Gaby
Lord of Altera
THE RANT ON SKINTONES AND GEOGRAPHY
so I realized I needed to figure out where the equator/tropics are in this world:
MFW I see what nations are on the equator
So ok, lets get this over with quickly.
what is Gaby doing here?
repeating a previous argument, but this time with a lot more images and a lot more forethought, for a new world. yes, I'm gonna put up a little thing compiling a bunch of global ethnic groups, though I do expect them to be much more then the previous average of 1 per nation.
And… as before, I will note my disclaimer:
THERE’S NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT THIS, AND MOST LIKELY SOME OF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO WANT TO DARKEN SKINTONES A FEW SHADES JUST BECAUSE SOME TEENAGER SAYS IT’S REALISTIC (not to mention the drama that already ensued over even the scarcest threat of enforcing the “Asian continent” >.>). I RESPECT THAT. FEEL FREE TO IGNORE ALL MY RANTS AND CARRY ON WITH YOUR OWN LIFE. THIS THREAD IS, AS THE LAST ONE WAS, INFORMATIVE AND OPTIONAL.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s start this ruckus-bringer with a discussion of the tropics themselves, wherein I blatantly copy-paste from Wikipedia EDIT: and place this nonsense under a spoiler tag since apparently everyone hates it.
TL;DR tropics = dark natives
lightskinned country in the tropics? most likely an ex-colony of a big empire from a more northern place that conquered its way across the world.
past this post is more useful stuff like my research and some mapthings.
Tropical zones are essentially the parts of the world that are hot all year round, and have dry and rainy seasons instead of the four seasons of temperate climates. Basically, unless there’s huge mountains freezing the land with raw altitude, “what is snow?”
They might be a wet, lush tropical climate, or they might be incredibly dry/arid. But no snow. Most importantly, however, is that no matter how hot or wet the region is, there’s one constant:
Intense sun all year.
As you are likely aware, when humans live in the sun for even a couple hundred years, they start developing darker skin in order to avoid this:
Pictured Here: intense pain, followed by peeling skin and increased risk of cancer
Adaptation is a good thing. Not counting certain other traits in humans all over the world that are theorized to have originated in attempts to optimize for their native region (read: tiny mountaineers and islanders), there’s also the fact that even the whitest folk in the world will tan, given enough painful moments in the Miami sun (or African sun, or Brazilian sun, or… yeah).
So we’re back to this same old “your nation’s skintone is inaccurate” vs "my nation and I wanna play it my way". Let me try my hardest to work this out nicely.
After a long, long period of careful research (again) into indigenous groups across that tropical band, I’ve found that, by and large, the vast majority of indigenous groups at that latitude tend to have brown skin, if not darker.
…
The biggest exceptions I can find to this are Tuareg and some Mexican groups, who both comprise a group that has a sizable population north of the Tropic of Cancer. That gives Diojaran and Croakarilla some breathing room at least, having territories above the northern tropic.
As for everyone else…
let’s talk colonialism, AKA “the age of European countries acting like a Saturday morning cartoon villain and almost succeeding”
Who am I kidding, you all know the whole story, all I need to show you is a visual reference of the degree of world that was taken over by Europe:
Pictured above: a visual explanation of why that tiny little orange-colored African country is either really useless or really badass
So there’s an excuse right there for lily-white world leaders.
Except for one teeny problem. Well, two.
A) History. You go for “was a colony of another nation” history, you might have to revise a few bits here and there about your nation’s founding, and add an independence day to their national holidays.
B) Conquered natives who are probably also disenfranchised, probably serving as a source of not only all those civil rights issues about ethnic minorities, but probably some protests and revolts.
@Lord_Sinclair noted that India is a nation that's right at the equator that has a bunch of light-skinned native ethnic groups, but there’s a few things to note about India:
A) India has 22 national languages and a similar number of ethnic groups, all native to that region B) India was a colony of Britain until fairly recently C) I literally don't even know what the Aryans were, but whatever it was, that was a one-time thing.
Of course, where some say “problem,” others say “opportunity,” and the fact that this is a world of our own making means that you could easily look at this issue a different way, and say “here’s a chance for me to fix that major writer’s block I was having about my nation’s history! Thanks, Gaby!” so it’s all relative. In any case, this is ultimately your choice.
I’ll just be here if you need me.
so I realized I needed to figure out where the equator/tropics are in this world:
MFW I see what nations are on the equator
So ok, lets get this over with quickly.
what is Gaby doing here?
repeating a previous argument, but this time with a lot more images and a lot more forethought, for a new world. yes, I'm gonna put up a little thing compiling a bunch of global ethnic groups, though I do expect them to be much more then the previous average of 1 per nation.
And… as before, I will note my disclaimer:
THERE’S NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT THIS, AND MOST LIKELY SOME OF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO WANT TO DARKEN SKINTONES A FEW SHADES JUST BECAUSE SOME TEENAGER SAYS IT’S REALISTIC (not to mention the drama that already ensued over even the scarcest threat of enforcing the “Asian continent” >.>). I RESPECT THAT. FEEL FREE TO IGNORE ALL MY RANTS AND CARRY ON WITH YOUR OWN LIFE. THIS THREAD IS, AS THE LAST ONE WAS, INFORMATIVE AND OPTIONAL.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s start this ruckus-bringer with a discussion of the tropics themselves, wherein I blatantly copy-paste from Wikipedia EDIT: and place this nonsense under a spoiler tag since apparently everyone hates it.
TL;DR tropics = dark natives
lightskinned country in the tropics? most likely an ex-colony of a big empire from a more northern place that conquered its way across the world.
past this post is more useful stuff like my research and some mapthings.
Now as far as geography and climate goes, it’s fairly simple… “simple.”
Tropical zones are essentially the parts of the world that are hot all year round, and have dry and rainy seasons instead of the four seasons of temperate climates. Basically, unless there’s huge mountains freezing the land with raw altitude, “what is snow?”
They might be a wet, lush tropical climate, or they might be incredibly dry/arid. But no snow. Most importantly, however, is that no matter how hot or wet the region is, there’s one constant:
Intense sun all year.
As you are likely aware, when humans live in the sun for even a couple hundred years, they start developing darker skin in order to avoid this:
Pictured Here: intense pain, followed by peeling skin and increased risk of cancer
Adaptation is a good thing. Not counting certain other traits in humans all over the world that are theorized to have originated in attempts to optimize for their native region (read: tiny mountaineers and islanders), there’s also the fact that even the whitest folk in the world will tan, given enough painful moments in the Miami sun (or African sun, or Brazilian sun, or… yeah).
So we’re back to this same old “your nation’s skintone is inaccurate” vs "my nation and I wanna play it my way". Let me try my hardest to work this out nicely.
After a long, long period of careful research (again) into indigenous groups across that tropical band, I’ve found that, by and large, the vast majority of indigenous groups at that latitude tend to have brown skin, if not darker.
…
The biggest exceptions I can find to this are Tuareg and some Mexican groups, who both comprise a group that has a sizable population north of the Tropic of Cancer. That gives Diojaran and Croakarilla some breathing room at least, having territories above the northern tropic.
As for everyone else…
let’s talk colonialism, AKA “the age of European countries acting like a Saturday morning cartoon villain and almost succeeding”
Who am I kidding, you all know the whole story, all I need to show you is a visual reference of the degree of world that was taken over by Europe:
Pictured above: a visual explanation of why that tiny little orange-colored African country is either really useless or really badass
So there’s an excuse right there for lily-white world leaders.
Except for one teeny problem. Well, two.
A) History. You go for “was a colony of another nation” history, you might have to revise a few bits here and there about your nation’s founding, and add an independence day to their national holidays.
B) Conquered natives who are probably also disenfranchised, probably serving as a source of not only all those civil rights issues about ethnic minorities, but probably some protests and revolts.
@Lord_Sinclair noted that India is a nation that's right at the equator that has a bunch of light-skinned native ethnic groups, but there’s a few things to note about India:
A) India has 22 national languages and a similar number of ethnic groups, all native to that region B) India was a colony of Britain until fairly recently C) I literally don't even know what the Aryans were, but whatever it was, that was a one-time thing.
Of course, where some say “problem,” others say “opportunity,” and the fact that this is a world of our own making means that you could easily look at this issue a different way, and say “here’s a chance for me to fix that major writer’s block I was having about my nation’s history! Thanks, Gaby!” so it’s all relative. In any case, this is ultimately your choice.
I’ll just be here if you need me.
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