OpenGeofiction
Since OGF’s world history is often retroactive and spotty, why not use countries (and their wiki pages) that have been abandoned as sources of ancient history or ‘lost civilizations’?
For instance, before Picard was removed, I speculated that some of their culture migrated across Tarephia into Drevet & Wustesonne (my territories). Just like in real-world history, civilizations rise and fall all the time. So, whomever claims what was Picard, they could either make references to the previous country in their history or forge their own backstory.
Discussion
Comment from Thunderbird on 6 December 2016 at 19:58
Picard had a gigantic population with no claim as to why they deserve that population size. There were cities that went on for 20 to 30 miles with absolutely no detail, just names of suburbs. I always wondered what was happening there.
Comment from UltraWorlds on 6 December 2016 at 20:46
Hey there, owner of Conabaras, former province of Picard
Yeah, I wanted to reference Picard in a way that Picard was nuked or something so a new civilization rose, however I needed request or so so I made up an entire history. It’s a pity Picard didn’t finish writing it’s history in the wiki.
Comment from isleño on 6 December 2016 at 23:53
History is already really difficult, so I don’t think we want to suggest additional constraints for unclaimed territories. Besides, it makes much more sense for people to invent histories that genuinely fit what they have in mind for their countries, rather than trying to include something that likely has nothing to do with their vision, especially when there’s no reason to include it.
For anyone who’s wondering, it’s almost always a bad idea to write history based on the story of the mapping. This is how people end up with nonsense like “this land was discovered in 2015 and within six weeks it had 10 million citizens” or “the capital city was built and destroyed three times in one month as planners debated its layout.” Just… no. Discussion of the mapping process can go on a talk page or somewhere else.
Comment from PColumbus73 on 7 December 2016 at 15:34
I was simply suggesting having it as an option. New mappers should be allowed to create a territory that fits their visions, I’m not endorsing forcing new mappers to pick up where a previous mapper left off. But, in the case for my territories, since Picard had a language I was planning to use anyway, I made a minor reference to a possible migration across the continent.
Someone could serve as an unofficial ‘historian’ (I’d volunteer) and edit the wikipage and remove dates and imply that an abandoned territory existed farther in the past that way it’s not like ‘and on Thurday, all 150 Million people just died’.
Comment from isleño on 7 December 2016 at 17:58
If you want a truly believable ancient empire, the best thing to do is start from scratch, visualize it in a coherent way without any modern trappings, and build logically from that ancient foundation. Converting modern stuff into ancient stuff is likely to produce sloppy and inconsistent results that don’t feel authentically ancient, and I don’t think we should encourage that. Besides, there’s virtually nothing in the “Picard” wiki article that would be appropriate for describing an ancient empire in an ambiguous location. (Only the name, but we don’t even want to use that because people here are already familiar with it as a modern place attached to a specific territory.) So starting from scratch would not only give a better result, but it would require less effort, too.
I can understand being annoyed about fixing the minor reference you made, but in that case you can just change “Picard” to some other name and be done with it.
Comment from Ūdilugbulgidħū on 7 December 2016 at 23:41
There is also another issue here - that is, rule 3 of OGF: “no writing about others’ countries in the wiki without permission”. This would also apply to ‘lost’ countries. I’d assume that - unless a former owner has openly given permission, which I’ve never seen happen - you should not write anything relating to these countries either. Besides, as isleño says, its fairly uncreative. Why not just collaborate with your neighbours on the same continent and see if there might be elements of shared history over a few territories, and build from that? Or develop some ‘ancient empires’ ideas and see what the community thinks?
Comment from Luciano on 8 December 2016 at 02:17
Without going into my own long digression (is that even possible, for me?), I endorse everything isleño nad Udi have said.