New Atlantis, Arizona
The Restored Thalassocracy of the Peoples of the Sea
SCP-5525-Byzantine; Nx-5525
KTE-5525-Timaeus-Dominochild
Naval Support Facility Beaver Dam
Conspectus
New Atlantis1,2 is an Atlantean colony located in the State of Arizona, and the capital of their revived civilization. Established by the ancient Atlanteans recovered from their stasis within the Untimely Mirror3,4,5,6,7,8,9 by the military of the United States of America, New Atlantis is afforded the patronage of the American government through an uneasy alliance secured via political marriages between members of the Atlantean Senate and officers of the United States Navy. Although treated as a foreign power by American and UN diplomats, New Atlantis is only quasi-independent, and it is legally a tribal nation equivalent to an Indian reservation. There are extensive and growing entanglements between the Atlantean ruling class and the American political and military elite, much to the concern of international observers10,11,12.
Illustration
The Flag of New Atlantis. It combines the ancient Atlantean symbol of the trident, which represents the combined naval power of the three classes of Atlantean society, with the design of the Flag of Arizona13,14, where Atlantis is now located.
Knowledge
Traits: New Atlantis is a hidden city constructed by the inheritors of an ancient and proud civilization, now fallen into myth. This reborn metropolis15,16 is located somewhere17,18,19,20 within the Arizona Strip, a rural and remote region21 between Utah and the Colorado River, isolated from the rest of Arizona by the Grand Canyon. The exact location is classified22,23,24 by the international and national normalcy agencies which maintain a security cordon around the area, and the Atlanteans use advanced techno-thaumaturgy to render the city invisible to outsiders25. Those few who have been granted a glimpse of this secret society say it contains many marvels of science and sorcery that eclipse anything else behind the Veil26, and far surpass all the efforts of mundane and modern man.
Nature: New Atlantean society is organized into an oligarchic and thalassocratic republic27,28, wherein political and social standing are nearly synonymous with naval and maritime power29,30. As in the ancient Atlantean civilization, the government is centered on a tricameral Senate elected by the semi-hereditary aristocracy, headed by a twelve-member Admiralty Board of Senator-Admirals chosen from the upper house of the Senate by the lower houses.
The Biltmore Treaty, signed at and guaranteed by the 1980 wedding of John McCain III31 and Merchant-Senator Cindy Lou32 at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona, established a political association between the Atlantean and American governments. In exchange for access to Atlantean paratechnology, the United States guarantees the territorial sovereignty of New Atlantis, and allows Atlanteans to serve in the United States Navy and Coast Guard33, although they may not be promoted beyond the rank of Captain without renouncing Atlantean citizenship.
History & Associated Parties: The origin of New Atlantis lies over 5000 years ago, when the Atlantean Senate ordered the creation of the Untimely Mirror as a contingency to ensure the survival of their civilization. Periodically, the best and brightest34,35 living Atlanteans would be chosen to have their reflections frozen in stasis inside the Mirror, to be reincarnated after their deaths at the hour of greatest need36. Unfortunately, the ultimate37,38 Fall of Atlantis occurred too rapidly for the Mirror to be activated, leaving the reflected Atlanteans trapped in stasis. They remained inside the Mirror, in the ruins of Old Atlantis, until its rediscovery by the Pentagram.
In 1979, hoping to make use of her knowledge and skills, the Pentagram unfroze High Admiral Lindsey the Elder39, the great strategist and naval commander who led the Living Armada to victory over the Gilded Fleet of Jushur at the Battle of One Thousand Masts, thereby establishing a half-millennium of undisputed Atlantean ascendancy. The High Admiral agreed to assist the American military in their studies of the artifacts they had recovered from Atlantis, only to turn on her liberators and would-be captors at the earliest opportunity. She unfroze a number of her fellow warriors, and together they escaped with the Mirror which contained the remaining survivors, fleeing into the Mojave Desert in search of a place to reestablish their civilization40,41.
After several months of waging guerilla warfare while evading capture, High Admiral Lindsey went on the offensive, leading her small force of warmages into the Battle of Lee's Ferry and thereby seizing control of Glen Canyon Dam. Now holding the Dam hostage, and with it everything downstream along the Colorado River, the High Admiral was able to force the Pentagram into a standoff42.
At this point, the Global Occult Coalition had discovered and blockaded the ruins of Old Atlantis, preventing further access by the Pentagram. Aware of the situation in Arizona, Undersecretary-General DC al Fine43 reached out to the American government with an offer to negotiate a truce with the Atlanteans. This offer was accepted, and Atlantis-expert Nicole Belmonte44,45 led a delegation of UN and American diplomats in the talks that eventually produced the Biltmore Treaty46,47,48,49,50,51.
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With a truce established, the remaining Atlanteans were removed from the Mirror and began the process of rebuilding to the best of their abilities. Although some assistance was provided by the US Navy Construction Battalions59, most of the construction was performed by Atlantean golemancers. Once the city was completed, the remaining terms of the Biltmore Treaty were enacted through a secret rider in the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 198660,61,62, and Naval Support Facility Beaver Dam was established nearby63,64,65,66 to provide a cover story for the military presence and to oversee the security cordon.
Atlantean politics are currently dominated by the assimilationist McCainist faction, led by Senator-Admiral Meghan McCain67,68; the McCainists support stronger relations with the United States, and some of them, including Senator-Admiral McCain herself, have been seriously pushing for Atlantean statehood. The McCainists are opposed by two minority factions: the isolationist Atlantis First party, who are opposed to all contact with the outside world, and the Thalassocrats, many of whom are associated with the Scientologist Sea Org, who seek to return Atlantis to its former glory and once more rule the waves.
Approach: New Atlantis is concealed and cloistered, first by choice and second by the Veil. Few are aware of its existence, and fewer still are permitted to visit. Like America, Atlantis has no friends, only interests — if you are afforded the opportunity to enter the city, it is surely because you have something they need. If you are respectful and cooperative, they will reciprocate, but if you oppose or hinder69,70,71 them, they will not hesitate to deal with you ruthlessly and mercilessly. Remember also that Atlantis is of great interest to the Pentagram, and to those who serve the Veil — anyone who enters the city will be noticed and noted by the great occult powers.
Observations & Stories
I was there the first time an Atlantean saw a modern aircraft carrier.
Although I led the UN mission to Glen Canyon Dam, I was not personally involved in most of the negotiations — the actual diplomatic talks were delegated to subordinates on both sides. Instead, as the closest thing to an expert on Atlantean culture, I was to liaison on a more personal level, to build a rapport with the Atlantean leadership. As a result, I became intimately acquainted with the High Admiral72,73,74. In many ways, she resembles DC al Fine, particularly in her sense of pragmatism and her ability to draw accurate conclusions from incomplete and inaccurate information — for every fact about the world I told her, no matter how innocuous or irrelevant, she was able to infer half-a-dozen more of far greater significance, including such things as the general events of the Seventh Occult War, the existence of the Foundation, and the approximate naval strength of the Soviet Union. By the end of our first conversation, I suspect that she knew more about modern geopolitics than I did.
Which is why it was so gratifying to actually see her be surprised by something.
It has always been clear that the Altanteans respect naval power above any other kind. It was also evident from our discussions that they were fascinated by our modern technology, and the methods we had devised for doing things without magic — the Atlanteans had been aware of electricity, for instance, but had treated it largely as a curiosity. So I arranged for a small group of delegates, including the High Admiral, to take a helicopter flight to see the naval base at San Diego. She was already impressed, albeit in a rather detached manner, by the aircraft, and spent a considerable amount of time asking about its motive properties — Atlantis had discovered apportation circles quite early, and had used them liberally, and so had never developed flight technology beyond balloons.
But when she saw the USS Kitty Hawk, she was speechless.
To her credit, she immediately understood the ship's strategic value when I explained its combat role — and the implications of the US Navy possessing a dozen other aircraft carriers, many of them even larger and better armed. When she asked, I told her that it took a little over three years to build the ship, but noted that shipbuilding was slower during peacetime. Of course, then she wanted to know how quickly they could be built in wartime. I said that the last time the United States had been in total war, they had built two dozen fleet carriers in three and a half years, and over one hundred smaller escort carriers.
She stared at me. And then she asked the most important question in the history of Atlantean-American relations.
"What must I do to command such a ship?"
— "Nike" Belmonte, Dean of ICSUT Portlands
Growing up in New Atlantis totally fucking sucked. If you've ever lived in a shitty small town, you probably understand where I'm coming from. Everyone knows everyone, everyone judges everyone, and nobody gets out unless it's with the military — and in New Atlantis' case, that last point is almost universal. My high school graduating class was 200 people, and about a hundred either enlisted or went on to Annapolis. I think maybe a dozen went to Arizona State, mostly for engineering. Most of the rest just stayed in town. My best friend escaped to art school in Chicago, he's never coming back, and I went to ICSUT because my mom knows Nike75. But uh, I think I was supposed to be a battlemage, because mom wasn't happy about the history degree. Anyway it's a shithole in the ass end of nowhere, and I visit twice a year on Thanksgiving and Treaty Day.
— Lindsey the Younger
It is interesting to note the parallels between the Fall of Atlantis and those of other paracivilizations, particularly the Collapse of Avalon. Like the Old Atlanteans, the High Sidhe were a divergent subspecies of hominids with a greater natural affinity for thaumaturgy, which gave rise to an advanced and isolationist culture largely unknown to conventional history. Like Atlantis, Avalon was destroyed in a cataclysm, and the survivors rescued by a dominant global power and relocated to a hidden enclave — the British Occult Service moved the Sidhe refugees to Three Portlands, where they established the district of Little Avalon, while the Atlantean reflections were recovered from stasis by the American Pentagram and ultimately granted their current territory in Arizona. Whether these similarities are coincidental or the result of a deeper underlying historical cycle is unclear but intriguing.
Assuming the later, then these parallels may present another avenue to learning more about the history of Old Atlantis, especially if we consider the known dissimilarities. For instance, the Collapse of Avalon was a painfully drawn-out process that spanned 23 years, while all evidence suggests that the Fall of Atlantis was nearly instantaneous. The Collapse is generally thought to have been caused by the backlash from the end of the Sixth Occult War; if we assume a similar cause for the Fall, then the timing differences would seem to suggest the existence of an occult conflict or working of drastically greater magnitude than any previously known76,77,78 — which also provides a plausible answer to the open question of what, exactly, destroyed Atlantis at the height of its power.
Unfortunately, it also leaves us with more questions. If Atlantis was destroyed in a hypothetical "Zeroth" Occult War, was the Fall an unforeseen and catastrophic consequence of an Atlantean weapon, or the intended and intentional result of an attack by a hostile power? Who were they fighting, and where did they go?
— L. Rowe, Professor Emerita of Parahistory at ICSUT Portlands
Doubt
Everyone always says that Atlantean magitech is like, super cool, super advanced, nothing since like it, but like. I just am not sure that's true. Like we made some cool shit back in the day, the Untimely Mirror, the Burning Dark, the Empty Hive, but it's all one-off artifacts that nobody's been able to reproduce, even the people who made them in the first place79,80. And even the stuff that can be replicated relies way too heavily on magic — it takes a magus fifteen years to perfect their craft well enough to operate a battleship, and you need a dozen magi, minimum, to keep one running at full efficiency. It's just not economical.
— Lindsey the Younger
I mentioned the parallels between Atlantis and Avalon above; down here I'll go even further, and indulge in a little wild speculation. The Sidhe founding myth tells that Nuada Silverarm brought his people to Avalon in the wake of a great catastrophe that "slew nine and ninety out of every hundred", and the two surviving Great Treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, the Dagda's Cauldron and the Speaking Stone, share some distinct similarities in spellcraft and aesthetic design with the masterworks of Atlantean sorcery81,82. Could the Sidhe be the descendants of Atlantean refugees?
— L. Rowe, Professor Emerita of Parahistory at ICSUT Portlands
There is NO SUCH THING as "NEW ATLANTIS" or an "ATLANTEAN"! The entire city is populated by SIDHE CRISIS ACTORS employed by the NEW WORLD ORDER! Study of the TIME SORCERY RITUALS of the N'MA TRIBES of the SUNDA STRAIT will reveal to any SENSIBLE SCHOLAR their LEMURIAN origin! ATLANTIS is a MYTH! PLATO was GREEK and therefore a LIAR83!! You have all fallen for a NATO-BILDERBERG PLOT designed to hide the TRUE ORIGINS OF HUMANITY in the INDIAN OCEAN!!! GOOGLE PETER VYSPAROV!!!!
— Echidna
