WIP: unnamed Earh-like planet

[groovey]

Hi again! I'm working on the winds but meanwhile, I'm trying to solve a world-building issue. So sorry for interrupting the flow.

Warning: long post on a con-History building. Feel free to pass if it's not your cup of tea.

NaNoWriMo is coming and I want to use the motivation it gives to work on one of the stories I have planned to write based on my world. But I need to re-think a couple of things regarding politics.

In the story in question, as I've mentioned, Arlia and the Empire have a tense relationship made worse by the "kidnapping" of a Princess of the Empire by an Arlian Prince.

POLITICAL (24OCT15).jpg
UPDATED VERSION WITH ARLIA AND ONCAR SWITCHED

Since in the very helpful input you all gave me a while ago I had to accept that Arlia wouldn't realistically be a trader with Picsi, I have to re-think stuff to justify Arlia being a rich nation, with both the resources and motivation to have the best ships of their era.

I considered moving Arlia to where Oncar (in green) is, but then it'd be hard to justify why the Empire wouldn't simply send a fleet to rescue the Princess, either by crossing the bottleneck between both tips (about 444km), or navigate through the coast past Inalia (in yellow) to get there. So I'm afraid that wouldn't work.

Thus for navigation to be the reason the Empire can't get the Princess back by force, Arlia is best where it is.

Trade is the only thing I can use to justify Arlian being rich and having the best ships of their era.

With Picsi out of the question to trade with and get gold from, Arlia could happen to produce highly desirable goods to export that the eastern continent would desire, making it worth for Arlia to invest on good ships to be able to get to the continent.

Does that sound reasonable? I guess Arlia's main difference could be its tropical climate so the valuable goods would have to be either unique spices and/or certain manufactured goods made with unique variations of materials.

Generic argument I know, but would it work?

Would it also make sense for them to follow the islands chain and colonize the southern tip of Acelor, because that way they would control, for example, areas with mines to get valuable metals or gems from? I figure it must take lots of time and effort to get to said tip, but if the profit is high, it'd be worth it for them to do?

This though, could open the chance for Arlia to trade with Oncar directly, not just the Empire. Oncar, with decent ships, could cross the bottleneck and follow Acelor's coast a bit a meet halfway with Arlia at some point, thus reducing the re-distributor role of the Empire.


The dynamic between Arlia and the Empire changes depending on Oncar. If:

1. The colonization of Acelor's tip by Arlia is not plausible.

OR

2. It is but trade with Oncar isn't

Then the Empire it's Arlia's only big trade buddy and thus makes both powers equally dependent on each other and gives the Empire a role as re-distributor of Arlian goods to the other powers in the continent. Trade with the Empire would take place on its western coast as the shortest, more direct route.


However, if the tip's colonization is believable, then:

- Trade with the Empire would be done on Acelor's eastern coast

- And, Arlia would trade with Oncar too because it sounds more reasonable than defending the contrary.

- Arlia is not as dependable on the Empire, since it has another (not quite massive) market to trade with.

- The Empire losses the re-distributor of Arlian goods role with Inalia and Oncar.


So I need to know which of the 2 situations is the plausible one, or if another that I haven't considered is even more likely, to figure out in the end why the heck would Arlia get in so much trouble with his major trade buddy in order to get an Arlian consort on the Empire's throne.

Sure, if the Arlian Prince can dominate the Empress he could do stuff to favor Arlia when it comes to trade, but what benefit would be worth the risk, especially if Arlia-Oncar trade is not plausible and the Empire it's Arlia's only market? The consort wouldn't be able to turn the Empire into Arlia's colony or anything equally extreme, there'd be only so much he could do before the nobility controlling the provinces would oppose.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, I revised it several time to reduce it as much as I could, but alas, is still pretty long.

I'd appreciate any input, because I'm starting to think my whole premise of the story (the kidnapping) doesn't make any sense at all for Arlia to do, and that would change the whole story.

[Durakken]

Based on the currents I'd say there are 2 major trade routes for Arlia to the Continents...
You're gonna go to the island directly north of the Arlia label and then take that to the east to the western gulf (i think that is the correct term) coast of Acelor
The other route is much longer and you'd head south island hopping to Hemlia and then island hop north to Ascarlia's southern tip... and then from there and for the return trip you'd head west to Acelor, either heading north along it's coast or head south and try to get to the islands and back to Arlia before you drift to far west. That complete journey would probably take 2 or 3 years I'd guess. I'm not knowledgeable the specifics hear but you're talking about a trip that is roughly equivelant to a mixture of the trans atlantic travels of the colonial age along with the ships sent to explore asia which have to take a long, tedious, out of the way journey around Africa and many traders, as I recall, stayed years at their destination before returning home if ever.

The problem you have, considering that is that you haven't defined any of those regions as having anything there to make that type of travel a regular and profitable thing. I'm pretty sure most of these trips made their money on trading with each port of call which in this case there would be tons with island hopping, but that would extend the travel too.

There also lies another problem, the length of time to get between these places would be hellishly long for most of us to contemplate about ^.^ but there is a story to draw from, Helen of Troy and the Trojan War which is what you've pretty much set up, perhaps accidentally, with such travel time between the two nations.

Also, given the currents, Arlia would be fairly easy to get to if they have a fleet on that west coast as it would be a fairly straight shot down for them. It's jsut the way back would be against the currents which is never liked in sailing. So they could deploy quickly but their return would take time.


Question: What is the purpose of the Arlian Prince? Is it love or political power or lust or trying to get one over? And what is the governance of the Empire like? Changing these would change the response as a Princess with no Princes to claim the thrown would give claim to Arlia over the thrown where as with a Prince it would not, at least not directly.

[groovey]

Very interesting stuff Durakken.

Pixie's currents map is essential for me to keep in mind for this stuff. What I had most difficulty with was calculating the time of the journeys... mind you, I had months in mind... years it's obviously not plausible.

So no colonies, and so, no trade with Oncar. Good to know for further development.

The Arlian prince has big brothers and daddy issues (feeling insecure compared to his siblings and wanting to please his over the top father). He and his men save the Princess while a plot to kill the Emperor and her is going on during a feast.

Problem is, once out they're not sure where is safe to take her to, since they can't be sure who the bad guys are anymore, so for her safety and to hopefully score a point with his father, the Arlian prince decides to bring the Princess to Arlia.

The Princess, as the only surviving child of the Emperor besides the heir, a lunatic very unlikely to reproduce due to physical reasons, has high chances of inheriting the crown, IF, the war that erupts soon after the feast killing, wins on her favor, especially after her brother, the Emperor since the feast killing, dies with no issue.

The Princess is also a first cousin of the Arlian Prince through her dead mother.

So that's Arlia's excuse if they are demanded excuses, that it was for her safety and for that reason they keep her, more so because she is their family, but of course, what they care about is to capitalize her, thus why they pressure her to marry the Prince, which she ends up agreeing with. So if her supporters at the Empire win the war the Arlia gets a consort on the Empire.


The Empire is a heavily centralized administration. My main model was Persia and the satrapy system, but not exactly.

When it comes to administration, the Empire is divided in 24 big provinces, each under the administration of a duke level noble. Legally they are civil servants of the Emperor and not Lords of the provinces personally, and they have a civil servant above and below their level who act as "spies" for the crown to know what they're up to, but in practice, as times passed by, by a combo of weak rulers and economic troubles, the crown got weaker and the "Dukes" got stronger and the position became practically inheritable as a family office.

The "Dukes" are the ones who have personal contact with the main forces of each province, so they get lots of personal loyalty from the provincial administrators under his command, and the military officers in charge of the troops recruited in the province in time of war. So in the last century and a half some "Dukes"/provinces have become quite a challenge to the crown, who has to deal with them as if walking on eggs, and hasn't dared to try and impose changes to defuse the situation, in fear most provinces would rebel.

Thus why an Arlian consort would have to be very careful not to push the Arlian card too much.

EDIT: nevermind, I'm in big trouble.

So I did some basic research on travel times with a ship like a medieval cog and a caravel.

What I got is that a cog, under not too adverse conditions, could do 40-60 miles per day, roughly 64-96 km/d.

A caravel, 65-85 mpd = 104-136 km/d.

Then I traced a rough route line from the Empire to Arlia (in green) keeping in mind the currents... and got a rough distance to travel of 8.671km... Each grid square is 1cm=667km.

17OCT17 route distance.jpg
A modified route from Pixie's case study because of a slight change in the currents with the new version.

So, with a cog, with optimistic conditions i could take between 3 to 5 months , and with a caravel between 63-83 days... and that's on the way of the journey where the currents help you... I won't even try to calculate the way back to the Empire.

I mean, can you image how utterly terrifying would be for a young girl who has been isolated and sheltered all her life to spend months on a ship full of men she doesn't even know at all? And how weird it could get? It's absolutely imposible to make it work.

So yeah, Arlia can't be where it is right now. I need to find a new location. I'm thinking where Oncar is again... and perhaps go with the excuse the Empire doesn't send its fleet to get her is because before the diplomatic channel is exhausted, war explodes in the Empire, shifting the focus of the Emperor.

[Durakken]

It's not a complete lose here.
First off, given the trade routes there really is no reason for the Arlian Prince or anyone else from Arlia to be in the Empire other than perhaps as an exotic trader that the Empire is showing it's power to.
Secondly, Based on what you've implied from the Empire's position and all that Swifendlia likely doesn't have a ship that can maintain that trip to begin with so they likely wouldn't do that.
Thirdly, The trip that you laid out is not the trip that they'd take, both because of the above reason, but also because it is assuming the Princess and Emporer would be at a harbor city that isn't overall that important.

The above solves your problem and is far more exciting to begin with... I mean how exciting is "then they got on a boat and when they got there waited to be attacked"?
What would happen is the Arlian prince might be a traveler. He's out trying to do deeds to impress his father so it's only natural that he'd be in places that others of his ilk wouldn't be.
And when he gets to the capital of the empire they would recognize the name and likely be very open to him. And then perhaps he overhears the plot. He attempts to tell the Emporer, but can't get to him.
He can however get to the princess and tries to tell her, but it's too late. He tells her as it is happening and with no other option left open he saves her and himself. There's nothing he can do as the Emporer's assassins have assumed control of the city and so they flee. The princess that is missing is assumed dead and lost in the chaos. But they make way some province to seek help, only to almost killed again.

They escape across the inland sea and again seek aid from another province, this time prepared for being attacked. Whether this province helps them or not, they get sent south into the foreign nations and hopefully to the "colony"/"trade partner" on the western coast of the continent and then from there head to Arlia over the ocean. By this time an extended trip probably wouldn't be all that bad for the Prince and Princess... but when they get to Arlia the King and brothers are likely going to be mad or try to steal the Princess because they are bringing the internal conflict of the empire to them and also to marry the Princess generally means that you will rule the Empire in the future or your child will... You can also assume that some just like the way she looks. And then from there they'd have to flee again and you could then turn your story into an island hopping adventure ^.^ but whatever.

Back in the empire you could have the 2 factions... The new Emporer claiming the princess is dead, killed by the assassins... against the faction that believe the Princess is alive and is the legit ruler of the Empire due to patricide being something that disqualifies someone from taking the throne. Both sides prefer the princess missing as without the princess she can safely be said to be dead while the other side knows that as long as they don't know where she is she is safe from being killed.

This sets up Arlia as the ones in pursuit of the Prince/Princess with maybe a small group from the Empire looking out for her. The travel time from the empire to Arlia in the manner they do would allow the two to grow close and for the Princess to go from someone with no experience with the world to someone who is capable by the time they leave Arlia. This also allows the story to take place over years like a lot of these events do without having that problem that you were having with the travel time between the Empire and Arlia for the Prince/Princess journet between the two. The trip would be much longer, but it would also be less claustrophobic in nature than a ship journey.


edit: >.> btw... it should be mentioned that I don't have a job nor degree in any of these associated areas that I comment about... or anything really lol. I have an associates in general sciences or something like that which took several years to get for lots of reasons ^.^ So if it's not apparent much of what I know is didactic or from low level college courses (lots of them) so if I say something that doesn't fall in line exactly with what you know, as it happened earlier with Pixie (i think) in this thread, that's why. Just thought I'd mention that since it appears to me that you and others may be much better sources than me in lots of cases and I don't want to give the wrong impression and get you messed up.

[a.coldyham]

All I can say is, I would read that book/series

Sent from my SM-G357FZ using Tapatalk

[groovey]

First of all Durakken, thanks again for your input.

Interesting premise... but adventure stories are not really my cup of tea. I was going for a court intrigue story, which by the way I have very fleshed out/planned, but spared you all the bore.

Plus, in the beginning the Prince would never choose the Princess's needs over his father. That's precisely his character arch, so until the end he struggles but mostly favors his father instead of his wife.

Well, my reasoning was that since the Empire would be Arlia's main trade buddy, and the shortest route in the Empire's western coast, an important city would have developed around there because of that trade route, so it could have a palace that the Emperor could have retired to for some reason. But yeah it's a bit farfetched. The feast would have to take place on a city on the inner sea, close or in the capital, on the area we discussed a while ago (the north-east tip of Acelor), and the Arlians would not be there.

So you actually gave me another reason to discard Arlia where it is and place it where Oncar is, and so Oncar would be with Arlia is and get the trade history instead.

Arlia's new position will change the dynamic with the Empire, but it still works for story purposes. So now:

1. The Empire is a re-distributor of its own goods (since it keeps away foreigner traders except in a few key ports) and of goods from Oncar (where Arlia was before) to Inalia and Arlia (now in the bottleneck where Oncar was). Its resources are quite diversified because of the different areas it controls, plus it gets "exotic" goods from Oncar.
Specialization: diversity + exotic goods redistribution.

2. Inalia has a "silk route" going on with lands on the north-east, and so it's a re-distributor of goods from the to the other 2 powers and viceversa. Inalia, more than the others, is the most dependant of its re-distribution role to be relevant. It could be a semi-Venice type of power, very rich but relatively small. Perhaps more than a unified nation is a federation of merchant republic poleis, with lots of inner competition, which makes it potentially unstable and weak if it gets too bad.
Specialization: redistribution, specially spices.

3. Arlia. What does it bring to the table?
It's a unified kingdom with a slightly superior naval tech in the continent.
But why is it stronger than Inalia and a pain in the butt to the Empire? Could its specialty and value lay on mining colonies of valuable metals and gems? And manufacturing and trading of special quality armor and weapons and jewels for the aristocracy? It has the best metal treatment knowledge (which is very protected) so they can get better quality.
Perhaps it has colonies on his north-east coast, following the warm current north and then back home with the cold one.
Perhaps it has also colonies on Acelor's east coast following the current's circuit there.
Does this sound reasonable?
Specialization: mining and related manufacture


How difficult would be for Arlia to cross the bottleneck on its shortest point (cir. 444km) versus the warm current going up? I reckon with a cog kind of ship under not too favorable conditions it'd take about 6 days, but I'm not sure how going against the current would worsen the journey time.

[Pixie]

I can't help sharing my take, groovey, here goes:

- I think switching Oncar and Arlia is a wise move.

- There is still ample reasoning for Arlia to become a naval power.
One, if its original population is composed of refugees from the Empire, they will have an emotional bond with seafaring. Two, that strait is surely crossed over and over by trade, as is the sea north of Arlia. Third, the coasts to the south of Arlia are probably deserted or semi-deserted, but populated by less developed people, and Arlia would have a key interest in monopolizing trade south of the strait.

- In terms of territory, the entire south coast of the inner east sea is probably homogenous in climate and culture, it might all be "Arlian". I see it as Iberia for Carthage - an area where resources abound and colonies thrive into major production centers. Indeed it could be an area rich in metals where superior iron (steel?) was produced. Or, being an area of prairies, it could be home to aboriginal cultures with horse riding, which would have influenced Arlian warfare to a degree where they can be a match to infantry based armies from the Empire...

- Like we discussed before, the large plains to the west of the strait would be a constant source of conflict between the Empire main cities to its north, and Arlia across the strait. If you are designing an empire with reasonably high level of regional autonomy (satrapies), then Arlia would probably invest a great deal of diplomatic resources in trying to turn those provinces to its side. Those provinces would be to the Empire what Egypt was to Rome - the bread basket.

As for your question, about crossing the currents in the "strait". I don't think it would be a problem, but in cog-era, it would be very dependant on the winds. Since the area is far from the equator and from the 45º parallel (the westerlies), winds wouldn't be constant. Sailors would have to be knowledgeable of wind patterns and wait for the right conditions before sailing east or west. (This could add some tense moments in a story, say, for a group running or for an army waiting to cross.)

[Durakken]

I think one of your major problems is that your map is a world map and so you want to spread out, but we're talking about an era when Europe and a small bit of Africa was the world to Europeans and Asia was the world to Asians. What you migt find of benefit to get your mind on where exactly Arlia should be is to match a real world map up to your world map, draw a circle around europe with London or Rome at it's center and then transpose that on your map to see just how much of the world is of "concern" to the Empire.

Just Eyeing it I'd say that Oncar and Inalia are in the "far east" to them. They are the Persia or Carthage to Rome. The surrounding areas should likely be dominated by them more, but the important thing is you want to move Arlia to a place where they are sea faring, Of some level of power in the area, and friendly with the Empire.

My question here is, how do these nations rank against each other on a scale of 10? I presume something like...
Empire = 10
Arlia = 8
Oncar = 7
Inalia = 5
Reuran = ?
Newori = ?

Given the range of their perspective and the trade routes as they stand right now... I'd say the power ranking something like
Empire = 10
Arlia = 3
Oncar = 5
Inalia = 9
Reuran = 2
Newori = 2

Oncar doesn't matter if you're not trading outside of those seas
Inalia would then control most of the eastern sea, but is weaken by it being much larger.
Arlia is should be some mystical foreign power near unheard of in the whole of the other countries
Newori and Reuran are at best equivalent to Korea or Japan which may have some minor influence indirectly, but only through whatever power exists between them and Inalia.

In short Arlia brings nothing to the table because it doesn't exist to the Empire as it stands right now.

Historically the things that brought in wealth and power are Spices, Porcelain, Drugs, Metals, and Guns.
I don't think you can go the spice route because they're in the same area of the world if you move Arlia to Oncar and thus produce the roughly same spices.
Porcelain only worked because of the fact that it came from far away thus there was a very limited supply. This wouldn't work.
Drugs not sure you want to go that route lol
Metals...This is attached to Guns more broadly as weapons and armor. Here's the thing... Iron is plentiful which is why the iron age happened...not because it was the best metal, even during the iron age. Copper, Tin, Zinc (ie Brass and Bronze) was the best up until the tempering of steel was figured out and even then Brass was an equivalent and a sign of wealth, because Copper, tin, and zinc were hard to come by and it took quite a bit of work to get the material to the same or better quality. And even then steel didn't reach the heights it did till the bessemer process allowed for large amount of iron to be processed into steel fairly quickly and accurately. The technology was there long ago, but never applied to iron btw.

So I'd say you should move Arlia to Inalia and make the teritory it covers larger, owening all that coastal area that is free now.
OR
Move Arlia to Oncar and see if there are Copper/tin/zinc mines there that they can export (which btw if they did would likely carry the effect that they'd be treated grandly by the Emporer... Orihalcum (Likely what we call gunmetal) was said to be second in value only to Gold. So if they had rich deposits of those metals they'd surely be a force to recon with. On the other hand, you could have them be the ones who have developed the Bessemer process or Gun powder and primitive guns which would give them large amounts of capital.

For your story, if you go with the mines you could have Arlia be influencing the provinces via buying them off, but that is fairly meh imo. If you give them the Bessemer process or Primitive guns then you can really have some fun because then you can set them up as the weapons dealers which comes with it plenty of drama and instant turn abouts. Think about the scenario where one faction has a navy of thousands wood ships, only to suddenly be outclassed by a province that until then had no navy buying a single steel ship from Arlia, or the materials to do so. You can fine tune the power of Arlia then as well with how much iron they can get/have and how many forgese are active.

[groovey]

I like a lot the possibilities brought by having Arlia be where Oncar was, and having an edge on key metals mining and perhaps be the heir of the first culture to develop a rough but stable gunpowder to make weapons. Or maybe they stole the knowledge. So metals and guns is Arlia's special trait and edge. So no colonies for Arlia? I'd like some, if only to give it another different trait and explore ancient like colonialism.

Story wise, it'd be awesome if Arlia was actually the first power in the area to develop those new weapons, 'cos then they could influence the war with a smaller army but with new mind-blowing weapons for those facing them for the first time. So the war could be the debut of a new era of guns.

When you say "Arlia brings nothing to the table because it doesn't exist to the Empire as it stands right now", you mean even when located where Oncar was? because physically is like 444km away from the Empire, roughly 6-13 days of journey depending on the conditions.

I did what you said of using Europe as a reference. I got a world map, made it the same dimensions of my map. Very roughly, moving Eurasia for Anatolia/Turkey be where Oncar/Arlia is, Greece and Rome stand on the western tip of the bottleneck. Contact with Greece and Persia was frequent enough, so it seems plausible for Arlia and the Empire to contact a lot through the bottleneck unless said bottleneck is considered too difficult to cross.

This is what I'd want them to rank in influence:

Empire = 10
Arlia (where Oncar was) = 7/8
Inalia = 5/6
Oncar (where Arlia was, now I don't need it to be much involved in the big continent, I just need its trade)= 4
Reuran = not sure yet, perhaps high in the far east, but only indirect influence on the inner seas.
Newori = idem

I'd like Inalia to be only second to none to the Empire economically, but not as a power, so richer than Arlia but not politically/militarily superior to Arlia. Is that compatible?

I'm not sure about moving Arlia to Inalia, but if I did, Arlia's relevance in the area would be self-justified. What coast do you refer to that it should control? To the west? The east? Both?

[Durakken]

Island Arlia = Non-important Arlia. They are in my reckoning as far aways from the Empire as Rome is to South Africa or China. They may interact in some nebulous way such as different ends of the Silk Road, but direct interaction is non-existent, or sparsely just beginning.

Oncarian Arlia = Only relevant with trade to southern Ascarlia and Acelor or if it has some other new thing that makes them a power.

Inalia is in the same position as the Empire with regard to it's neighbors and depending on it's origins and such should have an area of control equivalent to the empire or on it's way to that position. That projection of power would end up with Inalia's territory being much if not all of Toec Thar that the empire and Oncar doesn't already control. They likely would border the empire in the northern edges, or if you want a small bit more drama you could have a neutral state between them that was created in some sort of truce.

As far as colonies... that makes it an empire, but an Island Anaria would likely control all the islands it hops to while Oncarian Alaria would likely be expanding southwardly with any nations along the coast of South Western Ascarlia paying tribute and the same of South Eastern Acelor unless the empire stepped in which it might, but that's doubtful save for that nation that border the empire's southern edges because then that is when Oncar's position would become important since the empire could not put ships to defend those regions against the might of Arlia.

In fact if you were to place Arlia where Oncar is and history moved forward I would bet on some sort of Trade federation happening encompassing the entire southern half of both of those continents headed by Arlia with that whole chunk of the Empire breaking off and becoming part of that trade federation, of course as several different nations, but still the entire chunk of that is part of the empire at the time. much like we currently have the whole trade thing with US, Japan, Canada, UK, etc...