>>32804536
Australia never gets discovered. Indonesia never gets settled. No New Zealand. No Easter Islands.

Bearing Straights would be the only way to get across to the Americas from Asia. Either that or the long and chilly climb over the top of the world.

Norse would be Saxons 2: Scandinavian Boogaloo. Carthanage might still be around today as Rome would never risk the boat journey.

Grease would be stunted.

>>32804536
>as pretty much all reasonably sized boats would be eaten in a heartbeat.
Why?
They would taste disgusting and actually HURT to be eaten, it's be stupid for them to eat boats.

>>32804536
Megalodons were maybe, maybe 60' max.

Shores would still be inhabited. Fishing would still be performed. Sailing would still be done. In fact, it'd have hardly impact, at all.

>>32804536
Russia is close to completing a transcontinental railroad. This will make Czar Putinov the most powerful ruler in the world. Many German barons have insisted Europe must surrender to his demands or face a devastating lose of trade to the fleshpots of China, which previously were constrained by the Himalayas

The northern isles of Normandy are in turmoil for another reason: two brothers have flown from the forested West Isle to the beefeating East Isle. The prospect of flight could allow trade with the Northern Romanesque Territories.

Several mercenaries have been hired to guard these brothers and accompany them on a flight from the East Isle to the Northern Romanesque territories.

The German Rail Barons will be on the look-out for the man-made bird so beware

This is some of the worst alt history I've ever hear.

Sorry OP. Try again.

>>32804690
>Grease would be stunted.
>Grease
What?

>>32804690
Rome controls Spain, France, and Macedonia. Carthage is a city-state hemmed in by encroaching desert.

Rome and German Barons fear a massive Russian invasion

Middle East is isolated because no sailing on the Medit. or the Persian Gulf

India and China totally self-sustaining although some trade on Silk Road with Russia

>>32804796
I think OP was a summer troll. They hibernate all winter and come out to catch summerchildren when they eat bait

Luckily, several skilled Rangers have cornered the summer troll in a thick hedge and we'll soon set him straight

>>32804834
Greece.

Sorry.

>>32804796

I quite like no-sea stories though. Arpeggio of Blue Steel is neat.

OP's setting is pretty stupid, though. He needs a more plausible way to make the seas hostile.

>>32804896
Sea travel is awesome, though. Why would you want to make a setting that is lacking something that is awesome?

But yeah I was kind of getting at that OP's premise is fucked.

>>32804896
Reptilians have deployed several sea-cities and blow anything on the surface to smithereens

Human communities within a mile of the shore are raided by young reptilians for fresh meat

To make matters worse, the Reptilians have excavated the resting place of an ancient evil, Kpheolo, awakening the tentacle-wreathed menace and commencing a struggle for global domination

>>32804536
>The basic premise is quite simple. Megalodon, the fuckhugest shark of all time, never died out and is still infesting every body of salt water across the globe, making sea travel and trade pretty much completely impossible
This is retarded, but I'm not against it.

>>32804896
The water crystal has become darkened, and the sea festers

>>32804959
>alt-history
>reptilians
That's a tad heavy-handed.

>>32804972
plus>>32804959

Kpheolo unleashes hypermegalodorks which soak energy from the sea crystal using diabolical wifi gadgets

>>32805003
It's like I'm really playing Feng Shui.

>>32804702
Plus fucking huge sharks can't really hang out in shallow water, so you'd still have people digging for clams and catching crabs and lobsters and sailing along the coast in boats with small drafts (Assuming the sharks attack boats at all).

>>32804959

I think it works better like this, when scary things just turn up all of a sudden. A setting where there has never been sea travel must necessarily diverge too far from history - no Mediterranean empires, no modern European states, no enlightenment, no America. Trade patterns would be so different that cities would not grow in the same places.

>>32804834
Grease is the word. Have you heard?

>>32805032
Invasion of aboleths, ilithids and such things from the Marianas Trench. They can't survive out of water very well but if you stay away from the coast and you are fine.

>>32805028
The corrupted crystal is making the water
-toxic
-boiling
-radioactive
-smelly
-really smelly
-all of the above

>>32805032
>no modern European states, no enlightenment
Trains would still be invented imho so I think you would have monarchies connected by trains.

In the mountains were trains can't reach safely, there are a few democrat societies that live in perpetual war against the steampunk monarchs

>>32805095
Actually ignore corrupted water, this is best

It's not as though Sharks just randomly attack everything they see.

>>32805192
But what if they DID.

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I don't think the megadolon would attack any larger ship at all. Wood isn't easy to chew, and then there's the size of it. And you know, the effort required to get to the tiny people inside.

>>32805192
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBizgLZX7W0

>>32805146
Congrats, you ended human life because there's no algae or cyanobacteria to produce enough oxygen for us.

>>32805226

There's an angry funcking sea god down there that is spewing out Krakens and Sharks by the boatload. Long ago humanity and it came to an understanding: You stay the fuck out of the ocean.

>>32805261
I wonder when they are going to make terror flicks about the hippo, seeing as it kills way more people.

>>32805284
see>>32805169

we've agreed that the case is a variation of
>>32805308
>>32805095

>>32805308
Like straight up if you go too near the beach a suicide shark will just leap onto the ground and bite you in half.

The sharks regularly plot to flood seaside communities so they can descend upon them in an orgy of carnivorous violence.

Fat men waddling along the street pouring water on themselves on hot summer days have a high probability of being sharks in disguise.

Sharks will purposely seek out hurricanes just to hitch a ride and strike to innocent land-dwellers like a high speed befanged missile.

In OP's setting (and this makes it work) not only is Megalodon back but he FUCKING HATES YOU.

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>>32805373

I don't want to live in this world

>>32805373
I laughed more than I should have

>>32805373

Ooh, and smack dab in the middle of the Pacific ocean there's the "Sharkscape", a patch of water where so many sharks have congregated that they've started to fuse together into hundred mile wide writhing mass of fins and teeth. It's said that Rashtashrakk, the shark queen sits on a throne of jaws at the exact center of this island of flesh, silently gazing out at the sea in bitterness and anger as she continuously gives birth to thousands of ever more twisted aquatic abominations every day.

>>32805599
Jesus Christ.

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>>32805599

Salt in this world is regarded as the most unholy substance in the world, for it is the only thing that sets apart the calm, lifegiving waters of the land from the poisonous, demon infested waters of the sea. In fact any kind of saltwater is frowned upon. In many cultures crying is taboo, as is excessive sweating, as many believe those to be a sign of Rashtashrakk's (or simply Rashta) taint.

Cuisine in many parts of the world is kept as bland as possible, especially in nations closer to the coast. Some nations even regard consuming meat period to be a sign of imminent submission to Rashta, and anything other than Vegetarianism is punishable by death.

This world doesn't make a ton of sense.

Storms would likely destroy more ships than the sharks, unless there were literally billions of these sharks.

People would still live along the coasts and fish, since they didn't actually have to be in the water to do that. Coastal areas are often the most populated.

Instead of sharks, why not make it so that seawater is poisonous to humans. That would keep people away from the coasts and likely stunt sea travel for much of history.

Or maybe when ships lose sight of the shore, they are never seen from again, and nobody knows why. People could still island hop, but places like Australia or Japan would be largely uninhabited.

I like the idea of sharks, but from an execution standpoint it just doesn't make sense. Find a way to make the sea super dangerous that isn't as unbelievable.

>>32805785
Huge stone walls surround the coastline. Shark teeth are cemented to them as they are collected.

>>32805916
The ocean is, by mass, approximately 20% sharks in this alternate setting.

The REAL mystery is what the sharks are eating...

>>32807772
The boats no one are using.

>>32807772
The Maelstrom and several other whirlpools are actually alien wormholes to a shark-infested waterworld covered in a miles-deep ocean. The sharks eat the vastly abundant nutrients and marine life on the waterworld.

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>>32804536
OP does need help.

Jesus, just break all the rules and make up a better excuse. Honestly if you had half a brain you'd realize that if the Megalodon was able to survive till now then so too would everything else from the last several hundred million years. There would have never been a handy gap in evolutionary history where smart+small was able to infringe on big+armed+armored.

Cause and effect, even for a shitty setting, has to be obeyed. You can't have the megalodon and just assume somehow the circumstances that led to its evolution and success remained in place in our world without huge repercussions on everything else.

So cut your idea short before you waste any more time. The premise you have is good- the excuse for why it exists is just so much retarded snoozematerial.

Use magic. Use aliens. Use whatever. Just remember cause and effect. The plain fact is that you're just clearly not mentally equipped OP to handle using an element that changes the setting that is already well documented. With magic you wont come off as an uninformed and unimaginative wastrel.

Fucking giant sharks. Jesus man.
>Giant sharks.

Please don't tell me people are starting to ape syfy's concept of good fiction.

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>>32810324
>GIANT SHARKS KEEP HUMANITY OFF THE HIGH SEAS!
I literally cannot get over this premise.
>Giant sharks

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Oh my god this whole thread. We need to make this happen.

>>32804702
>>as pretty much all reasonably sized boats would be eaten in a heartbeat.
>Why?
>They would taste disgusting and actually HURT to be eaten, it's be stupid for them to eat boats.
sharks are dumb, they don't know what they are eating until they bite into it.

>>32805599
>>32805785

Some though, succumb to the allure of the deep. Some say it is merely admiration of the only true power in a twisted world, while others claim it is a mystical daemonic fever that falls over those exposed to the monsters of the deep.

Crude tribes occasionally spring up on the coast, reveling in the savage glory of the bloodthirsty abyss. Most perish within a few weeks, either dragged screaming into the sea by barbed tentacles, or just falling prey to disease or internal conflict. Occasionally though, one of these coastal tribes thrives. Some men and women become so perverted by the sea's pull that they learn how to survive amongst the leviathans, using their fellow tribesmen as bait as they lure the weaker, more malformed leviathans into razor-lined bays. At night they revel in their kills, smearing their bodies with the blood and offal of the leviathans, daring the horrors of the deep to take them.

The most ruthless tribes have formed rudimentary empires. The most infamous are the Thrax of the Grecian peninsula. Somehow the Thrax have managed to deter the leviathans long enough to sail across the water, erecting impenetrable forts upon secluded islands. There they haul hundreds of screaming captives into the waters, bloodying themselves to lure in the leviathans, then racing back to shore as their captives are devoured, sacrifices to Rashta. Upon the shores of the Agean entire reefs of bone and gore have formed from the bodies of their sacrifices, blessed by the hand of Rashta herself to never decay, never erode. The Thrax have begun building an entire civilization upon these islands of bone, a gory orgiastic nightmare where slaves and kindred alike are sacrificed daily to grow the reefs of bone and expand their empire of rot.

OP, I like your setting, my imagination is going nuts here.

>>32804690
You do realize Carthage was founded by sailors, right?

>>32813744
Goddamn, this is 20,000x the setting compared to OP's.

>>32810324
There are other species that are known as "living fossils" like that the Nautilus, Horseshoe crab and SOME SHARKS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_fossil#Animals

"Oh boo hoo, if you are going to claim that a species would survive for 450 million years then you are going to have to have all the other species surviving as well. Cause and effect."

That is not how it works in real life so why should it in fiction.

...I for one support the shark world premise and even though the zany ideas in this thread are funny I think this might be played as a serious horror world as well.

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however there is one beacon of hope in all of this seagoing madness.

DOLPHINS.

see no matter how evil and vicious the sharks are, DOLPHINS ARE WORSE. they will cruise around acting all cute and shit just to get you into the water and fuck your shit up. they feel no remorse, and will torment and torture dolphins from other gangs.
the sharks are actually trying to keep us off of the water to save us from the evil of the dolphins, who have kill other worlds. the sharks are detirmined to never let that happen ever again.nevar forget{/spoiler]

>>32805916
>Storms would likely destroy more ships than the sharks, unless there were literally billions of these sharks

Sharkstorms, anon. Sharkstorms.

First and foremost, considering the habitat of today's great white, Megladons would most likely fare only in tropical to subtropical seas, making northern and temperate coastlines safe.
Considering how Great Whites go where food is plenty, Megladons would probably do the same, thereby following migrating whales.

If anything there would only be a significant impact on the whaling industry, plus people will just learn to shut off the coastline when whale migration passes by.

Also, Megladon probably wouldn't be the prime candidate to fear out there, imagine similar sized orcas that hunt in packs.

>>32813983
40,000x?

Not just megaldon, but make things like the kraken real, and more common. Also. whales and dolphins still travel in pods, but are more aggressive in nature, due to the more advanced predators. Orcas that activly stalk coastal regions could also make life interesting, and yes, the have been know to beach themselves to get food.

Increase the size of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and horse latitudes, and any ship large enough to reasonably not be attacked would be too large to safely traverse the sea.

I think the key to all of this is to not have sea faring impossible, just deadly enough to have stalled expansion by tradition means. Maybe Russia is the country that first colonizes the Americas because they have their own Renaissance, and build a bridge to Alaska.

There are tons of sea monsters you could use.

Just make the seas abundant with terrible, terrible lifeforms ranging from small to xboxhuge.

There should be tales of people who've traveled the seas and survived but those people should be hard-ass stuff of legend guys that hardly anyone has met.

You could introduce zeppelins or hot air balloons to your setting as a way of getting to nearby islands. Make them very unpopular modes of travel because you'd have to travel on top of the sea which everyone fears more than anything.

>>32804702
Sharks sometimes eat and bite into weird shit that they don't recognize as a taste test.

>>32813816
Yeah, this is going to be a problem. Carthage started out as a colony of Phoenicia, which we nowadays call Lebanon. Only reason Phoenicia even got to have colonies was because it made so much money with trade in the mediteranian. Per boat.

>>32826421
Why, why did you had to bump this shit idea of a setting? What shit logic compels you to keep alive a thread that clearly have run its course? Are you one of those fags who thinks bumping a shit thread about a shit game will made it look popular or neat?