Continent 1 is the largest landmass in the Outer Hemisphere and probably the largest on Pegasia. In the high-orbital photo below, it's the large continent at the top. Continent 4 and Continent 5 are below and to the right; on the far left the coast of Continent 2 is just visible, and to the lower left, Continent 3. None of the straits between these five landmasses are difficult for either flying species or even primitive mariners; the five form what we may think of as the Pegasia's Old World, the better-connected hemisphere. Jared Diamond argues that it isn't fertility that makes a land progress but position--crossroads collect ideas and innovations, even if they're swept by plagues or wars. Continent 1 is the Outer Hemisphere's crossroads. Expect advanced cultures. Or invent them!

A second very visible difference is it's maritime. Only Asia's fringes are broken up, but Continent 1 is positively spidery--arms of the sea reach deep into all but the very heart. This has twin consequences:

1. CULTURE: While the big picture looks Eurasian--three great cultural heartlands, east, west, and south--all three regions are broken up like Europe, and there's no barrier like Suez to navigation along the coasts between them all, facilitating sea trade. Even caravans across its much more fertile heartland have a far easier time than on Asia's Silk Road. Thus, from prehistoric times, Continent 1's cultures will have had more trade and contact than Eurasia's--even assuming the dominant species isn't winged. And given Pegasia's low gravity and dense air, that's a foolish assumption. Fliers would spread ideas (if not bulk goods) even more quickly. I'd predict a quickly-advancing, fairly unified society, or cluster of societies linked by trade.
2. CLIMATE: milder and rainier. Steppes and deserts are much smaller, shores are greener. Despite its much smaller area, Continent 1 has just as much fertile land as Eurasia! The inland deserts and steppes are much smaller. This has further cultural implications: while barbarian migrations in time of drought might happen here, as in Eurasia, they probably won't shape the whole continent's history. Such people will be less numerous, with fewer resources; coastal civilizations will be proportionally stronger, and because trade around the coasts is easier--no Suez barrier--they'll be better coordinated in coping with barbarian problems.
   I'm not necessarily projecting Savage Barbarian Warriors here; but as I write, the superficially different but fundamentally outward-looking civilizations of coastal Europe, India, China and America all suffer from Barbaric Hinterland Problems. Economic refugees, narrow thinking, religious nuts wielding the Savage Barbarian Vote... Still, in other species, tolerance may not be just a trade-city thing; even if it is, Pegasia encourages flight, so cultural exchange may not center in seaports. Inland fliers may not be backward or isolated at all. Will airborne Pegasian cultures seem decentralized?

I'm not assuming the dwellers of these port cities are all the same species. Personally, I doubt it. Since flight is so easy, Pegasians are likely to migrate around the world and settle in habitats that suit them, rather than struggle to "conquer" (i.e., degrade) or fit into marginal or inappropriate lands. So several species with different preferences may share the continent. Its ecodiversity makes this even more likely.

WESTERN CONTINENT 1

This next photo, a low orbital shot, shows northwestern Continent 1: a rather European peninsula and islands, including an offshore Scandinavia, several temperate islands as big as Ireland (and one the size of France), and a peninsula the size of Iberia. But greener. (The rain in Spain does NOT fall mainly on the plain! Coastal mountains block most storms from reaching Spain's inland plateau. But here all the land is exposed to sea winds.)

A second reason for the relatively rainy southland is that it doesn't border a landlocked Mediterranean, but a broad strait like Earth's ancient Tethys Sea. This affects the fertility of the sea just as much as of the land: strong currents, probably from the east, will churn up nutrients. Expect much denser life than the Mediterranean! Whatever species lives here will love fish. Flying cats with water-repellent feathers, diving in the waves like pelicans? You tell me.

EASTERN CONTINENT 1

It isn't quite East Asia. Three differences:

1. That central plain, shading slowly from forest through open woods to prairie, and only thinning to desert thousands of km inland. This isn't China, where the desert and its barbarians were dangerously close to the heartland; here, the heartland stretches far inland.
2. The vast evergreen forests--and these aren't the thin, cold woods of Siberia. The northeast coast can get cold, but nothing like Siberia; and that huge central gulf is quite temperate. Continent 1 is tiny next to Earth's Asia, but the fertile area of these islands and peninsulas is just as large as East Asia--with better climate.
3. Instead of a rainy, jungly Southeast Asia, we have a smaller, drier, almost Mediterranean peninsula--sort of a spare India. The high mountains to the northeast block some (though not all) storms. A myriad small and large islands off the coast, plus the relative starkness of the land, suggest that whatever culture develops here (you tell me) will rely on the sea. It looks, most of all, like a wetter, more fertile Greece. Expect its fishers and traders to fan out early on, both east and west.

The larger peninsula on the long south shore is quite different. It's bigger than India, and reaches closer to the equator. Southeast Asia blocks our India from getting Pacific storms; but this Pseudo-India, open to the east and reaching deep into the tropics, gets monsoon rains in the north and heavy year-round rain in the south. Luxuriant forest everywhere! There's no equivalent to our dry Deccan Plateau; instead, hills rise gradually to a tall, snowy range near the west coast, trapping more rain. The southwestern shore is also lush. The whole great peninsula will support a great civilization--of some kind. You tell me.

Here at the southern tip of Continent 1, fliers must make a choice--to complete their circumnavigation of its coastal lands, or to peel off and head southeast into the tropics, to huge 1-4 Island (or are we calling it Pseudo-Sumatra?) and the Twin Continents beyond.

However, I'll assume you decide to complete the circuit of Continent 1 and then hop to Continent 2 over the western straits... though I'm tempted myself to peel off, for heading back north, the next few days are rough.

You see, our Pseudo-India does have one drought-prone strip: its northwest coast grows increasingly dry as we fly north. Here, winds come from inland most of the year--from huge mountains, wrung relatively dry of rain.

Past 20 north, true desert appears. This dry rugged lobe of Continent 1 has the size and general look of Iran-plus-Afghanistan. But without Pakistan; there is no equivalent of an Indus Valley. Instead, tall, snowy but scattered mountains send down small snowmelt streams, creating narrow, irrigable strips in the red plains below their forested shoulders. These mountains are broken up, not a single great coastal wall like Iran's Zagros Mountains, so the weak monsoon storms can blow well inland, dropping rain and even snow onto any mountains high enough to block their passage. Thus, the inland deserts are much smaller than Central Asia's, with milder winters; while the mountains are tall, Pegasia's low gravity and dense atmosphere create higher air pressure and milder climate at high altitudes. It might not be such a bad life here, if you're winged and can cross the desert from one of these green sky-islands to the next in an hour instead of dusty days. I see broad-winged creatures designed to catch those desert thermals... but what do they look like, what do they eat, how do they see the world? Sing along with me, now: you tell me.

Offshore is a second Mediterranean archipelago, dominated by an island the size of Greece. Rocky, semiarid, with mostly scrubland in the north but more groves and tree-lined streams in the south. A giant Crete? For southerners, it's the shortest (and greenest) flyway to the west, to Continent 2. So maybe it will develop civilization early--just based on air travel, not shipping.

Further northwest, the coast is merely semi-arid. A mere thousand dreary kilometers and you reach the fringes of the pseudo-Europe we started in. while not a lush coast, it's not a really forbidding journey for fliers or sailors; even caravans should find short creeks from the scrubby hills, at least during the wet season. Slowly the hills grow greener, the streams more reliable, the trees more extensive...

All right; you dutifully completed the circuit,
You did your homework,
You ate your dietary fiber...

Can we get to the fun stuff again? Like the crazy rift valleys of... Continent 2.

The gazetteer: will have a full index of native placenames, with descriptions--once the contests's over and we have natives to name them.

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