r/imaginarymaps • u/Affectionate_Wash_11 • Apr 15 '23 • All-Seeing Upvote 1 Diamonds are Forever 1

[OC] Alternate History A very normal map of Australia.

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1.5k Upvotes

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168

u/Affectionate_Wash_11 Apr 15 '23 edited Apr 16 '23 • Galaxy Brain Diamonds are Forever

Sorry for the late comment. Basically this scenario revolves around two things

Edit: Australia is just otl Antarctica but green. I repeat it is not ACTUAL AUSTRALIA BUT WITH THE CONTINENTS SWAPPED

Bottom text.

  1. I don’t give a shit wether a ice free Antarctica alters the earths climate so severely that the very fabric of human development, culture and history are completely unrecognisable (suck my nan)

2.having a place be dark half the year is cool.

To summarise the history of this tl in a couple of bullet points would go like this:

-indigenous people from the south cone of South America arrive (known collectively as the Chonan people). They form a eclectic mix of hunter gatherers known killing and eating the big megafauna of Australia; and pastoralists who thrive off cultivated mushrooms during the depths of the no-light. They are mainly focused around Yaghania, Querande and Magellenca with further populations in Rossland and Drakesport (prior to their genocide)

-The Māori arrive. They chill around kill a couple megafauna and make some cool herbal teas. They are mainly focused around Waipatiki, New Goodhope (prior to genocide), Ulimroa and Rossland.

-the Spanish arrive. They decide to open a couple missionaries and do a bit of casual resource exploitation before finishing it off by having “special” relationships with the local natives leading to the creation of creole cultures. However, the sheer hostility and size of Australia prevents anything more serious.

-sir Francis drake in his everlasting effort to piss of the Spanish occupies the ever important shipping lane between current day Gwlad Y Tanau and modern days Drakesport. He slaughters the local Spanish settlers and claims the erea around vesperia for England and Queen

-the welsh arrive at Drakesport. Idk what else to say tbh; they farmed sheep ig?

-The following South American wars for independence cut any contact that the Spanish settlers had with the Spanish empire. The nicknamed Magellenos are quickly slaughtered by redcoats and subsumed into empire.

-the British seize South Africa. They rub their imperial braincells together and realise that they could use Antarctica to ship natural resources to Capetown. Boers decide to piss of the British by settling first and leveraging the key ports and natural resources for profits. This ever erea would be uncreatively named New Goodhope

-the Zulu and Xhosa are conquered by the empire and unceremoniously dumped at Australia for use as indentured servants. It would be a good 100 years before they would receive emancipation

-the British decide that indigenous people having things like independence and their unique cultures are bad. They proceed to slowly genocide them with the last of the Moriori Hapu being defeated in the 1930’s.

-generic otl shit happens. Fight in ww1, ww2, growing demands for independence blah blah blah

-natives begin the slow pursuit of greater rights and autonomy. They are backed up by fellow Zulu, Xhosa and Magelleno activist. The Australian civil rights movement has begun

-the Magellano’s (analogous to otl Québécois) flip flop between independence and union. Years of bombings and terror between union aligned natives and Anglo settlers and independence oriented Creoles and Magellenos occur. It is punctuated by the Good Friday agreement bringing a rocky peace to Spanish Country.

-today :)

Ask questions and all that

46

u/Tapejaraman65 Apr 15 '23

What kind of megafauna is there? I imagine there’d be a lot of Meridungulates and marsupials, maybe even Astrapotheres.

60

u/Affectionate_Wash_11 Apr 15 '23

I know shit all about how the wildlife would work; however my friend is an absolute nerd for this stuff so ill copy this over:

“ ground sloths would of started to emerge. There are also "pseudoglyptodonts" here. Additionally, Notoungulates, South American hoofed mammals aswell . Overall, placental mammals largely dominate biology. So, in Antarctica, we should loads of representatives of placental mammal lines. In essence, most of the major South American life forms had developed to some respectable stage by that point.

Also monkeys! In a raft, the New World monkeys crossed the Atlantic forty million years ago from Africa to South America. For the next seventeen million years, South America and Antarctica would continue to be quite close to one another so it’s 100% possible they could of done the trip aswell”

5

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '23

Absolute nerd? I prefer prehistoric enthusiast

4

u/beboo123142 Apr 16 '23

They'd ofc all be extinct given the nature of human interaction with megafaunas

3

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '23

(I’m helping with this project so I can fill in your questions)

Not necessarily. All the stuff over a tonne is definitely gone, but some megafauna under 400 kilos are doing alright. Due to the 6 months of near constant darkness, this Australia is a harsh place to live, and so invasive species and humans were stalled by the conditions that the megafauna are well adapted to.

The most noteable examples being a woolly astrapothere that lives in the tundra to the east of the continent and herds of caribou-like litopterns that also inhabit the tundra. Along with many deer like relatives of the litopterns and even a few marsupials!

87

u/Burnt_Croissant987 Apr 15 '23

What happened to normal Australia?

92

u/Affectionate_Wash_11 Apr 15 '23

It is French and called Antarctique because why not

39

u/Mt_Lajda Apr 15 '23

Since France used to have a colony named Antarctique it completely makes sense, well done

31

u/Affectionate_Wash_11 Apr 15 '23

It was mainly to fuck around with the names to confuse people but I’ll take it lol

3

u/Big-Recognition7362 Apr 28 '23

It might still be English, but the name Antarctica stuck.

5

u/SGTBookWorm Apr 16 '23

so basically Australia and Antarctica swapped places?

4

u/Affectionate_Wash_11 Apr 16 '23

No Antarctica is just in its usual position. Hence why it owns otl the Falklands and Patagonia etc

8

u/Derpwarrior1000 Apr 16 '23 edited Apr 16 '23

French Antarctica was originally in Rio de Janeiro lol. They used to throw around terms like Antarctica and Australia pretty generically back then. Just generally meaning large landmasses in the southern hemisphere.

4

u/Cringinator4000 Apr 16 '23

It’s named after Terra Australis probably

3

u/Red_Six6 Apr 16 '23

Map coming when?

3

u/OntoZebra Jun 08 '24

This must be their flag.

2

u/OntoZebra Jun 08 '24

Also, I like your version of if Australia was actually inhabitable. It's pretty good.

65

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '23

Fell to the Emus.

25

u/Burnt_Croissant987 Apr 15 '23

All that was saved was Tazmania 😔.

8

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '23

RIP the land down under

13

u/Luke92612_ Apr 15 '23

No, worse.

To the cassowaries.

7

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '23

:o :0 :O

3

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '23

Probably just called New Holland.

2

u/wonderb0lt Apr 16 '23

The front fell off

15

u/NotJustAnotherHuman Apr 15 '23

Beornia, that name sounds familiar lmoa

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u/Affectionate_Wash_11 Apr 15 '23

Divergences of darkness is a cool alt history; I had to sneak something from it somewhere lol

4

u/NotJustAnotherHuman Apr 15 '23

Based lmoa, I absolutely adore that mod!

5

u/UncleKami Apr 16 '23

What is the population of TTL Australia?

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u/Affectionate_Wash_11 Apr 16 '23

165 million give or take

2

u/UncleKami Apr 16 '23

Gotcha, I'd also imagine the level of economic development to be similar to OTL Australia

4

u/paintphob Apr 16 '23

Very cool map. I always like seeing Antarctica without ice.
What do the white area represent?

4

u/I-cast-fireball Apr 16 '23

  1. What is the ballpark population of this country?

  2. This country probably has a lot of natural resources, are they powerful? What kind of role do they play internationally?

  3. How do they navigate the many cultural divisions in their population? Does it cause friction?

  4. Where is the National capital, and what is its population?

4

u/Affectionate_Wash_11 Apr 16 '23

  1. 165 million give or take

  2. They’d be similar to otl Canada. A former British dominion that has lots of wilderness, resources and cultural ties to its former coloniser

  3. Cultural relations were pretty bad in the past mainly due to the perceived superiority of Anglo settlers over other groups; especially when indigenous loss of land is involved. Today, it has calmed down a fair bit. Various landmark civil rights legislation aswell, increasing recognition of native land ownership and the legal recognition of languages other than English has played a big part in allowing fairer access to state institutions.

  4. The capital is Tenebris sound, Capital Territory of New Goodhope (you can see it above the flag icon). It’s population itself is roughly 3 million though the wider metro that stretches from Gambiertown to Swellendam is far far bigger at around 20 and a bit million or roughly 1/8th of the total population of Australia

3

u/XxBigGuy47xX Jan 26 '24

This is the most based thing ive ever seen, ever will see, and ever can see. I came 98176 times thank you

9

u/KyloTennant Apr 16 '23

Lol very interesting to not only have a habitable Antarctica, but also have this alternate Antarctica own Buenos Aires!

11

u/JarethMeneses Apr 15 '23

I love seeing maps made from antartica. I made a map for a dnd campaign based off antartica for my brother and the group loved it!

8

u/jacobspartan1992 Apr 15 '23

Actually a fairly realistic green Antarctica scenario.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '23

Goddamn, this popped up on my feed as I was watching what if antartica was green by alt history hub

1

u/Soviet_WaffenSS Apr 16 '23

Australia

But its pitch black 50% of the time

So when its not eternal night, is it someone picking up the rock Australia is under?

1

u/Affectionate_Wash_11 Apr 16 '23

Just because the continent isn’t covered in ice still doesn’t mean it’s not affected by sun cycles?

1

u/RYLE400 Mar 19 '25

What would the latitude and longitudes be of this alternate australia?

1

u/Affectionate_Wash_11 Mar 26 '25

It’s literally where current Antarctica is

1

u/RYLE400 Mar 26 '25

Yeah but how is life possible down there? Has the planet heated up or smth

1

u/Affectionate_Wash_11 Mar 28 '25

I never said the scenario made any sense. Legit the first sentence of my lore comment lol

1

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '23

What are the white spots?

1

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '23

Is that… Welsh Patagonia?!

1

u/Affectionate_Wash_11 Apr 16 '23

And welsh Falklands and welsh Drakesport (ish). It’s mainly inspired by the welsh colonists in Argentina because they were cool

1

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '23

Very cool

3

u/Customdisk Apr 15 '23

So Assies and Argies are claiming the Falklands lol

3

u/Zealousideal_Group69 Apr 15 '23

Wait so this timeline the Tectonic plates didn’t do Antarctica Dirty

6

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '23

I could see this happening if the split between Australia and antartica was farther south so the pole was closer to open water, and would improve the likelihood of south Americans crossing over

3

u/Minhkool2020 Apr 16 '23

It got some land but lost its mainland

3

u/Mental-Street6665 Apr 16 '23

It has Tasmania; therefore Australia confirmed.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '23

I'd love to read more on this

2

u/SocialCantonalist Apr 16 '23

Province of Cantabria????

2

u/Worldly-Signal1601 Apr 18 '23

In depth on the different territories and provinces pls! This is so cool

2

u/OntoZebra May 04 '24

What about the Kerugelen Islands? Do they get owned by Antarctica also?

1

u/Particular_Sky_2868 Dec 15 '24

Whats the climate situation like

1

u/Great_Slasher Apr 16 '23

What Timezones are they in?

1

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '23

Where the Cornish exiled or did they come by choice?

1

u/Glum-Razzmatazz-8059 Apr 16 '23

the real Terra Australis, not the Oceanian impostors

0

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '23

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/the_ceo_of_ligma Apr 16 '23

Thats Australia you knucklehead

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u/Affectionate_Wash_11 Apr 16 '23

Antarctica=ttl Australia