eklas's Diary

Should the Egalian Lake be connected to the Great Rift Sound?

Posted by eklas on 22 May 2017 in English.

Community question.

I’ve been on and about thinking how I could improve my country, Drabantia, to be more realistic, especially in terms of geography and climate.

First of all, I’m still sort of confused as to what the climate could actually be. The hypothetical maps on the Talk:World climate page didn’t really help: one says steppe, the other says Winnipeg. So I settled for somewhere in between for now. And then it kind of hit me: The lake surrounding my country has no output. There has to be saltwater.

Or does it? The lake, which lies on the same latitude as Edmonton, Copenhagen or Moscow, probably doesn’t dry up as much as the Caspian Sea does, for example. Meaning that with no output, the water level would just keep on rising and the salinity would remain the same.

Even if the area was dry, I still don’t think the temperature and other aspects of the climate allow the lake to have no output at all. There’s large rivers: Bráh and Lorava, draining all Litvania; Borava, draining 80% of Drabantia; Banuj, draining the remaining 20% + some of Escadia and possibly UL100h too; and finally Helm and Gilson.

TL;DR So, my bold proposal: Is it possible to connect the lake to the Great Rift Sound? I imagine it similar to the Saint Lawrence River connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.

There’s many pros:

There’s wetlands (that until recently were lakes) in Suria, where the river would flow- no radical changes required.
Several proposals on the OGF:Plate tectonics page see the area as a mid-continental rift.
The benefits for the countries around the lake would be immense. In addition to opening them to intl. shipping lines, it would make for a better connection with the rest of Uletha and more importance.

So, what does everyone (namely the admin team) think? I know edits and changes in grey territories are usually frowned upon, but I feel like this is a really important issue.

The lake as it is now

Location: Historická země Dolsko, UL15b

Discussion

Comment from Litvania on 22 May 2017 at 13:10

I am actually quite okay with the lake as it is now. It dosent seem to bother me, though it would certainly aid in the significance and importance of our countries. For example, i plan for Litvanians to have departed Jankovar in the 15th century on a series of expeditions to the new “unmapped” continents.

Comment from wangi on 22 May 2017 at 14:32

Or a river outlet to the north, passing through allocated countries? The benefit being you can collaborate with their owners.

Comment from bhj867 on 22 May 2017 at 15:11

A reminder that with a river, you would need to encorporate your country as a definite historical landmark in the great pretanic trade route. A river would have deamatically increased relations with Pretany and the rest of western Uletha during the middle ages.

http://wiki.opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/Great_Pretanic_Trade_Route

Comment from bhj867 on 22 May 2017 at 15:18

Basically, your country’s importance level throughout history and currently would rise dramatically as having a direct water route on the trade route, giving you a permanent stronghold as a western ulethan nation, although in central Uletha. It could explain the population explosion around the lake. Just a theory.

Comment from eklas on 22 May 2017 at 15:47

@Litvania: Cool.

@wangi: I don’t know, don’t bodies of water usually drain into the nearest accessible larger body of water? Which in this case surely is the strait. Unless there was an obstacle of some sort, but that’s unlikely based on what I’ve read on OGF:Plate tectonics.

@bhj867 Not sure about the owners of the other territories, but I would actually love that to happen! It would give a lot of context to Drabantia’s history and development.

Comment from Litvania on 22 May 2017 at 16:10

@eklas @bhj867 i actually like that idea aswell, though i dont know how we could change our histories, which are predominantly based around a rather forgotten land, to suddenly fit a direct trade route and thus connection to western Uletha.

Comment from eklas on 22 May 2017 at 16:15

@Litvania Exactly - predominantly. Means there is space.

Comment from Litvania on 22 May 2017 at 16:18

@eklas, okay, so now i can truly make Jankovar great again! Massive port city! Litvania’s gateway to Uletha! Oh my god!

Comment from Litvania on 22 May 2017 at 16:20

@eklas, so what direction would it flow? Do realize it would flow an approximate 300km before reaching the Great Rift Sound, so has to be a somewhat major river, and also, we would need permission from the coordinators of Suria.

Comment from bhj867 on 22 May 2017 at 17:58

Uh oh I feel like I instigated something here. LoL Good luck with whatever you guys can figure out and what is allowed by the mods.

Comment from bhj867 on 22 May 2017 at 18:02

This reminds me of the Firth of Hetzer debate around Vinnmark that eventually led to an isolated lake being connected to the sea by a large bay. Nobody likes an isolated country. This was another very similar reason as to why I created the great rift sound in the first place.

Comment from isleño on 23 May 2017 at 03:47

The Hetzer extension actually influenced the decision to convert most of Lido Lake into wetlands and shrink the GRS slightly in Suria and Dagelanden. If we create too many large bodies of water cutting deep inland, conveniently giving everyone and their grandma access to the sea, the results can start to look unnatural. So I doubt we’d want anything very visible.

But I don’t think that anyone would object to a navigable river, up to a kilometer wide or so. In fact 90% of it already exists, meandering through the wetlands and reaching the sea at Mirgorod. It wouldn’t be hard to link this river to any of the rivers at the western end of the lake, creating a water route between the ports of the lake countries, the GRS, and points north.

Don’t expect an easy connection to the rest of the world, however… Despite the hopeful shipping lines you may see on the map, sailing over the top of Konsiat would be like sailing over the top of Svalbard, and following the northern coast of UL099 would be like traversing the Northwest Passage. Neither route is very realistic, unfortunately… :-(

Comment from eklas on 23 May 2017 at 07:30

The river would be perfect! I don’t even outright want a sea, my biggest concern was the missing output. And a connection to western Uletha is enough.

Do you think I could start working on the river?

Comment from Litvania on 23 May 2017 at 08:24

I would like to contribute as well. After all, Litvania is on the lake aswell.

Comment from bhj867 on 23 May 2017 at 17:14

Hence why I started the Pretanic Canal which is free for anyone to use as a international waterway.

http://wiki.opengeofiction.net/wiki/index.php/Mid-Pretanic_Canal

But i have been waiting on the Barsas to be finished in Sathria and Kalm to connect to the Hesperic Ocean.

Comment from isleño on 24 May 2017 at 05:18