There is no need to start at a Mercator projection, do whatever floats your boat or achieves your goal. This thread is merely for deciding the world map, if your world map is on a disk, or a Dyson sphere, or a ringworld, rather than a globe feel free to submit that too. Were are not starting off with any predefined set of rules for this place, it is ours to make of it what we will. The Mercator projection is being suggested for final copy simply for a way to manage mapping plots. Please don't limit yourself if you want to contribute, splat the map out in whatever form works. If major areas at the poles are of interest to you then we will work that out later. We can always snip out a pole continent and present it in reasonable projection.