Triplicate

[Triplicate]

Hello all...

A little story of how I got here.

As a child, I was fascinated by atlases. I drew some maps of fictional places; I may dredge up some of those and post them. Naturally, they were mainly attempts to replicate the appearance of maps rather than the logic of the world underlying them.

I found what I loved most were maps showing different statistics about places. This related to a growing interest in internationalism.

The course of events that most directly led me here, though, started with model railroads. This led to conceiving fictional railroads ("freelance" is the term the community uses), but originally, like most, these were set in real and somewhat real places with purposely vague relation to geography. At an early age, international railroads had been interesting, but involvement in the hobbyist community led to many years of concentration on railroads closer to home. When I got back into the international scene, it started affecting my freelance railroads to the point many were no longer plausible on my own continent. (They're not likely anywhere, but that's another story...) Thus, I began to vaguely conceive fictional places where these railroads might exist. It wasn't about mapping at first. My view of railroads wasn't focused on routes. The need for fictional places was more about creating countries with appropriate economic level and political relations to permit the types of railroads I wanted. This did lead me back to maps, though, and renewed my interest in geography and internationalism. So, when it comes to maps relating to this, expect geofiction (I think that's the word) with a bit of alternate history and a good deal of statistics concerning the fictionations. The original railroad motivation may not even be obvious.

Also, I conceived a fictional setting for near-future alternate-history pulpy action/SF/fantasy. I doubt I'll ever write the stories, but maybe I'll build the world. My view of the world, though, was one of the things inhibiting writing the stories. I couldn't turn my purposely incoherent desires into one world. If I do get around to this, expect maps of the nations of Earth, "lost" lands (you know, land of dinosaurs in South America, fictional islands, underground civilizations), the other planets of the Solar System (most inhabited)...

Anyway, this site looked like a decent place to look for ideas. So here I am.

[Gidde]

Welcome to the Guild, sounds like you'll fit right in!

[Triplicate]

I forgot to mention...

The websites that fuelled my interest in geofiction. Foremost
http://bigthink.com/blogs/strange-maps
but also
http://www.maproomblog.com/categorie...ary_places.php
http://handmaps.org/archive.php

[arsheesh]

Welcome Triplicate, you ought to display some of your work in the Finished Maps section. Look forward to seeing you around.

cheers,
-Arsheesh