Atlantis

Atlantis

Located in the mid-Atlantic Atlantis is a microcontinent (usually called an island) that is the primary location for Atlantean culture. The island, with its three main outlying islands Sorgonak Island. Ihntzanak Island, and Latasmun Island, lies completely within the | North Atlantic Gyre giving the southern end of the island a drier, more Mediterranean type of climate, while the northern end of the island has a higher amount of rainfall and somewhat cooler temperatures, while the island of Vejontela lies much further to the west and is considered part of North America. The island of Atlantis is the homeland for the Atlantean People, a | pre-Indo-European people who migrated from Europe in the distant past. Currently Atlantis is considered one of the top industrialized nations, a member of | NATO, and a center for high tech innovation and international trade and banking.

Prehistory
Archaeological records indicate that humans arrived on Atlantis roughly 25,000-20,000 BC. From there the colonization of the island (microcontinent) went relatively smoothly. Each area of the island, from the rugged highlands of the north and south, to the central and southeastern lowlands, provided fertile territory for hunting, fishing, farming, and raising of herds. Deep forests provided sturdy timber to produce the oceangoing ships the Atlanteans used to control trade across the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea. Atlantean armies, in this distant past, used various lands scattered about the Mediterranean as training grounds and areas for capturing slaves to take back to Atlantis

Paleo-Geography of Atlantis
One of the microcontinent’s most unique features the Kolpo, Atlantis’ central gulf, was formed over an extremely short period of time. Geologists have studied the Kolpo and the surrounding escarpments that make up the Atlantean highlands and have determined that the microcontinent’s plate, a relatively new plate tectonically, was lifted on a large plume of magma. This magma while pushing up the plate from beneath, burned through in a number of locations due to the stressors of this fledgling continent’s creation. This caused the formation of a caldera which collapsed somewhere between 1.25mya and 1mya. This collapse, a geologically lightning fast event, took roughly 200,000 years to fully settle, leaving the center of the continent close to sea level, or possibly a little below, but ringed by high escarpments (the caldera rim) which kept the ocean at bay. Over the next few thousands of years Atlantis’s terrain weathered but managed to maintain a tenuous sedimentary barrier keeping out the ocean, with the weakest point located on the southern rim. Numerous historical texts, most very fragmentary in nature, indicate that a number of streams or small rivers flowed within the caldera. Some areas of the central caldera, the lowest points, became part of the hydrological drainage of the area, with significant mineral deposits due to the formation of hot springs which helped drive the evaporation of the water or which pushed the water out through subterranean cracks, ejecting it either onto the outer slope of the caldera or into the ocean nearby.

The Doom
Numerous earthquakes had always plagued Atlantis, but in ~9,000BCE a large earthquake, scientists estimate it at a 11.5 on the Richter Scale, struck near Atlantis’ southeast. This earthquake caused a sudden, uneven subsidence of the center of Atlantis, causing massive shifts in the landscape and nearly leveling every building in the capital. While the damage from the earthquake was reported to be very severe Atlantean culture would very likely have survived if not for the unfortunate series of events that then took place. Geologists estimate that the earthquake was merely a presaging event for the eruption of Mount Koratva, the large volcano that lay just directly in the middle of what became the Straits of Estva leading into the Kolpo from the Atlantic Ocean.

Geological reconstructions of the disaster that followed indicate that the earthquake was caused by a large mass of magma shifting out from under the caldera and breaking into Mt Koratva’s magma chamber and driving the pressure up considerably. Ancient Atlantean records, recorded many years after the event, indicate that Mt Koratva erupted about 16 days after the earthquake. Unfortunately for the ancient Atlanteans most had taken that time to gather at their capital, Lorikarra, located on the lush lowlands of the interior. The pyroclastic flow from Mt Koratva, combined with the massive lahars that ripped down its slopes, carved open the last remaining sedimentary berms that separated the interior lowlands from the ocean. Geologists estimate that from the time of the eruption to the breach of the retaining ledge of land was less than four or five hours. Once the ocean topped the low sedimentary berms there was no stopping the torrent of water.

Records indicate that the hapless refugees tried to flee the destruction but the sudden onrush of water, a wall of water weighing trillions of tons, crushed inland at a speed of about 80mph or 130kph almost instantly engulfing the ancient capital city. It is estimated that within 18-24 hours, the fertile lowlands of the Atlantean interior lay beneath up to 70m of ocean. Due to this widespread destruction Atlantean society collapsed within weeks. Governmental institutions were obliterated overnight. Those who had been refugees from the earthquake’s destruction, seeking aid in Lorikarra died there instead, leaving deserted towns and villages across the island. What had once been a sprawling sea-empire had slipped into anarchy. Atlantis’ advanced technology and sciences, near worthless in the face of Nature’s fury, was packed away lovingly by the remnants of their scientists hopefully to be brought to light again when Atlantis has need of the information.

Post-Cataclysm Atlantis
The following centuries were extremely unkind to the people of Atlantis. Rabid internecine strife tore through the remaining lands. Massacres and bloodshed became the norm throughout. Petty kingdoms, many religiously based, rose and fell. Proto-Hellenic and other very early pan Mediterranean religious practices, derived from slaves, were more prevalent in the eastern side of the continent while newer forms of worship based on unitary deities or small groups became the norm across the remainder. By this time Atlantean naval practices had become forgotten, lost to the ravages of war and the blistering ignorance of the warring tribes. Atlantis, once the greatest empire, ruler of the seas, had become a myth.

According to Theophrastus: ... And the island of Atalantes (Atlantis) which was greater than Africa and Asia, as Plato says in the Timaeus, in one day and night was overwhelmed beneath the sea in consequence of an extraordinary earthquake and inundation and suddenly disappeared, becoming sea, not indeed navigable, but full of gulfs and eddies.

The Kolpo, Atlantis’ large central gulf, appears to have settled geologically within the last millennium at an average depth of 30m. The few highlands that remained following the Great Flood were primarily washed away or eroded by hurricanes. The one central feature that did not wash away was Sumendia, a grouping of one large volcanic island with some outlying volcanic islands that now serve as Atlantis’ chief shipyards and military planning hub.

European Discovery
In 1492 Columbus had sailed his three ships, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, across the Atlantic Ocean in search of India and spices. This voyage, the first of four that he would make, brought Europe back into contact with Atlantis. On the return trip from the Americas in early 1493 the Niña sighted an island in the far distance during a late evening storm. Not wishing to run aground, the captain of the ship, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, headed south to avoid possible shoals or reefs that could destroy his ship. He reported the sighting to Columbus when they met again in the Azores, but it was considered inconsequential at the time compared with the beautiful islands they had discovered further south and west.

In 1494 Europeans ‘rediscovered’ Atlantis by landing on the eastern sweep/arm. English navigators had heard the rumors of an island north of Columbus’ course the year before and went searching for it. They found a significantly larger land than they were expecting. For the next thirty or so years both England and Portugal struggled to establish colonies on the eastern arm of the Atlantean continent. Their attempts were mostly abortive colonies established on Eastern Atlantis, but each of these was eliminated within 10-20 years due to Atlantean influences on trade, or outright hostility with the natives. Spain, now engaged in glorious conquest of the Caribbean, passed by the island not believing reports from England and Portugal regarding its size or bounty. When they eventually turned their attention to the island the native Atlanteans had already recognized the danger and were organizing.

Atlantean Republic
Atlantis re-emerged as a polity in the early 1500s, mostly based on the efforts of two powers on the continent, Melachrinoi and Aterpea. These two nations were able to fend off European incursions and to conquer or otherwise subjugate the other Atlantean nations. Their union, in 1541, brought about the complete reunification of Atlantis and the declaration of Atlantis’ Modern Republic. This Atlantis, still dealing with internal unrest and economic instability, missed out on most of the land grab in North and South America. The few colonies that they did establish on the Eastern Seaboard were mostly lost to the English, French, and later Americans throughout the colonial period. Turning their attention East to Africa they did establish some colonies there, but disease and disdain for their ‘racial inferiors’ lead to Atlantean apathy towards Africa.

Atlantean Civil War
In 1840, after ten years of smouldering internal strife and warmongering, Erguld Aserra, leader of the Sons of Atlantis, a radical secret society that had infiltrated government and the military, declared the Atlantean Empire, with himself as its Guda, or Supreme Ruler. The extreme barbarism displayed by the Imperial forces saw whole villages slaughtered and a drop in GDP that nearly crippled the Atlantean economy for the next 50 years. Many times throughout the years of conflict other nations, primarily the United States and Great Britain, offered support for the Republic in the form of volunteers and supplies, but the Atlantean Modern Republic, still wary of having foreigners on the island, demurred. Atlantis was determined to take care of its own problems.

In 1848 Guda Erguld Aserra was at last cornered by Republican forces in his northern stronghold of Ehunzarog, a massive fortress complex cut deep into the side of a mountain. It took a week of bloody fighting for the Atlantean forces to finally breach the fortress and storm Aserra’s inner sanctum. When the fortress had finally fallen, Aserra was nowhere to be found, but the Imperial forces had been defeated. Atlantis’ civil war, one of the worst in modern history, was finally over. The eight years of civil war saw the death of between ⅙ and ⅕ of the Atlantean population.

The people of Atlantis, seeing the damage that had been wrought by imperial ambitions, largely turned against the idea of offensive war. The government and people were no fools, they saw the benefit of defending themselves, but a significant cultural shift began. In 1858, Layma Zentzud, an Atlantean woman who had been a champion for women’s rights, was elected to the Bilra, the Atlantean Senate. Following her successful first term of seven years, Layma was elected again to another consecutive five terms, making her one of Atlantis’ longest serving senators. With Layma’s opening of politics to women, there was a veritable influx of females into Atlantean politics. The public saw this as an opportunity to temper their ‘primal’ and ‘imperial’ urges that they viewed as the result of men’s natural aggression.

https://aml.miraheze.org/wiki/%C3%81n%C5%BCener_Haxikral