"New Zealand is objectively the most beautiful country on the damn planet" Clearly you have never heard of Seychelles. New Zealand is up there... as is Madagascar. What do I know, I'm only from Hawaii?
"New Zealand, which of course doesn't exist" "Consider how avoiding a deadly plague might leave an island nation in a stronger geopolitical position than their continental counterparts" Hmm... What are you Kiwis planning?
You should do one about mountainous civilizations, ex. Nepal, Tibet,fantasy dwarves,and other cultural examples are able to thrive in such remote places and their interactions with the outside world around them.
Witcher series mentions this. Originally they lived on plains, coast lines, by the rivers etc. Then, the humans came to the continent and took the best, the most fertile lands from them (and from other races as well). The dwarves eventually settled on mountains by necessity. Humans didn't want them, they controlled the key strategic areas. The dwarves also evolved culturally from this by no longer associating themselves with any particular area on the map. Instead, their culture started to focus on families and lineage, not pieces of land.
Islands were the OG planets. Before sci fi became a thing when people wanted to transport to a strange new world it would always be some distant island. Islands as mysterious new worlds have always been a part of the cultural lexicon.
Even in Sci-fi one of the big tropes is "Space is an Ocean" and Spaceships and Space Navies. What else would planets be but the Islands in the Ocean that is Space.
TOO BAD! My map says that "There Be Dragons" in that section of the ocean. Or is it "Dagon"? Probably Dagon...but still... I'm gonna hunt those dragons so I can befriend Dagon. **checks bank** Uh, ok, nevermind. I can't afford that.
I have something to add to the ecology part: It's no coincidence that there are so many birds in New Zealand. Flying creatures can reach islands much easier, whereas terrestrial animals only get there by accident or on land bridges. This makes it very likely that islands are mostly inhabited by animals that are or used to be able to fly. If there are a lot of land animals, they are probably very different from those on the mainland due to isolation (like on Madagascar).
On the "isolation makes [islands] less vulnerable to disease on the mainland", I would amend that slightly to say that isolation provides a buffer to disease from the mainland; meaning that while islands are somewhat protected from being exposed to diseases found on the mainland due to their isolation, once exposed to said disease an island is then at high risk of being severely impacted by it due to having had no previous exposure to said disease and more enclosed population structure allowing for easier spread once inside.
ORORORORO!!! I spend half of my day sleeping! ORORORO!!! Then I sometimes get up and tell you that I am a famous content creatorORORORORO!!! Please don't sleep while driving, dear no
The big question to consider when talking about island civilisations is what size the islands are - general consensus is that the line should be drawn somewhere between Great Britain and Australia, but there are people who argue that Afro-Eurasia is an island. In A Song of Ice and Fire, Westeros is classed as a continent, despite having strong parallels to Great Britain (though on a larger scale) and having some of the character of an island nation (particularly compared to the more diverse and "continental" Essos). Even Great Britain is large enough that it's only relatively recently that it's become a single nation (a little over three centuries since the Act of Union), and, while there is a strong naval tradition, there is a reasonable amount of land that's more than a day's walk from the sea, so there's a definite difference between coastal population (that deals with the sea as an everyday part of life) and inland population (that may not even have ever seen the sea). The smaller an island, the more the ocean is going to dominate society, and vice versa - for a larger island, the ocean is going to be increasingly peripheral. Even in Australia, where the continental interior is an arid wasteland haunted by venomous... well, venomous just about anything. Even there, where civilisation hangs around the coasts, for most of the population, the sea is a holiday destination rather than a workplace.
@@Rainbowthewindsage Yeah, the land area of an island, and the area of ocean it occupies, while they do tend to have a correlation, aren't identical. You could imagine a giant impact crater roughly the size of the Gulf of Mexico, but surrounded by more ocean rather than being part of a larger continent - it would be big enough to contain its own archipelago, in addition to the raised crater rim that would be most of the dry land, but wouldn't have significant arable land.
Thanks to North Korea, South Korea is essentially an island on hyper vigilance of not one, but THREE agressive neighbors. Before moving here, I never imagined how certain things could be better (like shipping is insanely fast) but other things, like buying fruit and beef, is really expensive. This video really got me thinking.
Other functionally island nations are (historically or even today): Chile, surrounded by mountains and desert. Noway+Sweden are like if they were in an island together because no one goes around the long way north. Switzerland and Nepal because mountains. Greece because it's half islands half mountains and there's like one road to get there by land. Some places in north Africa are essentially islands because there's the sea or hundreds of miles of empty desert, or just the latter. Some of these have stopped working as islands but have a long history of behaving like one.
@@Altrantis I agree with you. However, just want to clarify so there are no misconceptions, I have been in Greece and I know : there are a lot more than one road leading to the country. If you look at a map of Europe you can see that Greece has natural land boarders with 4 countries (with at least one road for each of them). Also when it comes to history - Greece's history is closely intertwined with the mainland. Only in ancient times, 400B.C.+, we can consider them a mainly island nation.
Except mentally and culturally Koreans are not formed as an island nation, since North Korea hasn't been around for long enough to bring change in the way people view the world and their society. But your comment is actually pretty interesting! South Korea really is sort of an island now. I'd just add it's surrounded by 5 very unreliable neighbours - North Korea (of course), Japan, China, US and Russia. All of those very aggressive about their own interests. As for meats, only beef is expensive, the rest is pretty cheap, in my opinion. Fruits - yes, overpriced and not a big variety to choose from. Btw, do you still live here?^^ I see it's been half a year since you commented 😀
@@baerfromthenorth820 North Korea has been around for 70 years! I think as time passes, South Korea will become more distant from the north. If you look at this video ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ibORv96joAQ.html you can see that the general consensus is people don't really want unification anymore, and don't really concern themselves with North Korea, except when it's in the news. This is especially true of young people, 30 and younger. It's also not surrounded by the US, it just has US troops in the area! Haha In my opinion, most meat here is kinda expensive, but that's coming from the US, where it was really cheap in my area. Yup! Still live here, permanent resident just about. :)
Everyone: Tim can’t possibly find another reason to talk about or bring up Avatar the Last Airbender in a discussion! Tim: Your optimism is misplaced...
I was surprised he didn't bring it up more! The Fire Nation is an excellent example of an island nation empire: They are an island nation with few farmlands, they had several early technological advantages (and also a magical one with Sozins comet) when it comes to sefaring and warfare, they have multiple semi-self-governing colonies.
A good historical example of why resources matter in a revolution for an island is Newfoundland. The two reasons Newfoundland didn't join America were 1. we were settled far later and didn't have the same patriotic values of Americans (it wasn't until the 1800s people considered themselves Newfoundlanders instead of English or Irish) and 2. The US had farms and other ways to overcome the naval blockade while Newfoundland was so reliant on imports that if we wanted independence we would have been starved out.
I literally only just yesterday sat down with an idea to create a new island nation; I wake up this morning and you give us a new video on this exact topic? Brilliant, the timing is *chef's kiss* :D
I know how you feel. I was stuck with my story because I had no idea how I can make my elemental magic unique but Tim's last video was so perfecly timed. Good luck and have fun with your story. ^~^
I wonder if Jonathan Swift did it on purpose? It would be in brand for him. Remember this is the guy that in the same book argue that Dutch and German sounded like horses neighing 😂
I'm surprised you didn't go into more detail with the Fire Nation. In the Kyoshi novels, we learn more about the history and politics of the different islands in the archipelago.
My country is on the mainland, but "mentally" is an island: our fronters are as isolating as the sea (we have: the most arid dessert up nort, eternal ice in the south, the ocean in one side, a really looong and tall mountain in the other.) Also, we have areas with their own climite. Like, a rainforest in the middle of the dessert. And we have really tiny deers. I do think we are the better fantasy island.
When regarding island ecology, remember insular dwarfism (big things get smaller) and insular gigantism (small things get bigger). Consider putting different animals in different ecological niches. (The palaeoenvironment of Hăteg Island is a great case study)
Wasn't there an Island where there were like... pigmy elephants? Or was that a myth and it's been so long that I thought it was supposed to be a true account?
@@Melissa-wx4lu Yes! The pygmy elephant (Palaeoloxodon falconeri) lived in Ice-Age Malta and Sicily, and was only 80-90 cm tall at the shoulder. It notably lived alongside a giant swan (Cygnus falconeri)
Just as I start writing a story about sky-pirate clans who live on island civilizations, Hello Future Me drops a video about island civilizations. Bless you, Tim
@@orangesoul4289 I didn’t find him wholly dislikeable. He was a redeemer, and the Mary Sue criticism is fair (even if many of the ridiculous abilities he has are explained, they aren’t always good explanations), and truthfully I thought the prose was a little childish for a book that talks about such topics as genocide, redemption, sexual assault, etc. but was not bad enough to ruin the book by any means. Overall, not the best written book by any means, but an incredibly interesting world. As a matter of fact, I think one of the reasons Daylen had so many abilities was to show off more about the world and its trades and sciences.
I laughed out loud so many times during this video. Especially "Australia on a cool winter evening" and "In a shocking twist of events, an oil company was evil."
"Attack on Titan" would've been a great source and example, for this topic. Historically speaking Japan is also a great example of an Island Empire, especially back when it was closed off to the world and a mystery.
One of the best examples I’ve ever seen of island worldbuilding (actually, worldbuild in general) is Francis Hardinge’s “Deeplight.” The relationship with water from part 1 is explored a lot, as well as how different islands in the archipelago have different regional signs. Even the development of sign languages as widely used links to the sea, as the islands have a large Dead population due to water related accidents. It’s a brilliant book, I recommend it to anyone who happens to read this comment.
I wonder if Jonathan Swift did it on purpose? It would be in brand for him. Remember this is the guy that in the same book argue that Dutch and German sounded like horses neighing 😂
I come from Newfoundland, which has a different variation of many of these points (though they still do definitely apply, just in ways that you didn't mention). We live in a geographic situation similar to the Greyjoys - a harsh, brutal environment where farming is limited and the sea is often lethal - but we didn't start here. We came here and survived as part of a globe-spanning ocean trade empire. Our land is isolated, yes, but also an important stop on a globally important ocean trade route with key resources that help that trade route function. This leads to a very different situation, where the vast majority of the locla inhabitants have little to no direct contact with the outside world, but are also dependant on a very important indirect connection to the biggest method of global trade at that time. This removes the need for raiding that is prominent in the example of the Greyjoys or the Norse peoples of the Viking Era. The end result is a culture that has almost opposite values of the ones seen in the Iron Isles; there is a large focus on community - where kindness, hospitality and cooperation are seen as essential survival skills. Those who believe in a dog-eat-dog world wind up alone very quickly, and without the solidarity of a community, you will die very quickly. The environment preys on those who are alone, so taking care of those around you (your family, your crew, your neighbours, even random travellers who happen by) is key to the survival of the whole community, and therefore everyone within that community. There is a sense of responsibility to help those in trouble, because outsiders can't be relied on to step in (thanks to distance and/or the exploitative power relations of the trade empire we found ourselves in). This results in a culture that generally frowns upon those that "pass the buck" when called upon to help. And yes, that led to constant and palpable tension with the colonial overlords that governed our island. Now this culture didn't arise overnight, as soon as Europeans set foot on this island. Far from it. It took centuries of living here before this culture fully manifested itself as something distinctly different from our neighbours. This is likely because the location of our island and its position on the Trans-Atlantic trade route made it less isolated than other island cultures, leading to a slower transition away from the dominant culture we came out of, but for the past 150 years or so (of the 400ish years of European settlement in Newfoundland), this has been the general trend of our culture.
I guess you can say the same culture rose within the Inuit communities because they're technically islands within themselves too? You could also include nomadic tribes within this idea as well since they're "floating islands" in the sense that small communities move around. The Gypsy community in the UK are very close knit and isolationist (while making a mess of everywhere they go) so I can see this mentality could very much be the same as theirs.
Another point to consider is that in pre-modern times, the efficiency of sea transport was vastly higher on a per-mile basis. The idiom used to express this now is that cities are "united by water, but separated by land."
I loved that you touched on how islands affect animal life! There is actually an entire field around this called island biogeography, that deals with different factors of how animals on islands developed, and how resilient they are to environmental changes. It deals with factors such as distance, size of the island, size of the source population, and time separated. These "islands" don't even need to be traditional island. The ideas can be applied to an kind of isolated environments, such as forest patches. Definitely gives you some interesting ideas to work with when worldbuilding.
It’s amazing how even Britannia was considered a mysterious dangerous place by Gallic Romans, largely because it was an island on the edge of the world
Some more things to consider about island ecosystems: -Depending on how long they’ve been separated from the mainland, the animals that were trapped there will evolve to fill similar niches to their mainland counterparts. Elaborating in the example of New Zealand (with doesn’t exist) the Island broke off when there were no mammals around, so all the niches were filled by birds- with kiwis mirroring rats in the night-forrest scavenger niche, moas mirroring moose and bison in the big herbivore niche and the haasts eagle kinda doing their own thing and filling the super carnivore niche. -The smaller the size of the land+ the more isolated it is + the longest it has been separated from any mainland= the more unique it’s ecosystem will be, and the more likelly it will contain animals from old-near extinct taxa. Australia isn’t an island but it was isolated enough that it is a good example- because it broke off before placental mammal were a thing, not only were marsupials filling the niches, but were able to thrive, while were being outcompeted and replaced by placentals. There is the only place were monotremes mammals like the platypus still exist- there was less competition and evolutionary pressures, meaning they could survive where new types of mammals have taken over. - The more unique the ecosystem (the more it follows the previous rules) the more vulnerable it is- there will be less but more specific ecological pressures on the animal, making it evolve into a form that is very vulnerable to invasive species. Examples include the tale of flightless birds: flight is very demanding of energy and special features, so if a bird lives in a safe environment where they don’t need flight, they will stop flighting and put their energy into evolving something more effective. Elephant birds, dodos, moas, kiwis, kakapos- all flightless island birds that evolved flightlesness- and were either killed off or became extremely endangered as soon as invasive species (humans and friends) arrived. They weren’t prepared to us (going even deeper in the kakapo example- they evolved to be be camouflaged and freeze at the sight of danger, since their predators had great vision. However with the arrival of mammals, this tactic made them nearly extinct, since mammals have great smell that combat camouflage). -Some types of animal (or animals that evolved from those mammals) are more likely to be found on islands (specially the smaller/maybe volcanic instead of ex-mainland ones)- small animals like lizards or rodents that can raft on logs, swimming animals like crocodiles or seals can swim, and flighting animals like bats (the only native New Zealand mammals, they are everywhere!) and birds can fly there. Also generalists will be more likely to stick and populate an island after being stuck there, since they can handle themselves with the given resources. -Some cool island concepts: island gigantism and dwarfism. Due to special conditions (usually but not aways related to food amounts) animals can evolve to be larger or smaller versions of their mainland counterparts. During the cretaceous period for example, Romênia was the island of Hateg, where there were several mini versions of mainland dinosaurs and a giant super predator pterosaurs. There is probably more to cover, these are the ones I could think off my head, hope it helps!
I was honestly hoping some acknowledgment of one piece and its unique situation of only island civilizations, and the great worldbuilding in that story.
Man I don't know why I've just sort of discovered your channel recently. Glad I got a lot of videos to catch up on! Edit: the story I'm writing takes place in a nation made up of a cluster of isles so this video was very helpful.
Is this man a mind reader? Me while I've been trying to work on an island nation for my DND campaign and homie comes out with thissssssss. Fam. (The only way this could be better would be if tim announced that he was going to read ONE PIECE after this.)
I love the worldbuilding of the universe in which this channel exists. New Zealand doesn't exist, Pirates is a 100% true story... a rich, well-developed universe.
By the way, I'm writing a story for a screenplay course and I named one of the characters Mishka in honor of our previous Supreme Leader. She was fair and mighty and shall forever live in our hearts.
Small error I spottet: The silk road was intact during the sea trade boom. Two major factors that lead to it instead were European colonialism & trade embargoes against powers such as the Ottoman Empire on the basis of religion. Trade had been relatively monopolized by countries such as Genoa at the time while Castile /Spain torpedoed it's own trade that way which under Andalusia had made Iberia prosperous.
Your videos are so well done that they feel like stories themselves. I appreciate the fourth wall breaks every once in a while to remind me that I’m watching a video. Cheers.
Hello Future Me: Their isolation makes them less vulnerable to diseases on the mainland The Americas: Spain and the UK: _cough cough_ Also the Americas: 👁️👄👁️
These days there's far more to fear from the tyrants exploiting the disease. 1776: * kills millions in a world with less than a billion people using smallpox at a 60% case mortality rate * America: Let's build a country that has no excuses for not protecting liberty! 2020: * kills a couple million in a world of 7.5 billion with a cough that has a .1% case mortality rate * America: Take this dangerous liberty away! Give me slavery, but please don't give me death!
I'm not planning on making anything like this, but this was helpful just to expand my understanding of these areas in the real world, as I'm trapped in the dead center of the U.S. and often am unaware or forget things like islands actually disappearing due to rising sea levels. Island dwarfism is super interesting tho. Evolution in fiction is such a fascinating subject. I'm currently trying to make prehistoric mermaids that devoped from ichthyosaurs. Also, "not as great as it once was Britain" 😆 love it. P.s. congratulations on your new supreme leader 😊 long live the supreme leader!
"Consider how avoiding a deadly plague might leave an island nation in a stronger geopolitical position than their continental counterparts" *cries in England*
aaaand another video from the SINGLE most UNDERRATED channel on the WHOLE entirety of RU-vid.com .in all seriousness i love your videos keep up the good work 💪 ALL HAIL THE ALLMIGHTY MOMO
Majapahit This is my favorite island empire that epitomizes many (but not all) of the things you mention. A huge island empire based on naval supremacy and trade power that spanned most of SE Asia's coast and the Indonesian archipelago
Am currently writing up a campaign setting for an RPG in which most of the action takes place on a single large island, you have given me much to think about, and also affirmed much of what I have already done. Thank you for the video, and keep up the good work
Well island civilizations are less vunerable to disease in the scanario that there is contact between the continent and the isle which is cut off during the plague. If any of these aren't the case(for example, there is little to contact between the island and the mainland) then a disease that's bad for the continent might be the end of human life on that island(because the people won't have proper immune systems that protect them).
Loved the video! Gives lots to think about in regards to world building, as your fantastic videos always do. Just for interest's sake than any criticism: One of the reason that Newfoundland doesn't have weird animals is because the ocean freezes during the winter and animals cross over from the mainland. So there's no animals that typically hibernate on the island (minus bears). So sometimes islands can have really normal kinds of animals depending on distance and seasonal cycles too.
The timing of this is great! I have a story - that's still in the early worldbuilding developing stages - that takes place on an island civilisation. Thanks so much for this!
Tim, great content, keep it up❤️ You kinda remind me of the Channel: The Meaning of NERD You should check it out. I think you'll really like his avatar videos. Keep it up bro, love your stuff ❤️
@@tanostrelok2323 no, but it Was a Great Power in a time when there weren't really any superpowers. (Britain had list that status by then (arguably it had been a hyper-power for a while there) and the USA and USSR had not yet attained it)
Japan is an archipelago that a single government took under their flag hundreds of years ago. It took a few hundred years, but patience and focus are basically virtues there.
@psych *waves at the warring states period and shogunates after* Also the daimyo did more of the decentralized local power mode than anything truly centralized along Chinese norms. It took a britain style industrial revolution for them to fully coordinate and start expanding. And even before warring states, the emperor was more of a religious figurehead than a full enforceable political entity.
Wasn't Indonesia's government incredibly centralized on the island of Java during the Suharto years, though? And still is, even after the political reforms that happened?
@@grahamturner2640 It does. It is also the most developed, economically and technologically. So it's not exactly decentralized as an archipelago. Government decisions tend to skew heavily towards Java.
The dead land is an interesting good new zealandian maori horror. Atlantis is proably the most famous fictional island thou, and the disney movie that underrated, ha not a bad portrayal. Not kyoshi island? And disney bought islands, hmm. The manga hells paradise has an interesting take on mystical island.
Kyoshi is probably not as interesting to talk about because it originally wasn’t an island and probably developed roughly the same culture as the mainland. The most interesting thing about it are the Kyoshi warriors which are more related to their founder rather than their home being an island
![On Worldbuilding - Island Civilisations! [ GoT | Japan | Ghibli ]](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
