Geographical Standards

View and discuss existing rules, new rules, policies, and regulations of the MCS.
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Geographical Standards

Post by darcyj »

The climate, flora, fauna and other features are identical to that of the Earth as a base standard.
As I have asked in the past, I would like to see this part of the simulation developed further. In particular, a map similar to the Physical Map showing climate and biome zones.

Development of such a map should be undertaken by an expert committee, because the climate of a planet is a very big deal and we can't just pluck it out of thin air (no pun intended).
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Post by Ryan »

I have been thinking about doing such a map for some time now. However, it runs into a couple of roadblocks.

1. There is the fact that the various MCS members, both present and past, have influenced certain climatological expectations on certain areas. Istvanistan is, for example, supposed to be decidedly-Balkan. But its location suggests a tropical climate.

2. Enforcing a set climate also runs the problem of conflicting with members who use fictional/fantasy elements. Wizards/runes controlling the climate? Flying islands (or they used to fly)? Nanites enforcing a special climatic region? And other such scenarios.

3. Cultural-oriented nations, such as Babkha which is supposed to be Middle Eastern (in the sense of a climate) is going to expect to maintain the same climate. Any such climatological-mapping will require mapping these things into the final product.

Like I said, I'm not opposed to it, I'm simply rolling these questions over in my head and looking for a solution that would be amiable to all parties.
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Post by darcyj »

Babkha has always seemed pretty easy to me - it covers a broad expanse of the middle latitudes, not unlike north Africa, from <10S to >50S. That's a huge spread, equivalent to the distance from Sierra Leone to England, but certainly most of that is arid. Such a large continent as Babkha can't all be arid.

Istvanistan presents a different problem. It's location, between 5 and 20 degrees latitude, is similar to the Philippines but also to southern India - probably more so to the latter since there is a large stretch of open ocean to the west. The southwest monsoon reaches this area in June and starts to retreat in August, and then in November the northeast monsoon hits. Of course, the presence of the rest of Asia, defining the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, may contribute greatly to these weather systems. Since Istvanistan is sitting isolated, you would not expect the same behaviour from storms and cyclones. It is also to be noted that Bangalore and other elevated areas in southern India enjoy a climate which is not oppressively humid and tropical, so the answer for Istvanistan might be to make it nice and hilly ... and that would suit the Balkan theme as well, right? A little warmer than Belgrade, but you can't have everything.

If they didn't want to be warm, they shouldn't have chosen land near the equator.
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Post by Bill3000 »

darcyj wrote:Babkha has always seemed pretty easy to me - it covers a broad expanse of the middle latitudes, not unlike north Africa, from <10S to >50S. That's a huge spread, equivalent to the distance from Sierra Leone to England, but certainly most of that is arid. Such a large continent as Babkha can't all be arid.

Istvanistan presents a different problem. It's location, between 5 and 20 degrees latitude, is similar to the Philippines but also to southern India - probably more so to the latter since there is a large stretch of open ocean to the west. The southwest monsoon reaches this area in June and starts to retreat in August, and then in November the northeast monsoon hits. Of course, the presence of the rest of Asia, defining the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, may contribute greatly to these weather systems. Since Istvanistan is sitting isolated, you would not expect the same behaviour from storms and cyclones. It is also to be noted that Bangalore and other elevated areas in southern India enjoy a climate which is not oppressively humid and tropical, so the answer for Istvanistan might be to make it nice and hilly ... and that would suit the Balkan theme as well, right? A little warmer than Belgrade, but you can't have everything.

If they didn't want to be warm, they shouldn't have chosen land near the equator.
Considering the fact that Istvanistan's island was placed retroactively there once it joined the MCS, and als othe fact that the MCS originally didn't care much about the biomes of the planet, leaving it to the nations, I don't say that is much of a choice. I do admire your want for there to be consistancy, but in the end, culture overweighs realism here.
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Post by Guest »

...however, if the map were to, say...reset., with everyone keeping their land mass but not necessarily the location, that could solve the issue, neh?
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Post by Fax Celestis »

Erm...wtf. That was me.
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Post by darcyj »

The climate, flora, fauna and other features are identical to that of the Earth as a base standard.
Bill3000 wrote:... but in the end, culture overweighs realism here.
You can't have it both ways.

Incidentally, in describing the likely effect of the monsoon on Istvanistan I neglected to point out that the direction of the weather systems will be opposite to that which southern India experiences. The north-central part of Australia is a closer analogy, especially with significant islands away to the northwest (just like Istvanistan), and northern Australia gets nothing like the amount of rain that southern India does.
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Post by Ryan »

Either pro or con, any decision to implement a climate map would have to be supported by the greater majority of the community (the MCS' members).
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Post by Bill3000 »

Fax Machine wrote:...however, if the map were to, say...reset., with everyone keeping their land mass but not necessarily the location, that could solve the issue, neh?
I'd tell you right now that I absolutely, positively, would not support this.

As well, something tells me that this is similar to the hard issue that I had to learn myself - you cannot enforce culture to other nations.
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Post by Scott »

I don't see Istvanistan as so much of a problem since with enough climatological knowledge you could probably come up with a reason to make it colder (nearby cool ocean currents, perhaps). But I think this would be a bad idea for the sake of the future. Right now, you can accomodate pretty much any country you want anywhere you want. If there were a defined climate map, you would have to find hot places for Mideastern based countries, Mediterranean climates for Roman based countries, and so on. It would make your job much harder and create much more of a limiting factor for people who apply.
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Post by darcyj »

Only a problem for those micronations who have a deep and abiding need to incorporate the weather into their simulation. And if the MCS Policies say "This is the climate" then that's no different to any other policy and a micronation which can't live with it ...
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Post by Fax Celestis »

Problem there, John, is that there's a preexisting state of affairs.
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Post by darcyj »

Fax Celestis wrote:Problem there, John, is that there's a preexisting state of affairs.
In that case, why not adapt the planet to the state of affairs?

The official line is that Micras is as similar to the Earth as it gets, including distance from the sun and axial tilt. However, if -

(1) Micras received less total solar radiation, either by being further away or by the star being slightly less luminous; and

(2) the axis of rotation was tilted over 30 degrees instead of 23.5 degrees;

then the tropical weather would be less severe and the temperate weather would extend further from the equator in the summer. Winters in high latitudes would be nice and cold, of course, but the worst of that would be only a brief period at and after the winter solstice.
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Post by Bill3000 »

I'd probably agree to that. The entire Earth "basis" is, IMO, not to be taken literally. What it means is that as a basis, Micras is like Earth, not some far-out alien planet. This does not mean that the scientific details can't vary a bit, considering the fact that Ryan himself has no interest in these details.

Of course, there is the problem that I generally see Gong Li to be at the very least mediterranean, if not more, considering the fact that it was Hau'Oli'Ena, a Hawaiian themed micronation. Probably mediterranean. Bah. This would be a lot easier if the world was not extended. :P

End result is that, unfortunately, not all micronationalists are interested in the scientific aspects. Most that are interested are interested due to the conworld applications to make a semi-realistic world, rather than actually interested in the mathematics like you and I are. After all, the main purpose of a conworld is providing a background for stories and other projects. (e.g. simulationist micronationalism in this case) We need a consensus with other members of the organization - what are we supposed to do if they do not care?

We also would still need to take into account that magic exists on Micras due to the nations participating in it, but that's not as much of a problem, as, after all, we are interested as Micras as a base here; the existence of magic is meant to be non-conflicting in the most general sense, but then again, there are the ideas of the Flying Islands in the past, (although that's sci-fi, not magic) as well as the fact that Nauda'Diva was created through geomancy.

If anything, I'd amend the regulations to have "Earth as a base" to "Micras as a base", where "Micras" is the qualifications that we have for the planet. It can (and will) be extremely Earth-like, of course, but not necessarily a clone of Earth.
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Post by Ryan »

Magic is not the only thing that exists. Mar Sara during Hubert's era was proto-futuristic. We have elements of steampunk, Vampirism, and so forth.

I don't see these much affecting the climatological aspects however.

The reason for keeping it similar to Earth is simply because if we don't, then all aspects of the planet need to be fleshed-out and accounted for, which is an extremely large task, to say the least.

Part of the enjoyment of this hobby rests in the ability to conduct freeform creation. If we put Micras in a box, we stagnate the creative aspects. I do not want to see that happen.
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Post by Bill3000 »

The reason for keeping it similar to Earth is simply because if we don't, then all aspects of the planet need to be fleshed-out and accounted for, which is an extremely large task, to say the least.
Which is the where I am getting at, at least for the largest global details, rather than climate. We have people willing to do this.

I don't see how it would put Micras in a box by doing such a thing, anymoreso as keeping it a vague "exactly like Earth" type of deal. So Micras has, for example, slightly higher gravitational acceleration than Earth. What would that ultimately do to creativity? Or a slightly colder climate. Probably the only thing that would be affected would be calanders (length of year), but the vast majority of Micras micronations have different calander systems with different lengths of year anyway.
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Post by darcyj »

Bill3000 wrote:I don't see how it would put Micras in a box by doing such a thing, anymoreso as keeping it a vague "exactly like Earth" type of deal. So Micras has, for example, slightly higher gravitational acceleration than Earth. What would that ultimately do to creativity? Or a slightly colder climate. Probably the only thing that would be affected would be calanders (length of year), but the vast majority of Micras micronations have different calander systems with different lengths of year anyway.
I agree with Bill. Somebody write down the date :lol: "Micras has exactly the same physical characteristics as Earth" is just as much a box as if we invent some alternate characteristics. (Incidentally, it is stated that Tarsica is half the size of Micras, which is a bigger moon-to-planet ratio than Moon:Earth, so that would mean differences).

Today, I don't have time. Tomorrow and the weekend I might be able to work on a scenario.
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Post by Fax Celestis »

So if we "spin up" Micras a bit, making the gravitational pull 10.0 m/s instead of 9.8, and changed the tilt of the axis to 30 degrees, how much would that change?
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Post by Bill3000 »

Gravitational acceleration is 1) m/s^2, not m/s, and done by the mass of the planet and the distance from its center. Regardless, it won't do anything very noticable at all.

Changing the axis tild would be different, as it will affect the length of seasons.
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Post by darcyj »

Bill3000 wrote:Changing the axis tild would be different, as it will affect the length of seasons.
Not so. The time from solstice to equinox would still be roughly three months.

And there seems to be some misunderstanding in some of the replies above. In advocating a small reduction in the total heat received from Micras' sun, I am suggesting cutting back the power of the star itself - not moving Micras further away (which would lengthen the year, and I think there would be a large majority consensus that a year is a year) and not speeding up the axial rotation (which would similarly screw around with the length of the day).
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Post by Vehendi »

I'd suggest moving it away and speeding up the tilt to 13 m/s²
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Post by Bill3000 »

I'd suggest moving this particular discussion to the Micronational Astronomy Society, whose current project is to actually work on this. :P

As well, I think that changing the length of the Micras year is fine. (and neccessary, actually - why should a planet in a different solar system have literally the same orbit as Earth's?)
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Post by MENJ »

Bill3000 wrote:
Fax Machine wrote:...however, if the map were to, say...reset., with everyone keeping their land mass but not necessarily the location, that could solve the issue, neh?
I'd tell you right now that I absolutely, positively, would not support this.

As well, something tells me that this is similar to the hard issue that I had to learn myself - you cannot enforce culture to other nations.
What you say is very correct. Nazi Germany tried to impose its culture (ie Deutch language) upon the rest of Europe but they failed. This is because "nation" is a religious thing and people feel threatened by foreign cultures. For example, Arab, Kurd and Turk are Islamic nations, while Copts, Assyrians, Armenians and Ethiopians are Christian nations. Even today in the 22 States that make up the "Arab" world, observant Christians do not call themselves Arabs. Its only the unobservant Christians (such as folks like Hanan Ashrawi and Edward Said) who call themselves "Arabs", eventhough God commanded "Thou shall not lie".
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