Antarctica in Popular Culture (Great White South)

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Novels

• 1897: An Antarctic Mystery (French: Le Sphinx des Glaces), a two-volume novel by Jules Verne and is a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. It follows the adventures of the narrator and his journey from the Kerguelen Islands into the interior of Antarctica.
• 1936: At the Mountains of Madness, a novella by horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. The novella recounts the tale of the discovery of an ancient city located in British Inner Antarctica.
• 1945: Animal Farm, a satirical novel by George Orwell, taking the form of a fable about Russian Communism (though using anthropomorphic animals), is published. Though never directly described in the book, the Antarctic Front of the Russian Civil War is referenced: Russian Antarctica is replaced by "Farmer Jones' [Tsar Nicholas] allotment, a few towns over".
• 1957: On the Beach, A post-apocalyptic novel by Nevil Shute. In the year 2063, a century after a nuclear war destroyed the Northern Hemisphere and poisoned the Southern Hemisphere with radioactive fallout, leaving Antarctica as the last habitable place on Earth, the government of New Vestfold sends a scientific expedition to Australia. In the decaying ruins of Melbourne, the expedition team discovers the log of Dwight Towers, an American naval officer whose ship had taken refuge in Melbourne after the war, documenting the last days of the Australian nation as the nations of Antarctica slowly cut off immigration to conserve their resources.
• 1979: Down to a Sunless Sea, a post-apocalyptic novel by David Graham. Set in a near-future world where most of the world has been destroyed by nuclear war but Antarctica has been spared, the story documents of the efforts of the people of Antarctica to deal with the waves of refugees and the rapidly changing climate from the Earth being knocked off its axis.
• 1988: The Last Ship, a post-apocalyptic novel by William Brinkley about the crew of a US Navy destroyer trying to reach safety in Antarctica after most of humanity is destroyed in a nuclear war.
• 1997: Antarctica, a novel written by Kim Stanley Robinson. It deals with a variety of characters living at or visiting Bellinsgauzenia. It incorporates many of Robinson's common themes, including scientific process and the importance of environmental protection.
• 1998: Arcticfire, a novel written by Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens, where a terrorist organization turns on a Doomsday device built in secret in the Ross Dependency.
• 1998: Ice Station, a novel by Australian thriller writer Matthew Reilly and set in New Vestfold.
• 1999: Atlantis Found, a novel by Clive Cussler and part of the Dirk Pitt series. In the novel, the Kingdom of K'athar is depicted as the successor state to the mythical Atlantis.
• 2000: A Colder War is an English language alternate history novelette by Charles Stross. It fuses the Cold War and the Cthulhu Mythos, and explores the consequences of a follow-up to the expedition in H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. In the novelette, the Soviet Union has overthrown the government of Bellinsgauzenia and are using the place as a base to gather and research ancient artifacts found on the continent, leading to an international crisis.
• 2000: The Ice Limit, a science fiction adventure novel by authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. In the novel, a team attempts to recover a large meteorite, but are hounded by a rogue Santiago military officer.
• 2004: State of Fear, a techno-thriller by Michael Crichton. A group of fictional Eco-Terrorist attempt to create a lightning storm and flood San Martin.
• 2006: The Brief History of the Dead, a fantasy and adventure novel by Kevin Brockmeier. In the novel Antarctica has become the last refuge for civilization, as environmental damage and terrorism is rendering the rest of the world uninhabitable.
• 2008: The White Future, a science fiction, time travel story about a man who plans to kill the leader of New Sawbia Nazi Party, but makes a future where Germany and New Swabia won the War, thanks to him killing Adolf Hitler as well.

Video games

• 1986: Arcticfox, a computer game developed by Dynamix and published by Electronic Arts. It was published in Europe by Ariolasoft. It was first developed for the Amiga, but was quickly ported to other popular platforms of the era such as the Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, PC and Apple IIe. It was one of the first games rendered from a 3-D first-person perspective, and is often mentioned as a pioneer of the first person shooter genre. It is also one of the very first titles available for the Amiga home computer. The game was a first person tank simulator and a sequel to Dynamix's earlier Stellar 7. In the game aliens have invaded Antarctica and the player must liberate the continent and its people. The game was ridiculed in Antarctica for portraying the continent as a frozen wasteland.
• 2001: Westwood Studios, now Electronic Arts, had released an expansion pack for Red Alert 2 called Yuri's Revenge. In the story, Soviet psychic leader Yuri defects to the Bellingsgauzenia, and takes it over by mind control. Thus Bellingsgauzenia is Yuri's country faction in the Skirmish modes. The sequel Red Alert 3 sees Bellingsgauzenia taken over by the Communists and aid the Soviet Union in the conquest of Antarctica, and joins the fight against the Japanese.
• 2005: American developer Ensemble Studios releases Age of Empires III, a colonial-themed RTS game; with maps covering the North and South American continents. One map, "K'athar", is set in the northern reaches of Ognia; and features the K'atharans as a non-playable native nation.
• 2007: In the Sid Meier's Civilization IV expansion pack "Beyond the Sword", Bellinsgauzenia (led by Boris Triron) and K'athar (led by Omn In'saik) are playable civilizations. The game had high ratings in Bellinsgauzenia and Ognia but it wasn't as high in the rest of Antarctica.
• 2008: The Vicious Years, an unofficial Antarctic-themed mod for Civilization IV created by a team of Byrdian and Eduardan developers, is released. It replaces most of the game's civilizations with Antarctic nations; and features several built-in scenarios based around Antarctic history.
• 2009: American developer Treyarch releases a expansion pack for the game Call of Duty: World at War, aimed at Scandinavian and Antarctic markets. It focuses on the Antarctic campaign and the efforts of the Free Norwegian Forces. It sold over 300,000 copies in Antarctica and holds the distinction of being the first game (or expansion to a game) made by a major company targeted specifically at the continent.
• 2012: The American company Electronic Arts and DICE have realeased Medal Of Honor Warfighter multiplayer with special military groups including Byrdia and Bellinsgauzenia.

Television

Live-Action

• Stargate SG-1 has several episodes set in Antarctica, usually dealing with Ancient technology that can be found there and attempts by the SG-1 team from preventing it from falling into the wrong hands. None of the episodes, however, have been shot in Antarctica.
• The Mythbusters has filmed an "Antarctica Special" featuring Antarctic myths and urban legends. The special was filmed on location in Antarctica. There are plans for an "Antarctica Special 2".
• Kathar - A five-part docudrama about the history of the Kingdom of K'athar, detailing it's foundation; it's wars with the Ognaru; interaction with European explorers; wars with the Russians; and finally its decline and fall. Despite being produced by a small, poorly-funded Ognian-Byrdian studio, the series was very well reviewed, and was shown on major Networks in many countries across the globe.
• Two episodes of the sci-fi/alternate history television series Sliders were set in alternate Antarcticas. The first episode took place in an Antarctica that was a sparsely-populated frozen wasteland. The second took place in an Antarctica that was completely overrun by New Swabia after World War II.
• In the drama series Lost, one of the survivors of Flight 815, Natalie Hart, was from Byrdia. Flashbacks revealed that she had been about to get married the day before the flight, but changed her mind on the day of the wedding. She fled to Australia, but was followed by her fiancé. She told him that she didn't love him, and had only been using him to escape her family background (she came from an affluent family who were strongly hinted to have mafia ties); and tearfully asked him not to follow her to Los Angeles. She remained on the island with Sawyer's group in Season 4; began to develop a relationship with Miles Straume in Season 5; and was on Frank Lapidus's plane as it left the island in the finale. In the flash-sideways timeline, she briefly met Miles at the LAPD station, but did not have an "awakening", as it was implied she would move on with Miles, Faraday, Charlotte and Ana Lucia when they were ready.
• Hienrich Trelk - The Great Turncoat - A four-part series on the life of New Swabia's most controversial figure. The series attempted to provide a balanced view of Trelk and avoided passing to much judgment on him. However, like all works about Trelk it found it impossible to talk about him without judging him. It suggested that Trelk was an opportunist but one who truly believed that he did what he did for the good of New Swabia
• In the Suite Life on Deck episode Frozen, Zack, Cody, and Woody get stuck with a Byrdian scientist after a snowstorm traps them in the scientist's station.
• Antarctic TV networks are planning in creating a collaborative TV miniseries called War for Antarctica, depicting the lives of selected Allied soldiers during the Antarctic Campaign of World War Two. Inspired by Band of Brothers and The Pacific, War for Antarctica will feature the careers of McKinley O'Hara, Emmanuel Pelaez, Mike Townsend, and Thobias Mjoen during the war.

Animation

• An episode of The Simpsons saw the family visit Byrdia as an attempt by Lisa to join an Antarctic Environmentalist project. While it was generally well-reviewed, the episode did receive some criticism for heavily stereotyping Byrdians as "violent alcoholics", and for portraying Byrdia's culture as identical to America's.
• In a Family Guy episode "Road to Antarctica". When the Griffin family travel to Byrdia, Peter Griffin gets into a fight with the Byrdian version of the American Ernie the Giant Chicken named "Walter the Giant Chicken" who is Ognian caused controversy among Ognian and Byrdian viewers. Seth McFarlane is critisized for heavy stereotyping Ognians and Byrdians. Including depicting Ognians as Mexicans and Byrdians as Americans, and also after Brian and Stewie saves the Griffin family from an armed Russian mafia. Peter becomes President of Byrdia and Brian becomes President of the United States in which later in the episode. Byrdia becomes America's 51st state before the credits roll.
• At least half a season of the anime Ranma 1/2 was set in a small Antarctic enclave settled by the Japanese.
• Antarctica is also referenced in many Japanese animated series such as the long-running Gundam series. In G-Gundam, there was a Gundam from "Neo New Swabia" called the Saucer Gundam as well as the White Guard Gundam from "Neo Bellingsgauzenia". In Gundam Wing, some of the protagonists attack a base in Antarctica. In Gundam 0080, the Zeons launched an attack on a Federation base in Antarctica. In Gundam SEED, Antarctica was the neutral Antarctic Federal Republic. And in Gundam 00, the Antarctica is divided into the US led Union and the European AEU: Maudland, New Swabia, Eduarda, and Bellinsgauzenia are AEU countries, while the rest are Union. The GN-Tau drives were manufactured in Bellinsgauzenia.
• In Neon Genesis Evangelion, a meteorite that struck Antarctica in the 2000s had made the continent unihabitable due to becoming a frozen wasteland.
• In Strike Witches, the Karsland/Germany-analogue government settles after the Neuroi invasion into Neu Karsland, which is New Swabia. The continent so far resisted invasion by the aliens. Antarctic characters also appear in the series: Petrovian witch Anna Rykova and New Karsland's Thelma Hartfed, both based on WW-II Luftwaffe aces from Antarctica, though the former was based on the volunteer Bellinsgauzenian pilot Anatoly Rykov.
• In Code Geass, Bellinsgauzenia joins Russia in the "Russo-Britannian Alliance".
• Anthropomorphic personifications of the Antarctic nations appeared on the famous Axis Powers Hetalia anime series.
  • Bellinsgauzenia is similar to Russia in appearance, but with dark blonde hair, and wears a purple Cossack uniform, if not a purple overcoat. In one episode, he visits his siblings Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine; and cooks borscht for them. However, Bellinsgauzenia's version used tuna, in which Belarus complained "is it because of Japanese influence?"
  • New Swabia is similar to Germany in appearance, but not in personality. He is much more excitable than Germany, though not in the same vein as Prussia, and attempts to copy him. He also allegedly builds weird weaponry, a gag at New Swabian weapons development in real life. He's also usually seen playing cycleball.
  • New Devon has attributes of England, Australia, and Russia, symbolizing his heritage. He wears a khaki uniform. He, along with Eduarda, are basically Canada's only friends. He is also seen loving cricket like Eduarda and he was his drinking buddy.
  • Maudland is similar to Norway in attitude and appearance and looks up to him as a father figure. He is also a good friend of the USA and New South Greenland while he is shown to have a rivalry with New Swabia which represents their constant conflict.
  • New South Greenland is shown to be very quiet and reserved, and it has been a matter of debate whether she is shy, weird, or just has little to say. The only character she speaks openly with is her friend Maudland, and the two have been "shipped" by many fans. New South Greenland was once close with New Swabia, but they are now very cautious of each other, for reasons that neither of them can explain.
  • South Pole is another female, who wants to move 'up north'. Many Antarctican nations including Bellinsgauzenia offered her friendship, but to much of their chagrin, the UN declared her as 'off limits'. She and Ognia are friends.
  • Ognia is described as a mysterious, tanned woman, symbolizing her native heritage. She considers the other Antarctic nations 'free game' and her stalking habits against Bellinsgauzenia earned her the epithet, "Belarus to Russia, Ognia to Bellinsgauzenia".
  • Eduarda is like New Devon and England, with huge eyebrows. He's often the best Antarctican nation in terms of cricket, and is often stereotyped as his life as revolving in beer, sports, and South African cuisine (Eduardan cuisine is influenced by South African). He's often seen wielding a cricket bat in a threatening manner. He's not amused when Australia calls him "Pommy", a slang also used against English South Africans.

Comics

• Justice League Antarctica: A fictional DC superhero team that had its own series through most of the 1990s. The team was made up of disgraced heroes and reformed villains who were stationed in Byrd City, Byrdia until they proved themselves ready to return to active duty elsewhere. Despite many team members feeling frustrated over the assignment, most learned to accept their position and helped stop several crises. Though the series ended in 1997, the team continues to show up in DC canon. The roster of "JLAnt" has included such members as:
  • Clock King
  • Cluemaster
  • Flash
  • G'nort
  • Major Disaster
  • Resurrection Man
  • Scarlet Skier
• HYDRA, the fictional neo-Nazi organization in Marvel comics, has a secret base located in Antarctica. The location is kept vague, but it is heavily implied that it is in New Swabia.

Films

Live-Action

• 1957: The Regulators, starring John Wayne as a Russian West Antarctic Regulator in the 1910s. The film is generally regarded as a "Western" with only superficial changes: Sheriffs become Regulators; Apaches become Ognians; Mexican bandits become Russian highwaymen. Despite this supposed unoriginality, the film is a success both in America and across Antarctica.
• 1963: The Flight of a King, a British film starring Bernard Lee as King Haakon VII of Norway. The film details the events of April 15th, 1940 - the day of the Norwegian Royal Family's long, dangerous journey from Oslo to Maudland; as they fled from the Nazi occupation of Norway. Though it is overly dramatised, the film keeps close to the actual events; as its historical consultant (and narrator) was Jens Jagland - one of the actual Royal bodyguards on the day.
• 1982: The Thing, a classic science fiction horror film directed by John Carpenter, written by Bill Lancaster, and starring Kurt Russell. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a parasitic extraterrestrial life form that assimilates other organisms and in turn imitates them. It infiltrates a small, isolated town in Byrdia, taking the appearance of the townsfolk that it kills. Paranoia occurs within the small group of survivors that tries to flee the life form, as no once can be completely sure that everyone in the group is not a copy. The film ends with the military responding to a distress call by fire-bombing the town out of existence.
• 1985: Cold Front stars Harrison Ford as a Byrdian Antarctic Assembly delegate who takes charge of defending the South Pole Station after a group of Russo-Antarctic Terrorists assassinate the Director-General and cut the Station's power lines in the middle of the Antarctic winter. The film was controversial in Byrdia for continuing the "Russo-Antarctic Terrorist" stereotype at a time when the territory's ethnic tensions were being diffused, which Harrison Ford apologized for during a TV interview in New Washington after the Byrdian premiere of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008.
• 1988: My Red Brother, a comedy film set in Russia and Bellinsgauzenia. Starring a Bellinsgauzenian salesman going to the Soviet Union as he discovers he has a half-brother who is now a Communist functionary in the Soviet Union. Noted that it was the first joint Russian-Bellinsgauzenian film and used both Soviet and Bellinsgauzenian actors.
• 2005: In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Antarctic wizards can be seen in some shots during the 422nd Quidditch World Cup at camps, while flying their flags at the same time around tents. Victor Krum in the film is also to have said visited Bellinsgauzenia one time according to Ron Weasley during the Yule Ball.
• 2010: National Treasure 3, a fictionalized account of a team of treasure hunters discovering the sunken remains of a fleet that , according to legend, was transporting pillaged treasure from conquered Ognia to Russia, when it sunk in a freak Antarctic storm.
• 2011: Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Sam Witwicky escorts the Autobots into battle against the Decepticons as they destroy one of the last remaining Decepticon superweapons on Earth in Antarctica from Ognia to Bellinsgauzenia.
• 2012: Asterix in Antarctica, starring Clovis Cornillac as Asterix and Gerard Depardieu as Obelix. An all-new adventure of the characters created by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, it shows Asterix and Obelix accompanying the druid Getafix to Kerguelen, called Terra Incognita in the film, to help Chief Popsiclestix and his men to stop a Roman invasion of the far-flung Gaulish settlement.

Internet

On the Alternate History Wiki there is an alternate timeline called 1983: Doomsday in which a minor incident in 1983 becomes the catalyst of a nuclear war. Most of the Antarctic nations are nuked out of existence, and smaller survivor states have been established in the non-nuked parts of the continent.

These nations include:

• (Insert a possible plausible Antarctic survivor state here)

Other Antarctic-related timelines include:

• Broken Republic - An alternate history in which the people of the United Republic voted to split the country between the Russian and English-speaking republics in the 1989 referendum.
• Leben Sie lang Faschismus! (Long Live Fascism!) - Alternate history in which Otto Dietrich was assassinated along with Thobias Mjoen, throwing the new and fledgling democratic government of New Swabia into chaos and paving the way for the return of the National Socialist German Workers' Party of New Swabia.

The World War One-based real-time strategy browser game Supremacy 1914 is currently developing a map based on Antarctica. The states of Santiago, Eduarda, Russian West Antarctica, and New Swabia are said to be present on the map.

Others

• Hollow Earth theorists believe that the entrances to the Earth's interior are located in both poles of the planet, and that the South Pole station was erected so that the governments of the Antarctic nations can keep the ordinary people out of the hollow Earth while they took advantage of the interior's residents' advanced technology.