism in 912 AD) managed to defeat the political interests of rival dynasties and the clergy by emphasising radical economic redistribution and democratic ownership of the economy. Its main regional rivals today are not the Roman and Arab enemies of old, but rather new powers: the multiethnic United States of Turan up north, and the Republic of India. Iran's old enemies, especially Rome, are now, ironically, strategic allies: economically allied with Asorestan, Makan and the Mubarakkiyah (also deeply communistic, although fully democratic), are by far the world's greatest producers of oil and deeply dominant within the international stage.
