Talk:South America

Okay, my copy of Crucible of Gold has arrived, and so I'm making notes of things I need to update here at some point - I'm loving the map included; that makes my cartography work much easier!

Alas, I've found a big problem. In Tongues of Serpents, Laurence ends up talking with traders at Larrakia, who tell him that they heard the news that Rio had been sacked from a whaler out of Chile, who got the news from Santiago (there's lots of cities named Santiago; one is the capital of Chile). However, the map in Tongues of Serpents makes it clear that the Incan Empire covers all of Chile, and they don't tolerate outsiders.

So...any thoughts as to how to explain this? Santiago could be one of many cities; and perhaps Chile refers to a different area of land (or it could have been the Spanish name for the area before the Incans annexed it). Almaron 14:09, 20 March 2012 (MDT)

That could be a toughie. Wikipedia says that the name "Chile" is based on a word from one of the South American indigenous languages (there's some dispute about which one or what it was, but it's non-Spanish in origin) and originally referred to a relatively inland valley. I would assume that the Spanish-derived name "Santiago" would not have taken root in a region where the Incans maintained control, so it probably wouldn't refer to the modern Chilean capital. My best handwave at the moment is that in this context, "Chile" might refer to some of the wider Patagonian territories that were claimed by the General Captaincy of Chile ...? --Wombat1138 16:27, 20 March 2012 (MDT)