Talk:Antarctica

How, exactly does "New Lithuania" survive in Antarctica? We've recently been through a discussion on this and it doesn't seem to me very plausible without some additional information. Can you explain a bit more about how this colony has managed to survive in the highly inhospitable coasts of Antarctica and have such a large population? BoArthur 20:43, 20 Sep 2005 (PDT)

More history is available at Lithuanian colonies; at first it was used to be supported in money required to transport food and such by the Lithuanian state, later, during the war - by rich Lithuanian people from elsewhere and maybe some foreign countries who were interested in keeping it up, and now by tourism and seal hunting mostly. Actually, some inhabitted places in Siberia for example, are less habittable in winters than Antarcica (e.g. in some places in Siberia temperature falls to -70 in winter); on the coast of Antarctica, where it exists, winters are somewhat milder than that probably, but summers are cold too, so there is no ability to grow food or such on ice. As for buildings themselves, they were built with cold in mind (see Lithuanian colonies) as by the time Lithuania was ruled by nationalists and didn't care about money as much as about pride, propaganda and such. Similarly, scientific bases are also supporting their populations. To put it simply, it is not the weather or living conditions what prevented the colonisation of Antarctica in real world; person, especially with modern technology, is able to live under these conditions; the real problem was lack of viability for such colonies, as keeping them would cost much more than they could create economical value (no ability to grow food there, so it would have to be transported, for the first small populations almost everything, including clothes and such, would have to be transported from far away) and also few people would wnat to live in such place and Antarctica was discovered relatively late. Under current conditions any colonization of uninhabitted territories would not be viable, that's why some perfectly habittable areas such as Kerguellen islands in south Indian ocean belonging to France remians uninhabitted. And as for tourism, Chile has a base where tourists are permitted (Puerto Covadonga I believe), but due to international treaties, fartheness, enviroimental concerns, lack of touristic facilities, in real world tourism did not develop there and it would cost much to develop it, and of course would raise international problems and troubles with enviroimentalists. Why all these reasons weren't a factor or how they were overcame as for New Lithuania is explained at Lithuanian colonies page. Abdul-aziz 21:50, 20 Sep 2005 (PDT)

Map of Antarctica

In order to make things a little more visible, I've made a draft map of the continent, based on what we know about it. One of the things that I've never liked in *here*'s maps of Antarctica is that they look like a pizza, with numerous countries having a slice. In IB, I'd much rather see a different picture, and given the fact that the South Pole is probably in Scandinavian hands, I think that makes sense, too. Right now, I can think of the following parts:

• Roughly half of the continent belongs to the Scandinavian Realm (red). This includes the Antarctica Peninsula and a number of islands. I've included the South Pole. Although the precise "borders" remain to be discussed, I think we can basically call this QSS. I assume there is still space there for research stations of other countries, like *here*.
• Also QSS is the Chinese part, Zhong Nanjizhou (green).
• Since it was mentioned that Australasia (yellow) has a part, too, I gave it part of *here*'s Australian claim. Not QSS.
• France *there* has a share similar to *here* (blue)
• I'm quite sure Russia (purple) has a share, too. I have therefore provisorically claimed the territory around the Ross Ice Shelf, between 135°W and 160°E.
• The Armorican Samonios Islands, although technically not part of Antarctica, are marked in orange.
• This leaves us huge chunks of unincorporated territory (white), including the South Orkney Islands.

Are there any countries that I left out? The FK don't "own" Antarctica territories, but I think they are already covered by the Australasian claim. Since Scandinavia already owns all territories that are near South America, I think we can leave the South American countries out, too. How about Japan? I'd like to keep an option on a small portion of that crowded island near the coast of the Peninsula for the Batavians. After all, that's where the Belgica expedition (*there*, the Batavica expedition) landed!

All in all, for Free Lithuania I can see the area between 45°E and 60°E; or a part of the Russian claim; or the South Orkney Islands.

Here's the map:

Removed: Preliminary map of Antarctica

Comments? --IJzeren Jan 00:46, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

Yes. The South Orkneys are Scandinavian. Other than that, the map is fairly accurate IMO.

As for the Belgica expedition *here*, I wouldn't exactly call it a success, and they didn't land anywhere — being stuck in the sea ice for thirteen months. Another thing was that it was a purely scientific expedition and did not set out on territorial claims. Perhaps the Batavica expedition was different?

Boreanesia 03:02, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

Okay, I didn't know about the South Orkneys, although it makes sense. Pity though... About the Batavica expedition: I don't know if it was much of a success, but what it díd lead to was a number of place names in Antarctica. I'd like to keep that effect, if possible. I actually started doing something with that idea (see my Notes page), but then I simply forgot. No, I'm not really after more Batavian territory! ;) --IJzeren Jan 03:10, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

Just as an aside, I'm noting not only that the SR has half of Antarctica, but *here* we have a few conflicting claims- perhaps it would be nice to have some conflicting claims *there*, too, such as the peninsula is claimed by the SR, the FK, Castile and Aragon, but that only the SR has actually done anything about it and put actual real people there. IB needs more land disputes, IMO! Deiniol 03:14, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

To Jan: Batavian place names would be great. Oh, and I forgot to mention last time... research stations are welcome in the Scandinavian territories as long as they are not commercial or otherwise break the trade monopoly of Kongelige Antarctiske Handelscompagnie.

To Deiniol: I'm sure there are conflicting though unrecognized claims. The way I see it, countries that participated in the race for the south pole would respect each other's claims, while countries that did not participate would make various unrecognized and conflicting claims. New Lithuania could be one of the latter. The participants of the race were certainly the FK and the SR. Based on the map, it looks like China, France, and Russia might have participated too. Boreanesia 03:54, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

Cool! In which case- Helvetia, that great maritime nation, world-famous for its seafaring, has staked a claim on the entire continent of Antarctica between 40deg East and 100 deg West, following its national policy of Being Bloody Awkward. Naturally, nobody recognises it. However, the Helvetian government has found the claim to be remarkably useful in fiddling the country's pollution statistics. It also occurs to me that the Arvorchedeth would probably have had a prior claim on Antarctica and its islands, dating from claiming the Samonios Islands "and the lands to the south"- IMHO it would be a nice twist if they had sold the rights to the claim to the SR (or maybe given them as a coronation gift to a Scandinavian monarch?). What do you think? Deiniol 12:37, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

I would just recommand shifting the french claim to the right (probably keeping it the same size) so that it fit with its claim *here* (just to make it simpler), same goes for the russian one.

As Jan said, the Australasian claims would realy be FK research stations manned jointly with provincial personnel so maybe we can cut it up into english, scotish and cambrian claims. what *here* is new zealand claims (or at least some of it) would be what was claimed *there* by aeothera before joining up with australasia.

I note that *here* there is a "undefined" mentioned between the pole and paralel 80, maybe this could be the limit *there* of all claims, the actual region around the pole being neutral ground.--Marc Pasquin 08:14, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

The problem with shifting the French claim to the right is that it would end up in the middle of the Chinese claim, which is QSS. *here*'s Dumont d'Urville is probably *there*'s Bingjing, or something. That's why I shifted the French claim a little to the left. If you have a better idea, please spill it!

Here are a few:

- Ignore Joe's proposal. QSS should be about consensus, not just about saying something and no having other objecting (in many cases, simply because it was ovelooked). In other words, have the chinese claim end at what is the french claim *here*. (Was there a discussion that lead to it being QSS ? I fully realise I might have been the only one to miss it.)

Baring this:

- Due a topographical mistake, the chinese claim ended up claiming was was the french part. Since the chinese never tried to set any stations there and the french have no military instalation, it has become over the years a no-issue although a legaly unresolved one.

- China claim is not considered to have survived the disintegration of the empire. Alternatly, China's claim is not recognised by some countries due to some legal technicality.

- As *here*, none of the antartic claims are recognised in international laws. Although various countries might have claimed huge chunks, in pratice, sovereignty of a given nation is only recognised over the current manned stations. --Marc Pasquin 12:50, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

As for New Zeland's claims: it you like a separate Aotearoan (now Australasian) claim, I guess the best place for that would be the place between McMurdo and the French claim (the eastern shore of Ross Sea). That's part of New Zealand's claim *here*. The Russian claim will be a bit smaller, but still big enough for my plans. ;)

How's this: The aotearoan claim would be the islands near new zealand you circled in yellow and instead of a slice, just a small enclave on the mainland that represent what *here* are the stations of Scott, Yanda and Cape Bird and a few KM around them. With the advent of post GW2 "white peril", they would have avoided pushing it against the russians.--Marc Pasquin 12:50, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

As for the "undefined": I'd rather not count from the pole. I'm currently working on a new map (a real one this time). The way I see it it should depend on the shores instead - some 500 kilometers or miles, I propose (it can of course differ from claim to claim). --IJzeren Jan 12:07, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

Fair enough. I guess it should be defined as half the distance between the 2 closest permanent point on the continent which are diametricaly opposed (which I think are the area near Scott and Sanae III). That way, no claims could ever overlaped another.--Marc Pasquin 12:50, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

Jan, I'll send you my map of Antarctica that I tentatively made (in PSD format, if you can read them.) Or I can corroborate with you on the map, or give it over to your very capable hands. Let me know. BoArthur 12:40, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

I'll just note that it is Free Lithuania rather than New Lithuania now; of course it might be so that e.g. RTC does not recognise the name Free Lithuania and refers to the country as to New Lithuania in official purposes; however official name is "Laisvoji Lietuva" (Free Lithuania). 213.190.42.88 14:15, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

To all: it's better to avoid nested comments, because one can easily loose track of who wrote what. Anyway, Dan, you're too late! ;)) I've already made a map myself. You can see it at the right of this text. I hadn't read Marc's answer yet, so the French claim is still where it was before, but for the rest, I've added an Aoteoroan chunk and I've implemented Free Lithuania.

New proposal

As for Marc's idea of overruling Joe's proposal: Sure, I don't know what Joe's reasoning was for choosing the coordinates he chose, but I guess it's not impossible to overrule them. But there should be a very good reason for doing so. QSS is not merely a matter of building consensus first and then writing it up; Joe claimed that place for China, described it a little, nobody objected, and these coordinates have been around for a long time now. Altering them a little wouldn't affect his proposal to deeply, but I still think there should be a darn good reason. Why wouldn't France have built Dumont d'Urville 500 km further to the west? Is the territory *here* really much better than the territory I suggest *there*?

No matter what, should it turn out that way (or France has a chunk of land that is entirely surrounded by the Chinese claim), then the Aotearoan claim could shift to the French one, and the current Aorearoan claim could be used for the FK or so, or for Russia, as I suggested earlier.

BTW, Dan, I'd still like to see your map. There's nothing wrong with two different maps of the same thing! :)

Cheers, --IJzeren Jan 15:26, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

The reason for the emplacement of the french claim *here* was due to the exploration of the base's namesake in the 1840s of the coast of Adélie Land. While it is not impossible for the Captain to have used different travel pattern, I'd rather keep it the same to avoid having to figure out other repercution.

If the list decide to maintain QSS on this, we could go with one of my other suggestion to explain the conflicting claims.

Incidently, are "nested message" what I did when I answered you ? --Marc Pasquin 17:19, 23 Sep 2005 (PDT)

Okay, I've moved the French claim to *here*'s coordinates, how's that? It should be visible on the map above, although you might have to refresh it. That leaves us with the problem what we do with the piece that I previously assigned to France. I guess the Federated Kingdoms would be the most likely solution for it. Perhaps Japan?

In any case, conflicting claims would of course be nice! It could very well be that the Chinese do not recognise the French claim.

Re:Nested messages: yes. It very common to work like that in emails - you write something immediately under the bit you're replying to, and in the end you get something like ">>>". In a wiki, it's better not to do it, because there is no such thing as an "original message". --IJzeren Jan 00:40, 24 Sep 2005 (PDT)

I agree that the FK would be the best solution. Possibly the FK back in the days of Empire claimed all of what is now Australasia's claim and after the establishment of the Commonwealth, they only decided to keep the part where their main research station was, giving the rest to Australasia? Deiniol 05:12, 24 Sep 2005 (PDT)

Considering Japan as a greater influence then *here*, they might have made that claim. You could also have the batavian who, I assume, were active in oceania.

As Jan mentioned though, we could have more conflicting claims just to make realistic. One reason might simply be a common one *here*: topographical error. This could be things such as previously claimed islands turning out to be part of the mainland, error in position during exploration or mistranslation of navigation text ("near the cape" becoming "past the cape")--Marc Pasquin 09:13, 24 Sep 2005 (PDT)

As for Chinese Antarctica, perhaps there was an ambiguous situation involving it in the peace treaty that ended the Great Oriental War, such that it could be interpreted as a renunciation. Japan would likely take that interpretation and, arguing that it's terra nullius, claim all of it (or at least a large piece). The Chinese League, naturally, objects to their claim. Nik 11:58, 28 March 2006 (PST)

South America

One thing I just noticed is the absence of south american claims. It would make sense to me if you had some (especialy on the antartic peninsula) that had been made either by local countries or in colonial time by either Castille, Aragon or Portugal.--Marc Pasquin 09:13, 24 Sep 2005 (PDT)