JeffEngel wrote:SWM wrote:Okay. It isn't the entire continent. Looking at the map, the continent is much larger than I remembered. But 1800 km does enclose the entire region marked on the Map as Armageddon Reef. So we can definitively state that all of Armageddon Reef was made uninhabitable by the Rakurai strike, except for that single village. So the question is how much has the area been able to recover in the subsequent 800 years.
Two other points:
The map projection used is going to warp the polar regions into appearing much larger than they are. As a polar continent, Armageddon "Reef" will be smaller than it looks there: not really small as such, but not so vast.
Additionally, as a polar continent on a cold world, we can expect that much of that land mass is covered by an ice sheet. The relatively warm edge got whomped badly by the Rakurai.
In all, it's a desperate stretch of land. If people were game to live like traditional Inuit, they may make a home there. The alternative would take the benefit of more advanced infrastructure and - particularly - using a whole lot of trade with warmer places for goods they cannot practically make there, in return for fish, oil, and other harvested local resources. It's certainly not settled well enough for that, and it's unlikely stray people trying to get away from it all on Safehold (or shipwrecked there without a choice) will have wanted to recreate a polar lifestyle.
I was just looking at the MT&T version of the map at the 5th Imperium and it doesn't look to me as though it is a polar continent. Much of what is labeled "Armageddon Reef" is north of the southern part of Charis. And looking at that map, I am at a loss to understand why the fleets of Desnair and Tarot were anywhere near Crag Reach and Opal Island, it seems very our of their path. Indeed, I don't understand why Tarot went that way in the 1st place.
Another thought about humans being able to live there is that there were humans living there. It had been terraformed by Shan-wei and the terraforming team, so it should be possible for others to move back in later on, assuming they are willing to brave the possibility of demons.
http://infodump.thefifthimperium.com/entry/Safehold/338/1