NationStates Jolt Archive

Do latitude measurements apply to NS?

Obviously Longitude coordinates do not work on a 180 degree scale if you subscribe to the 'gas giant theory' as NS being an infinitely expanding giant, its equatorial diameter would be much greater than Earth's thereby making each degree of longitude much greater than in real Earth.

However, the NS gas giant seems some what like an oblong sphere, as it has a massive equator but everyone has a climate (as far as I've seen) that could in theory form on rl Earth at a certain Longitude. Also most people have a relative location (the Archipelago of the Far Echo Islands spans from where northern Greenland would be to Cuba) so I'd think that a latitude measurement would be good to have on a map because it can tell about your climate. (A climate map can do this as well, but this is just a random thought that came up so whatever.)

Meh. I pretty much just use it as a reference point to where my nation would be in the real world.

Eh, it really depends what metafictional excuse you use for squeezing all those nations in. You're certainly going to have trouble with lat/long if you ascribe to the "gas giant" theory or the "alderson disc" theory, but both of those theories also mean you're realistically going to have trouble with things like space launches, ICBMs, and taking years for fleets to get places.

If you ascribe to the "fractal reality" excuse, everywhere just stacks up and you can just sail from one North America to the next, presumably by heading out to sea until you're outside territorial waters, throwing an old shoe into the air as an offering to the gods of transportation, and then heading back into the territorial waters of your destination. This way, the planet stays the same size but you're hopping dimensions every time you go on holiday.

As for climate, I'm of the opinion that it's better to let the climate determine the latitude than the latitude determine the climate, and prefer climate maps to sticking lines of latitude on. This (http://www.cix.co.uk/~morven/worldkit/climate.html) site is a good one for making climates.

I operate under the theory that Earth is still RL size but the geography is different. Only a small fraction of the nations that exist on NS actually RP in II and of them many are in other "worlds" like AME and EII etc. I only recognize those nations that I interact with. If 20 different people claim the British Isles I only see the oens that you RP with as existing, if more than one exist then you can just say there's more than one identical landmass somewhere else in the world.

For example Tolvan consists of several hundred islands spread thoughout the area where Australia and New Zeland are in RL plus some islands near Anartica, in the Indian Ocean, and throught the South Pacific. Obviously the climate varies considerably.