Mapping the Island from Lost

Between 2004 and 2010, ABC Television scored a major hit with its science fiction castaway show, Lost. Airing for 121 episodes over six seasons, Lost started with Ocean Airways Flight 815 broke up in mid-air over a mysterious island in the South Pacific. The Island was revealed to have unusual properties and to be at the centre of a struggle for power between two men, Ben Linus and Charles Widmore. But beyond that was a much greater and more supernatural struggle between two ancient, long-lived figures who had been waging an adversarial battle for two thousand years and, in the survivors of Flight 815, found proxies who could fight on their behalf. Above all, the show was the story of the survivors of Flight 815 and a number of other characters who came to the Island by other means, all of whom were “lost” in a spiritual or psychological sense and on the Island would find themselves.

Big Jon’s map of the Island is probably the most exactingly-created to date, paying careful attention to every episode of the series. You can see a much higher-res version of the map here and the follow the multi-year process behind its creation here.

Lost, despite some uneven storytelling and some questionable story turns in the final season, remains a pretty good show. I’m currently conducting a thorough rewatch of the series over at The Wertzone, and it’s held up pretty well (and even improved in some respects). Of course, one of the most interesting questions over the years has been about the geography of the Island. Although occasional maps were shown and the show’s producers confirmed that they did use a map in plotting out the story, no canonical, accurate  map of the Island has been produced whilst the show was on the air, aside from those maps shown during the series itself. Since the show ended, a map was produced and included with the later complete series collections on Blu-Ray and DVD, but this map lacks any location details and there are no indications if this map is supposed to be reliable or just an interpretation of the Island, especially as it differs from the maps shown in the series itself in several key areas.

Danielle Rousseau’s map of the Island, with annotations translated from the original French. Sayid steals this map from Danielle in the Season 1 episode Solitary. It later forms the basis for all the other maps of the Island. The only features on this map that definitely appear in the show are the submarine cable and the radio transmitter.

The most important map we are shown in the series itself is that created by Danielle Rousseau. Danielle arrived on the Island in 1988 after her scientific expedition picked up a signal apparently out of nowhere. Danielle’s crew-mates were then consumed by some form of “sickness” and went mad, forcing Danielle to kill them. She spent the next sixteen years alone on the Island until the arrival of the Oceanic 815 survivors in 2004. During this time she seems to have mapped the Island fairly extensively, even providing a scale and lines of latitude and longitude:

Using this map, the Island extends for about 37 miles (60km) from north to south. This makes the Island marginally smaller than the island of Oahu in Hawaii, which is where the bulk of the show was filmed. Some questions do arise about this map, most notably that during Danielle’s extensive explorations she apparently never discovered fairly notable landmarks including the Barracks and the Four-Toed Statue, or encountered any members of the Others or the remnants of the DHARMA Initiative. In addition, there appear to be large areas of the Island (such as the “Dark Territory”) which she avoided wherever possible. Still, a circumnavigation of the Island seems possible and there is the question over what exactly she was doing for sixteen years if she wasn’t exploring. Just hanging out in her camp? It is worth noting that she also seems to have deliberately left off areas of the map she knew about but considered too traumatic to revisit (most notably the Temple).

A map accompanying the Complete Series box sets. This map is highly stylised and inaccurate when compared to the maps that appear in the show itself, with an anomalous (and far too big) Hydra Island off the south-east coast.

The next map was produced by the Lost team for the DVD and Blu-Ray releases after the show finished in 2010. We don’t know if this was actually worked on by the production team or just the art department for the media release. This map is broadly similar to Danielle’s, but differs in several key respects. Most notably, the map has been altered to have an absolutely massive secondary island off the east coast, which is presumably the Hydra Island. Given that the Hydra Island is repeatedly said to be quite small, barely big enough for a runway and that runway isn’t long enough to effectively land a jet airliner on, the smaller island in this map appears much too big. If anything, it feels like the two maps should be reversed: this looks more like a crude, roughly-drawn one and Danielle’s feels like a more exacting and accurate map. Given that all of the fan maps drawn over the years (and the additional maps used on the show) have used Danielle’s as a base and discarded the DVD/Blu-Ray one, I think it’s best to do the same thing.

There are several blogs and websites which have attempted to create maps of the Island. Some abandoned their efforts before the show ended, so were unable to use the details revealed in the last season, and others are simply plain wrong, not accounting for all of the details revealed in the show. Admittedly this is not helped by the often highly contradictory details given in the show. For example, Sayid says at one point that the Barracks are south of the crashed cockpit section of 815, but the cockpit is not far from the southern-most point of the Island and every other detail in over 100 episodes firmly placing the Barracks in the far north of the Island.

The Island Map Tumblr (shown at the top of the article) is probably the best site charting the attempts to create a map. It pays careful attention to distances (most notably the very short distances between the beach camp, Swan and caves which a lot of fan maps ignore) and takes on board evidence from across the whole series. You can see a much higher res version of the map here on Deviantart.

This 3D map by Jubra is certainly the most attractive map of the Island created to date, although many of its location placements clash with what is established in the series. Still, there is a wealth of detail to be seen here.

There are some niggling problems that no map has ever satisfactorily answered. Almost every reference in the show puts the Hydra Island quiet close to the Barracks in the far north of the Island. However, the producers also said that the Hydra Island is one of the islands shown on Danielle’s map. The DVD map even goes as far as to stick  the Hydra Island off the south-western coast of the Island, which seems to be too far away. On the other hand, both DHARMA and the Others use motorboats and submarines to get to the Hydra and back from the Barracks, which dramatically reduces transport times even if it is 30+ miles away at the other end of the Island. The other issue is that travel across the Island is presented as hard, long and gruelling in the opening episodes of the show, with Sayid taking several days to travel around the south coast of the Island and the tailies taking several days to get from the Arrow Station in the far north-east of the Island to the main beach camp in the south-west. However, by Season 6 the survivors are flitting from one side of the Island to the other in just a few hours, often not bothering to stock up on supplies. This is somewhat down to narrative laziness, but it also reflects the survivors’ growing confidence and ease in their knowledge of the Island’s geography and where food and water can be found.

It would be nice to see an official Lost map produced, but six years after the show ended this seems a bit unlikely and it would take the fun out of things for fans trying to map the crazy Island themselves.

Mapping the Journey of Daenerys Targaryen

Of the main cast of characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, none has covered more ground than Daenerys Targaryen. In her opening chapter in the first novel in the series, A Game of Thrones, she is living in the manse of Magister Illyrio Mopatis just outside the Free City of Pentos. By the end of that novel alone she has crossed the Forest of Qohor and the Dothraki Sea, visited Vaes Dothrak and journeyed to the borderlands of the Lhazareen. The following books take her even further afield before she turns west and eventually arrives in Slaver’s Bay.

A map showing Daenerys’s journey and other areas of interest. Please click to see a larger version.

The above map divides Daenerys’s journey between the five published novels in the series so far:

A Game of Thrones

After a year living in the abode of Illyrio Mopatis in Pentos, Daenerys marries Khal Drogo outside the city. Drogo’s khalasar departs Pentos using the Valyrian straight roads. This allows it to travel from Pentos to Qohor, via Norvos, relatively quickly. From Qohor the khalasar follows the Valyrian road eastwards through the vast Forest of Qohor (taking a fortnight, which seems a bit long considering how relatively narrow it is, but okay) to the edge of the Dothraki Sea. The Valyrian road terminates at the ruins of Essaria, Valyria’s old trading post with the kingdom of Sarnor to the north and east before both Sarnor and Essaria were destroyed by the Dothraki during the Century of Blood.

After this point the Dothraki cross almost the entirety of the Dothraki Sea. There are the remains of the old Sarnori trade routes but, not infused with alleged sorcery like the Valyrian roads, these have almost disappeared after the passage of four centuries. Back on their home ground, the Dothraki are much more comfortable moving through the open grasslands anyway. Some time later, after Daenerys learns she is pregnant, the khalasar reaches Vaes Dothrak, the Dothraki city on the shore of the Womb of the World, in the shadow of the Mother of Mountains. There they stay for a time, until an attempt is made on Daenerys’s life and thwarted by Ser Jorah Mormont. Khal Drogo learns that the assassin was sent on the order of King Robert Baratheon. Furious, Drogo swears to conquer the Seven Kingdoms and put his son on the Iron Throne. The khalasar strikes south, Drogo planning to take a horde of slaves in Lhazar and herd them down the Skahazadhan to Meereen to sell in return for the ships and supplies the Dothraki will need to invade Westeros.

Of course, this plan goes awry. Drogo takes a wound in battle which festers. Daenerys employs the Lhazareen maegi Mirri Maz Duur to heal Drogo, but instead she renders him insensible at the cost of Daenerys’s child. Drogo’s khalasar splits to the winds. Daenerys burns Mirri Maz Duur and Drogo alive on a pyre along with her dragon eggs, a gift from Illyrio who claims they came from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai. However, the description of the eggs matches some of the eggs left behind in Westeros after the Dance of Dragons. The true origin of the eggs remains unknown. It is known that, thanks to a fusion of heat, blood and maybe magic, the eggs hatched and three dragons come into the world.

Daenerys therefore crosses the following distances in A Game of Thrones alone:

• Pentos to Norvos: just under 600 miles.
• Norvos to Qohor: approximately 550 miles.
• Qohor to Vaes Dothrak: approximately 2,200 miles.
• Vaes Dothrak to Lhazar: approximately 800 miles.
• Total: approximately 4,150 miles.

 

The hatching of the dragons, by Michael Komarck.

A Clash of Kings

After the hatching of the dragons, aware the neither the Lhazareen nor the Dothraki will give her succour, Daenerys and her small band of followers head south and east into the forbidding Red Waste, the former homeland of the Qaathi people before it was destroyed by the encroaching desert. The khalasar, battered by disease and starvation, eventually finds some relief in the ruins of Vaes Tolorro, the City of Bones, where they find a clean well and some hardy fruit-growing trees. Daenerys’s bloodriders go searching for help and eventually locate the great city of Qarth to the south-east.

Daenerys makes her way to Qarth and allies herself with Xaro Xhoan Daxos, a merchant prince. Ultimately, Xaro proves an unreliable friend and Daenerys is betrayed by the Undying, an order of mages. The House of the Undying is destroyed by Drogon, the largest and fiercest of Daenerys’s dragons. Daenerys and her followers vacate the city quickly by sea, thanks to three ships sent by Magister Illyrio to find her.

• Lhazar to Vaes Tolorro: approximately 525 miles
• Vaes Tolorro to Qarth: approximately 525 miles
• Total: approximately 1,050 miles

 

The House of the Undying in Qarth, art by Bjarne Hansen for Fantasy Flight Games.

A Storm of Swords

Daenerys’s small fleet is heading west from Qarth to Pentos when Daenerys decides to take it north into Slaver’s Bay. Jorah’s suggestion is that Daenerys hires an army of the Unsullied, the greatest soldiers in Essos. Daenerys does indeed acquire an army of Unsullied in Astapor, the southern-most of the slaver cities, but is so disgusted by the slavers that she uses her new soldiers and her dragons to seize control of the city. The army then marches north to Yunkai. Daenerys fails to take the city but she does convince the Yunkai’i to surrender their slaves to her. Then she marches to Meereen and, thanks to the bravery of Ser Jorah Mormont and Ser Barristan Selmy, takes that city as well. Her advisors urge her to march on Westeros with her newly-acquired forces but Daenerys decides to remain and learn how to rule in Meereen first, fearing that the city will descend into bloodshed, chaos and slavery once more if she leaves.

• Qarth to Astapor (by sea): approximately 2,325 miles
• Astapor to Yunkai: approximately 375 miles
• Yunkai to Meereen: 163 miles
• Total: approximately 2,863 miles

 

Meereen, as depicted in the Telltale adventure game.

A Dance with Dragons

Daenerys’s attempts to bring peace to Meereen founder on cultural differences, economical problems and the resentment of the ruling class. Daenerys attempts to overcome some of these by marrying a local noble, Hizdahr zo Loraq and winning the allegiance of the religious leader, the Green Grace, but ultimately these moves only result in a reprieve whilst those opposed to Daenerys’s liberation of the slave cities attack and destroy Astapor and then besiege Meereen. Daenerys is eventually carried off from the city by her dragon, Drogon, who flies north and east far into the Dothraki Sea and leaves her on a hill she names Dragonstone, in memory of the ancestral Targaryen island fastness in the Narrow Sea. She and Drogon are then surrounded by Dothraki, the khalasar of Khal Jhaqo, one of Drogo’s bloodriders who splintered off after Drogo’s death and formed his own khalasar.

• Meereen to Dragonstone Hill: very approximately 550 miles
• Total distance travelled from Pentos in A Game of Thrones: approx. 8,613 miles

 

Drogon and Daenerys Targaryen in Daznak’s Pit in Meereen.

The Winds of Winter

Daenerys’s fate in The Winds of Winter is unknown, of course, although some things seem likely. It is probable that Daenerys will return to Vaes Dothrak to the north-east and use Drogon to impress the Dothraki into following her. With a vast Dothraki horde at her back, she can then do what she long ago vowed to do: returning to Westeros to claim her rights by fire and blood. How this will be achieved, and whether it will be in time to address the threat of the onrushing winter and the rising dead that come with it, is something that for now only George R.R. Martin knows for sure.

 

Hey, will Daenerys be travelling east to reach Westeros via Asshai?

This again? No. To do so, Daenerys would have to travel approximately 22,480 miles right around the planet, almost completely circumnavigating it. This is instead of travelling west just 3,000 miles to get back to Westeros. Given the limitations of sailing technology (and, without known islands for the dragons to fly and hop across whatever ocean lies east of Essos, she would have to sail), this will take several years and likely remove Daenerys from the story until long after the ultimate victory of the Others.

The reference of going east to go west is likely referring to what we’ve seen already: Daenerys going back to Vaes Dothrak to complete what she started before, and travelling in a huge circle around Slaver’s Bay and the Dothraki Sea before she can finally strike for home.

The Maps of R. Scott Bakker’s Second Apocalypse

In 2003 Canadian fantasy author R. Scott Bakker published his first novel, an epic fantasy called The Darkness That Comes Before. It was an unusual book, melding together influences from Tolkien, Frank Herbert’s Dune and the works of Nietzsche, amongst many others. In thoughtful, rich prose it told the story of Ansurimbor Kellhus, scion of an ancient and hidden sect who descends into the civilisation of the Three Seas, joins the Holy War against the infidel Fanim to reclaim the Holy City of Shimeh, and then subverts it to his own, dubious ends. Two further volumes followed, The Warrior-Prophet and The Thousandfold Thought, completing The Prince of Nothing Trilogy.

A spectacular map of the continent of Earwa, the setting for the seven novels that make up The Prince of Nothing and The Aspect-Emperor (as well as presumably the two novels to follow). This striking map was created by Jason Deem, aka Spiral Horizon. More of his work can be found here, along with his illustrated trailer for the books here. Please click on the map to see its full, impressive detail.

In 2008 Bakker began publishing a follow-up series. The Judging Eye picks up the action twenty years on, with the Three Seas now united and preparing the Great Ordeal, a second massive crusade. This time their target is Golgotterath, the crash-site of the Ark of the Heavens, a star-spanning vessel which brought the dread Inchoroi to the world. The Inchoroi and their human servants, the Consult, seek to resurrect the No-God, a nihilistic force of annihilation, so as to reduce the human population of the world to more manageable levels and, in time, help them escape. The series continued with The White-Luck Warrior in 2011, but work on the concluding volume of the then-planned trilogy was delayed by real-life issues. Nevertheless, Bakker completed the book last year. Due to its length, it has been split into two volumes: The Great Ordeal and The Unholy Consult. The Great Ordeal will be published on 5 July in the United States and 29 September in the UK, with The Unholy Consult to follow in (hopefully early) 2017.

Scott Bakker’s own hand-drawn map of Earwa for The Darkness That Comes Before.

The Prince of Nothing and The Aspect-Emperor form the opening two acts of a three-act story with the over-arcing title of The Second Apocalypse. Scott Bakker has planned the final act, which will apparently consist of two volumes, but cannot reveal the title yet without it spoiling the events at the end of The Aspect-Emperor.

As with most works of epic fantasy, the series is accompanied by maps. These maps are drawn in a deliberately Tolkien-aping style by the author himself, based on map he started creating when he first conceived of the series in the mid-1980s. The main map of the continent of Earwa where the action takes place is updated with each book, and new “zoomed-in” maps of areas of interest appear with each volume. The Great Ordeal will be no different, depicting a map of the area surrounding Golgotterath as the armies of the Aspect-Emperor close in on the Ark of the Heavens and a final confrontation with the foul Inchoroi.

Scott Bakker’s map of the Western Three Seas for The Darkness That Comes Before.

The best map is Jason Deem’s excellent colour piece, presented at the top of this article. The action in The Second Apocalypse takes place on Earwa, the western part of a much larger continental landmass (the eastern part is known as Eanna and is the birthplace of humanity, who migrated to Earwa over four thousand years ago; the current state of Eanna is unknown). Earwa’s size is speculative, but Deem drew on the distances given in the text to come up with a scale: Earwa is approximately 4,000 miles across from east to west and about the same from north to south. The Great Ordeal, which has to detour around several mountain ranges and seas, has to traverse just over 3,000 miles to reach Golgotterath. This dwarfs even the Holy War of the first trilogy, which has to traverse approximately 1,300 miles to reach Shimeh.

A draft of the map that will accompany The Great Ordeal.

The maps of Earwa do have some interesting features. Hard to see on the book maps, but more legible on Deem’s and Bakker’s original, hand-drawn maps, are multiple, large, crater-like areas on the surface of the planet. The one at Golgotterath was caused by the Ark of the Heavens (a biotech starship, approximately 1.4km in length) falling out of the sky and crashing into the planet well over 4,500 years prior to the time of Kellhus. However, the origin of the other ring-like mountains and structures is unknown. Similarly, the map of Earwa also has some features reminiscent of Earth: the Three Seas themselves form a geographical obstacle similar to the Mediterranean, whilst the inland Sea of Cerish is highly reminiscent of the Black Sea, even down to a Crimea-like peninsula located on its north coast. Meanwhile, the Sea of Neleost resembles a much-shrunken Baltic, with the sweeping northern peninsula to the north-west bearing a vague similarity to Scandinavia (a resemblance noted by Bakker himself on his blog). Does this mean that Earwa is possibly Eurasia in some incredibly remote period of the past or distant future? Possibly. If so, I suspect this will be confirmed at some point in the later volumes.

Scott Bakker’s original map for The Prince of Nothing, dating to the 1990s or earlier.

The Second Apocalypse

The Prince of Nothing

1. The Darkness That Comes Before (2003)
2. The Warrior-Prophet (2004)
3. The Thousandfold Thought (2005)

The Aspect-Emperor

1. The Judging Eye (2008)
2. The White-Luke Warrior (2011)
3. The Great Ordeal (2016)
4. The Unholy Consult (2017)

Stellar Cartography: The Journey of the Galactica

The SyFy series Battlestar Galactica (2003-10) charts the journey of the titular warship and its accompany fleet of seventy or so civilian vessels from the Twelve Colonies to a refuge on the distant, supposedly mythical planet “Earth”. The revamped series used a scientific advisor – astrophysicist Kevin Grazier – and attempted to use real science to chart Galactica‘s course, although this tended to get less and less prevalent as the show continued. Still, it is quite easy to create a map of the Milky Way Galaxy showing the approximate route of the Fleet and the location of the major planets and landmarks along the way.

Note that this articles contains spoilers for the ending of the Battlestar Galactica TV series. If you haven’t watched it yet (and I recommend it), please avoid the rest of this article.

A map of the local region of the galaxy, with BSG locations estimated. The source map is this one from National Geographic.

When attempting to chart the course of the Fleet, we need to be aware of two things. First of all, the technological limitations of how far and fast the Fleet can travel. Secondly, the major landmarks they passed and how distant they were from one another.

FTL Travel in the Battlestar Galactica Universe

In BSG, interstellar travel is accomplished by means of using an FTL (faster-than-light) drive to instantaneously “jump” from one point in space-time to another. There appears to be no maximum range on how far a ship can jump, but there does appear to be a severe limitation on how far a ship’s computer can calculate a jump safely.

This is because Galactica and the other ships are reliant on their space telescopes to scout a star system before jumping to it. Every star is orbiting the galactic core at a different speed, each planet and moon is circling its parent star at a different rate and of course the speed of light limitation means that you can’t look at a target system and “see” where everything is right “now”. If we looked at Alpha Centauri (4.3 light-years away) and saw a planet there, we wouldn’t be seeing it now but as it was 4.3 years ago. We would have to study the orbit of the planet and then extrapolate it’s current position to work out the jump coordinates to get into orbit. A couple of errors in the calculation and we could end up inside the planet, on the far side of the system or somewhere else altogether.

The further away a star or planet, the fuzzier the images, the hazier the calculations and the more variables that enter the equation. At a certain point the variables become incalculable and the ability to plot a safe jump breaks down: this is known as the “Red Line”. Jumping the red line is possible only if the target area is say a vast area of open space and you can have an error margin of billions of miles or even entire light-years. We see this in the opening mini-series when the Fleet jumps from the orbit of Ragnar (in the Colonial home system) to the Prolmar Sector, a distance of 30 light-years. This is way beyond Galactica‘s red line, but because the target area seems to be pretty big they can get away with it with a reasonable degree of safety.

The maximum precise distance that can be entered on Galactica‘s flight computer is apparently 999,999 stellar units, the BSG equivalent of astronomical units (1 AU=the distance between Earth and the Sun, or 93 million miles/150 million kilometers). This works out at 15.812 light-years. However, this would be an extreme long range jump, taking possibly several days of careful study before a safe jump can be calculated. According to the producers, the Fleet more typically jumps 5 light-years or less at a time, as a jump of this distance can be worked out relatively quickly (the twelve hours mentioned in the Season 2 episode Scattered seems likely).

There are two reasons why the length of time required to work out a jump are fairly long. The first is that most Colonial vessels are designed only for travel within the home system of Cyrannus (or Helios). The Cyrannus system consists of four stars, twenty-four planets, at least 132 moons and four major asteroid belts, all spanning 0.16 light-years. The system is huge (the Solar system is approximately 0.005 light-years wide, extending to the termination shock of the Sun’s influence), but the distances are trivial compared to interstellar travel. Most of the ships in the Fleet only need to travel within the home system and are normally constantly fed astronomical data on the relative positions of every body in the system, which would make cross-system transit fairly trivial. Only the military would have any reason to leave the home system and make interstellar jumps, and even these are relatively short-range. The second reason is that Galactica‘s computers are not networked together (for fear of Cylon computer virus intrusion), so the damage control, mainframe and stellar cartography systems can’t “talk” to one another directly. When these systems are networked together (under extreme duress) in Scattered, they work out jump coordinates in 10 minutes rather than 12 hours.

Cylon FTL technology is comprehensively superior to that of the Colonials. In Lay Down Your Burdens, a Cylon Heavy Raider FTL computer is able to travel from the vicinity of New Caprica all the way back to the Twelve Colonies in just ten jumps. It would have taken Galactica 230 jumps (conservatively) to reach the Twelve Colonies from Kobol, which was significantly closer. This suggests that the Cylons may be able to traverse dozens to a couple of hundred light-years in a single jump.

The Lagoon Nebula, also known as M8, is a star-forming nebula located approximately 4,100 light-years from Earth, towards the Galactic Core.

Major Landmarks on the Road to Earth

Travelling from the Twelve Colonies to Earth, the Fleet passes through or discovers the following major landmarks:

• The Twelve Colonies
• Kobol (reached 50 days after leaving the Colonies)
• The Lagoon Nebula
• New Caprica (reached 205 days after leaving Kobol)
• The Lion’s Head Nebula (reached 50 days after leaving New Caprica)
• The Star Cluster and Algae Planet (reached 67 days after leaving the Lion’s Head Nebula)
• The Ionian Nebula (reached 100-120 days after leaving the Algae Planet)
• Old Earth (aka the Thirteenth Colony) (reached 65-70 days after leaving the Ionian Nebula)
• The Cylon Colony (reached maybe 100-120 days after leaving Old Earth)
• New Earth (reached immediately from the Cylon Colony)

Of these landmarks, the only ones that “really” exist are the Lagoon Nebula and New Earth (aka our Earth). The other nebulas appear to be supernova remnants which typically disappear over the course of a few tens of thousands of years as their material is either dispersed by interstellar radiation and solar winds, or absorbed into newly-forming stars and planets, so would likely not be visible now anyway (not to mention being fictional!). The Lagoon Nebula is located 4,100 ly from Earth towards the galactic core, in the constellation of Sagittarius. Rather fortuitously, the position of the Lagoon Nebula allows us to actually map out a lot of the journey by itself.

The Fleet never reaches the Lagoon Nebula itself. Instead, they see it in the Temple of Athena on Kobol in the episode Home, Part II. The Temple holds a starmap showing the precise patterns of twelve constellations as seen from the Thirteenth Colony. These include an image of the Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius (the episode says Scorpius, but the producers later confirmed this was a mistake). Adama immediately recognises the Lagoon Nebula, except that from Earth it appears larger (he says that the nebula is a “long way” from Kobol). This suggests that the Twelve Colonies, Earth and the Lagoon Nebula form a direct line of sight, otherwise the nebula – not being a symmetrical object – would not be immediately recognisable to Adama.

This instantly gives the Fleet both a direction and rough destination: simply fly towards the Lagoon Nebula until the surrounding stars appear as the constellations do in the Temple of Athena. At that point you’re in the rough neighbourhood of Earth. In fact, from the Temple information alone you should be able to narrow down the location of Earth to a few light-years, or tens of light-years at worst. This seems fine but there is a problem: the information from the trip to Earth is 4,000 years out of date. This is long enough for the stars to move (in their respective orbits around the galactic core) and slightly change the appearance of the constellations. With hundreds of stars to line up in the right location, this may expand the error of margin from a few dozen to maybe a hundred or two hundred light-years: still a reasonable search area but one that would take months to explore thoroughly.

This is likely why later on we see the Galactica crew attempting to actually trace the exact route of the Thirteenth Tribe to Earth. This route seems to be longer, more haphazard and less direct than simply going straight towards the Lagoon Nebula, but it also allows Galactica to pick up additional clues and information, as well as finding important waystops (oases in the desert, if you will) to resupply and regroup. Also, finding the exact places the Thirteenth Tribe visited earlier helps narrow down the search parameters for when the Fleet does arrive in the correct vicinity.

A Colonial Raptor orbiting Kobol.

Distances

We are given one direct, very firm piece of information on distance in the course of the series: Kobol is slightly less than two thousand light-years from Old Earth (the Thirteenth Colony). The Thirteenth Tribe left Kobol using slower-than-light, subluminal drives approximately 4,000 years ago. After reaching and colonising Old Earth (the trip took under 2,000 years, but only months from the POV of the people on board the ship because of relativity), there was enough time – decades to a couple of centuries – for several cities to be built on the planetary surface before they were destroyed in a nuclear war which took place 2,000 years ago. The five survivors of the cataclysm then departed Old Earth and reached Kobol during the First Cylon War, approximately forty years before the events of the mini-series. This puts the Thirteenth Colony to somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 ly from Kobol, assuming the Thirteenth Tribe’s sublight engines were able to reach speeds approaching 99% of lightspeed.

This now begs the question as to how far the Twelve Colonies are from Kobol. According to the map of the Twelve Colonies created for Caprica, Kobol is also c. 2,000 light-years from the Colonies. With the Twelve Colonies, Earth and Lagoon Nebula being in a straight line, this seems to conclusively locate Earth 4,000 light-years from the Colonies with Kobol in the middle. Unfortunately this introduces a number of major continuity issues, most notably that it only takes the Fleet 50 days and 230 (ish) jumps of around 8 light-years each time to reach Kobol (the Fleet actually makes many more jumps due to the events of 33, but once a bit past Kobol they work out it’ll be about 230 jumps to get back home). That means they cover half of the entire distance from the Colonies to Earth in the first season alone. Based on the timescales involved, if the Fleet had simply kept flying towards the Lagoon Nebula from Kobol at the same rate, they would have reached Earth before they even encountered Pegasus!

On this basis we have to assume that the 2,000 ly distance is simply incorrect (it may be what is believed by the Colonials at the time of Caprica but this is in error) and Kobol is much, much closer to the Twelve Colonies. If we go with the 5 light-year distance for jumps given by the writers, that puts Kobol approximately 1,150 light-years from the Twelve Colonies. At 3 light years per jump it would be 690 light-years and so on. This would put Kobol at the one-quarter or one-third distance to Earth, which still seems a bit too close considering the length of time it takes the Colonials to reach Earth afterwards (even removing the sixteen-month layover on New Caprica), but is at least more plausible.

The battlestar Galactica and its accompanying refugee fleet.

The Route of the Caravan of the Heavens

The Fleet departs the Twelve Colonies within hours to a day or so of the initial Cylon attack. It regroups at the gas giant Ragnar at the edge of the system before making a jump way past Galactica‘s red line to the Prolmar Sector, 30 ly distant (the mini-series). The Cylons immediately pursue, appearing every 33 minutes without fail. With Galactica unable to make a normal jump calculation (which Scattered suggests takes 12 hours), it has to instead make a series of rapid-fire microjumps. As long as these jumps are more than 33 light-minutes distant, it means that the Cylons can’t visually “see” the fleet and have to rely on other ways of tracking the fleet (it is hinted that they are being given the jump coordinates by an agent on the Olympic Carrier and are doing the 33 minute thing simply to mess with the Colonials).

After six days and 239 such microjumps, the Galactica crew destroy the Olympic Carrier and effectively prevent the Cylons from directly pursuing them (33). The Cylons instead resort to “staking out” the watering holes – fuel, water and food sources – in the surrounding systems to try to trap the Fleet (Water, You Can’t Go Home Again, The Hand of God). It’s also probable that the Cylon agents in the Fleet at this time are able to signal the Cylons, if at least not providing “live” information on the Fleet’s movements (there is no FTL communications in the BSG universe either) then letting them know where they’ve been.

Fifty days after leaving the Twelve Colonies the Fleet reaches Kobol (Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part I). From a location past Kobol it is 230 jumps back to the Colonies (Pegasus). Assuming 5 light years per jump, that makes for a distance of 1,150 light-years from the Colonies to that location, putting Kobol at somewhat less, maybe in the 900-1,000 light-year range. At Kobol the Fleet discovers the Tomb of Athena and a starmap showing the constellations of the Twelve Tribes and the Lagoon Nebula (Home, Part II). The Fleet begins heading towards the Lagoon Nebula. Assuming Old Earth and New Earth are in the same stellar neighbourhood (which appears likely from later information) and given that we know that Old Earth is 2,000 light-years from Kobol, that puts the Fleet at roughly one-third of the distance from the Colonies to Earth at this time. This puts the distance from the Fleet to the Lagoon Nebula at this time to around 6,100 light-years.

A very rough and approximate map of the major landmarks on the road to Earth.

What happens next is a bit odd: Galactica and the Fleet take a further 205 days to travel from Kobol to New Caprica. This timeline discrepancy was introduced by the writers when they needed to have Athena give birth to Hera between eight and nine months after conception, with conception taking place in late Season 1. Given that the entirety of Season 1 spans about seven weeks and has the Fleet cover one-third the distance to Earth already, this appears problematic. However, there is a possible explanation. After leaving Kobol the Fleet encounters the battlestar Pegasus and destroys the Cylon fleet that has been trailing them since the Colonies, including its resurrection ship (Resurrection Ship, Part II). The destruction of the resurrection ship makes the Cylons a lot warier about attacking the Fleet. This takes the heat off the Colonials and means they can spend a lot longer doing jump calculations, make shorter but safer jumps and also gives them time for much-needed downtime, repairs and maintenance. The Fleet also spends a month undertaking mining operations in an asteroid belt (Scar), whilst Pegasus spends a large amount of time building new Vipers and training new pilots with its simulators.

The Fleet reaches New Caprica (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I) and settle the planet. A year later the planet is occupied by the Cylons (Lay Down Your Burdens, Part II). Four months later Galactica and Pegasus mount a rescue operation. This is successful, but Pegasus is destroyed in the process (Exodus, Part II). The Fleet then resumes the search for Earth. It is difficult to pinpoint the location of New Caprica except that it is within a dense nebula cloud. This nebula is so thick that, unlike other nebulas in the series, it interferes with DRADIS signals. It is possible that New Caprica is actually located in the outskirts of none other than the Orion Nebula, located 1,350 light-years from Earth. Based on the trajectory and distances given so far, the Orion Nebula is very close to the route from Earth to the Colonies via Kobol. The Orion Nebula also appears in the background of a scene in Scattered, suggesting that it the Fleet is at least in the vicinity. Since the Fleet locates New Caprica by accident, it is even possible that they had already passed the area and doubled back to the settle the planet.

Anyway, after leaving New Caprica the Fleet follows astronomical information from Baltar’s notes and reach the Lion’s Head Nebula fifty days later (Torn), where they find a beacon left behind by the Thirteenth Tribe (which is then destroyed before any information can be extracted from it). At this point, Galactica has taken severe damage from the Battle of New Caprica and is in rough shape. We see exactly how rough in Season 4, when the ship starts showing signs of structural collapse, but certainly it’s already clear that the ship is not operating at full capacity. It can be assumed that the Fleet may be making much shorter and safer jumps at this point.

The Lion’s Head Nebula is home to a rotating pulsar. There are a few pulsars within 1,500 ly of Earth (the closest is about 700 ly away) so this isn’t too much of a problem. From the nebula the fleet finds its way to a dense star cluster (The Passage), beyond which lies the Algae Planet where the Thirteenth Tribe built the Temple of Hopes (The Eye of Jupiter). There are plenty of star clusters at the distance we are looking at, although not quite in the right direction. The closest are the Pleiades at c. 450 light years at a slight tangent from Orion, but the Pleiades are very easily recognisable and if the cluster was supposed to be them, I think it’d have been made clearer. After reaching the Algae Planet, the local star goes nova and provides the Fleet with the next clue, the way to the Ionian Nebula (Rapture). The location of the Algae Planet is unknown, but the destruction of its star would have left behind an interesting supernova remnant. Although completely speculative, I always liked the idea that this remnant would become NGC7293, aka the Helix Nebula, simply because it bears an uncanny resemblance to the Eye of Jupiter.

The Helix Nebula, NGC7293, is a supernova remnant located approximately 714 light-years from Earth.

This then causes a major problem: the Ionian Nebula is said by Lt. Gaeta to be thirteen thousand light-years from the Algae Planet (or 2,600 jumps at five light years a time!). Reluctantly, I have to conclude that this distance – which grossly at odds with all other distances given in the series – is erroneous and Gaeta actually meant thirteen hundred ly. This is still problematic but not as much as trying to fit in a 13,000 ly side-trip into the series, especially given they make the trip in 120 days max (from Rapture to Crossroads, Part II) which is simply impossible given the limitations of Colonial technology. 1,300 ly is about the distance from the Orion Nebula to Earth, so it’s possible that this side-trip is actually in error and takes Galactica and the Fleet way off course. It’s notable that the Thirteenth Tribe merely saw the Ionian Nebula supernova in the sky, they didn’t necessarily travel there directly which the Fleet did. This is backed up by the fact that in the first few episodes of Season 4 the Fleet seem stumped by what to do next and have to rely on the conveniently-returned Starbuck to guide them to Earth, which after seventy-odd days of flying in circles she eventually does (Revelations).

Old Earth is a nuclear wasteland, completely uninhabitable. The Fleet begins a thorough, exacting search of the surrounding star systems for a habitable planet to settle on (Sometimes a Great Notion). At this point the constellations from Old Earth match those from the Temple of Athena – which makes sense – but of course we know that those constellations also mostly match those as seen from our Earth. As a result, this puts Old Earth and New Earth in the same stellar neighbourhood, meaning that the Fleet may have found it anyway if the search had continued for much longer.

Instead, of course, Galactica is forced to mount an assault on the Cylon Colony, the Cylon mobile command centre which has been moved into close proximity of the Fleet to oversee its final destruction and the kidnapping of Hera. The Colony is located in close orbit above a black hole. Galactica launches the rescue mission and it is successful. However, with the Colony’s orbit compromised and decaying, Galactica has to make an emergency jump. Using the coordinates provided by studying the mysterious “music”, Starbuck programmes Galactica‘s FTL computer to jump 362,321 astronomical units, or 5.77 light-years. The ship then arrives in orbit above New Earth (Daybreak, Part III).

There isn’t a black hole system 5.77 light-years from Earth, but as the closing moments of the finale reveal this isn’t necessarily a problem: the series is revealed as having taken place 150,000 years in the past. 150,000 years ago it is possible that a black hole system passed within 6 ly of the Solar system and the galaxy’s rotation has carried it a significant distance away from us in that time.

So there you have it. A lot of speculation, because the writers of the show weren’t always paying attention to things like time, space and distances, but broadly speaking we can see BSG as a surprisingly constrained show, spanning just a few thousand light-years rather than implausibly trying to take in the entire galaxy like some shows do. Something that does come through in all of this is how utterly vast space is and how even a tiny proportion of the galaxy (Galactica traverses approximately 3% of the width of the galaxy in its journey) is unfathomably huge.

The Seven Natural Wonders of the Known World

In our previous post, I looked at the Wonders Made by Man, the nine greatest artificial structures of the world as chronicled by Lomas Longstrider. Lomas also wrote an additional book about which we know much less, simply entitled Wonders. This book explored seven natural wonders of the world. As of A Dance with Dragons and The World of Ice and Fire, we know only of one of the natural wonders: the immense underground cave system in the hills and mountains north of Norvos. The others remain unknown.

Map showing the potential candidates for the Seven Natural Wonders of the Known World, as envisaged by Lomas Longstrider in his book Wonders. Only one, the Caves of Norvos, is known to be part of the list.

 

We can, however, made good, educated guesses on what at least some of the others might be. We know that Longstrider never visited Asshai or the Shadow Lands, otherwise the forbidding shadowed valleys would likely feature heavily. It’s also unlikely he visited Ulthos or the Saffron Straits. We also know he didn’t travel east of Ib in the Shivering Sea, so the Thousand Islands, N’Ghai and Mossovy are likely also not included on his list. From the discussions of his visit to the Summer Islands, it also sounds like he avoided travelling to Sothoryos after hearing of its extremely lethal jungles.

Other possibilities are as follows, arranged in order of likelihood.

The Highly Probable List

• Casterly Rock: one of the greatest natural wonders of the world, its fame known even in Asshai. Casterly Rock has been measured at between 2,100 feet and 2,400 feet in height, three times the height of the Wall or the High Tower of Oldtown. It is six miles long from east to west. To put this in context, the Rock of Gibraltar (on which the Rock is loosely based) is only 1,398 feet and measures about two miles in length. If this isn’t one of the natural wonders of the world, I’d like to know what Lomas thought was better.
• The Fourteen Flames: although few sailors dare sail within sight of the Valyrian coastline or the ash-bleeding mountains known as the Fourteen Flames today, at one time the situation was different. An immense chain of hills, mountains and volcanoes stretched across the neck of the Valyrian Peninsula and down to the great city of Valyria, with its towering dragon abodes divided by rivers of lava. The Fourteen Flames were immense mountains riven by volcanic vents, spewing lava and clouds into the sky. Whilst a question remains if Lomas would have been allowed to visit Valyria itself, it’s much more likely he could have seen the Fourteen Flames. They were immense, visible from both the sea and the land. And when the Doom came, the simultaneous eruption of the peaks caused the greatest cataclysm the world has ever seen. It’s pretty likely these made the list.
• The Rhoyne: there are many great rivers in the world, but none quite like the Rhoyne. Starting as streams and tributary streams forming in the highlands, hills and mountains between Norvos and Braavos, these soon combine into one colossal waterway. Already hundreds of feet wide even before it winds its way out of the Flatlands, the river still has a thousand miles and more to run until it empties into the sea through four immense deltas. The river mouth at Volantis alone is five times the width of the Blackwater Rush at King’s Landing, and that’s only one of them. The Rhoyne is in fact so wide in places you can barely see the other side, making it more than a match for some of its inspirations, namely the Amazon, the Nile and (of course) the Mississippi, the waterway George R.R. Martin previously studied in depth for his classic horror novel Fevre Dream.
• The Bone Mountains: several hundred miles to the east of Vaes Dothrak and the Womb of the World stand the Bones, a colossal series of mountain ranges which start off being big and then get even bigger, each range giving way to an even more massive one beyond it. The Bones stretch for over 2,100 miles from north to south and are almost 300 miles across at their widest point. Compare this to the Himalayas, which extend in an arc for only approximately 1,500 miles and are about 200 miles wide at their widest point. It is possibly, on this basis and given the greater size of the planet, that the tallest peaks of the Bones are even taller than Everest. The Bones are so dangerous to cross that even the Dothraki have rarely dared to attempt the passage, and the few khalasars that survived were destroyed against the walls of Samyriana, Kayakayanaya and Bayasabhad. Lomas Longstrider was so dismayed by seeing the Bones that he lost heart and almost gave up on his journey (he either steeled himself to resume his trip, or took ship instead for Yi Ti and Leng). I think we can safely say that these make the list.
• The Great Sand Sea: just beyond the Bones and along the far north-western border of Yi Ti lies a series of cliffs that drop sharply into the largest canyon system in the known world. The Great Sand Sea was possibly once an inland sea that dried up thousands of years ago, maybe the result of the same process that is affecting the Shrinking Sea a few hundred miles to the east. The Great Sand Sea is full of spectacular vistas as the ground drops away hundreds or even thousands of feet at a time. This seems a reasonably likely entry for Lomas’s list.

Beyond these obvious entries, things get a bit more speculative.

The Rhoyne as it passes through the ruins of the festival city of Chroyane. This stretch of the river is known as “The Sorrows”. Art by Marc Simonetti.

The Speculative List

• The Forest of Qohor: located just east of the Free City of Qohor, the great forest of the same name sprawls for hundreds of miles. It divides the entire Free City region of Essos from the Dothraki Sea beyond, and provides an immense source of lumber for western Essos. The forest is vast, rich in wildlife and, although somewhat dangerous due to the animal life and the proximity of the Dothraki Sea, somewhat easy to reach given the Valyrian roads that pass straight as an arrow through it. Larger forests exist, but it is unclear if – apart from the jungles of Yi Ti – Longstrider ever visited them.
• The Giant’s Lance: this is the tallest mountain in the Mountains of the Moon, on a shoulder of which sits the castle known as the Eyrie, seat of House Arryn. The Giant’s Lance is certainly an imposing mountain, 17,000 feet high and possibly the tallest mountain on the continent of Westeros. However, I suspect that the sight of the Bones – which may be as much as twice the height of the Giant’s Lance – may have displaced this from the list. Lomas may have been tempted to keep it on the list, however, due to the Eyrie itself, making the Lance likely the highest habited point in the known world. The tremendous sight of the partially-frozen waterfall of Alyssa’s Tears may also have helped keep it on the list.
• The Summer Isles: we know that Lomas visited the Summer Isles, possibly on his shipborne trip to the Jade Sea and back, so that makes this a more likely candidate. The Summer Isles are islands of balmy beaches, a friendly (but determined and hardy) native culture and beautiful scenery. If there was such a thing as tourist industry in Westeros, the Summer Isles would probably be the most popular holiday destination. Whether the islands just being pretty would be enough to make the list is debatable, however.
• Marahai: Located in the Jade Sea on the way to Yi Ti and Leng, this is a possible candidate for the list. The island of Marahai is apparently peaceful and tranquil, but there are two volcanic isles located in the great bay of Marahai with occasionally become active and spew fire into the sky. Apparently it’s an impressive sight from the mainland. But as nice as it is, the volcanoes are dwarfed by the Fourteen Fires and the scenery is likely outstripped by the Summer Isles. So this is less likely.
• The Mother-of-Mountains: this towering peak isn’t actually all that high, especially not given the colossal peaks of the Bones just a few hundred miles away. However, the mountain may make the grade for the fact that it’s a single peak, totally alone, sitting on the endless green plains of the Dothraki Sea, with the great lake known as the Womb of the World wrapped around its flanks. It’s certainly an impressive sight, and the reason that the Dothraki assembled their only city (Vaes Dothrak) around it.
• The Jungles of Yi Ti: the vast and powerful nation of Yi Ti is divided into mountainous regions in the east, vast plains in the north (giving way to the Plains of the Jogos Nhai) and, along the coast, immense, thick jungles. Despite the foliage and humidity, the bulk of Yi Ti’s immense population can be found living in these jungles, in cities and towns linked by road network, tradeways and shipping routes along the Jade Sea. Lomas Longstrider was much taken with Yi Ti, noting that even its ruined cities were more impressive than the extant cities of western Essos and Westeros. Whether the jungles themselves were impressive enough to make his list of wonders is unknown.
• Leng: the island of Leng lies in the Jade Sea off the south coast of Yi Ti, and is the last major stop for merchants and travellers before forbidding Asshai-by-the-Shadow. Even Lomas’s courage failed him at the thought of pressing on, and Leng marks the eastern-most stop on his journey around the Jade Sea. Leng itself is covered by impressive jungles and forests, not to mention immense cavern systems dropping deep into the earth beneath the island. However, the government of Leng has sealed most of these off for safety. Lomas was most impressed by Leng’s wildlife, calling it the land of a thousand tigers and ten million monkeys.

As with the list of manmade wonders, we’ll have to wait and see if George R.R. Martin will expand on this list in future books. In the meantime, we are free to speculate.

Wonders Made By Man

In the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, two of the most famous books were written by a long-dead adventurer named Lomas Longstrider. A possible homage to Robert Jordan’s Jain Farstrider (from The Wheel of Time books), Lomas roamed the world investigating foreign cultures and writing accounts of his travels that proved hugely popular back in the Seven Kingdoms. His two major works were Wonders, which detailed nine natural wonders of Westeros and Essos, and Wonders Made By Men, which detailed nine amazing structures built by men. Thanks to A Dance with Dragons and The World of Ice and Fire, we know of eight of the nine Wonders Made By Men but the identity of the final one remains elusive.

Maps showing the eight known Wonders Made By Men, and speculation over the ninth.

To identify the final structure, we need to know when Lomas lived. There aren’t too many clues here, except that both Tyrion and Barristan Selmy, when he was younger, had read the two books. This puts Lomas’s life and death at least a few decades before the events of A Game of Thrones. He also lists the Palace With a Thousand Rooms in Sarnath (capital of Sarnor) as one of the Nine Wonders. Considering that Sarnath was levelled by the Dothraki shortly after the Doom, between 300 and 400 years before the events of A Game of Thrones, that puts Lomas’s life at least that far back. If this is so, this rules out any construction newer than that from being eligible. So, Harrenhal, the Red Keep of King’s Landing, the Great Sept of Baelor or any newer structure is likely not amongst the number. Lomas lists the Titan of Braavos on his list, which was built, at maximum, 800 years ago but probably a century or two under that. This gives a likely window for Lomas Longstrider’s life and times being between 400 and 800 years ago (which also means, unlike Jain Farstrider, he isn’t likely to show up in future ASoIaF novels).

Let us look at the existing list, arranged by age of the structure:

1. The Wall: built by men (and possibly giants and children of the forest) 8,000 years ago, the Wall is 300 miles long and 700 feet high. It is the largest artificial structure in the world, and clearly a shoe-in for the list.
2. The Great Pyramid of Ghis: built by the Ghiscari Empire in their capital city well over 5,000 years ago, the Great Pyramid was 800 feet tall and divided into 33 levels. The Great Pyramid of Meereen is a copy of it. The Great Pyramid of Ghis was destroyed by the Valyrians when they defeated Ghis for the fifth and final time. Lomas visited the ruins of the Great Pyramid and was able to declared it a great wonder (possibly by comparing it with its copy, the still-extant Meereenese Great Pyramid).
3. The Valyrian Roads: a network of impossible, straight-as-an-arrow roads were built by the Valyrians shortly after the Freehold began rising to power. This network consists of several extremely long roads of fused stone, with no chink or break in them, running all the way from Pentos in the north-west to Bhorash and Sarnath in the east. The sheer length of this network (running to many thousands of miles) and its incredible hardiness, with some of these roads being over 5,000 years in age, impressed Lomas into including it in his book.
4. The Palace With a Thousand Rooms: located in Sarnath, the capital of Sarnor. This palace was so huge, lush and ornate that Lomas felt that he had to include it in his book. Sarnor was a mighty power of Essos for over 2,000 years prior to its destruction, powerful enough that even the Valyrians chose peaceful coexistence (though the nearby trading post of Essaria). The Palace With a Thousand Rooms is probably dated to the early to mid period of Sarnori dominance.
5. The Triple Walls of Qarth: the Qaathi people were a rival to the Sarnori, struggling for control of the Essosi Grasslands (later called the Dothraki Sea). The Qaathi lost those struggles, gradually being displaced south and east of the Skahazadhan. They established some towns and cities here, but the land grew desolate and dead, starving the cities into ruins. The Red Waste, as it became known, consumed the towns of the Qaathi until only the ports were left. Qarth, on the Jade Gates, was by far the largest and greatest of these. Qarth endures today as one of the greatest cities in the world. Although the Red Waste is a formidable barrier to anyone seeking to attack the city from the land, its greatest defence are its triple walls. The walls are 30, 40 and 50 feet tall and emblazoned with images of tremendous artistic skill.
6. The Long Bridge of Volantis: Volantis was founded by the Valyrians over 2,000 years ago on one of the four major mouths of the Rhoyne, the greatest river of western Essos. The city, originally located to the east of the river mouth, actually existed for some considerable time without a bridge over the river until Triarch Vhalaso decreed it built to ease ferry traffic and allow swifter expansion of the newer, western districts. This puts the age of the bridge at probably less than two thousand years. The bridge was included in Lomas’s book due to the engineering achievement of building such a long structure. Although a firm length is not given in the books, it is five times the width of the mouth of the Blackwater Rush at King’s Landing, and the Blackwater is probably close to a mile wide (as multiple galleys battle one another across the mouth simultaneously in A Clash of Kings).
7. The Three Bells of Norvos: the date of Norvos’s founding is not known, save that it is likely older than 2,000 years (Lorath, the youngest of the Free Cities, was founded 1,736 years ago). The city is divided into two distinct districts, a high one on the hills overlooking the River Noyne and the low city with its port along the river. Lomas was impressed by the three great bells of the city, Noom, Narrah and Nyel. These bells ring out at different times and in different combinations, informing the Norvosi of times to start and end the work day, have meals and attend religious worship. The size of the bells and the efficiency of their reverberations (they can be heard anywhere in the city, high or low) impressed Lomas into including them in his book.
8. The Titan of Braavos: the youngest of the Nine Wonders. Braavos was founded 800 years ago as a secret redoubt by religious refugees fleeing persecution at the hands of the Valyrians. Some theorise that the Titan was built to serve as a defensive fortification against dragons. The height of the Titan has not been officially given, but rough estimates based on illustrations suggest possibly over 400 feet (the Statue of Liberty is 305 feet, for comparison, but that’s including the pedestal and the torch), given the statue has to be large enough for galleons to comfortably pass between its legs. Arya also notes that it could easily step over the 100-foot-tall walls of Winterfell.

The Titan of Braavos as depicted in Season 5 of HBO’s Game of Thrones.

So then, what is the ninth structure? I think we can rule out Harrenhal, the Red Keep or anything else built after the Doom of Valyria. Lomas also never visited Asshai or the Shadow Lands, so the dark and disturbing “wonders” of Asshai and Stygai would not be included. The likely candidates are as follows:

• The Towers of Valyria: in the heart of the Valyrian Freehold, long before the Doom, lay immense cities where incredibly tall towers existed, separated by rivers of lava. The Lords Freeholder flew on dragonback from one tower to the other, never deigning to touch the ground. It’s likely Lomas would have counted these as a wonder if he’d seen them. However, whether an outlander would have been permitted to see such a sight is unknown.
• The High Tower of Oldtown: built over a period of many thousands of years and topping out at well over north of 800 feet, the High Tower is the tallest artificial structure in Westeros and probably the world. Easily visible from the city of Oldtown, this has to be a front runner for the position, especially since it’s clearly inspired by the Lighthouse at Alexandria, one of the real Seven Wonders of the World.
• The Five Forts: these are five massive fortifications located between the Bleeding Sea and the Mountains of the Morn, on the far north-eastern border of Yi Ti. The forts consist of walls of fused black slabs, each one being almost a thousand feet high. The forts and associated defences (which may be inspired by the Great Wall of China, although for once Martin’s version is rather smaller and less elaborate overall) defend Yi Ti from the wastelands beyond, and may form an eastern equivalent of the Wall (the Forts and their defences stretch for over 300 miles, so are similar in extent). We know Lomas visited Yi Ti, Leng and the cities of the Bone Mountains, but we don’t know if he came this far east, or if the reports of the size of the Five Forts are accurate or exaggerated.
• Winterfell: the oldest castle in the Seven Kingdoms, sprawling across a huge amount of space which is defended by two massive walls, the inner one being 100 feet high and the outer being 80 feet high. Prior to the construction of Harrenhal, it may have been the largest castle complex on the continent, with numerous ruins speaking to its tremendous age. If the smaller walls of Qarth counted as a wonder, then perhaps Winterfell did as well. However, Lomas’s count may have been affected by Qarth’s much greater size (so the walls, being shorter, are far larger overall) and by the works of art adorning the surface.
• The Cities of Yi Ti: we know that Lomas visited both Yi Ti and Leng, and was amazed by the vastness of their cities and the richness of their culture. Yi Ti is (probably) the most populated nation in the known world and also makes credible claims to the oldest. It is likely that there are many amazing structures, wonders and buildings in Yi Ti, and the final Wonder Built By Man may rank amongst their number.

It seems likely that Martin will reveal the location of the ninth wonder at some point, but until then we can speculate on which Westerosi or Essos megastructure fits the bill.

Stellar Cartography: Battlestar Galactica’s Twelve Colonies

As mentioned when I started the blog, I will occasionally break away from discussing A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones to discuss other maps, including SF maps. This one is particularly interesting: a map of the Twelve Colonies as they appear in the SyFy series Battlestar Galactica, specifically the rebooted series that ran between 2003 and 2010.

In the background lore of the series, it is established that a planet called Kobol is the original homeworld of humanity and where it first established a technologically-advanced civilisation. On Kobol humanity eventually coalesced into twelve nation-states, known as the Twelve Tribes. At one point, due to religious and ethical schisms amongst the others, a Thirteenth Tribe also existed but departed Kobol in a fleet of ships and eventually settled on a distant planet called Earth. Two thousand years later, the other Twelve Tribes also had to abandon the planet when it became (apparently temporarily) uninhabitable. Luckily they were able to escape to a star system containing no less than twelve inhabitable planets and moons, either habitable straight away or through “kobolforming” (terraforming in our parlance). Over a further two thousand years the Twelve Colonies prospered until they were almost destroyed by their own robotic creations, the Cylons, in a devastating series of wars. The (chronologically first) series Caprica, set 1,942 years after the settlement of the Colonies, chronicles the creation of the Cylons and the initial steps to war. Battlestar Galactica itself, set fifty-eight years later, is the story of what happens when the Cylons return to finish the job.

The idea of having twelve habitable planets in the same star system strains credulity, but producer/showrunner Ronald D. Moore went with it in tribute to the original Battlestar Galactica (which ran from 1979 to 1980) which established the concept. During the series not much thought was given on how to have twelve habitable bodies in one system, but science advisor Kevin Grazier worked privately on a series of ideas. When the time came to make Caprica, which would be set entirely within the Colonies, it was decided to use his ideas. Scriptwriter/producer Jane Espenson further worked on ideas and concepts with him.

The Twelve Colonies of Kobol are located in a quaternary system (variously known as the Cyrannus System or the Helios System) consisting of four stars: Helios Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. Alpha and Beta form a binary system, separated by 126 SU (Stellar Units, equivalent to our Astronomical Units, with 1 AU/SU being distance from Earth to the Sun) and taking 373 years to complete one orbit around one another. Gamma and Delta form an additional binary system, separated by 140 SU and taking 456 years to orbit one another. The two binary pairs are separated from one another by 10,091 SU (0.16 light-years), with the two pairs taking 546,892 years to complete one orbit. The entire star system is located approximately 2,000 light-years from Kobol, although the precise location of Kobol is not known to the modern colonials.

The layout of the system is as follows (names in bold denote the Twelve Colonies):

Helios Alpha is orbited by seven planetary bodies:

• Icarus, a Mercury-like body located close to the star with a molten surface.
• Picon, population 1.4 billion. An ocean world (75% covered by water). Settled by the Picon Tribe who had initially landed on Virgon before moving on to this world. At the time of the Second Cylon War, Picon is the location of Colonial Fleet Headquarters. Picon’s capital city is Queenstown.
• Caprica, population 4.9 billion. A temperate world, one of the earliest settled planets in the Colonies. By the time of the First Cylon War Caprica is the richest and most economically and technologically-developed of the Twelve Colonies, as well as the most powerful militarily. By the time of the Second, Caprica is considered the capital of the Colonies and is the seat of the Unified Colonial Government. Caprica is a binary planet, sharing a common orbit with Gemenon, the two planets separated by 493,000km (or about 20% greater than the distance between Earth and the Moon). The capital and largest settlement is Caprica City, although the city of Delphi may be the oldest. Caprica appears to be an analogue for the United States and is the most prominent planet in the BSG franchise, playing a major role on Caprica and in the first two seasons of Battlestar Galactica itself.
• Gemenon, population 2.8 billion. Another temperate world, although more prone to extremes of temperature and climate from region to region. Gemenon is the planet the Exodus Fleet arrived on 2,000 years before the Second Cylon War, and from where they settled the other eleven colonies (Caprica being the first in that diaspora). Gemenon is one of the poorer colonies but it is also considered the most religious, with several major centres of religious worship. Gemenon and Caprica form a binary planet. Gemenon’s capital city is Oranu, but its main religious centre is Illumini.
• Tauron, population 2.5 billion. Tauron is inhabited but approaching the borderline of habitability, with large deserts and arid areas and relatively small oceans. Tauron was one of the poorer colonies for centuries following a devastating war in which Virgon and Leonis conquered the planet. A devastating civil war took place about ninety years before the First Cylon War, but the planet then recovered to become a richer world and a centre for scientific research, at one point competing directly with Caprica. After the First Cylon War Tauron became much richer but also very independently-minded, causing issues in the Colonial Government. Its capital city is Hypatia and it is orbited by a ringed moon, Minos.
• The Erebos asteroid belt orbits beyond Tauron and is home to numerous Tauron mining colonies. These mines may be the source of Tauron’s later wealth.
• Zeus, the largest planet in the entire system. This is a vast gas giant 153,000km in diameter (compared to Jupiter’s 143,000km). It has 74 major satellites.
• Persephone is a dwarf planet (similar to Pluto) with a highly inclined and eccentric orbit around Helios Alpha.

Helios Beta is orbited by four planetary bodies:

• Troy, a small, mineral rich world. Virgon and Leonis established mining colonies on Leonis in the distant past. Less than ten years before the Second Cylon War, one of the main mining colonies on Troy was completely destroyed in a major accident, killing several thousand people. It appears that the mining colonies used labour from other colonies, with immigrants from Aerilon known to work there.
• Leonis, population 2.6 billion. Leonis, a highly temperate world, is the physically largest of the Twelve Colonies and has almost no axial tilt, meaning regular and uniform seasons. Leonis is noted for its wine, beaches, ski slopes and its centres of education and learning. Leonis is closely allied with its neighbour Virgon, although in previous centuries they were deadly enemies. Its capital city is Luminere. The planet appears to be inspired by France.
• Pallas, a small planet that was once inhabitable but seems to be no longer tectonically active. The planet seems to have lost its atmosphere and possibly magnetosphere. Attempts to kobolform the planet back into habitability by Virgon and Leonis have so far failed. Pallas appears to be very similar to Mars in our star system.
• The Ouranos asteroid belt circles between Pallas and Virgon.
• Virgon, population 4.6 billion. Virgon is another temperate world and physically the second-largest colony after Leonis. Virgon used to be the most powerful world of the Twelve Colonies, once possessing a multi-planetary empire. Leonis rebelled against this rule and broke free in a bloody war which saw Virgon expend most of its military and economic power, setting the scene for the rise of Caprica. Virgon’s influence can continue to be felt in the common Colonial language, which originated on Virgon. Virgon is nominally ruled by a royal family, although they are mainly for ceremonial purposes with a planetary parliament seeing to day-to-day concerns. Virgon has a naturally habitable moon, Hibernia, inhabited by a small, break-away faction known as the Celtans. Virgon’s capital is Boskirk. The planet appears to be heavily inspired by the United Kingdom/British Empire.
• Hera, a gas giant (75,000km in diameter, 50% larger than Neptune or Uranus but about 30% smaller than Saturn) with 29 large satellites.

Helios Gamma is orbited by five planetary bodies:

• Thanatos, named for the God of Death, is tidally locked to its star and has an unbreathable sulphur dioxide atmosphere. The planet is considered to be a close approximation of hell.
• The Acheron asteroid belt is located between Thanatos and Libran.
• Libran, population 2.1 million. Libran was one of the later-settled colonies and the ability of the colony to expand was limited because most of the planet was declared a massive nature reserve, due to the large amount of indigenous animal life. Due to this, Libran decided to adopt a neutral role in the affairs of the other worlds and offered out its services as a meeting ground and arbitrator for inter-colonial disputes. The Inter-Colonial Court is located on the planet in the city of Themis, its only major settlement (and de facto capital, although officially it has no capital). Libran may be analogous to Luxembourg or Monaco (or even Switzerland) as a very small but very rich nation with prides itself on its neutrality and influence.
• Scorpia, population 450 million. Scorpia is a verdant jungle world, noted for its dense foliage and towering mountain ranges. The planet’s major income comes from tourism. Scorpia is orbited by a half-formed ring system. The planet originally had a more elaborate ring but this started to disintegrate 100,000 years ago. The Scorpia Fleet Shipyards are located in orbit, along the same plane as the ring, which may provide a convenient source of ship-building materials. Its capital city is Celeste.
• Sagitarron, population 1.7 billion. This is a relatively barren and mountainous world trying to support a large population spread over a vast amount of terrain. The colony is very poor, its people exploited and used as a source of cheap (and almost slave) labour by the other colonies for centuries. Sagitarron is one of the more religious colonies, perhaps second in piety only to Gemenon. They are somewhat pacifistic, believing that the will of the gods trumps the ambitions of humanity. They are also suspicious of science, technology and medicine. The capital city is Tawa, which was targeted for a terrorist bombing campaign led by Tom Zarek several years before the Second Cylon War, in protest at Sagitarron’s exploitation.
• Opion, a gas giant 51,000km in diameter (making it marginally larger than Uranus) with 14 major satellites. Opion has a highly inclined orbit, probably influenced by the presence of the gas giant Ragnar which orbits both Helios Gamma and Delta.

Helios Delta is orbited by six planetary bodies:

• Phoebe, a small planet with a thin atmosphere.
• Styx, a planet with a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide and sulphides.
• The Aeolus asteroid belt is located between Styx and the triple-planet orbit of Hestia, Aerilon and Canceron. The orbital resonances between these bodies and Styx has resulted in the asteroid belt being divided into several ring-like segments.
• Hestia is a gas giant 42,000km in diameter, making it the smallest gas giant in the system. It has 17 large moons. Aerilon and Canceron are located along the same orbital plane as Hestia, Aerilon at the L4 leading Lagrange point and Canceron at the L5 trailing Lagrange point.
• Aerilon, population 1.2 billion. The “Food Basket of the Twelve Colonies”, Aerilon is a temperate world noted for its vast fields, praries and plains. The planet is not massively fertile, requiring extensive, labour-intensive cultivation and work to grow its colossal food stocks. As a result Aerilon’s population has a reputation for being rugged, working-class and no-nonsense. Aside from food, the planet’s other major export is minerals, with substantial mines located in several locations. The planet’s capital is Gaoth.
• Canceron, population 6.7 billion. Canceron has the largest population of the Twelve Colonies and is apparently a temperate world with extremely large cities. However, despite its population Canceron has been unable to convert that into economic success and several of Canceron’s massive cities are surrounded by extensive slums. Canceron’s remoteness from the other major colonies may be responsible for its seeming inability to get a large-scale industrial, military or tourism economy established, although there are signs following the First Cylon War of an economic upturn. Its capital city is Hades.
• Aquaria, population (permanent) 25,000. Aquaria is the infamous “Ice Colony”, consisting of a single, large continent (Kyros, formed by volcanic activity) with the rest of the planet covered by a large ocean, frozen around the poles. Aquaria has a permanent population of only about 25,000 but travellers and tourists can swell this number twenty-fold. Aquaria is basically a scientific research base (known as Heim), expanded by a utopian cult who wanted to found a culture free from the biases and influences of the other colonies. This hasn’t exactly panned out. It would appear that Aquaria’s position as an actual “colony” is controversial due to its size, but allowed due to the colony’s descent from the Aquarius Tribe of Kobol.

The gas giant Ragnar orbits the common gravitational centre (barycentre) of Helios Gamma and Delta at a distance of  110 SU, taking 899.75 years to complete one orbit. Ragnar is 138,000km in diameter, making it larger than Saturn (116,500km) but slightly smaller than Jupiter (140,000km). The Colonial Fleet military depot Ragnar Anchorage is located in the upper atmosphere of Ragnar and plays a key role in the Battlestar Galactica mini-series.

The Cyrannus System may seem somewhat implausible (though certainly nowhere near as ludicrous as Firefly‘s star system, but we may cover that in a separate blog entry later on) but it’s actually based on a real star system: Epsilon Lyrae is a real “double double” star located 162 light-years away in the constellation of Lyra. The first two stars in the system are separated by 140 AU, the second two by about 70 AU and the two pairs from each other by 0.16 light-years. Additional components to the system have been detected, possibly being large gas giants, small stars or brown dwarf companions.

The Twelve Colonies are obviously only the starting point for the journey of the battlestar Galactica and its fleet, a journey which will eventually take them to Kobol, Earth and several other planets. At some point I’ll look at a map tracing that journey which eventually spans over 4,000 light-years.

And if anyone wants an elaborate stellar map of the Westeros/Essos star system which explains exactly how the seasons work…you’re not going to get it. It’s magic, folks.

NOTE: The maps in this article are from the Official Map of the Twelve Colonies created by Quantum Mechanix, who also make some very good posters and models. The full-size poster map (which looks excellent on the wall) can be purchased now in the UK and USA.

Unreliable Timelines & Confused Dates

Moving away from cartography, this feels like a good moment to talk about the histories and timelines in A Song of Ice and Fire. Westeros and Essos have a grand history stretching back for well over 12,000 years…or so we are told. This is a colossal period of time, almost three times the age of the Egyptian pyramids, and some readers have difficulty in giving such vast spans of time credence. However, A Dance with Dragons and The World of Ice and Fire pour cold water over the idea that the “traditional” dates we are given in the earlier books are in any way reliable, and the margins of error in the calculation of dates may be enormous.

Oldtown is the most ancient city in Westeros, founded in the Age of Heroes. It has been the seat of the Citadel and the home of the order of maesters for thousands of years. It is the greatest bastion of learning in the Seven Kingdoms (artwork by Ted Nasmith).

From A Game of Thrones the traditional dates given for the major events in the history of Westeros and Essos can be summed up as follows:

• 12,000 years ago: Invasion of the First Men, War of the First Men and Children, signing of the Pact.
• 8,000 years ago: The Long Night, the invasion of the Others, defeat of the Others, adventures of the First Hero and Azhor Azhai, building of the Wall, founding of the Night’s Watch and Winterfell by Brandon Stark, the (maybe) First King in the North.
• 6,000 years ago: Invasion of the Andals begins, apparently displaced by a fear of Valyria. However, Valyria’s eye turns eastwards to Ghiscar.
• 5,000 years ago: The Andals conquer the Iron Islands, completing the conquest of southern Westeros. The North remains free. In Essos, Valyria defeats Ghiscar and begins expanding in earnest.
• 2,000 years ago: A meteor falls in western Dorne, from which the Daynes forge the sword Dawn.
• 1,000 years ago: The Valyrians destroy the Rhoynar. The survivors flee to Dorne in a thousand ships, led by Queen Nymeria. House Martell allies with the Rhoynar and conquers Dorne. According to George R.R. Martin, most dates after this point are more reliable and solid than what came before.
• 800 years ago: Braavos is founded.
• 500 years ago: The Targaryens leave Valyria and settle on Dragonstone.
• 400 years ago: The Doom of Valyria.
• 300 years ago: The Targaryen Conquest of Westeros.

These dates seem pretty solid through, at least, the two books that follow. It is only in A Feast for Crows we get our first indications that the dates are unreliable when we learn that the maesters at the Citadel can’t seem to agree on anything and the dates given so far seem to come from only one interpretation of history. This is developed in A Dance with Dragons when Hoster Blackwood tells Jaime that the current theory is that the Andals invaded Westeros between anything from 2,000 to 4,000 years ago, ignoring the fact that the previously-accepted date was in fact 6,000 years ago. The World of Ice and Fire expands on this, mentioning that the invasion of the Others and the Long Night is supposed to have taken place 8,000 years ago, but some sources suggest 6,000, or even less.

The reasons for this unreliability are clear: the First Men left behind only runes on rocks, so any dates or histories given for their activities are second-hand, passed down through oral tradition and some of these rune-records to the Andals, who wrote the first proper histories. Other civilisations may have had more exact records, but unfortunately the annals of Ghiscar appear to have been lost when the Valyrians laid waste to the empire. The records of Valyria itself were destroyed (or rendered inaccessible) in the Doom. Some of Valyria’s client states such as Volantis may hold tomes of Valyrian origin, but those colony states themselves seem to be much younger than the Freehold (Volantis itself may not be much more than 2,000 years old) and of course the most valuable histories would have remained in the capital itself, to be buried along with it under several tons of ash.

The Citadel holds the most complete histories and texts in Westeros, but itself is ancient (dating back to the Andal invasion, according to some histories) and likely some records would have been lost or destroyed over the years. The Citadel’s independence is also suspect, given their apparent willingness to push their own agenda over a more neutral assessment of the facts (most notably the supremacy of science and reason over stories of magic or superstition).

Other powers such as Yi Ti and Asshai may also hold more ancient and reliable records, but these nations are distant from Westeros and their histories likely say very little about the Sunset Lands.

In addition this, the irregular length of the seasons also makes the count of years more problematic, and the harshness of a long winter can have a devastating effect on record-keeping in Westeros as people switched their priorities from writing chronicles of events to scrambling for food and firewood.

To what degree the unreliability of history in the setting has been George R.R. Martin’s intent all along, and how much was a later realisation that the dates and periods of time in the early books seemed unnecessarily long and he needed to course-correct, is unknown. But events in A Dance with Dragons provides Bran Stark with an opportunity to view historical events firsthand, and maybe glean some more reliable dates about when certain events took place.

The unreliability in date keeping therefore makes it hard to assemble a reliable history. The traditional dates given above in fact could be exaggerated by a factor of 100%; slashing them in half (prior to the Rhoynar invasion, anyway) certainly gives much more believable dates: 6,000 years for the First Men invading Westeros, 4,000 years for the Long Night, 3,000 years for the Andal invasion etc. But the true degree to which the dates are incorrect is difficult to pinpoint for certain.

This does address one of the key criticisms levelled at the series, one of technological stasis. In reality, the books do show a (slowly) changing evolution of technology and development. When the First Men invaded Westeros they brought bronze and fire. The Andals followed with iron and horseback riding. Knighthood, heavy armour and horse armour developed later, and castle technology also improved. Older castles, such as Raventree Hall and Winterfell, are shown with square towers whilst newer ones have rounded towers which help better deflect fire from siege weapons. In real life, the Bronze Age began circa 3200 BC and lasted to around 600 BC; the Iron Age overlapped with it, running from approximately 1200 BC to 400 AD. Halving the timespans given in A Song of Ice and Fire gives us a pace of technological development only twice as slow as in the real world, not unreasonable given that the harsh seasons substantially interfere with technological development and the transmission of information around the known world.

I explore this subject in substantially greater detail in An Unreliable World, my essay in the book Beyond the Wall (UK, USA). But in the meantime it’s worth bearing in mind the uncertainty regarding the history of Westeros and Essos when we begin looking at historical maps of the Dawn of Days, the Age of Heroes and the Long Night.

Valyria Before the Doom

In the backstory of A Song of Ice and Fire, no nation plays  more crucial a role than that of Valyria. Ancient and powerful, the Valyrian Freehold was the supreme power in the known world for nigh on five thousand years, until it was laid low in a single day and night of fire, ash and blood. Every attempt made to reclaim Valyria or rebuild the empire was defeated, either by hubris or rival kingdoms or by the land itself. The last hope of reforging the Freehold was lost when Aegon the Conqueror, his sisters and the last three dragons in the world set their sights on the Sunset Lands instead.

The city of Valyria before the Doom, with at least one of the Fourteen Flames in the background. Artwork by Ted Nasmith, from The World of Ice and Fire.

From a cartographic point of view, all of the canon maps showing Valyria show the land in ruins, utterly destroyed as the result of the Doom. The Doom was a volcanic supercataclysm, a series of eruptions of not just a single volcano but no less than fourteen peaks. Imagine Krakatoa, Vesuvius, Mount St. Helens, Etna, and Mauna Loa all erupting at the same time within a few dozen miles of one another and then throw in another nine volcanoes on top of that. Worse still, not only did the volcanoes erupt but the very hills and land split asunder for (according to legend) five hundred miles in all directions. Even allowing for artistic licence, this still indicates a catastrophe not like anything seen in the real world in recorded history.

The result of this was the neck of the Valyrian Peninsula, formerly a single landmass, collapsing into the sea, sending vast megatsunamis racing across the soon-to-be-well-named Gulf of Grief and Summer Sea. The destruction wrought by the Doom not just on Valyria but the surrounding lands for thousands of miles in all directions cannot be underestimated. The cities of Slaver’s Bay may have been shielded from the worst by the Isle of Cedars, which took the brunt of the tidal waves heading north-east, but it’s likely tremendous destruction was wrought on the shores of Sothoryos, the Basilisk Isles, Naath, Ghaen and potentially as far away as the Summer Isles. The 2005 Indonesian tsunami reached as far afield as the east coast of Africa, over 3,000 miles away, and the Doom would have been far worse with millions of tons of rock displaced into the Summer Sea. The ash thrown up into the atmosphere would have resulted in reduced sunlight and even more devastating-than-normal winters across south-western Essos for years, possibly decades. There would also have been some seriously spectacular sunsets and sunrises for a long time afterwards.

Potentially what Valyria looked like before the Doom.

Rebuilding the Valyrian Peninsula (see map above) requires that the shattered islands be linked back together, remembering that some of the surrounding islands were likely still separate landmasses before the Doom anyway. The three big islands were part of the mainland (Valyria itself certainly was) and the neck of the peninsula, where the Smoking Sea now lies, is likely where most of the chain of the Fourteen Flames was located. In addition, the weakened parts of the peninsula, where the sea came rushing in, were most likely to be along rivers and fault lines. Although hard data is hard to come by – the book maps are hardly finely-detailed – this gave a working idea for what Valyria may have looked like before the Doom. And yes, there is a special feature on the Game of Thrones Season 1 Blu-Ray set which does hint at a pre-Doom map of Valyria, but it is 1) poor and 2) only applies to the TV canon, not the books.

We can also glean some clues from Tad Nasmith’s drawing of Valyria’s capital city from The World of Ice and Fire. This shows the city sitting on rivers of lava channelled from the Fourteen Flames nearby, but still in a hilly/upland area. This accords with the maps, which show mountains and hills surrounding Valyria itself. This also hints at the location of the Fourteen Flames, with a spur of mountains reaching up from Valyria to the main chain across the neck of the peninsula. This neatly answers why Valyria was near-instantly destroyed despite lying about 180 miles south of the main chain. This supposition – that the Fourteen Flames contained solitary peaks as well as the central range – also helps explain how some of the volcanoes apparently survived the Doom and are still active, belching out the fires that Tyrion sees reflected off the clouds over Valyria in A Dance with Dragons.

So those are the fires of the Fourteen Flames we’re seeing, reflected on the clouds?”

“Fourteen or fourteen thousand. What man dares count them? It is not wise for mortals to look too deeply into those fires, my friend. Those are the fires of god’s own wrath, and no human flame can match them. We are small creatures, men.

We can therefore assume that the majority of the peaks were destroyed in the Doom (although possibly growing again under the Smoking Sea, as Krakatoa has done over the past 133 years), but several survived on the mainland and on the newly-formed islands. Indeed, with Valyria itself reportedly still intact and salvageable, it’s probable that the mountain shown in the illustration is still there as well.

The Valyrian Peninsula just before the Doom.

Looking at the extant maps and geography, we can put together a good idea of what Valyria looked like before the Doom. The cities of Tyria and Oros now appear to be located at either end of the biggest pass through the Fourteen Flames, with a Valyrian straight road linking them together with Valyria itself to the south and Mantarys far to the north. The lands between the volcanoes and the Sea of Sighs are known as the Lands of the Long Summer, known for their balmy, warm days mixed with occasional rainfall. This resulted in what was formerly (but not now, as the landscape remains volcanically active) the most fertile landscape in the known world, with richer soil even than that of the Reach in the Seven Kingdoms. This area was therefore the breadbasket of the Valyrian Freehold, feeding the lands to the south and north alike. Valyrian roads linked this region to the Free City of Volantis to the north-west and the cities of Slaver’s Bay to the north-east.

The peninsula is dominated by the Fourteen Flames, fourteen massive, active volcanoes. According to legend, these volcanoes were the lairs for the Valyrian dragons and home to dangerous firewyrms. They were also a rich source of gold, silver, iron and other valuable ores. The Valyrians built great mines under the volcanoes, using magic (some say) to keep the terrible heat at bay so slaves could retrieve the precious metals. Indeed, the most common explanation for the Doom is that the Valyrian mages neglected their duties and let the safety spells lapse, causing the volcanoes to erupt. The alternate theory that a sect of slaves, exposed to the magic of the flames over generations, learned how to change their faces and used this skill to assassinate the mages, thus deliberately triggering the Doom as an act of volition, is interesting but unsubstantiated.

The next set of maps will start delving into the ancient prehistory of Westeros and Essos.

Details of the maps: roads, mountains & forests

I recently updated the master map of Westeros and Essos (from which my others are derived) with mountain ranges. As mentioned in my first post, I am not a cartographer or digital map-maker, so fancy, shaded mountain ranges and individually-crafted peaks were not really a realistic option. Instead I settled for grey blobs.

The thicker grey blobs are the big mountain ranges and the thinner ones are hill chains. Forests and roads are also shown, but not (so far) the deserts, canyons or different terrain types.

The original underlying map was created by forum-member Galanix on the Cartographer’s Guild website some years ago (by overlaying it from the Lands of Ice and Fire map, I believe). I’ve extended it with the information from the WoIaF world map. Most of my additions and changes have been in MS Paint (oh yes) and GIMP2. I may start using the latter more for the layering functions, which will be easier than keeping multiple versions of each map for lettering, terrain, political factions etc.

This will help with the next phase of the atlas, which will be historical maps of the different periods of history in Westeros and Essos.