Timeline

Well, thanks for sticking around for the rid. We've managed to squidge our way through 25 million years of geological history and 28,000 years of early and middle period Tsalal, its taken six pages and a lot of meandering to sketch it all in.

Of course, doing it properly would probably take dozens of pages. There's endless topics left uncovered.

The emergence of the early Yag civilization and its effects around the shores and inlands of the sea of tranquility. I might go back and do a bit of stuff on that at some point.

And there should be some time spent on the Marsupial predators, including hoppers who are reminiscent of Kangaroo Wolves, and one cheerful little specimen who some of you may come to recognize.

I haven't touched at all on the Penguin harvesting/fishing and whaling cultures of Zhoole, Zhudan, Tzorhle and the west, which have been developing with rather more stability and continuity than Tsalmothua.

Or the development of religions, mystical traditions nor cultural exotica, overall. Please accept my apologies.

Again, some of this stuff I will come back and canvas. Some of it I'll just blow past.

I regret that we're going to probably spend a fair bit of time on the late human era, from roughly 8,000 years ago, 6,000 BCE up to 1772 CE. I apologize. I'll try to make it interesting, I'm going to invite suggestions, and probably rewrite on the fly. There'll be a lot of stuff written by the seat of my pants.

Post-1772 is where I want to get to, and where interesting and fun things should happen.

But I'll offer one fun little spoiler, for the upcoming pages.

''Circa 3800 BCE, the Tsalal early in their copper/bronze age, invent gunpowder. Wacky hijinks ensue.''

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Congratulations sir, those sentences might just give me Nightmares. I Hope you're proud of your self.

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You should be proud. The level of detail in this is amazing, I could almost believe some of it was true, the way some of it is written in very much the same way I would expect an anthropologist to write.

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Coal mining starts around 9800 BC.

Even if the Tsalal never develop the steam engine and go through the industrial revolution, what happens when the coal runs out?

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Very good eye. Yes, I've wondered about that.

Two things. First, levels of consumption are going to be very low compared to industrial eras. So deposits are going to stretch for unreasonably vast periods of time.

Even in the modern industrial era, at a rate of consumption of extraordinary rates in a world population of billions, and a west at exorbitant standards of living, its estimated by some that known reserves are still in the hundreds of years.

Antarctica's smaller, with smaller reserves, but still likely substantial. The population for much of this period is going to be a lot smaller, there'll be other fuel sources, and demand is intensely seasonal, so as noted, it'll stretch.

Also, one of the fun things I'm going to be playing with is social instability and upheavals brought about by the playing out or discovery/rediscovery of coal fields. I've already noted that the fluctuations of coal supplies are going to drive population fluctuations, and in fact, fluctuations are going to drive the rise or fall of different states.

I'm actually toying with a civilizational bottleneck or two of 'coal crises' where there's a significant gap between the exhaustion of working deposits, and the discovery of new deposits or reworking of abandoned deposits by new techniques. Could be a lot of fun.

Over the long span, the early use of coal is actually going to inhibit the industrial revolution and certain other developments. Among other factors, the economic value of coal or fuel is going to creep up over the millenia, making it a more expensive proposition for risking in early industrialization.

After all, its not going to be as much fun if the Tsalal are zapping London and Tokyo from their flying saucers.

''EDIT: Hmmm, I've had to go back and work some glitches out of the timeline. Sorry. Early human period is 36,000 to 18,000 years ago. Middle Human period is 18,000 to 8,000 years ago. Late Human period is 8,000 years ago to 1772. Post 1772 is the Tsalal contact era. The Late Human period is characterized by the beginning of organized coal mining and trading, beginning 7,800 years ago. Apologies for confusion. I looked back and noted I was using the concepts 'years ago' and 'BCE' interechangeably, and they're not.''