20180831

SUPER-FRIENDS

The forgotten underseas world of Oceania, sister city to Atlantis, was first introduced to viewers in 1977 on the 'Super-Friends' episode titled, 'Super-Friends vs. Super-Friends'. Oceania was located under the depth of the ocean within a mountain. The city was ruled by the mighty emperor Tyrannic who ordered fish-men, Bogan and Nerak to find surface-dweller warriors to do battle in their gladiatorial games, with the winner to take on the giant two-headed monster called Serpentine. 

In one scene, the sire roared, "Bogan, the people are growing bored with the game. Time to remain in supreme power. They must be constantly entertained." Using an invisible muscle control ray machine, the Super-Friends were captured and forced to participate in the battle of the century. However during the battle Serpentine flooded the city of Oceania and ruined the colosseum. The citizens of Oceania eventually banished emperor Tyrannic from the underseas world. 

Outside the ruined colosseum, Batman told the fish-men, "It's only taken one weak man to weaken an entire society." Wonder Woman added, "And when people devote all of their attenion to destructive games, it's not long before society itself is the target of their destruction." Superman reminded, "So went the fall of Ancient Rome." Bogan vowed, "We shall never rebuild our colosseum." Nerak nodded, "Instead we will let it remind us of the evil ruler who gives us monsters and games instead of freedom."  

In November 2004, US researcher Robert Sarmast told 'Reuters' he had "circumstantial and other evidence" to show the lost civilization of Atlantis still exist 50 miles off the south-eastern coast of Cyprus, some 1,500 meters below sea level. As reported, "Plato said Atlantis was an island nation where an advanced civilization developed 11,500 years ago. Theories abound as to why it disappeared. 

"Some say Atlantis was hit by a cataclysmic natural disaster, but according to Greek mythology the civilization was so corrupted by greed and power that it was destroyed by God. Sceptics believe Atlantis was a figment of Plato's imagination. Mr Sarmast says he was led to Cyprus by clues in Plato's dialogues. Plato's reference to Atlantis lying opposite the Pillars of Hercules, which are believed to be the Straits of Gibraltar, have led explorers to focus on either the Atlantic Ocean, Ireland or the Azores off Portugal." 

In February 2018, Benjamin Radford of 'Live Science' shared with followers, "Though today Atlantis is often conceived of as a peaceful utopia, the Atlantis that Plato described in his fable was very different. In his book 'Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology', professor of archaeology Ken Feder notes that in Plato's story, 'Atlantis is not a place to be honored or emulated at all. Atlantis is not the perfect society ... Quite the contrary, Atlantis is the embodiment of a materially wealthy, technologically advanced, and militarily powerful nation that has become corrupted by its wealth, sophistication, and might.'"

Benjamin Radford continued, "As propaganda in Plato's morality tale, the Atlantis legend is more about the city's heroic rival Athens than a sunken civilization; if Atlantis really existed today and was found intact and inhabited, its residents would probably try to kill and enslave us all. It's clear that Plato made up Atlantis as a plot device for his stories, because there no other records of it anywhere else in the world. There are many extant Greek texts; surely someone else would have also mentioned, at least in passing, such a remarkable place. There is simply no evidence from any source that the legends about Atlantis existed before Plato wrote about it."

Roger Highfield of the 'UK Telegraph' reported in 2003, "First described by Plato in 360 BC, many have written off the story as a moralistic tale, a utopia that was located in the mind of the Greek philosopher who used the demise of Atlantis as an allegory of how the best laid plans of mortals can go wrong. But many have taken the lost world seriously. It inspired Jules Verne and Walt Disney, even Adolf Hitler. 

"Plato said the island kingdom was larger than Libya and Asia put together. It was paradise: peaceful, cultured and unspoilt. A golden age continued for centuries, but eventually corruption got the better of its inhabitants and the gods punished them by submerging Atlantis. Renowned geologist, Professor Jacques Collina-Girard believes that generations of Atlantis obsessives overlooked the most obvious location: Plato's account suggests Atlantis lay before the Pillars of Hercules - today's Strait of Gibraltar.

"The professor came to this conclusion after studying the patterns of human migration from Europe into North Africa at the height of the last Ice Age, 19,000 years ago. To see if Stone Age people could have crossed the strait, he made a map of what the coastline looked like at that time, when the sea level was 420ft lower than today. This revealed an ancient archipelago with an island 'in front of the Pillars of Hercules.'

"This island is now a shoal, called Spartel or Majuan Bank, which lies to the west of the strait, also as Plato described. When he first outlined his idea two years ago (in 2001) in Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences, Professor Collina-Girard suggested that the archipelago provided stepping stones for early sailors to cross between Europe and North Africa until around 11,000 years ago.

"Then sea level rises accelerated to more than 6ft per century, according to records from coral reefs, swamping the island. This fits the timing of the demise of the science-fiction-style superstate in Plato's Timaeus and Critias dialogues. The story is told by Critias who said he heard it from his grandfather, who had heard it from Solon, his great-grandfather's contemporary, who in turn heard it from Egyptian priests, who were describing events that had occurred 9,000 years earlier - 11,000 years before the present day.

"Plato suggests Atlantis is huge, whereas Professor Collina-Girard's candidate is nine miles by three wide. However, the professor argues that distances in Greek geography were usually approximate. The legend - and size - of Atlantis likely grew as storytellers embellished it as it was passed down to Plato. Plato also reports that volcanic activity sank Atlantis, when the strait is not in a volcanic area. Perhaps this was more plausible than a change in sea level, said Professor Collina-Girard. As for an advanced Atlantean civilization, the professor points to Plato's own admission that he grafted these details on to the tale to promote his own ideas about a utopian society."

Blog Archive