Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean, commonly referred to as the Hotlantic Ocean, is a temperate and historic ocean settled between the not-so-temperate-or-historic United States and Africa. With a GDP of 270 billion sand dollars, it is the world's 36th[1] most productive ocean.
Though a thriving community and a maricultural nexus for the world ocean, the Atlantic faces many problems, existential and otherwise -- including pollution, biliguality, and immigration from the Gulf of Mexico.
History[edit]
The Atlantic Ocean, part of a territorial purchase from native nudibranch lands, has come a long way to its present, civilized state. Its history is rich and has largely come to define it, mainly since there's not much to it nowadays but tourism, slums, and African-Ocean-Atlantians.
Namesake[edit]
After being called the Terminustic Ocean and the Marthasvillic Ocean for several years at a time, just to test out how the names fit, Atlantic finally stuck. No one is sure to this day who named the Atlantic, or why he named it the Atlantic. Though Atlantis was anyone's best guess for quite a while, it can be mostly ruled out today, as it's been discovered that the sunken continent in question was actually located in the Indian Ocean. Atlas has often come up between bouts of holding up large rocks to claim that the Atlantic Ocean was named in honor of him, but since he's also said maps and an Ayn Rand book were named after him, it's likely safe to blame his senility for that one.
Most are content in their ignorance by now, though some postulate the Atlantic got its name from a remarkably similar land community.
Civil War[edit]
During the 1800's, the South Atlantic made an attempt to break from the North Atlantic, leading to a long, bloody struggle. The North, being closer to the North Pole, held the advantage in density and salinity, but little could match the South's pride.[2] They believed "King Sargassum", their main export, could win them the war. They were wrong.
The North Atlantic forces squashed the rebellion in a climactic invasion of the South, known today as the Thermohaline Suffocation. It was ordered that the entire ocean be coated in oil and burned. Only nursery reefs and ecologically important vent zones were spared.[3]
While many lives were lost, the war would come to define the Atlantic's culture, cuisine, and trigger-happiness well through the turn of the century and into the modern age. Memorial parks and oversized bronze sculptures of squirt guns can be found around the Atlantic Ocean, and an effort is currently under way to label important war sites with ornate plaques bearing text too small to read. A good amount of South Atlantians, in addition, are no less racist to this day.
Olympics[edit]
The 1996 Oceanic Olympics were held in the Atlantic Ocean. As per usual, the only event was swimming.[4]
While the Atlantic team, composed mostly of sponges, did not perform so well (those damned Kenyan dolphins took all the gold medals), the Olympics were notable for bringing new attention to the Atlantic Ocean and sparking the development of several new guyots and ecological niches, such as the Sargasso Sea.
Attractions[edit]
The Atlantic Ocean is currently ranked as the 7th most visited ocean in the world.[5] Locally popular destinations include Piedmont Abyssal Plain, the Atlantic Botanical Coral Scarp, and, for the more culinarily inclined, the South Sandwich Trench. The Atlantic's baseball team, the Waves, is also worth noting; the stadium is considered a historic landmark, though games are usually cancelled if the team's lone fan, Tommy, doesn't show.
The Atlantic is the site of the world ocean's busiest airport, but that's only to say that one or two planes have happened to crash into the sea around the same place. Atlantians, like most other citizens of the world ocean, do not fly, for the pressure changes that it involves can bring upon the bends, cause one's swim bladder to inflate to the point of asphyxia, or induce mild nausea.[6]
It hosts the world's largest terrarium, where marine citizens are free to view terrestrial animals of all shapes and sizes. Its main tank, featuring elephants and gemsboks, is the world's largest, with over six million gallons of air.[7]
It is also globally recognized as the original home of Coca-Cola. The Reef of Coke is a popular tourist destination, where one can sample all known varieties of the beverage. Whether one drinks, filter-feeds, or otherwise, accommodations are available.[8]
Local transit[edit]
Atlantic residents get around through a public transit system known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge Transport Authority, or MARTA, powered by state-of-the-art geothermal energy from hydrothermal vents. Its track spans the entire ocean from north to south, making stops at such stations as Romanche Downtown and Bouvet Junction, and features Thingvellir, Iceland as the end of the line; this, however, is considered sketchy territory due to being so close to the land, where humans gather to gawk disrespectfully at the MARTA, so few stick around for the full ride.
A local joke states that the acronym MARTA stands for Moving Abalone Rapidly Through the Atlantic, as mollusks and other impoverished ocean demographics who cannot afford cars or seahorses are the most frequent to take public transportation. Consequently, the train often stinks of cigarette smoke, and the floor and seats have an unpleasant coat of slime.
The ocean authorities have also recently brought back streetcars for a quainter, less sulfury transport alternative.
Distastes of Atlantians[edit]
The Pacific Ocean[edit]
People of the Pacific Ocean like to lie to themselves that their ocean is better than the Atlantic Ocean, be it for more noteworthy baseball teams or simply being larger. What the Pacificans do not know is that, by the divine force of plate tectonics, the Atlantic Ocean is getting slightly larger every year, while the Pacific is shrinking.[9]
One day, in the age of the next supercontinent, there will be no more Pacific, and the Atlantic will rule the world. Needless to say, urban expansion plans and immigration laws are already well under way.
Humans in the Atlantic[edit]
Ever since 1492, when Columbus crossed the ocean blue,[10] humans have been trying to lay claim to the Atlantic in some way or another, from gauche, touristy cruises to claiming that Atlantic culture is a mere ripoff of their own. Overfishing, a technical term for the barbaric staging of mass kidnappings, has become increasingly common in the Atlantic recently (though the Pacific has suffered it longer and harder at the hands of Japan. What goes around comes around!). Sea warfare (not to be confused with Z warfare), another human jargon for dragging huge ships and aircraft carriers out to make big explosions on the water, is also much resented by Atlantians; many a hard-working marine housewife has had her best china reduced to splinters by some U-boat or other splodey dongle. But, come to think of it, the Pacific has had it worse with that, too! Revenge is truly a dish best served salty.
While it's true that humans think much too highly of themselves most times, they don't generally fare well in the Atlantic, a truth they'll rarely admit -- mostly since a human in a shark's gut can't really admit anything.
Color[edit]
“Blue, you chauvinist fools! Blue!”
No human has quite been able to determine the Atlantic Ocean's color. For most, it is a subjective and biased matter.
African-Americans know it as the Black Atlantic, while the Irish call it the Green Atlantic, and communists, in their general rebelliousness, even refer to it as red.
Atlantians, of course, take this as quite the sign of humans' ineptitude.
References[edit]
<references>
- ↑ Give or take, that is, as some say there are only four oceans.
- ↑ It's said South Atlantians believe their ocean is a river encircling the world.
- ↑ Along with most else, that is, since the North discovered that fire didn't penetrate so well below the water. Most Northerners refrain from mentioning that nowadays.
- ↑ Water Polo... With Sharks! had been banned the previous year after an embarrassing incident involving a moray eel and one too many shrimp cocktails.
- ↑ Not the seventh most visited sea -- that would be last place, and the Black Sea takes that one for sure.
- ↑ Alka-Seltzer, unfortunately, is not marketed to marine communities, for it dissolves underwater, and as said before, Atlantians do not fly.
- ↑ The Pacific Ocean's largest has only five million gallons. Beat that, you size-obsessed freaks!
- ↑ Low-salinity Coke is even available for non-osmoregulators.
- ↑ The universe truly favors the worthy.
- ↑ Or black. Or green. Or red. We can't be sure what he thought himself.