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Context: The inhabitants of my world, humans, live on a supercontinent divided into three subcontinents separated by seas. The supercontinent is located above the equator in what is roughly the size and location of Europe in our own world, and the orientation and orbit of the planet is just like our own. Past this is, more or less, just ocean. The northern and southern subcontinents are inhabited by people (originated in the north, and land bridge during an ice age encouraged some to trek to the south), but the subcontinent in the middle is lucky enough to see one visitor per week. Currently, the people of my world live with early 20th century technology.

The subcontinent is essentially just an open grassland with no subterranean resources (coal, oil). There are thin rivers and streams throughout the subcontinent, and though I haven't figured out how the geography will lend to this, the subcontinent does receive seasonal rainfall.

As I have already pondered and researched and even read answers to another post, the lack of resources would make living on the subcontinent undesirable. This is my current justification for the subcontinent being uninhabited. The dilemma comes from the fact that there is little else for the people of my world to set foot on. Only the polar ice caps and various tiny islands, incapable of sustaining settlements, exist beyond the supercontinent. It is in my current assumption, to be frank, that the people of my world would eventually want to settle on this neglected land anyway. To be clear, the people of my world do not wish to conquer, nor is there an issue such as an overpopulation crisis.

As it can be assumed from my last post way back when, a new front to a war will open on this subcontinent—a rather meaningless war with vague motivations, none of which include the securing of any strategic resources or even a feasible strategic position—between two parties from the north. In order for this front to be fought, the two warring parties need to be able to send soldiers and munitions to the subcontinent*by sea. For symbolic and literary purposes, I want the subcontinent to be uninhabited before this front opens; after the front closes or the war ends, I am indifferent as to whether or not there is a motivation for a settlement project.

What can discourage the people of my world from settling on this subcontinent, which yields nothing but, perhaps, a whole lot of space for solace? Am I wrong to believe that the people of my world would be inherently drawn to the subcontinent simply because there is (basically) nothing else out there?

Edit: The subcontinent itself should not be dangerous to live in.

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13 Answers 13

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If there can be grass, there can be people. So there must be something else that is bad.

And people can put up with a lot of bad. Bad weather can be dealt with by migrations, and huge lands of open grass sound good for pastoralist nomads. Disasters like fires or tornadoes or floods all happen in settled lands on our planet and people cope. People can coexist with large predators that eat people.

People living in a region can resist colonization by other people - the Papuans resisted colonization by the Austronesians for hundreds of years. But no longer. Plus that is "people living in a region" which you don't want.

It will have to be bugs.

tsetse fly

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsetse_fly

The history of African trypanosomiasis

Throughout history, African trypanosomiasis has severely repressed the economic and cultural development of Central Africa.

African animal trypanosomiasis or nagana disease is caused by T. congolense, T. vivax and T. brucei spp. In wild animals, these parasites cause relatively mild infections while in domestic animals they cause a severe, often fatal disease. All domestic animals can be affected by nagana and the symptoms are fever, listlessness, emaciation, hair loss, discharge from the eyes, oedema, anaemia...

Human African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness is caused by two subspecies of T. brucei, T. brucei gambiense and T. brucei rhodesiense... The symptoms of this stage are fever, headaches, joint pains and itching. The second or late stage of the disease, also known as the neurological phase, is characterised by the presence of the parasites in the cerebrospinal fluid [3]. In general, this is when the typical signs of the disease occur: confusion, disturbed sleep pattern, sensory disturbances, extreme lethargy, poor condition and coma. If left untreated, sleeping sickness patients die within months...

It is not hard to find hyperbolic superlatives when reading about bad things in Africa - as regards sleeping sickness I found "green desert", "uninhabitable zones", "unpopulated" etc. I found recent account stating that in some areas mortality from sleeping sickness is higher than that from HIV. I found accounts of people moving animal teams thru these zones and travelling at night so their animals were not bitten by the fly. Clearly people live all over Africa now, but if you are trying to farm and your animal labor dies, and people die regularly, that is a bad place to farm.

In your world, the equatorial grasslands have flies and the flies have disease. It can be comparable to sleeping sickness. Wild animals in the region are carriers. It affects domestic animals and people too. People crossing the region must travel on foot and wear fly protection or travel at night and seal themselves in tents during the day when flies are out.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you very much for your answer. I should have mentioned that I don't want the subcontinent to necessarily be dangerous to live in. Nevertheless, the presence of bugs and the diseases they carry pose a considerable obstacle, so I'll keep the idea in mind. $\endgroup$
    – FalseSwiss
    Jun 18, 2022 at 21:52
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    $\begingroup$ You need a reason why these parasites do not move to the other continents, which would happen as part of any shipment (before a colony dies off, it will send specimens of everything to other continent, whether intentionally or as unintended by-baggage). $\endgroup$
    – toolforger
    Jun 19, 2022 at 10:24
  • $\begingroup$ if you have disease that broad affecting, either it is everywhere on the planet or it is extremely hard to spread, in which case your colonist sever notice the minor uptick in deaths. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Jun 19, 2022 at 11:47
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    $\begingroup$ @John - I encourage you to read about tsetse flies and sleeping sickness. It affects a broad range of animals but it is regional because the flies have required habitats. Vector borne diseases are constrained by the habitat requirements of the vector. In historic times the range was accidentally increased by movements of peoples and cultivation practices,, but not increased beyond equatorial africa. $\endgroup$
    – Willk
    Jun 19, 2022 at 15:43
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    $\begingroup$ @Willk my point was the exitance of sleeping sickness is not enough to keep people out of the areas that have it. A disease that is lethal enough to keep humans out is going to prevent the authors war as well. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Jun 20, 2022 at 0:44
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Stink

There could be a naturally high sulphur content in the soil, and microbes that metabolise it into something like thioacetone:

In 1889, an attempt to distill the chemical in the German city of Freiburg was followed by cases of vomiting, nausea and unconsciousness in an area with a radius of 0.75 kilometres (0.47 mi) around the laboratory due to the smell.

Just walking on the ground could release wafts of the "fearful" smell, with only thin tracks free of the microbes available for travel.

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  • $\begingroup$ Ingenious, nice... $\endgroup$
    – user86462
    Jun 19, 2022 at 10:35
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    $\begingroup$ people can get used to even awful stenches quite quickly, after a few years no one will notice the smell. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Jun 19, 2022 at 11:49
  • $\begingroup$ Do you know what could be done to remove the microbes, and do you know what could be used to mask the odor? If just walking on the ground releases wafts of the stench, I feel like digging trenches and firing artillery shells would be a disaster. $\endgroup$
    – FalseSwiss
    Jun 19, 2022 at 15:35
  • $\begingroup$ @FalseSwiss Perhaps some sort of naval blockades could be placed to protect the mouths of the rivers that lead to upstream gold deposits. Volcanoes in the interior could be the source of the sulphur and maybe precious stones get thrown out in eruptions and washed downstream by the rainfall, giving some incentive to want to "own" the continent. $\endgroup$
    – Andrew Morton
    Jun 20, 2022 at 17:20
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Liquefaction

Some soils turn into liquid when struck by earthquakes. It doesn't kill people much, but it ruins cities. If the whole damn continent liquifies in response to regular moderate earthquakes, it'll be another (partial) reason not to settle there.

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    $\begingroup$ While this might seem like a joke, or hardly plausible, liquefaction is a giant problem. If it happens with any regularity it would not only destroy buildings but wash away crops and any large growth is likely to fall over and die. This would cause the open grassland, as the grass is the only thing regrowing quick enough. $\endgroup$
    – vinzzz001
    Jun 22, 2022 at 9:57
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Right off the bat, I have to point out that open grassland is itself a very valuable resource, worth a lot to the cattle industry (or whatever grazing domesticated animals exist on your world). And even if there were literally no resources to be found, as long as food could be grown there or animals can live there (or fish can be found off the coasts), people would settle there. History is full of cultures fleeing tyrannical rule or conquering, and though you say that your world's people don't wish to conquer, I'd be very skeptical if you claimed nobody in your world's history had ever wanted to be independent from anyone else and go somewhere new. Crossing seas is no major obstacle either; the Polynesians crossed almost the entire Pacific Ocean.

Sadly for your premise, unless this subcontinent is far too dangerous to live in, it will be well-settled by default. And keep in mind the bar for danger is very high, seeing as places like the Sahara and Greenland are populated (albeit sparsely). Given this, here are the options I can think of that come closest to what you asked for:

1) The land was inhabited, but they're gone now

Some recent calamity, like a widespread crop failure or plague, wiped out the vast majority of the subcontinent's inhabitants, and the rest fled after their civilization collapsed. The land is now uninhabited, and people fear to colonize it again out of superstition. I don't expect this excuse to work for very long though, since after a generation (20, 30 years tops) enterprising colonists will doubtless decide to claim the land anyway.

2) The land is still inhabited, just very sparsely

A nomadic people call this subcontinent home, but there are so few of them that your one-visitor-a-week (why one a week, anyway? That's an oddly specific immigration policy for a country that you didn't want anyone to live in) is unlikely to run into any of them. The large powers in your world are on good terms with this people and, as you said, aren't into conquest. However, whatever sets off the world war is so important to them that they go back on their peaceful ways and invade the subcontinent to duke it out there.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for your answer. I should have been clearer, as there isn't an immigration policy that dictates there may only be one visitor per week; rather, that was just my estimation of how many people choose to come. I would have taken your second option into consideration, but unfortunately, there are no animals or plants to eat and extract resources from in this practically barren land. $\endgroup$
    – FalseSwiss
    Jun 18, 2022 at 21:34
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    $\begingroup$ @FalseSwiss Just because nothing we can eat grows there now doesn't mean it never will - grasslands are prime real estate for both farms and pastures. The first colonists will import the seeds and animals they need to eat, then figure out how to grow them natively $\endgroup$
    – No Name
    Jun 19, 2022 at 9:36
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    $\begingroup$ Also there is always something humans can eat, grasslands means large herbivores, and humans are VERY good at eating them. plus you have fish on coastlines, humans survive quite well in Australia and Greenland with much more primitive technology so there just is few places humans can't live. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Jun 19, 2022 at 11:43
  • $\begingroup$ They are gone now is you best bet, the reason the Americas were sparsely populated when Europeans started colonizing is disease from explores, and more importantly their animals, killed off 9 out of every ten native people. If you had a year without a summer like event at the same time native humans could be so rare you might never see one in your lifetime. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Jun 19, 2022 at 11:52
  • $\begingroup$ @FalseSwiss "open grassland" and "no animals or plants" are mutually contradictory, since grass is a plant. If you want it to be literally resourceless it would have to be bare rock or sand. $\endgroup$
    – N. Virgo
    Jun 19, 2022 at 12:08
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Salt

Maybe the grass is some sort of hardcore halophile and the ground is riddled with salt; what isn't salt is dead iron oxide like in much of Australia. Cattle can't graze on it; crops don't grow on it. Water is OK, if brackish, in the highlands, but down river it's undrinkable.

Add in fierce winds and extreme day/night temperature differentials and the end result will be something like the Russian steppe, but with salt. Maybe there's some nomads, who are incredibly fierce and have great kidneys; everyone else just doesn't bother.

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    $\begingroup$ If the land is made up of large, shallow indentations but there is low rainfall, salt can persist. The rain falls, it goes muddy, it evaporates and leaves the salt where it was. If all the rocks are sodium rich minerals you'll get salt, and if that rock goes deep, the salt can be replenished. My answer should have been "salt plus useless inert soil"; the latter part is important too. Get dust bowls and salinification if anyone irrigates. Coastal regions can end up very salty from sea spray and high wind. Australia is the model here, albeit in Australia the salinity is largely induced by man. $\endgroup$
    – user86462
    Jun 20, 2022 at 9:40
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    $\begingroup$ @FalseSwiss May I suggest combining a few answers? A lack of iodine, crappy soil, and excess sodium together do what they probably can't do individually. Disease or bad weather (tornadoes? extreme day/night cycles) or low rainfall can all help too. I'd add: have zero calcium and magnesium in the soil. It amplifies all the effects of salt and hurts crops further, while not harming a few well adapted species. Maybe have disease that kills livestock rather than people; that'll negate grazing hardy goats or cattle. $\endgroup$
    – user86462
    Jun 20, 2022 at 9:48
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    $\begingroup$ More rain + drainage = less salt, over time. I'm suggesting lowish rain and low drainage. $\endgroup$
    – user86462
    Jun 20, 2022 at 9:56
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    $\begingroup$ Now that it's been a while since I've asked my question, I do think I will be combining a few answers. Thank you for all your insight! $\endgroup$
    – FalseSwiss
    Jun 20, 2022 at 16:04
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    $\begingroup$ If all the rivers flow inward, there is no drainage. Just make it dish-shaped. $\endgroup$
    – Andris Birkmanis
    Jun 20, 2022 at 17:21
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TL;DR: No food fit for humans or livestock

The grass covering the subcontinent is poisonous to almost all animals. The few exceptions that are immune to the poison are poisonous themselves (accumulating the poison from their food). This means there is nothing to eat, neither for humans nor livestock.

The coast is almost completely composed of steep and high cliffs. Strong, chaotic currents and unpredictable storms make fishing from shore impossible and fishing with small boats an unsustainable risk.

The grass also displaces other plants and quickly regrows after cleared from an area. Luckily for life on that planet, it can only survive on that specific subcontinent.

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  • $\begingroup$ Oh, and it makes the soil poisonous. Maybe a high heavy metal content. You could clear it and plant something else, but there are very few other things that will grow, and you have to throw out the first few crops. $\endgroup$
    – Robert Rapplean
    Jun 22, 2022 at 4:29
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Lack of iodine.

This region is particularly poor in iodine. Put it before the iodization of salt was commonplace. There are, in fact, regions that were never permanently settled for want of iodine.

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    $\begingroup$ the coast however is always rich in iodine because fish. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Jun 19, 2022 at 14:46
  • $\begingroup$ Maybe combine salinity with lack of iodine. On the coasts, sea spray and salty rivers have deadened the earth. Elsewhere, the salt is not as severe but the iodine shortage is crippling. $\endgroup$
    – user86462
    Jun 20, 2022 at 9:42
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Based on various answers, I would like to present my current solution.

Inland, the soil is nutrient poor and acidic, particularly due to a scarcity of calcium and magnesium. This is due to frequent rainfall (storm cells are manipulated onto the subcontinent by the geography of the others) that leaches these ions out of the soil and washes them away into the various streams and thin rivers; the same phenomenon can be observed with rainforests, which counterintuitively have poor quality soil. The rainfall also results in a lack of iodine, a critical component of animal diets.

If, for whatever reason, rainfall does not reach certain coastal regions, sea spray salinates the land there; which makes it so that the crops of the world cannot grow on it either. There are some grasses in these regions, all halophiles. I haven't taken a really hard look at the geography of my world, but this can be a wild card.

There are multiple omnivorous species of flies that are native to the subcontinent. They primarily feed off the grass, but they may also fight and consume each other. The species are in competition, and if that is not enough for population control, the constant rain threatens to wash eggs away. The flies carry a parasite that cannot thrive in the human body but can easily make a host out of any livestock. How this preference of hosts is achieved is something I'm unsure of and would be glad to be enlightened about. Preventing devastation of the livestock in the other subcontinents in the case that the flies inadvertently migrate, the flies are horrible with temperature tolerance outside of their typical range, and they are the main vectors of the parasite.

The result of all these factors is a subcontinent that seems almost completely normal on the surface. For anyone seeking solace, it may even seem like a pleasant paradise (mind the flies). In reality, all the extremophilic grass growing on terrible soil makes settlement an ordeal, to say the least. Not only will the livestock be poorly nourished, but they fall prey to parasitism. Crops cannot be grown, and even if the humans of my world somehow find a way to maintain crops or livestock, their diet will have a severe lack of iodine. For anyone seeking to fight a war, the land is bearable so long as the soldiers receive food and water from home (the motives for the war are totally out of the realm of this question, as they, again, have nothing to do with gaining a strategic upper hand).

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  • $\begingroup$ I’m not sure that would be enough to keep people from settling there. Communities could still arise from fishing, harvesting native edible plants or hunting local wild game. And if you’re saying the fish, animals, and plants are all poisonous on top of the acidic soil and deadly flies, it becomes such a mountain of unfortunate circumstances that it strains suspension of disbelief $\endgroup$
    – Ventifacts and Yardangs
    Jun 22, 2022 at 10:08
  • $\begingroup$ @VentifactsandYardangs Grass and flies and the only flora and fauna on this subcontinent. I'm still thinking about what could disrupt fishing, as I'm not totally satisfied with the idea of unpredictable storms and rocky conditions. Even if it can't be disrupted, it would really be the only resource. What is the opportunity cost of settling here? And unless I'm misinterpreting your words, I'm not sure how the acidic soil and deadly flies can strain suspension of disbelief, as I've provided justification for the soil, and someone already dove into the existence of such bugs in our own world. $\endgroup$
    – FalseSwiss
    Jun 22, 2022 at 18:25
  • $\begingroup$ My issue is just that it seems very contrived. There are no ecosystems on earth with zero edible plants or animals, and even if your subcontinent were like that, fish is absolutely enough to live off of (the inhabitants of Greenland lived that way for centuries). Not to mention that you not only need to get rid of all possible sources of food, but all possible resources that could be traded for food. It just doesn't sound realistic to me. It sounds like exactly what it is: a pile of coincidences tailored exactly to make a fictional continent uninhabitable. $\endgroup$
    – Ventifacts and Yardangs
    Jun 22, 2022 at 21:52
  • $\begingroup$ @VentifactsandYardangs Nothing is going to change the inclusion of this subcontinent in my worldbuild due to its literary and thematic importance. I came here for solutions that will make it at least a bit more believable, not for a reminder that it is thoroughly incomparable to any region of our own world. But admittedly, this is a complicated answer (more inductive than "passive" worldbuilding), and I'll have to give it more thought. Rest assured that I'll be a little more flexible with the ecosystem of this subcontinent, and I'll be pondering the second option of your original answer. $\endgroup$
    – FalseSwiss
    Jun 22, 2022 at 22:50
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    $\begingroup$ Might I suggest that your war doesn't need to be fought in a land with literally no resources? The futility and lack of purpose that seems to be your theme here would work perfectly well if both superpowers were fighting over some mostly barren land where you can only grow, like, a very bitter potato. In fact, drawing attention to this pitiful resource might enhance your theme rather than detract. As might any depictions of the native people being mowed over by tanks in order to secure these bitter-tatoes. Of course I don't know exactly what story you want to tell, so I'm just speculating. $\endgroup$
    – Ventifacts and Yardangs
    Jun 22, 2022 at 23:10
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To settle you need a stable food supply. Grasslands don't have that much for humans to naturally eat anyways so we need to farm it. Could you adjust something about the weather or food crops that they have available to them to cause them to be unable to to effectively farm there?

EDIT: Wait, early 20th century tech? That makes it a lot more difficult since you can bring in all your food by train.

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  • $\begingroup$ Even if food and resources can be transported (not by train, but by ship), would that not make the settlement unable to sustain itself alone? The settlers certainly wouldn't have anything to trade for all their necessary resources either. $\endgroup$
    – FalseSwiss
    Jun 18, 2022 at 21:38
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    $\begingroup$ @FalseSwiss It does, but that doesn't mean people did not settle there which is what you asked for. A lot of cities in the world aren't food self-sufficient with their immediate surroundings due their size and rely on modern logistics bringing in over-production from other regions. Some more obvious than others. Especially places like Dubai, and I think Las Vegas too to a lesser extent. $\endgroup$
    – DKNguyen
    Jun 18, 2022 at 21:44
  • $\begingroup$ That is a much clearer way of putting it, thank you. Perhaps I should think about the logistical challenges to establishing and maintaining a settlement there. $\endgroup$
    – FalseSwiss
    Jun 18, 2022 at 21:48
  • $\begingroup$ @FalseSwiss Logistical challenges will be overcome; transport by sea is dirt cheap, and you need working logistics to get the armies to that land so some kind of problems with sea transport isn't going to help. $\endgroup$
    – toolforger
    Jun 19, 2022 at 10:28
  • $\begingroup$ grass lands have one huge food source, large herbivores. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Jun 19, 2022 at 14:47
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One another disease scenario

Malaria is said to have been one of the things impeding European colonization of Africa as long as quinine hasn't been available. Unlike already mentioned trypanosomiasis, malaria affects humans; but in case medicine is present, the continent isn't dangerous to live in. (Naturally, any fatal illness with newly available drug will do.)

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What if the soil conditions are too poor for the people's crops, but support the local grass? That way, even if the crops can grow in the soil, they'd be outcompeted by native flora. Being unable to grow crops there would mean that they'd have to be imported from other lands, which would hinder, if not outright prevent, colonization.

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  • $\begingroup$ I included that in my own answer to my question already, but I'm glad to see that someone else has the same idea. $\endgroup$
    – FalseSwiss
    Jun 22, 2022 at 4:13
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    $\begingroup$ If there's grass at all, though, they could raise grazing animals for food, and never mind the vegetables. $\endgroup$
    – workerjoe
    Jun 22, 2022 at 5:26
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To be clear, the people of my world do not wish to conquer, nor is there an issue such as an overpopulation crisis.

If your people are already this different from humans, it's probably okay to just decide that they lack much of our inclination to explore and settle faraway lands.

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  • $\begingroup$ I didn't explicitly mention it, but the humans of my world have explored the oceans. Otherwise, how would they even know that there are no other continents to settle on? $\endgroup$
    – FalseSwiss
    Jun 22, 2022 at 18:44
  • $\begingroup$ maybe they wouldn't $\endgroup$
    – Emilio M Bumachar
    Jun 24, 2022 at 12:23
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You need to poison it

Making the land economically unsustainable while keeping it as a viable battleground is pretty difficult.

You have to exclude all natural resources. With 20th-century technology, that's really hard; even salted lowlands will have some resources that somebody will come to harvest.
E.g. remember the Penguin Islands? Nothing grew there because birds lived off the sea and covered everything in shit, so nothing could grow - until late in 18th century, it was recognised that the shit was a potent fertilizer; the islands are now better known as Guano islands.

Salt? They will harvest it. Somebody will find a way to make that ever so slightly cheaper than the other methods of getting salts on the other continents. Even if it's just for a specific region in one of the other continents, there will be a permanent settlement.

There will be scientists looking for drugs, or plants that can be used to make drugs.

There will be wildlife. Somebody will want to eat it. Even expenses won't be a problem - there's a market for hard-to-get food, even if only as a status symbol.
(You can't avoid wildlife, it will evolve to tolerate the mercury, just like the plants.)

Poison, on the other hand, will be a strong discourager.

Mercury. The plants that live there survive mercury, and use organic mercury compounds.

Option 2: Regular Catastrophes

Every 20 years, the land is flooded.
E.g. excentric planetary orbit and a large moon, every 20 years or so the moon will be in either the near or the far side of the sun so the tide is high enough to have a 3-meter flood - you can't protect a whole continent from that sea level. (The other continents do have land that's above that level, but sadly, the middle continent does not.)

Or maybe the middle continent has a mega-geysir, connected to a large deposit of some mineral that emits huge amounts of fluorine. Grass can survive this no problem, but animals typically don't survive this, and while humans could protect themselves, doing this at a mass scale is prohibitively expensive and accidents do happen so it's unattractive for managers (nobody cares about the workers, there's usually enough cheap labor who's willing to take risks).

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