ATLANTIS STORY MAP & OPERATION HOMEPAGE

ATLANTIS GOLD - CH.15

Atlantis has been the subject of countless films, as has Nazi gold and oil polluting our oceans, but never have all these elements come together under one roof as a submarine movie. Aiming for a screenplay 90-110 pages max.

SURVEY OF NAZI U-BOAT LEADS TO DISCOVERY OF ANCIENT CIVILIZATION LOST CITY OF ATLANTIS

Having safely delivered the Astute class submarine to the port of Lisbon, and officially notified NATO, Marine Accident Investigation authority, John and his crew think it is safe to return to the coast of Africa, where they noted the magnetic anomaly, suspiciously in the shape of a sunken vessel, that he suspects is a WWII submarine.

Knowing that he is a target for MI6, having, to some extent, saved the Terramentals from becoming one of the MOD's unexplained incidents, John heads south to Casablanca, with a change of course to Rabat, then hugs the coastline, still proceeding south down the north African coast, to Safi, when he engages stealth mode.

ECHOES OF AN EMPIRE

Night had swallowed the Atlantic in a velvet hush as the Elizabeth Swann crept along the Moroccan coast, her hull riding low in stealth configuration. From above, she was little more than a glintless shadow, her solar wings drooping well below horizontal to absorb errant starlight rather than reflect it. HAL’s false telemetry fed orbital trackers an elaborate fiction: a supply vessel a thousand kilometers off course, and gaining.

Inside, the crew were quiet—focused.

They were returning to the anomaly.

John hadn’t wanted to. Too many memories stirred in wrecked hulls. Too many lies tied to too much gold.

He remembered the headlines the last time he'd surfaced with history in his hands: Storm Accused of Looting Morgan’s Treasure. It didn’t matter that he’d left every coin untouched. Truth had a way of drowning when gold was involved.

Still... the signal was too clear. Too compelling.

"Dan," he said softly, "standard sub-surface entry protocol. Low visibility. Wide beam sonar."

Dan grinned without looking up. “Nautilus is ready, Skipper. She’s itching to stretch her fins.”

Cleopatra, seated beside him, leaned forward. “What exactly are we looking for this time? Another scandal, or another secret?”

“Both,” John said dryly. “But let’s start with the shape that caught our eye last time.”

OFF THE COAST OF MOROCCO

Fifty klicks out, beneath a sullen sea, the ROV Nautilus slipped into the deep. The camera feed flickered, steadied, then painted the screen in ghost-light grayscale: ridged seabed, clusters of basaltic rock... and there—again.

A curvature half-buried in a rocky escarpment.

“That’s her,” John murmured. “German profile. Early ‘40s.”

The U-boat was skewered across a jagged ledge, her pressure hull torn open like a metal ribcage. The wreck told a violent story, depth-charges, maybe two. The blast had exposed the vessel’s interior to water and time. Inside, long-dead crewmen slept amid rusted valves and silence, just bones.

Dan steered the ROV through a narrow rupture. “Bulkhead doors are open. No attempt to seal off compartments. They went down fast.”

John exhaled. “Merciful, at least.”

The Nautilus pushed forward into what had once been the forward torpedo bay.

“Oh,” Cleopatra breathed.

Wooden crates. Stacked three high.

One had ruptured. Its contents gleamed unmistakably under the ROV’s lamps—gold ingots, dusty but unblemished. Stamped with eagles. And swastikas.

“HOLY FUEL CELLS,” Dan shouted, nearly overturning his chair. “Is that real?”

“Steady,” John said, though his voice had thickened. “Remember Morgan’s gold. It’s never just gold.”

Hal’s voice chimed in, smooth as smoke. “Shall I alert Mr. Franks again, Captain?”

Dan and Cleopatra cracked up. John shook his head, lips twitching. “Sarcasm, Hal? A dangerous trait for a machine.”

“That’s enough of that,” he said aloud, hands tightening on the control interface. “Back her out.”

DESCENT BEYOND IRON

Nautilus reversed, nose tilting slightly—and then paused.

“What’s that?” John said sharply.

To port, outside the light cone, a low wall emerged. Angular. Not natural. Dan swung the beam toward it.

Masonry.

Worn, aged, unmistakably carved. Steps half-consumed by silt. A doorway. Beyond it... more.

Dan’s breath caught.

“Skipper... we’ve got structures down here.”

The camera climbed higher. A plaza revealed itself. Pillars. Fountainheads shaped like dolphins. Symbols etched into weathered sandstone.

A temple breached the gloom, its arched roof broken, but its presence undeniable.

“No way,” John said.

“Could it be Alexandria?” Cleopatra whispered. “Or Carthage, maybe?”

John shook his head. “This is west of Gibraltar. Beyond the Pillars of Hercules.... Plato.”

She turned to him. “And?”

“And that makes it older. A lot older. Six thousand years, maybe more.”

Dan leaned in. “Say it, Skip.”

John stared at the crumbling majesty on the screen—an entire city wrapped in sand and silence.

He didn’t want to say it. It felt like inviting myth to lunch.

But the architecture... the ocean-worship... the impossibility of it...

“Atlantis,” he muttered. “If it ever existed... this is where it sank.”

WAKE ERASED

The Elizabeth Swann peeled away from the dive site like a whisper in reverse, her twin foils retracting as she banked eastward, deeper into stealth. The solar wings curled low, narrowing to reduce signature reflection, and the main ballast tanks began to flood.

“Hal,” John said, voice hushed, “erase our shadow. I don’t want so much as a sonar hiccup left in the water.”

“Understood, Captain. Initiating oceanic trace obfuscation.” Hal paused, then added, “I recommend course scramble—six vectors within a grid to confuse any satellite motion-tracking AI.”

“Do it,” said John. “Let’s give the ghosts below something to chase that isn't us.”

Dan sat hunched over the nav array, watching HAL’s deception routines play out in pulses and arcs across the screen.

“We’re a phantom now,” he muttered. “Off the charts. Literally.”

John didn’t reply. His eyes were on the aft display, the distant coordinates of the wreck site glowing faintly before flickering out—scrubbed from view.

Cleopatra entered, her long coat fluttering slightly with the ship’s internal ventilation. “The ROV’s sealed and decon’s complete,” she said. “Nothing tagged us. Nothing followed.”

“That we can confirm,” John replied. “But don’t exhale yet.”

Outside, the Swann tacked southwest, then hard north, a zigzag ballet that left no readable wake. HAL injected spoofed positions into maritime GPS nodes and flooded satellite pings with dummy echoes — some placing the Swann near the Azores, others on the edge of the continental shelf.

Dan clutched his thermos, knuckles white. “Anyone else feel like we just ran a con on the whole ocean?”

“I feel,” Cleopatra said evenly, “like there are a lot of very powerful people who’d prefer what we saw stays buried.”

John exhaled through his nose.

“Which means we didn’t just find Atlantis,” he said. “We found leverage.”

No one replied. There was too much weight in the water behind them.

Only when HAL announced that they were 120 nautical miles clear of the original dive site—and still undetected—did anyone exhale properly.

John stood, eyes hard with purpose.

“Time to change course again. Let’s vanish into our own story before someone else tries to write the ending.”

Swann and crew return to U-Boat coordinates in stealth mode at night, adopting a circuitous route to avoid being tracked. John surveys the site, and discovers what appears to be evidence of Atlantis, or at least an advanced civilization that is unknown and some 6-10,000 years old. On investigating the Nazi submarine, John discovers the gold onboard, in place of torpedoes and just about everything else.

PROPOSED STORY MAP BY CHAPTER (90-110 pages) - ORDER CAN BE CHANGED: DRAFT SCREENPLAY

ACT 1.

CHAPTER 1.   PROTESTS - Peaceful North Sea oil pollution protestors are framed and imprisoned, by a corrupt judicial system. 

CHAPTER 2.   PREDATOR - On release the Terramentals & smuggler Jorges Dicaprio, complete a mini-sub capable of sinking submarines.

CHAPTER 3.   PHOENIX - Terramentals locate & hijack HMS Neptune in Irish Sea, Cumbria, using the Predator mini-sub - knocking out the crew.

CHAPTER 4.   BRITISH PETROLEUM - Terramentals warn North Sea rig operators to stop. Claymore rig is torpedoed, Royal Navy respond.

CHAPTER 5.   BBC WORLD SERVICE - Jill Bird reports Terramentals rig attacks, world shocked at pollution cover up. Charley Temple investigates.

CHAPTER 6.   UNEP SOS - The UNEP ask John Storm to survey North Sea for oil pollution. Elizabeth Swann detects HMS Neptune radiation leaks.

CHAPTER 7.   RADIATION ALERT - John & Dan twig radiation from HMS Neptune possible serious reactor damage. Must warn Terramentals.

ACT 2.

CHAPTER 8.   STEALTH MODE - Storm spots Astute sub, Swann in stealth mode, detected as John warns extremists of sub radiation leakage.

CHAPTER 9.   CHANGE OF COURSE - Terramentals change course, heading for the Straits of Gibraltar. Not believing radiation warning.

CHAPTER 10. U-BOAT 986 - Evading Swann, HMS Neptune navigates off transport lanes. Swann picks up magnetic signature of U-Boat 986.

CHAPTER 11. SENATE, UK & EU DEBATE - Sub hijacking & rig destruction, alarm bells around world. Deepwater Horizon shivers down spines.

CHAPTER 12. REACTOR LEAK - Terramentals realise John telling truth, as radiation rector damage detection system HMS Neptune triggers.

CHAPTER 13. RESCUE TOW - John rescues Terramentals. MI6 order Neptune sinking. MOD knew reactor dangerous, want evidence gone.

CHAPTER 14. LISBON PORT - Terramentals & Storm, shut Neptune's reactor. Tow, stricken submarine to Lisbon, prevent MI6 sinking evidence.

ACT 3.

CHAPTER 15. ROV ATLANTIS - Swann returns U-Boat stealth mode at night, to avoid tracking. Surveys site, discovers Atlantis & Nazi gold.

CHAPTER 16. TREASURE TROVE - John reveals gold find & threatened. US Linc Truman support. PM, Ed Thomas, & Sealord, royal support.

CHAPTER 17. BLUE SHIELD - Cleopatra alerts Blue Shield, Newcastle University, potential Atlantis find, suggests UNESCO world heritage site.

CHAPTER 18. GOLDEN OFFER - Claimants reward John U-Boat gold find. Agrees 1% cover costs 9% to Blue Shield surveys. UNESCO grateful.

CHAPTER 19. GREEN MOBILITY - Galvanized to action UK hit green H2 button, John gets grants low income families, Jill Bird, news item.

CHAPTER 20. IMO IS GO - The International Maritime Org green H2 & methanol, certification. USA in. China India stay with coal, gas & oil.

CHAPTER 21. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL - John & George amnesty, pirate caselaw & video proof set up. Harry & Johnson charged treason.

Disillusioned eco activists are imprisoned by the British, for peacefully protesting in London about unrealistically low fines for oil spills in the North Sea, demonstrating strictly in accordance with their Article 9 and 10 Human Rights. They are targeted by fossil fuel industry fraudsters, who bribe police officials and court judges to secure a conviction, with the backing of corrupt ministers of state who have undeclared personal investments in oil drilling companies: Amoco, BP, Shell, Total. That sets in motion a train of events, where, having been framed, the ever more determined environmentalists build a mini-sub, fast enough and especially equipped, to sink or capture Astute, Aukus and US Seawolf class submarines. Having captured HMS Neptune, the Terramentals torpedo a BP owned rig, also destroying two others (Shell), with the looming threat to target all 150 plus, operating in the North Sea. The oil producers are temporarily forced to shut down production, as a result of the significant media coverage and public outrage on realization of the pollution. The UN asks John Storm to provide a geodata survey on the environmental damage. 

O P E R A T I O N  N E P T U N E™

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In this fictional story, the characters and events are the product of the author's imagination, save for real life character who it would not be appropriate to give fictitious names.

But even so, their actions are not those of the real characters, they portray in this original story.