IMAGI-NATIONS : PART 1.

MY  PLANET, ITS GEOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY.

Since the opening of my correspondence last year with Mark of the  ManofTin blog and his introduction to me of a wide range of interesting blogs, I have come across Imagi-Nations as a format for wargaming. Arrogantly it never occurred to me that other people may also create  imaginary countries for their wargaming and modelling, I genuinely thought I was alone in this sort of activity, who else could be that weird ????? It is a great relief to find that I am neither alone nor weird  but in fact share a common interest with many other like minded people.  That said I do have an imaginary world rather than just nations, indeed, my world even has unique geology. It occurred to me that others may be interested in the world that my armies inhabit, their battles and enemies. This idea has separately also been suggested to me by Ian Dury who gave me several ideas for various topics I could write about. Therefore with that encouragement this is the first of a series of posts which will detail my world and my armies adventures in it which will commence by outlining the special geological and technical features of my planet.

In a parallel universe exists a planet broadly similar to Earth but with several significant differences. Not least of these is that the landmass is all together in one mega continent with only a few  islands. (Apparently this is very common for Imagi Nation worlds !!!!).  There are only a few  major rivers but although they are shallow in many places they are  broad  with powerful flows  making them very difficult to bridge and more or less inaccessible for ships to sail on. The mountains are much higher than on Earth, over 40,000 feet in many cases making them physically impassable over long distances. Lastly, the processes that have created oil and natural gas on Earth have not occurred on my planet, leaving only vast deposits of coal, which is therefore the only source of energy.

In most respects my planet has evolved in the same way as  Earth and has now reached the equivalent of the 1890's on Earth. At this time however, progress has slowed in some areas. My planet's development is firmly harnessed to the horse and steam train as the only forms of transportation and apart from the very earliest experiments in coal fired steam generation of electricity, the future holds no prospect of an Earth like oil based revolution. Small quantities of oil for lubrication purposes and a little gas are becoming available as by products from steaming of coal for the production of coke for iron smelting but these are still very infant technologies. However, radio technology has advanced a little faster than on Earth and is at a level similar to that on Earth in 1918. In addition the telephone and telegraph are in widespread use and general industrial capabilities are very close to those on earth in the 1890s.

The next post will include a map and discuss the general history of my civilisation , the characteristics of the various nations, their  history and  relationships with each other. If you have any questions or comments on the above please let me know, it may well help to inform my future offerings.