Dark Earth Maps

Central America is a region well set for multiple micro-states and, lying as it does in an area of competition between the USA and the British Empire, is tailor made for being the status of republican buffer state.

On the issue of monarchies, I put this together a while ago:

"A number of countries that were republics on Earth as of 1960 are constitutional monarchies here. They fall into the following categories:

1.) Western European monarchies not falling in the 20th century (Germany, Italy, Portugal)
2.) France (restored monarchy post 1871)
3.) Empire of China
4.) British dominions (India, South Africa, Israel)
5.) Eastern European monarchies propped up post WW2 (AH, Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria)
6.) Arab monarchies under British protection (Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria)
7.) Continuing 19th century Latin American empires (Brazil, Mexico)
8.) South American monarchies that emerged from Spanish rule under British sponsorship (Argentina, Chile, Aranguay, Paraguay; Colombia, Ecuador; Bolivia, Peru).
9.) Ottoman Turkey
10,) Ongoing independent Kingdom of Madagascar
11.) Restored Scandinavian monarchy post WW1 (Finland)
12.) African states not yet granted independence (Ghana)

The only one of those that is in any way difficult is Group 8.

Even then, Argentina went monarch shopping from 1810-1816. Here, it is influenced by a general European distrust of republicanism in the 1810s and 1820s, which is in line with historical attitudes and policies; the ongoing arcane and spiritual role of monarchies in the magical setting of Dark Earth; and a more 'reactionary' British policy in the 1810s and 1820s, as Castlereagh fatally wounds Canning in their earlier duel.

The only four states falling outside of these are Korea, Iceland, Switzerland and Mongolia. The last is a special case that will be expanded in a future story; Switzerland had a monarchy imposed by a more reactionary Congress of Vienna in 1815; and the circumstances of Korea come about due to the different aftermath of the war and a referendum that splits the republican vote. Iceland is a defacto British protectorate, which makes a republic unlikely due to a far greater Red Scare.

The Indian situation has precluded the historical move to allow Commonwealth republics.

Aranguay, like Uruguay, can be considered to be a buffer state between Argentina and Brazil.

Neither. It emerged from the Banda Oriental area of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires.

North is to the right of the screen and the northern and southern ice caps are not shown on this picture.

The names of the continents/land masses (clockwise from the top left) :

North Tharsis
Hesperia (central island)
Ral Andrex
Cimmeria
Barsoom
Zandros Archipelago
Qobal
South Tharsis/Elysium

I'd like to turn this hand-drawn pencil sketch into a computerized map as well as adding a few more islands and the ice caps, naming the oceans and adding various physical features.

From there, I’d like to then do a geopolitical map.

That is really only British Mars and some American areas at this time. Primarily, it would be the Martian states and empires.

More will come out when I get around to Space: The New Frontier, but it is useful to keep in mind that it is a whole planet of multiple continents and hundreds of states, including some very big ones.

There was something of a technological gap between the British and some Martian states on Barsoom in the 1880s. By the 1960s, that is no longer the case.

Anything more would be giving some bits away…