"Use Maps Of Early Prehistoric Earth In SF, Fantasy Games?" Topic

Example:

Without a current continental boundary overlay, I wouldn't even recognize it as Earth! With the Moon orbiting around it … maybe.

Would your Science Officer recommend landing the ship and going out for a stroll?

Thoughts?

Dan

I always liked the idea from the Death Dealer novels that the ice age meant ocean levels were so low the Med was one big valley, surrounded by cliffs. No geographic sense (specially after I looked at the bathymetry of the Med), but cool.

yes

Check out the poster that the local newspaper produced, showing maps of the world, highlighting the Triangle area of NC, in various prehistoric periods: link

Shoot. I forgot to include the source for the globe image:

link

cpgeosystems.com/paleomaps.html

Lots more here:

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Dan

"I always liked the idea from the Death Dealer novels that the ice age meant ocean levels were so low the Med was one big valley, surrounded by cliffs. No geographic sense (specially after I looked at the bathymetry of the Med), but cool."

Earlier than the more recent Ice Ages, but that really is the theory of what happened c. 5.5 million years ago. With the Straits of Gibraltar closed and low rainfall, evaporation is thought to have exceeded input. Most or all of the Med dried up – possibly several times.
The Nile cut a canyon which is thousands of feet below the current level of Cairo.

Julian May set a series in the Pleistocine (Med was a lake/Desert). Key event was when the "Gates" opened

There's a story by Ray Bradbury (A Sound of Thunder) where people went back in time to hunt a Tyrannosaurus Rex. That can be used as a scenario for a game.

Also, TSR's Known World (aka Mystara) setting has a map that looks like Pangaea with the land masses jumbled up.

Yep, all the time! I'm pretty sure that one of the early D&D settings (Mystra?) was based on a map of Jurassic-era Earth.

Lately I've been toying around with a version of 'Atlantis' that is set during the last glacial maximum, with the idea that the city was located in an area that eventually turned into seabed. Their colonies were primarily located in places like Doggerland, and were all wiped out by rising sea levels.

-Will

Will,

"Lately I've been toying around with a version of 'Atlantis' that is set during the last glacial maximum, with the idea that the city was located in an area that eventually turned into seabed. Their colonies were primarily located in places like Doggerland, and were all wiped out by rising sea levels."

I like how you're thinking!

TMP link

Ever since I found and read a copy of HG Wells' Outline of History (published 1919-1920), I always imagined a Neolithic cult "empire" based out of Malta, as a proto-Atlantis, surrounded by Paleolithic people's, back when the Mediterranean was mostly empty:

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Even if it was only connected to Sicily via a small land bridge:

link

I guess it would be a civilization contrast similar to the one portrayed in the film 10,000 BC, but without the "Egyptian" pyramids and other motifs. Mammoths would be cool though:

Dan
link

More on Malta:

TMP link

Dan

A great resource for 'alien' fauna and maps of a future Earth is 'After Man' by Dougal Dixon. I managed to snag a copy of this many years after it was published and it has possible future maps of the Earth after man and most of the large animals have died out.

Dougal was also the scientific advisor on a tv series called the Future is Wild, which was similar to Walking with Dinosaurs, but looking forward intead of back. I seem to remember that in one period featured, the whole of the Mediterranen was a giant salt flat. Another period had the predominant species being evolved squids, including giant land squid taking the place of elephants. It was pretty cool and I would love to see some miniatures based on some of the creations from either the book or the series.

Worth a look for ideas.

Speaking of Walking with…, wasn't it Walking with Beasts that had migrations of woolies to the great grass plains of the North Sea to be ambushed by 'cavemen'? Last episode, as I recall.

Doug

@Dan- Yep, definitely thinking along the same lines. My idea for this setting is that Atlantis is technologically comparable to Late Bronze Cultures, which makes it much more advanced then it's neolithic neighbors. For whatever reason it got a head start on the developments we associate with the Fertile Crescent and Egypt, but since it's cultural centers were built in low-laying areas they were eventually flooded, and after moving many times to avoid the rising sea their population declined and lost their culture. Trained Mammoths are high on the list of things I'd want to include though. :)

I've got a few different versions percolating around actually; a 'realistic' version with Atlantis located in a 'plausible' location (Malta, coastal Spain, coastal Morocco) just being the first bronze-using civilization, and then a more 'fantastical' version with Atlantis actually on a lost island in the Atlantic, shades of Lovecraft and REH, supernatural aspects of the setting, Mu and Lemuria also establishing their civilizations, etc.

@Carrion Crow- After Man is *fantastic*, and The Future is Wild is also incredibly awesome. Way back in High School my brothers and I actually used After Man as a setting for a sci-fantasy game. The players were descended from a culture that had left Earth on a interstellar ship; colonists in stasis, ship at relativistic speeds. For some reason the ship aborted it's mission and returned to Earth millions of years later with it's data banks wiped out and most of the equipment destroyed. It disgorged it's passengers back on Earth, and they basically reverted to a pre-technological state. The 'current day' was several thousand years after this, with society gradually clawing it's way back to a roughly medieval level of technology. I'll have to see if I have the rest of the notes somewhere.

-Will

Thanks for the correction Swampster, I didn't think things back far enough. I'll have to look up a map of what that would have looked like and think about it for a setting (if not Death Dealer). I like Will's ideas for Atlantis too.

Look up "Underworld", by Graham Chapman and " Stone Age Civilizations. " They are very thought provoking.

Won't a global view of future Pangea Proxima (or is it Pangea Ultimate) make the planet look just as unrecognizable and alien as during the old Pangea?

Dan