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Description
The Known Nations from my novel, THE SHATTERED SKY.

Way back when I first conceived of the world in the late 1990s, I had it (briefly) published as a tabletop RPG, and this was one of the maps included. It was hand-drawn on graph paper, so forgive some of the crudeness.

THE SHATTERED SKY takes place on the ruins of a shattered Dyson Sphere, on a surviving habitat many times the size of Earth.The explanations below assume a familiarity with the novel.

For a sense of scale, the Diamond Sea is roughly the size of the Pacific Ocean. Each small green square is about 300 kilometers on a side. There are a great many smaller rivers, lakes, minor seas, mountains, and other geographic features that I simply couldn't put in on this scale without crowding out the major features.

The total land area occupied by the Known Nations (land and sea) is roughly equivalent to the surface area of Earth.. The entire map represents an area about one Earth-Span (40,000 km) across. Please note I said *roughly* here. I was not intent on making a super-detailed cartopgraphically accurate map, but rather just to put some of my ideas down in visual form to help both me and the reader.

Some features:

-- The spot "Library" is the site of the Great Library, which contains over 1 million copies of books found on Old Earth

--"Malachon" is Malachon Island, which is both the home of the Spider Swarms and contains the entrance to the Underworld and the Spaceport.

-- All the nations here except Zalon were once unified under the Borelean Empire. It fragmented some 400 years ago. There have been over 40 various Known Nations over the centuries, but consolidations, wars, economic alliances, and other factors created a 'mere' 9 at the time of the novel.

-- The remnant of the Empire, Borelea, is a representative democracy composed of a fractious alliance of provinces and outlying colonies. Its the KN's economic powerhouse and spearheads the exploration efforts on the Megashard surface.

-- Borelea's chief rival for leadership among the nations is Destiny, which is headed by the Church of the Sphere, who believe that the Builders were agents of the Divine. Its is also a representative democracy, but one heavily influenced by state-sponsored theology. Destiny is the technological leader of the KN.

-- Kylea is a democratic constitutional monarchy still reeling from Teranesia's secession half a century before. It considers itself a bitter rival of its former colonies, especially in the wake of the Underworld Terrtories that they believe should have rightfully belonged to Kylea. It has shifted heavily conservative in the decades since and has become increasingly vocal about advocating isolationist policies for the KN as a whole and what they see as more "focused," less wasteful exploration efforts.

-- Founded by the spiritual descendants of the knowledge priests who once tended the Great Library before its conquest, the Technocracy of Lyra is an institutionalized meritocracy headed by an Optimization Council. It is dominated heavily by a sect called the Mind Melders who believe in perfecting their mind and bodies, as well as society as a whole, through discipline and introspection.

-- Xi is loose confederacy and a haven for Mage guilds, and its politics is very heavily influenced by many different factions of nanotech matrix manipulators. Its chief economic products are its wizads and nanotech-augmented or altered goods.

-- Mordava is an autocratic monarchy that is a remnant of a Borelean Empire duchy that managed to maintain its independence consistently despite the many politic shifts over the centuries. Even more staunchly conservative than Kylea and is an unapologetic defender of traditional female dominance in society, as it was in the days of the Empire.

-- Fando and Rosstan are also holdover duchies from the Borelean Empire and are run by aristocratic monarchies backed by a merchant-class nobility. They lag several decades behind the other nations technologically. They view exploration efforts as indulgences and adventures for the landed gentry and thus are much more sporadic about supporting such.

-- Teranesia won its independence from Kylea half a century ago after a very bloody and difficult struggle. It is a representative democracy and is considered the most progressive of the nations. It consists almost entirely of thousands of islands in the Diamond Sea, plus a number of sparsely-settled, newly acquired mainland colonies. The discovery of the Underworld Entrance and Spaceport within its territory catapulted it to unexpected prominence among the nations and is experiencing an economic boom from the age of exploration. It spearheads Space exploration efforts among the Nations.

-- Zalon is the youngest Known Nation, a mere twenty years old, an autocracy. It arose almost exclusively from the actions of an Outland warlord named Zalon III who united numerous warring factions under his rule, and is ruled by his charismatic son Zalon IV. Almost immediately upon consolidation of his kingdom, Zalon III sought recognition and inclusion among the nearby Known Nation,

-- The sections marked "Orcs" represent the original territories inhabited by Orcs when they were absorbed into the Borelean empire. These areas still have the highest concentration of Orcs, though the race has since widely disseminated throughout KN territory.

-- The section marked "Centaurs" is the homeland of the Centaurs, filled with many tribes and villages of various sophistication. Centaurs that are officially part of the KN still mostly reside in Kylea and Xi, though they are slowly spreading to other territories.

-- Elysium (X3) is the site of a builder "city", a trio of Builder Towers plus a halo of smaller buildings. It was used as the site of the first Outland forward exploration base, to tend and maintain explorer helistats, and has grown into a sizable city since. It is often cited as the main reason for the KN's ready inclusion of Zalon into its ranks.

-- Builder Artifact Sites X1 through X9, along with the Great Library and the Teleport Nodes, represent an unusual clustering of Builder sites in one relatively small area. No one knows it purpose, but many postulate they were built around the Spaceport and Underworld Entrance in the same manner that towns and businesses spring up around thruway exits.

-- The two Teleport Nodes are both sites for onging research into the Teleport network. Only three semi-stable destinations are known. The nearest and most stable, "Node Base Alpha" is over 45 earth-spans away on the Megashard and is the site of a small colony. Criminals who are given lifetime sentences are sometimes given the option of being sent through a Node to a random destination, with the understanding that if they can return and relay to the KN the information of their journey, their crimes will be forgiven. No such 'exile' has yet returned.

-- The KN is surrounded by a very loose and widely dispersed 'halo' of unaffiliated small colonies and settlements, made up of a great many dissidents, fringe factions, isolationists, sooners, loners, and plain old frontiersmen, as well as aboriginal tribes and Outland nomads attracted to the riches of a nearby advanced civilization.

- - -

Read the epic science fiction novel this map is based off of!

THE SHATTERED SKY can is available from Amazon for KIndle:

www.amazon.com/The-Shattered-S…

And from Smashwords for ereaders like Nook, kobo, iBooks, Sony and others!

www.smashwords.com/books/view/…

Description
The Known Nations from my novel, THE SHATTERED SKY.

Way back when I first conceived of the world in the late 1990s, I had it (briefly) published as a tabletop RPG, and this was one of the maps included. It was hand-drawn on graph paper, so forgive some of the crudeness.

THE SHATTERED SKY takes place on the ruins of a shattered Dyson Sphere, on a surviving habitat many times the size of Earth.The explanations below assume a familiarity with the novel.

For a sense of scale, the Diamond Sea is roughly the size of the Pacific Ocean. Each small green square is about 300 kilometers on a side. There are a great many smaller rivers, lakes, minor seas, mountains, and other geographic features that I simply couldn't put in on this scale without crowding out the major features.

The total land area occupied by the Known Nations (land and sea) is roughly equivalent to the surface area of Earth.. The entire map represents an area about one Earth-Span (40,000 km) across. Please note I said *roughly* here. I was not intent on making a super-detailed cartopgraphically accurate map, but rather just to put some of my ideas down in visual form to help both me and the reader.

Some features:

-- The spot "Library" is the site of the Great Library, which contains over 1 million copies of books found on Old Earth

--"Malachon" is Malachon Island, which is both the home of the Spider Swarms and contains the entrance to the Underworld and the Spaceport.

-- All the nations here except Zalon were once unified under the Borelean Empire. It fragmented some 400 years ago. There have been over 40 various Known Nations over the centuries, but consolidations, wars, economic alliances, and other factors created a 'mere' 9 at the time of the novel.

-- The remnant of the Empire, Borelea, is a representative democracy composed of a fractious alliance of provinces and outlying colonies. Its the KN's economic powerhouse and spearheads the exploration efforts on the Megashard surface.

-- Borelea's chief rival for leadership among the nations is Destiny, which is headed by the Church of the Sphere, who believe that the Builders were agents of the Divine. Its is also a representative democracy, but one heavily influenced by state-sponsored theology. Destiny is the technological leader of the KN.

-- Kylea is a democratic constitutional monarchy still reeling from Teranesia's secession half a century before. It considers itself a bitter rival of its former colonies, especially in the wake of the Underworld Terrtories that they believe should have rightfully belonged to Kylea. It has shifted heavily conservative in the decades since and has become increasingly vocal about advocating isolationist policies for the KN as a whole and what they see as more "focused," less wasteful exploration efforts.

-- Founded by the spiritual descendants of the knowledge priests who once tended the Great Library before its conquest, the Technocracy of Lyra is an institutionalized meritocracy headed by an Optimization Council. It is dominated heavily by a sect called the Mind Melders who believe in perfecting their mind and bodies, as well as society as a whole, through discipline and introspection.

-- Xi is loose confederacy and a haven for Mage guilds, and its politics is very heavily influenced by many different factions of nanotech matrix manipulators. Its chief economic products are its wizads and nanotech-augmented or altered goods.

-- Mordava is an autocratic monarchy that is a remnant of a Borelean Empire duchy that managed to maintain its independence consistently despite the many politic shifts over the centuries. Even more staunchly conservative than Kylea and is an unapologetic defender of traditional female dominance in society, as it was in the days of the Empire.

-- Fando and Rosstan are also holdover duchies from the Borelean Empire and are run by aristocratic monarchies backed by a merchant-class nobility. They lag several decades behind the other nations technologically. They view exploration efforts as indulgences and adventures for the landed gentry and thus are much more sporadic about supporting such.

-- Teranesia won its independence from Kylea half a century ago after a very bloody and difficult struggle. It is a representative democracy and is considered the most progressive of the nations. It consists almost entirely of thousands of islands in the Diamond Sea, plus a number of sparsely-settled, newly acquired mainland colonies. The discovery of the Underworld Entrance and Spaceport within its territory catapulted it to unexpected prominence among the nations and is experiencing an economic boom from the age of exploration. It spearheads Space exploration efforts among the Nations.

-- Zalon is the youngest Known Nation, a mere twenty years old, an autocracy. It arose almost exclusively from the actions of an Outland warlord named Zalon III who united numerous warring factions under his rule, and is ruled by his charismatic son Zalon IV. Almost immediately upon consolidation of his kingdom, Zalon III sought recognition and inclusion among the nearby Known Nation,

-- The sections marked "Orcs" represent the original territories inhabited by Orcs when they were absorbed into the Borelean empire. These areas still have the highest concentration of Orcs, though the race has since widely disseminated throughout KN territory.

-- The section marked "Centaurs" is the homeland of the Centaurs, filled with many tribes and villages of various sophistication. Centaurs that are officially part of the KN still mostly reside in Kylea and Xi, though they are slowly spreading to other territories.

-- Elysium (X3) is the site of a builder "city", a trio of Builder Towers plus a halo of smaller buildings. It was used as the site of the first Outland forward exploration base, to tend and maintain explorer helistats, and has grown into a sizable city since. It is often cited as the main reason for the KN's ready inclusion of Zalon into its ranks.

-- Builder Artifact Sites X1 through X9, along with the Great Library and the Teleport Nodes, represent an unusual clustering of Builder sites in one relatively small area. No one knows it purpose, but many postulate they were built around the Spaceport and Underworld Entrance in the same manner that towns and businesses spring up around thruway exits.

-- The two Teleport Nodes are both sites for onging research into the Teleport network. Only three semi-stable destinations are known. The nearest and most stable, "Node Base Alpha" is over 45 earth-spans away on the Megashard and is the site of a small colony. Criminals who are given lifetime sentences are sometimes given the option of being sent through a Node to a random destination, with the understanding that if they can return and relay to the KN the information of their journey, their crimes will be forgiven. No such 'exile' has yet returned.

-- The KN is surrounded by a very loose and widely dispersed 'halo' of unaffiliated small colonies and settlements, made up of a great many dissidents, fringe factions, isolationists, sooners, loners, and plain old frontiersmen, as well as aboriginal tribes and Outland nomads attracted to the riches of a nearby advanced civilization.

- - -

Read the epic science fiction novel this map is based off of!

THE SHATTERED SKY can is available from Amazon for KIndle:

www.amazon.com/The-Shattered-S…

And from Smashwords for ereaders like Nook, kobo, iBooks, Sony and others!

www.smashwords.com/books/view/…