OVERVIEW

Continent 3, in the high orbital photo below, is great landmass at the bottom. Fully a third of it is subarctic or arctic; this polar portion is foreshortened in the orbital photo. Above it are the brown deserts of Continent 2; to the right stretches Continent 1. Two smaller continents end this curving chain, over the horizon to the east/right. While Continent 3 is the southwestern end of the group, an island-chain off its west coast (lower left) is by far the best flyway to the Inner Hemisphere (left horizon). Therefore, western and northern Continent 3 may be relatively cosmopolitan--quite possibly the most innovative region in the hemisphere.

Continent 3 is huge, nearly as big as South America (it looks still larger from orbit, but remember Pegasia's smaller than Earth), and so diverse that it's hard to generalize about; for it's a north-south strip cutting across many climate zones.

Jared Diamond argued very convincingly in Guns, Germs, and Steel that civilizations on such north-south strips often have more diverse life-strategies and cultures than on east-west strips, but that their most important cultural inventions (the new crops and domestic animals they breed) cannot travel well; climates and day-lengths and seasons are too different, just a few hundred kilometers north or south--never mind many thousand! It took a thousand years to adapt Mexican maize to, say, Ohio; potatoes never made it. Meanwhile wheat spread from Spain to China! East-west is easy, but Continent 3 is handicapped by its orientation.

Of course, moving a bit inland sometimes solves the problem: Continent 3 has tall mountains all down its length. And when it comes to crops and climate, altitude (as the Inca knew) often conquers latitude.

Pegasians have one great advantage over, say, the ancient Americans: in the denser air and lower gravity, many of them can probably fly. The long north-south mountain chains of Continent 3 lie directly across the prevailing winds; one slope should have steady updrafts for thousands of kilometers. Not barriers, flyways! The Aztecs and Inca never traded, and may not even have heard more than rumors that another great empire existed. That situation is inconceivable on Continent 3, where fliers (even you, in your cheap rented wings!) can ride these invisible highways along the mountains from equator to pole in just a couple of weeks.

What kind of fliers, what kind of people? You tell me.

THE TROPICAL NORTH

Northernmost Continent 3 is tropical forest. People will probably fly, and live in the forest canopy. It's a life-pattern we've seen before, on southern Continent 1 and southeast Continent 2, and we'll see it again. Pegasian conditions make the canopy more accessible to intelligent life than on Earth: low gravity and dense air rich in oxygen combine to triple the maximum practical flight-mass from Earth's 15 kg (35 lbs) to around 45 kg (100 lbs); with hollow bones, fliers as large or larger than the average human will be possible, though I expect most intelligent creatures to weigh only half that, to retain agility in these dense sky-reefs. Human tribes tend to run small in rainforests for the same reason. Though there's always the counter-example of gorillas! And there will be some equivalent: the low gravity makes tree-climbing easier too, for large flightless creatures.

Still, I expect most individuals (and species) will be smaller fliers who live up top, in basket houses with epiphyte gardens in swaying canopy towns... but beyond this general settlement pattern, you tell me.

South of the XXXX Mountains, the climate is much drier; savanna and open woods all the way to the E3 Gulf. Quite African? Or like parts of Australia? Mud towers of quasi-termites all over... a huge region where grass-eaters will do well. Can ruminants collect enough energy like this to fly as well? Maybe not, on Earth; but on Pegasia, probably. Flying deer or kangaroos? Huge, grain-cracking parrotlike birds? And as long as they've invested in a big head anyway to anchor that seed-cracking jaw, why not a big brain too? Some of my omnivorous readers may feel skeptical that herbivores could evolve high intelligence at all; my herbivorous readers will instantly think of elephants, parrots, gorillas and themselves. My silicon readers probably find the whole project tediously carbocentric; you're only reading this so you can write a short, scathing undergraduate paper for your art history class, pointing out the copious scientific errors of an archaic ape.

Ah, hindsight is such sweet sorrow!

EASTERN SOUNDS

The central, subtropical third of Continent Three is split east-west. The east is quite green. Like Bahia to Buenos Aires, or Miami to Washington? Forests will be lower than the giants of the equatorial north, and composed of different species; the wide, dry savannas around the YYYY gulf isolate the two rainy regions.

This eastern forest east has an irregular shore sheltered by two capes and island arcs; three sounds the size of the Baltic (but warmer) will be good places for fishers to learn boatbuilding and navigation. If, that is, wings don't spoil them entirely for seafaring. Slow and tedious! But my suspicion is that fishing will tempt them into it. You can haul a lot more back to the village in a boat than by air, and sailing isn't as risky for fliers as it is for wingless land animals. The sea may take your boat and your catch, but rarely yourself--you can always abandon ship.

WESTERN PENINSULAS

The western half of central Continent 3, over the mountains, is dry: the A------ Desert. It's not harsh by Terran standards: broken by a high mountain spine where snowfed creeks water sheltered subalpine valleys; and with a great gulf to the southwest that creates a more maritime climate along its coast.

Offshore, a long peninsula sheltering the Gulf has a mild climate, running from a warm dry Baja-like stretch at the north end through a long, quite Californian middle down to a cool rainy English tip--at least for now. In Ice Ages, the sea drops, the gulf disappears, and unbroken desert fills the continent's heart. In these dry eras, only the narrow coastal strip stays green. But this is a wet era, and this cape, with its vivid scenery yet gentle climate seems to me one of the most desirable strips of real estate on Pegasia.

On Earth, this fertile ecological island would develop unique species and cultures, but remain a backward curiosity by world standards: the region's technology and culture would always lag, for it's far from other fertile lands. Out of the loop! By human standards. But Pegasia's a winged world; that fact makes it inevitable that this quasi-California will nourish one of the world's great ports. And I'm not assuming any particular level of technology. Even stone age people will build a city here--a cosmopolitan one. For to fliers, this peninsula is a crossroads. Not a seaport, an airport!

I've explained how mountain chains, especially those that lie across trade winds, have fairly steady updrafts on their windward sides, which winged people see as natural flyways--a transcontinental transit system as fast as trains. In some places, these flyways go intercontinental: every continent on Pegasia has at least one neighbor only a few hours' flight away. But they do form two clusters with wide seas between them: the Outer and Inner Hemispheres (right and left halves of the world map, respectively).

So hemispherical travel is hard: and that's why this Quasi-California has a great port halfway up its west coast, just west of that small L-shaped lake (upper left of orbital photo below). Several hundred km offshore is a modest island; there's another, hundreds beyond (off the photo), and a small cluster beyond that; not easy flights, any of them, but a fit flier will, in an Earth week or less, reach the huge, fertile Rift-Junction Isles in mid-ocean, a rugged land reminiscent of Japan. Here fliers can recover before heading on west to the Inner Hemisphere. Not an easy trip; but ten times faster than the fastest ship. Assuming there ARE any ships at all!

And once contact between the hemispheres begins here, it will cause a cultural revolution. Few material goods, few riches, may pass through the port, for fliers travel light. But ideas, art, and seeds will pass through. This lonely peninsula, and the west end of this invisible bridge on southeast Continent 8, will be world centers of innovation--entirely due to a few small islands. Geography creates culture.

CHILLY SOUTH

Just south of our Pseudo-California is a second long rugged cape thrusting west. Its north shore is a mild, fertile strip: though high ice-capped peaks loom inland, these valleys tilt toward the sun. An east-west Oregon, or Puget Sound! Winters typically are cool and rainy; I doubt it freezes, at least near the water.

But over the mountains it's a different story. The southern third of Continent 3 is cool-temperate: dark evergreen forests, prairies hot in summer but snowy in winter; and a maze of subpolar islands and sounds below glacier-capped mountains--not very high, but down here they don't need to be. It's not tundra, for there's no permafrost: it's been some millions of years since the last Ice Age. But summers are short and winters harsh: these plains are bare to polar winds.

The southeast end of this unpromising region hides a potentially important gateway, analogous to the Bering Strait on Earth: the only landbridge to Continent 9. Until and unless any nonflying peoples develop deepwater ships, this is their only gate between hemispheres! And a cold bridge is better than none. The bridge won't be a blind discovery like Siberian tribes spreading through the Americas; Pegasia's wingless peoples will know exactly what they're looking for, due to fliers' maps and news. The motive won't be settlement or exploration, but commercial: summer trade runs, first of luxury and specialty goods, later of bulk items too heavy to fly in. Though this may never take off in a big way; I doubt the seaports along this cape will ever rival the airport I've postulated in Pseudo-California. It's just too long, cold, and treacherous...

Incidentally, it's by no means clear which hemisphere would evolve intelligent land animals first; the landmasses are more equal in size and climate than Earth's New and Old World. Thus, the flyway anchored in central Continent 3 may have started as a beach-head for natives of Continent 8--the Inner Hemisphere "discovering" the Outer--or it might happen the other way round. But...

Continent 9 is the loneliest on Pegasia, lying apart from the rest of the Inner Hemisphere too; the odds are it'll develop in biological and cultural isolation. Intelligent fliers are less likely to evolve on a single continent than on a whole cluster, so settlers from the Outer Hemisphere are more likely to cross from Continent 3 than the other way round. But they may not find it entirely unoccupied; Continent 9 is no Antarctica or Australia, but a huge, fertile, diverse land where intelligent life could well evolve.

TOUR PEGASIA! The following route snakes around Pegasia, covering all major features:
1 -- 2 -- 3 -- 4 -- 5 -- 6 -- 7 -- 8 -- 9

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