Sunday, November 4, 2018

Locations


Once again, going over a soft refresh.


On the front page, on the main map, clicking on it will take you to one of 19 pages. Of these 19, only five were completed. For the most part, these are specific locations. You can also access most of these locations by clicking on flags on one White's various section maps, divided into the following sections: The Northeast, the Feudal Core, The Plains, and the Desert. There is also a "Cascadia" sectional in the index, although it's not found on any of the site's finished pages. Most of these pages come with a flag, and some kind of map of the state's borders.

Some locations are countries or nations with their own pages, White having covered four of them. They're usually, but not always, states that have retained, or even expanded, their original size and exists as a single political unit. However, in some cases, they're divided, usually a parcel of land to give a religious institution autonomy.  There doesn't seem to be any correlation to a nation getting its own page and size, though most of these seem to be in the "million" range or so. These nations include

Iowa: Includes what was Illinois. A sizeable kingdom forged by barbarians going native Straddles the line between herdsmen and Non-Denominational culture.

Deseret: Most of Utah and Idaho. A Hydraulic Empire, practices Mormon. Salt Lake City is an important trading city.

California: Split between a so-called republic, and some kind administrative polity for the head of the Church of Scientology.

The United States: The former US Navy now exists as a sea-faring, dominating the coasts and islands of the Northeast, it has something a little different than the usual border maps.

Ohio: Composed of Ohio, Indiana, and large pieces of both Kentucky and West Virginia, and by far has the largest population of any nation in America. It's also home to eight sizable cities, and Cincinnati if a candidate for the continent's biggest city overall. In its borders are four former state capitals, which in White's World, means four supervisors for the American Non-Denominational Church. While it has access to the Great Lakes, it seems most of the action is by the Ohio River.

New Jersey: Borders have expanded to now include Philadelphia, one of Medieval America's biggest cities. Something of an outlier, as it is a feudal kingdom when most countries on the northern coasts are maritime republics or city states. This may have something to do with it being more agrarian, as the trade map infers it's the only place east of the Appalachians that has a surplus of grain.

Louisiana: A counterpart, and perhaps rival, to the United States of America, like the US, it has two separate click points on the front page map. Louisiana has shifted its borders away from its historically inland parts , and now holds non-contiguous parts of the Gulf Coast. Here is where Voodoo is practiced, and it seems to the most "Caribbean" part of North America. It has New Orleans, which may be the continent's biggest city.

New Mexico: A desert empire in the southwest, most of its population living on the Gila or Rio Grande. They practice a yet undisclosed religion known as New Age. There are a few references to Ancient Egypt, but it's likely Native Americans would be a large part of their ancestry.

Columbia: So named for its place on the Columbia River,situated between the Cascadian and Rocky Mountains (and White seems to call it the "District of Columbia", presumably as a joke to torture those who get Washington D.C. and State mixed up.) Is the only feudal kingdom to exist in Western America, though it apparently shares some culture with its western neighbors. Its flag appears on the hidden Cascadia section page, but you cannot access it through the front page map.

Quebec: There's no section map with which to access Quebec, nor does White have a map showing its full borders, as while he likes giving hints here and there of Canada, the most information is about the United States itself. What we can surmise is that some of its outer borders have been chipped away at, but the Quebec along the St. Lawrence largely remains intact. It's a typical feudal nation, although unlike Anglo North America, it seems to be largely Catholic. Quebec City seems to be an important religious center-though we don't quite know what became of Montreal.

New York: Curiously, most of the nation states White deemed giving their own page places that remained largely intact in size, or have even grown, but political New York seems to now be a rump state--The State of New York, with Syracuse its only manjor city. The NYC area and Long Island are now under the control of the United States, and western New York seems to be largely a Lakes nation now. White apparently felt Central new York was worth writing about, as the area is the gateway between the Atlantic and the Lakes. In general, it's been divvied up into sections that have merged with broken up  parts of other states, with the exception of  what was historically the Capital District (Albany and surroundings), and it may act as something like an ecclesial fiefdom.

There's also Tennessy [sic]: This also a state that has been broken up, although it's possible white uses "Tennessy" to distinguish it as a region, as opposed to the state, which still calls itself "Tennessee". It's probably Balkanized due to geography, with the deep south subtropical west compared to the mountainous east. The Iowa page also mentions that Missouri had been annihilated by barbarians, but now merchants from the Tennessee area are now rebuilding it, so even though it's divided politically, on a cultural level it's expanding.

These are the multi-nation, more informal region pages that clicking on the map will take you to. Besides the Plains, which is a special case, White never finished a page for any of these entries, so we don't know what they would be like. Most do have political border maps, though. Here's where I'm starting to throw in a little more conjecture.

The Plains: Basically clicking anywhere on the Great Plains will take you to the lifestyle map, as they're nomadic an don't really have states. It does seem some larger tribes have claimed land of their own, and one of the tribes, the Andersons, have their own flags.

New England: Where once was six states, there's something like ten or so, depending on what is still considered "New England" (maybe Albany), and most are similar in geographic size, although Massachusetts (the only state White has given a flag to) probably has most of the population, absorbing most of Rhode Island and Connecticut, With the United States taking the rest (not to mention a piece of Massachusetts itself). In fact, the relationship between Massachusetts and the US would be interesting, as White hasn't made it clear who New England's two biggest cities, Boston and Providence, belong to. (If Mass isn't a client state of the U.S. itself) With the exception of the Lake Champlain area, New Englanders tend to form republics, probably similar to the town councils dating back to the colonial era.

Lakes: A collection of decent-seized fiefdoms on the Great Lakes, consisting of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ontario, and western Pennsylvania and New York, with Michigan being the most populated. Chicago and Toledo are major cities on the Lakes, but their respective countries seem to focused on more inland matters. Like USA and Louisiana, the Lakes page has two separate click points, although they don't seem to be as maritime-based. The combination of rich farmland, snowy winters, and peninsulas would probably create an interesting, dualistic, amphibious culture. Also, the Lakes would be a more important fulcrum of trade, as well as a theater of war, as has not been any military action there since 1812.

Piedmont: Named after the plateau between the Appalachians and the swampy tidewaters, Piedmont refers to Virginia and the Carolinas, this is some of the oldest colonized land in America, and may most closely resemble a turning back of the clock, as opposed to something new. The warfare map seems to also indicate the area is relatively relaxed.

Deep South: Funny enough, on the main site, the "Deep South" is the heading for the page for southern lifestyle, though the address says "Dixie", which makes one wonder if White was going to switch things around. It's also interesting that "Deep South"'s click range is irregular-shaped, just like the Plains, which is also a lifestyle page. In any case, the mini-nations include Georgia and an expanded Mississippi. Between the lifestyle page, and the race page, we probably have a good idea on what it's like there, but what's especially interesting is that each of the Deep South's two "big kingdoms"each have these castle icons called "major fortress", and this page might be the place that what a major fortress actually is.

"South Front": Possibly called "Southern Frontier". Made up of a reduced Arkansas and a new nation called "Red River" territory, which includes parts of Texas, remaining bits of Arkansas and Mainland Louisiana. A real patchwork nation. This seems to be at the very edges of the "Non-Denominational World", with the herdsmen to to the west, and the Voodoo to the south. In fact, Red River may indeed practice some Secretarial government.

Pacific Northwest: Clicking on the uppermost left of the map with bring you to this page, which has the same address as the section map; Pac NW, though the map itself calls itself "Cascadia", and it seems White never actually claimed the domain name. From White's various map, we can surmise is a collection of sizable, but independent city states. They generally practice Buddhism, and are a little more belligerent than the region has a rep for being today.

If you click on a certain point in the Appalachian range, you're led to something called "eheresy", which you can also access on one of White's religion maps. I generally have no idea what that involves--if I had to guess, something to do with either Elvis or the Mothman or snake-handling, but I can't really be sure.

2 comments:

  1. Great post as always. I think the eheresy refers to an evangelical heresy as I assume the non-denom church isn't as dogmatic as medieval Christianity is.

    ReplyDelete