Neo Anatolia

Neo-Anatolia

During the Petroleum Era, California was one of the gleaming jewels of the world. It suffered several scaring battles during the Resource wars and was among the harder hit regions during the Second Dark Age. When the Republic of California reformed, it was largely without the glitterati and Hollywood culture. The crucible of world entertainment migrated east to settle in former nation of Turkey. In the Second Renaissance, Turkey turned into a Phoenix.

The coastlines drew tourists from across the world, and revitalized the nation. Industry also boomed from it's location on the Mediterranean Sea and proximity to terrestrial trade routes. As the Eurasian Alliance was booming, it encompassed and later adopted Turkey into it's holdings. All nations in the Alliance are considered equal, but it is a common truth that some nations and regions are more equal than others. Neo-Anatolia entered a second boom phase with the influx of Alliance interests and dollars.

The Fall of Istanbul

Istanbul was almost completely abandoned during the dark years, but its location was deemed too valuable to leave fallow. The Eurasian Alliance Naval Command reactivated naval facilities, as well as bolstering the local economy by backing the construction of industrial complexes, and later on residential complexes. Much of the old city, dating back to the 18th century was demolished, with a few buildings completely relocated off site. The New Arcology was built where ancient Byzantium stood, a titan among arcologies. The structure, dubbed Byzantium, eventually gave it's name to the city growing around it. Byzantium stands over two kilometers tall and is effectively a gold glass pyramid on the eastern side of the Bosphorus straight. The foundation of the arco extends half a kilometer underground to anchor to the bedrock and is effectively its own geofront. Seacologies grew down into sea on both sides of city, creating a large aquaculture base to support the city population, as well as providing more reason for the naval base, and kickstarting aquaculture and seacology construction across the European seas.

Tengri Mass Driver

The Eurasian Alliance and Neo-Anatolia collaborated to fund and build an surface to orbit mass driver. Tengri took six years to build, but now runs regular loads of construction supplies and raw materials into orbit for the Eurasian Space Navy and Commercial operations. Located in the highlands of the central plateau, Tengri is centrally located, and is listed as a high velocity non-passenger driver. While not the largest mass driver (Bolshoi Mass Driver, Ukraine) or the busiest (Gorky Park Mass Driver, Russia) Tengri remains a vital part of the space program.

The Turkish Coast

The Coastline of Neo-Anatolia demands a look. The waters are clear, and the beaches are pristine. every year they attract tens of thousands of Alliance tourists eager to enjoy the weather and warm water. The beaches have become an integral part of the Anatolian experience, with the topless and nude beaches being known around the world. The Anatolian Girls are likewise well known for their dark complexions and inviting demeanors. The Anatolian Riviera has become the haute place to go in Europe. Most of southern France and Italy are riddled with insurgent hotspots and Armas terrorist groups. The wealthy maintain lavish homes, and keep their yachts there, where they are easily protected by the sizeable and capable Anatolian/Eurasian military.

Ankara

The former capital of Turkey is now it's second largest city, and a massive consumer manufacturing center. Ankara is the home of the new heart of fashion, art, and cultural export in the world. Golbasi Ave is the Rodeo Blvd, the place to to sightsee celebrities and the bleeding edge of what is hot. Temelli, formerly an unoccupied farming valley on the edge of the old city is the new CogNet Valley, where a massive concentration of tech companies sit in gleaming demi-arcos pumping out new programs, applications, and hardware ranging from the high end S3 Rigs and Stadium Holoprojectors to pocket sized biocomputers and the next generation of SQUIDbands.

D20 is a major road in old Ankara and is now another row of gleaming industrial/electronic arcologies. The D20 complex houses four of the major CogNet/Holovision broadcasters in the Eurasian Alliance. While Byzantium was under construction it held six. The Eurasian Alliance State Channel and the Anatolian National Network, the two largest in the nation, moved their headquarters and operations to the gold pyramid, as both had provided funding to it's completion. The urban sprawl of skyscrapers and high density residential zones around D20 is the breeding and stomping ground of celebrities, aspiring celebrities, and the mass of people who want to get into the entertainment business.

Cypress and New Monaco

With the unrest in France, the well heeled residents of the tiny nation of Monaco found themselves uncomfortably in the crossfire. Armas rebels were using their nation as a funnel for illegal funding (which Monaco was fine with) but also moving weapons, terrorists, and other contraband (which Monaco was less fine with) and this was causing the French National Guard and the Atlantic Federation special forces to sometimes intercept these groups, resulting in firefights, terrorist attacks, and collateral damage (which Monaco was absolutely not fine with). After the La Colle demiarco construction was set back not once but three times by foreign special ops and interference, it was abandoned. The pall of smoke upset many residents and they were already concerned about their vulnerability, and the then pointless defense of their tiny nation's sovereignty.

The shift was gradual, the wealthy started leaving Monaco, and emigrating to the largely unpopulated island of Cypress. At that point, Cypress retained a tiny subsistence fishing and farming population and was fairly overlooked by just about everyone. The influx of money displaced many of these native Cypriots, as the invading Monacans showed up with security personnel, construction businesses, and the blessing of the defacto owner of Cypress, Anatolia. New Monaco was built on the sunny south side of the island. A new F-Prime Racing circuit was constructed to replace the Monaco Grand Prix track.

The Mount Olympus Cosmodrome was built to be the most opulent and luxurious air and space center in the world, offering service from major cities around the world, and several major orbital habitats and stations. In addition to its major airline and space lines, there are many smaller lines that carry high end passengers to and from the Turkish coast, and other jetset locations around the Mediterranean. The Cosmodrome was three major sectors, the Gold Star hub for passenger and high profile flights, the Black Star hub for discrete military operations, and the White Star hub for cargo and durable goods.

The Dark Secret

Anatolia has a dark secret, ethnic cleansing. Before the massive spike in interest in the Anatolian peninsula was largely inhabited by ethnic Turks and a large Kurdish population engaged in subsistence level agriculture and a small handful of cities that were often more ruin that residential. The bulk of modern Neo-Anatolias population is immigrant from the Eurasian Alliance and Europe, and this came often at the cost of the resident turks. Where the locals were found charming and attractive, they were assimilated into the new nation being built, typically as lower income workers. There was a good deal of racial mingling, resulting in the stereotypical Anatolian being olive complected with dark hair (replacing the California chic tan blonde). In areas where there was strong resistance, such as in strong Muslim communities, or ethnic communities such as the Kurds, the newcomers were less than friendly. The unsanitized history is a collection of riots and armed rebellions against the new builders who were interested in tearing down old mosques and holy sites to build their cities and aerodromes.

While the ethnic factions involved had centuries of experience with guerrilla warfare and fighting foes until it became untenable for them to stay, they were not prepared for the Alliance military. Rifles and improvised explosives proved no match for Alliance power armors and mecha, and their communication networks, primitive as they were, were easily breached and compromised by EA military LAIs. Eastern Anatolia is still largely a wasteland, with contamination zones left over from the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The local populations are policed on reservations, and the situation is eventually going to become a problem. The conditions, the contamination, and the suffering of the displaced people has already started spawning parapsychics. The first generation has already arrived, but has largely remained out of sight. The Muslim Faith and the Imams and prayer rigors are useful in controlling these nascent powers and as more and more youths of the nation rise to their cosmic power, they will eventually be focused into a powerful weapon to be wielded against the arco-dwellers and their serfs in the new favelas.

Neo-Anatolian Cinema Classics of the Cosmic Era

The Death of a Nation - Cowboys and indians retelling of the fall of the American Empire, set the stage for Petroleum Era tropes, Americana tropes, and the cinema foundations for many of the values espoused in the Cosmic Era, collectivism, patriotism, pragmatism, and a pro-military culture.

Pirates of the Mediterranean - This blockbuster features an ensemble cast, large production values, and follows a crew of GasPunk pirates as they swashbuckle their way through the Amero-British Navy, giant sea monsters, submarines, and events from the Odyssey such as an island of sex and euphoric drugs, cannibal giants, mutants, and shapeshifting witches.

Space Vixens - This film features almost exclusively chromid actors and actresses, as well as genetic augments and cyborgs, and blurs the line between space fantasy and space porn. The film was shot entirely at the Kashmir orbital complex, and has contributed to its reputation as a hive of sex and villainy.

Arco-Potempkin - a piece of state propaganda demonstrating the safe, and comfortable life of the arco-dweller compared to the miserable and dangerous life of those who live outside of the cities, and the noble savages of the Favelas and urban rim. The holovid caused riots in part of the EA and is considered propaganda or satire in other parts of the world.

The Vigilante - This revenge based anti-hero fights and kills his way through criminal syndicates, corrupt police departments, and over the top rival villains to become the underground leader of the city. He is armed with a variety of high tech gadgets and a reputation for brutality and murder.

The Big Godot - a set piece, the Big Godot is a personal stoner drama set in an afterlife where the protagonists are left to sort out their lives while perpetually bowling and watching pieces of their past through WristComps.

Technopolis - A technophilic look into the origins of the Cosmic Era, the second renaissance, and the construction of New Byzantium on the ruins of Istanbul. First film of archandroids, and to feature AISC as actors.

Number Three - Number 3 is a by the books spy, and by the books, he is proficient in martial arts, seduction, driving, gunplay and deactivating high tech weapons and devices. While the stories are often diet, the production value is high, and the casting is always the creme of the celebrity crop. 3 is always a charming, emotionally disarming but ovulation inducing leading man able to deliver karate chops while holding a mixed drink and carrying on a conversation with the porn actress of the year opposite him.

The Bride - a twisted love story, the Bride follows the descent into madness experienced by a lone scientist seeking to reanimate the corpse of his beloved bride, who died a day before their wedding. It ends with the Bride coming to life in horrific fashion and the scientist committing suicide. It is technically a piece of propaganda for the masses to show that immortality through cloning and arcanotech is wrong (leave it to the rich and powerful)

Fallen Snow - the first big budget immersive CG/CogNet holovid that was basically a Lord of the Rings/Snow White crossover with several epic battles and set the stage on how S3 films would be produced.

Rings and Dragons - also known as RaD, this genre spawning cinema follows the exploits of a user generated group of heroes who pursue a magic ring, fight epic battles, win the accolade and love of the nearly naked forest elves before defeating the evil dragons and making them into heroic mounts.

Jerks - One of the first handheld produced S3 holovids, and rather than being engrossed in sex and violence, it is the pathos and apathy of the the bottom of the barrel, as the film follows the dark and despair ridden lives of a pair of sarcastic but 'free' guys who live in the favelas.

Gone are the Lights - A romantic drama set against the fall of Paris in the Second Dark Age. The holovid carries on the tradition of the strong female lead, and the vid is famous for being the first mainstream production to have a full hardcore sex scene in it.

The Call of Seibertron - This film is a post modern cerebral look into the minds and experiences of Seibertronians, the sentient machines of the Cosmic Era. Rather than being filled with action, violence, and sex it deals with personal dissociation between the mind and body, facing human-machine prejudice, and finding reason to exist in world ruled by illogical, hormone driven biologicals.

Blink-a-Day Burrito - A darkly violent and sexual holovid, BaDB creates in hypersaturation the very worst parts about life in the Urban Rim, casual murder, rape out of hand, recreational drug use, and theft on a scale that would leave a real favela is burning ruins and pure anarchy. The name comes from the protagonist's fascination for microwaved burritos.

The Citizen - This groundbreaking film deconstructs the death and life of orbital developer Hearst Hugo Welles, and used a disjointed narrative, combined with biofeedback systems to allow viewers to feel the emotions, stress, and sometimes chemical induced binges experienced by Welles through his tumultuous life on Earth, the Moon, and finally aboard the Xanadu Astropolis.

Iron - Iron follows the heroic escapades of a power armor police officer and is equal parts fan service for the ladies and product placement for the men, in the form of stuff exploding, new gadgets and fashion, and for the military, putting their gear in the public eye to get positive relations.

Out of Darkness - A cult film about a arcanotechnician losing their mind, the narrative goes into time paradoxes and teleportation with no solid clue to determine if the hero really is teleporting and shifting through time or if he is really just losing his mind.

In Nippon, the Sword - a Nipponese production, INtS is considered a foundation and seminal work to the Nipponism fad that swept the world. The holovid introduced the world at large to the cyber-samurai, street ninja, warrior-monks piloting mecha, and the parapsychic yamabushi in the shadow wars and shadowrunning that defined places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore.

The Magician - in an era of parapsychics and violence, the Magician is a whimsical story about a young boy who discovers magic and travels to a land of happiness. Considered saccharine and buried under pointless nostalgia and tropes, the Magician remains popular with its wide eyed innocence and charm.

The Motorcyclist - A western style action drama, the Motorcyclist follows a drug laced spiritual journey through the savaged ruins of the American west on motorcycles, complete with mutants, raiders, and product placements that created the GasPunk culture that emulates the values and aesthetics of the Petroleum era.

Murder - starting as a low budget release, Murder was a psycho-drama that culminated in the anti-hero villain protagonist raping and murdering the female lead. Released after seminal biofeedback and mainstreaming pornography, Murder was the first holovid that was based entirely around the premise of committing crimes and experiencing them. The film gained a cult following, and spawned many copycats in the underground scene as well as copycat killers.

The Ultra-Heroes - an elite team of parapsychics, augments, cyborgs, and other superhumans join forces to fight cosmic horrors spewing out of a storm breach. Strongly patriotic, with undertones of distrusting the megacorps.

The Translocationist - A young shadowrunner is swept into an alternate dimension where she must work with a organ donor clone, a cyborg, and an extreme neko augment to defeat a industrial magnate and a rogue AI before the dimensional gate can be opened and she return home. The fantastic story is a moderately veiled allegory of the conflict between Federation Idealism vs Alliance pragmatism with the AI representing the pretty lies of the west and the Mogul the ugly truths of the east.

Space Wars - Space Wars is a nitty gritty future war drama set against the backdrop of a war between Earth and the Colonies. It follows the paths of a space fighter squadron, a rogue trader, and a parapsychic special forces agent as they fight to destroy Colonial super weapons, and save Earth from traitors and sneak attacks.

The Violence Game - A holovid that harkens back the idealized masculine man, bare chested and bloody knuckled, the Violence Game is a cathartic release of violence, self exploration, and dirty sex. You don't know someone until you fight them, and until you've been in a fight, you cannot know yourself.

Starship Titanic - A spaceliner holodrama, Starship Titanic follows the voyages of the self named megaliner as it tours the solar system, invariably finding new cultures and people, changing cast members for sex kittens and heart throbs at each season change. The final episode of each season is Titanic returning to Earth where it lands and sinks to the bottom of the ocean where it's docking facility is located.

Casablanca Down - A gritty war drama set in central Africa, the holovid casts its eye on romantic triangles set against the incessant wars that pock mark central and southern Africa. The film ends coinciding with the tragic massacre at Alto Hama where SAUR troopers defensively detonate several antique nuclear weapons halting a Federation advance.

The Dead - the last zombie movie made, the Dead places the viewers in an S3/Biofeedback system and toss them screaming into the fall of the last human city as the relentless dead advance. The film is considered a black feed item and is banned in most nations. One in ten viewers commit suicide after viewing the film, and half were left with PTSD and other emotional and psychological traumas.

Location, Location, Location

Neo-Anatolia is and has always been in a strategically valuable location. Sitting at the head of the Mediterranean it has easy access to Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East (whats left of it, anyway) North Africa, and through waterways, the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Most of North Africa, and the Middle East are lawless areas with only isolated pockets of civilization (nuclear contamination, chemical and biological weapon contamination) but there are still strong lines of trade that move through the area. Anatolia has strong economic ties to Free India, which is a major consumer of culture and entertainment. It also has strong regional ties to the Balkans peninsula, which rather unfortunately is a hotbed of organized crime, human rights violations, and armed terrorist sects. This does give Anatolia a back door for money laundering and a lucrative underground black market. While it isn't shown on the surface, the megastudios and entertainment giants do discretely produce black datafeed material. Most consider their product to be gray, since it is all acting and there are not actually people murdered, maimed, or otherwise abused in the black feeds.

Plot Hooks

Hot Days, Hotter Nights - Anatolia is the place to be for the upper crust, and there is plenty of room for high end theft, kidnapping, ransoms, and the other dramatic stuff that happens in action movies set in California. The gold star shadowrunners know that bodyguard and security detail here is easy money, and that actual shadowruns can set up a runner for life.

Quiet on Set - the PCs are hired to be authentic extras in an action movie, and then, it becomes real. The 'terrorists' in the film have been abducted and replaced by real terrorists and its up to the authentic background extras to save the celebrity heroes in basically a play out of the actual movie, but with live ammunition. For more fun, the PCs can be conveniently disarmed or only carry prop weapons (for safety purposes) and have to think on their feet and disarm the baddies to get real weapons.

What's on the feed? - rather than going to Anatolia, it is a common feature in the news. Celebrity news comes from Byzantium and Ankara rather than Hollywood and Beverly Hills. There is also a potential to create a sense of dislocation, the new global celebs are central European, not American, and the films are made there, not in California. This movie debuted a month ago in Anatolia, and now you can watch the dubbed version that was just officially released on this continent today.