Atlantis initiated an invasion of the surface in the early 2000s. Someone in several national governments have known about them since at least the 1920s. So why haven’t the surface nations acted? Why might they be reluctant to act? Let’s look at the situation:
First, there’s a highly effective natural barrier: the ocean itself. While the surface world can invent submarines and diving suits and all manner of technology, they’d still struggle:
- The underwater regime is not native to humans, and in fact is quickly lethal without technological aid.
- That tech, for the most part, won’t work as well. You can’t just have a radio underwater, it has to be waterproof, pressure-proof, whatever-proof, and it still won’t work through water the way it does through air.
- Nobody has yet fought an underwater war, so while individuals like Nautilus might know what works as a guerilla tactic, there’s a big shortage of actual experience on how to do it.
- Once a war begins, where do you establish positions? What do you fortify? There are no valleys, no chokepoints, no mountain passes, nothing that can let surface soldiers control territory. It’s all open ocean until you get to an Atlantean city, and that’s the endgame of the invasion, not the beginning.
The Atlanteans, meanwhile, have spent uncounted centuries breeding the Blood, their fully amphibious squid soldiers. A lot of their biotech will work just fine on the surface.
Second, there’s the economics of invasion. Sure, the world’s hypergeniuses could pool their intellects and produce submersibles, diving suits, weapons, etc. that will work underwater. Making those things is a big pivot from what the world is doing now. Keeping troops in the field supplied requires a logistics line, which is going to be super vulnerable. And they’re going to have to work harder to devise counters to whatever new stuff the Atlanteans field.
Meanwhile, the Atlanteans already have everything they need to wage war on the surface. When one side is spending considerable time and money just to be able to fight, that side is at a disadvantage.
Third, there’s the humanitarian problem. The Atlantean cities have whole populations of potential hostages. Even if the Atlantean leadership didn’t make the call to flood the attic of a major city, drowning every human in there, a surface force risks doing the same thing if they aren’t careful with their explosives and tactics. Or do you just say, “acceptable losses” and hope that public support will stay with you?
There’s potential technological solutions. Drones or intelligent robots instead of biological people. Biowarfare. All of them come with significant costs and risks. All of them are untested.
Right now, the winning strategy for those on the surface who know about this has been “detente”.