Alternate History Thread III
- Thread starter Luckymoose
- Start date
Symphony D.
Deity
You're sort of missing my point. It doesn't matter whether the Mediterranean was never closed or not. That won't do anything to change the sea level within it, because it's level currently (or close enough). It's not really enough to change the tidal flow either. Certainly not enough to drastically alter landforms, which tides would take an immense amount of time to do all on their own. The appetures at Suez and Gibraltar are too small and too sheltered and doing that takes too long geologically. Tides just aren't a significant factor in costal formation - sea level is, and even if the Med is open, it comes to the same height. Suggesting just adding more water should alter the coasts of the entire planet, so that's no good.
To radically alter it in the way you're suggesting would require something new and novel, like blowing the entire Iberian peninsula (Spain, mostly, or at least the southern half or so) off the map, and perhaps setting off some volcanic activity. Asteroid strikes are pretty handy for that.
To radically alter it in the way you're suggesting would require something new and novel, like blowing the entire Iberian peninsula (Spain, mostly, or at least the southern half or so) off the map, and perhaps setting off some volcanic activity. Asteroid strikes are pretty handy for that.
Symphony D.
Deity
That's just a measure of tilting Africa. The Red and Dead Seas are still there; nothing significant is changed in terms of Africa being a plate or its dividers, merely how it moves. Plate tectonics only modifies things when land smacks into land or volcanos shoot up.
That sort of thing doesn't explain the French Riviera sinking, the Qatara Depression becoming a lake, or Calabria and Piedmont exploding. In short, no, it doesn't work.
Realism or go home.
That sort of thing doesn't explain the French Riviera sinking, the Qatara Depression becoming a lake, or Calabria and Piedmont exploding. In short, no, it doesn't work.
Realism or go home.Actually I think it would, the alpine period (well the funny spelling of alpine), is shorter, or non-existant. Not so much mountains etc
And as i said, anyway that is can be made to work is acceptable to me. Asteroids are a good idea.
And as i said, anyway that is can be made to work is acceptable to me. Asteroids are a good idea.
das
Regeneration In Process
Any progress yet, Kal?
carmen510
Deity
I demand a future history of a WW3 between Russia and United African Patriotic Front vs. China, America, Canada, the European Union, Scandinavia, Japan, Mexico, the rest of Africa, and South America. (More preferrably the Russia almost wins, before America and many guerrilla groups help reclaim the lands that were conquered. Years between 2030-2100. Also, Russia was taken over by dictator in 2021. BTW, use your imagination, since I have none. I'll finish aftermath of the aftermath )
)
Symphony D.
Deity
I am Symphony D., and I do not endorse the above message.
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
Symphony D. said:
I think I can safely second that.
I remember reading a theory somewhere that the Mediterranean Basin was once an incredibly fertile valley, with the Nile going over a waterfall at the delta and then turning westwards.
Since most of the ideas here have that area being arid and lifeless, I'm not really one to argue, but we have to admit that the basin should be pretty well irrigated, if only from the flow of gravity.
Symphony D.
Deity
It used to be a sea before it was sealed. That means the bottom of it when it was sealed was a giant, slowly evaporating pool of salt-water. Temperature and pressure also climb the lower you descend. This is why the bottom of the Grand Canyon gets so damn hot. The pressure at the bottom of a dry Med would be fully twice the pressure on the surface, and the temperature would burn off any water that came in and didn't have anywhere else to go. It'd be like a giant Dead Sea, only without the water; salty, sandy, hot, difficult to breathe in, little macrobiotic life, and so forth. It would be rather quite hostile to humans and most of the things humans eat to live.
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
Symphony D. said:
Right. And as the continental plates in Africa and Europe move closer together, the trench that is the Mediterranean becomes deeper as a result.
But reversing the trend, if we go back in time, the continents being farther apart would give us a shallower Mediterranean. If we can still manage to keep Sinai and Gibraltar both closed despite this, we'd actually have a fairly pleasant place to live, if we factor in the rivers.
Of course, that kind of movement would take us several million years back, but that's what altgeography is for in the first place.
carmen510
Deity
Didn't expect anyone to try it.
Anyways, it's probably too complex for anyone to try it.
Anyways, it's probably too complex for anyone to try it.
Symphony D.
Deity
The only problem is that the curvature of the two landmasses makes that impossible. Neither side can be "tilted" to make the basin bigger without opening up the other end, and "widening" just opens it at both ends. The depth of the Mediterranean also has nothing to do with plate Tectonics as far as I'm aware; there's no subduction zone at the bottom of it, it's simply a depression of what used to be ocean before the plates scrunched together. If anything the continents approaching make it shallower--see also the Alps.
It also doesn't particularly matter what its proportions are. It sits in a very hot region of the earth, climatically. The current Mediterranean today loses far more water to percipitation than flows into it from rivers and such; any body significantly smaller (a lake, particularly a shallow one) would be much easier to burn off, or at the very least would be very much saltier--see again the Dead Sea, which is not a place you tend to want to farm around.
The idea of a naturally habitable Mediterranean basin is impossible from all sides of the equation. It would take an Atlantropa type human effort to do it, really.
It also doesn't particularly matter what its proportions are. It sits in a very hot region of the earth, climatically. The current Mediterranean today loses far more water to percipitation than flows into it from rivers and such; any body significantly smaller (a lake, particularly a shallow one) would be much easier to burn off, or at the very least would be very much saltier--see again the Dead Sea, which is not a place you tend to want to farm around.
The idea of a naturally habitable Mediterranean basin is impossible from all sides of the equation. It would take an Atlantropa type human effort to do it, really.
Or, it doesn't make any sense, and big "Hey lets have a bizarro WWIII that makes not a damn iota of sense" ideas generally tend to be very bad, and as such, few people willingly create them. Sort of like most people wouldn't willfully create the ebola virus.Carmen510 said:
carmen510
Deity
It will make sense, if I give the summary of events. Sadly, I'm basically the opposite of das/Vanadorn.
Symphony D.
Deity
Well, the one das made for me is still basically sitting around since I didn't go much anywhere with it. Basically, the Hittites won at Kadesh. History is near the top of the rules.Kal'thzar said:
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
Kal'thzar said:
Oriental World. Do a search in the old althist thread for some nice ideas.
Well, there's the tired old "powerful Alcibiades, Napoleon of the 400s" bit, with Athenian victory at Syracuse and subsequent unity of Hellas and victory over Persia; there's an Athenian and allied loss at Salamis, which isn't done a lot for unknown reasons; there's either "Alex dies at the Granicus River" or the "Alex lives for a lot longer" ones, which can have about a bazillion different endings; there's an Antigonid victory at Ipsus, which no one ever does because no one ever seems to know much about the Wars of the Diadochi; there's a Punic victory over Rome at some point (preferably something involving Rome not getting a navy in the First Punic, or that navy getting wiped out leading to Punic victory), which can be hackneyed if you wish; there's everyone's favorite Pyrrhus victory, probably involving the less-than-Pyrrhic victories at Heraclea (or the Siris River), Beneventum, or some such; Antonian or Optimate victory in the Civil Wars; Cimbri victory at Aquae Sextiae or somesuch; and then Roman Imperial PoDs, such as a different outcome at one of the Battles of Bedriacum or something similar.Kal'thzar said:
There's tons!
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
Dachspmg said:
This is promising. In the long run, it might lead to a 3-way Punic-Roman-Persian dominated Mediterranean cold war...or something like that. Depending on whether or not Persia annexes and assimilates all of Greece successfully.
Then again, a large Greek exodus might create a whole slew of potential Greek Carthages, or Massilla-style states, across the western Med.
