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[✗] World Lore -- Arcas Tectonic Plates


Toffee
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I wrote this when 7.0 was first announced and sent it to some world developers to see what they thought. I don’t expect this to be reviewed by the lore team, but rather intended this post as a bit of food for thought for the playerbase. Enjoy!

 

Introduction

Earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and other tectonic-caused natural disasters don’t just occur. They are influenced by (often delicate) geographical processes, just as the subvergence of one tectonic plate beneath another over thousands of years. When the stress of that built up pressure finally breaks, the energy released is felt on land as an ‘earthquake’.

 

I believe having solid geographic lore will add flavour to the world by not only explaining the presence of mountain ranges and volcanic activity, but also provide the Event Team with a basis when running events based around natural disaster.

 

1: Tectonic Plates

For this proposal, I drew a rough plan for tectonic plate placement based on the map released in the 7.0 announcement.

cSSyr5M.png

As can be seen above, the major mountain ranges occur on a plate boundary. This classifies them as “fold mountains”, formed by tectonic plates pushing against each other and folding the land above them. An area of volcanic activity in the southwestern corner of the map occurs on the boundary between the Desert and Western plate, where the crust is weakest. This allows magma to be pushed upwards in convection currents and break the surface, forming an active volcano.

 

Plate boundaries that occur in the ocean, such as the boundary between the Eastern and Continental plate, would likely have oceanic trenches (subvergence zones). This could provide some interesting roleplay and event possibilities, especially considering 1.13 is the ocean update. New sea creatures and monsters could be discovered in these trenches, as well as the possibility of offshore earthquake sources, which in turn form tsunamis.

 

2: Mountains (Orogeny)

dA44Ppq.png

Areas marked in white are “fold mountains”, as explained in (1). Those marked in yellow seem as though they would be “block mountains”, while the little island on the Archipelagic Plate shows characteristics of a “plateau mountain”. Block mountains occur when a weak section of the earth’s crust fractures and material is thrust upwards, characterising mountain ranges with a steep front side and sloped back side. These occur in the middle of tectonic plates as opposed to on plate boundaries. Plateau mountains are formed in the same way, but gain their distinct, flat-topped shape through erosion over time.

 

While it may not be important event-wise to explain how the mountain ranges of 7.0 were formed, I believe it adds flavour and would enable in-character geologists to have a basis for research and pursuits of knowledge.

 

3: Diamonds! (Metamorphism)

In order to form, diamonds require immense pressure and heat. They are then stored in areas called “diamond stability zones”, within the earth’s mantle. Deep source volcanic eruptions tear out pieces of the mantle and deliver them to the surface (creating something known as “kimberlite pipes”), with diamonds included in the rock. This is how diamonds can be found close to the surface and extracted in open cast diamond mines.

 

These diamond stability zones can only be found in the mantle beneath the stable centres of tectonic plates, meaning that areas found on plate boundaries do not tend to be diamond rich. This would enable those on the lore and event team to place diamond-rich areas in realistic areas of the map, perhaps for player excavation. The same could be said for thanhium; putting deposits for player discovery in the centre of tectonic plates, so that one event of an earthquake will not interfere with another event of thanhium excavation, as the ore is unlikely to be found at a plate boundary where earthquakes occur.

 

4: Volcanoes and Geothermal Activity

There is only one visible volcanic area on the map, that being the volcano on the aforementioned Western/Desert plate boundary. Were there to be any underwater volcanoes, the whole system could interact similar to the Pacific Ring of Fire, which is where most earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur. Having clear, defined plate boundaries would assist the Lore and Event team in making sure they are all on the same page when it comes to under and over water volcanic eruptions.

 

Geothermal activity that would be able to be acted upon by the Event Team include mainly hot springs and geysers. They typically occur on plate boundaries-- yet another reason why having defined boundaries would give the team a basis on how to characterise different environments on the map.

 

Conclusion

This is a very brief proposal to gauge interest in having some defined geography for 7.0. I believe a large reason why ET haven’t run many natural disaster type events during Atlas (or had large monsters/creatures cause natural disasters) may simply be because there is little defined world lore that would be able to back up their claim of a tsunami, earthquake, or volcanic eruption. This would give those members a springboard to work off of without getting in the way of other events!

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As someone with a college introductory course in Geography under his belt, I approve and +1 this post. Please add it! ?

Edited by Zastro
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I wholeheartedly agree and will stand behind this post +1

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Where’s @Lark he’ll nut

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Yes. +1

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I took history instead of geography but I'll still +1

Edited by Mavromino
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As a lover of both Geography and Worldbuilding, I can definitely get behind this sort of thing. Then again, the unique circumstance of the Mortal Realm does leave room for a lot of questions, given the fact that it’s a flat disc... As well as the nature of its core being a literal Hellpit. Makes me hope for an in-depth lore dive into the natural phenomena of Aos sometime into the future.

Heck, if we’re going to don our brainstorming helmets, then wind currents are an even more ridiculous question.
 

Spoiler

 

 

Food for thought. +1

Edited by ThatGuy_777
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That’s some solid stuff you got their chief. +1

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Thank you for submitting your piece! It is now under review, you should have a verdict in about 1 ½ weeks to 2 weeks.

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This Lore has been denied. Currently the team has found a multitude of issues with this piece of lore. Due to the nature of the world, tectonic plates cannot exist. The worlds are flat. If tectonic plates existed, they would fall off the world.

 

Topic moved to Denied Lore forum.

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