Mapping Panem

[penfold_x]

I love thinking about the mechanics of the Hunger Games universe. Even before I was making up stories in my head about my favorite characters, I was intrigued by the puzzle of how this post-apocalyptic society functions. I've devoured all the metas I can find, and my reading preferences tend strongly toward the elaborate world-builders of the

Comments

[penfold_x]

Hee! I did a lot of said hunting this weekend (tho I was more the pie hunter...)

[kawuli]

Oh, nice! I definitely handwave a lot of Panem geography, but for the most part it's similar to what you've drawn here.

I like the rust-belt Chicago-Detroit corridor as the core of D6 for historical and emotional reasons, but yours makes actually more sense in some ways. HMMMMMMMM. I borrowed (ripped off) the idea that 6 mines iron from deathmallow and there's been iron mining in northern MN, WI, and the MI upper peninsula so I pretend it all makes sense. But it's not actually central for trains with how Panem's laid out so

[penfold_x]

I like the rust-belt Chicago-Detroit corridor as the core of D6 for historical and emotional reasons

I get it--it would be fantastic, from a historical perspective, and have lots of the grey cold that I figure Six has in spades.

I borrowed (ripped off) the idea that 6 mines iron from deathmallow and there's been iron mining in northern MN, WI, and the MI upper peninsula so I pretend it all makes sense.

Oh, I like this idea! This is yet another thing Panem needs a lot of, but there's no hint in canon where they might be getting it from! (Don't even get me started where they find some of the minerals Three needs for technology manufacture)

I have 9 and 10 both as more N-S belts, I don't know why this didn't occur to me, but I can see some big advantages. For both livestock and crops there are going to be types that do better in cooler or warmer weather. N-S running districts would facilitate that. Your details about running cattle and planting times are pretty persuasive. Now I'm wondering if there's a way I can make both those a

[kawuli]

(Don't even get me started where they find some of the minerals Three needs for technology manufacture)
RIGHT? Newly-discovered sources of coltan and other rare earths in Arizona, apparently. Or else someone is flying over to central Africa or someplace, which would be a hell of a logistical challenge.

Which district is responsible for absolutely obsessive recycling of everything?

You are not kidding about the random
My brain is a weird place.

[penfold_x]

It's a tough problem, right? I concur regarding the obsessive recycling of everything; I'm guessing that the population is much, much smaller (no more than 1% of the current US population), so there's a lot to recycle (well, if it hasn't been blown up). I also think the Capitol uses hovercraft to take 'disappeared' people to places like China and South Africa to work in mines or other recycling facilities. That's the only way I can work out how minerals that don't appear in US soil can be acquired. It would also be much easier to get diamonds and copper there, which I presume the Capitol will want in larger quantities than can be mined or recycled in the US.

[sabaceanbabe]

It looks like that map has District 4 (there are other districts??? OMG! I had NO IDEA!) where I placed it in my fics - along the Northern Mexico-Texas-Louisiana coast. Between the Mexico/Texas part and the Louisiana part, most of my OCs are of mixed Hispanic and Hibernian heritage.

ETA: One little throw away that ticked me off in the Catching Fire movie is when Katniss walks past an open door and sees a television screen that shows District 4 as being on the west coast - California. Never once, when I read those books, did I picture 4 in California. It was always the Gulf for me. Warm water. Pretty, sandy beaches. Lots of swimming.

[penfold_x]

Yes, me, too! Of course I paused my DVD player to check that, and the placement to me seemed almost random? Irritating. Do they not know that fans have needs?

I expect that any type of world-wide cataclysms spells the end for current-day coastal California (sure hoping seta_suzume's in Japan that week), and I can't see anyone wanting to live in the desert, even if it's now beachfront. My headcanon is that the parts of the former California that remain after the disasters and wars are pretty much uninhabitable, unless you dig post-apocalyptic hellscapes a la Thunderdome.

[seta_suzume]

(ha ha, well, that'd be an, uh, interesting turn of events to observe from abroad! But I think I've made my peace with this fate since I saw Colin Meloy perform Calamity Song at a solo show and he apologized for killing California first XD;)

[penfold_x]

I had not heard that song. Terribly cheerful about total global crisis, eh?

[seta_suzume]

Yeah, I was really impressed with fernwithy's thinking in general, and about the Capitol and Thirteen in particular! ...So I like hearing your thoughts too

[penfold_x]

FWIW, your intended ethnic/cultural background definitely came across to me in Save Yourself and Your Own Kind.

(obviously I went for Yellowstone too as seen in Mags' Victory Tour stop there XD; too good to pass up)

Hee! I thought that was what you were going for. :D

I tended toward the 'don't sweat it' approach with lots of my thinking ("I'll just sit back and admire the cool thoughts of other fic writers~"), so for me there was the fun of trying to work around the clues, and then there was some 'when in doubt just say something I think is interesting.'

Oh, yes, I don't in any way think this is something necessary for writers to work out; in fact, I don't think even Collins has really done a lot of detail work. The story is really what's important, and even when you wind up doing a lot of research, I find that I only need a sliver of that for the story. I still like the puzzle, though. ;)

Nice and depressing feeling and all that.

AW MY POOR JACK Totally down for more happy AU :D

[seta_suzume]

Oh, good to know that came across!

Ha ha ha, yeah, I think a lot of the other fanfic writers have done a bit more detail work than Collins did actually. For me it was just that I have a tendency to get so involved in working things out regarding fictional universes and coming up with all kinds of ideas I'll probably only briefly touch on if at all- and then I mainly like other fic writers' idea better anyway!- that I purposely tried to spare myself some that this time around.

(I'd taken this easy-going approach with my still in progress original writing project as opposed to prior meticulousness with original stuff too a few months prior to starting to write THG fic, so, for these things at least, it's been good for me, it seems)

Mags: Yeah, I think you were really hard on Jack, Suzume!! >:0
Suzume: Guilty!
Jack: Ha ha ^^;

Yes, I would also be down for more happy AU ha ha ha. I ponder it a lot at least. ...I do have a happy holiday piece of art of them I'm holding back posting 'til later on.

[penfold_x]

Hmmmm I have the feeling I'd wind up being the same way--so overinvolved in the world building that it would take forever to get anything down. I'm glad your new method is working out!