I am not a real fan of the career paths but other than that this is not bad.
Theoretically the monarch over here could veto (bad) laws by refusing to sign to them. In practice it is likely this will trigger a constitutional crisis if they persist. They might theoretically get away with doing it once and then abdicating, but unless they do so in a way that takes down the bad PM and their party it wouldn’t be much use and might still incite a crisis.
What a monarch can have is lots of moral authority and soft power, but that is not the case for all monarchs everywhere and heavily depends on the person of the monarch. Our mc being essentially a foreign immigrant would have little of this sort of political goodwill and soft power at the start.
It is true that if a monarch has enough of such moral authority open defiance of their principles might be able to (preemptively) take down a bad or norm-breaking would be PM, but again our mc wouldn’t have that kind of influence.
Even if we did, remember that good monarchs often unwittingly set the stage for bad ones and powerful ones for less powerful ones. Our previous Queen was allegedly the single most powerful politician in the country from behind the scenes, which was quite the feat (though in a small country with lots of politicians that is still not all that powerful actually). Our current king while much more personally likeable seems content to mostly stick to discharging his ceremonial duties.
Another reason why my mc would dislike having to be a constitutional monarch is his aforementioned dislike of hobnobbing with elites and in a more open, even semi-democratic Atlantis that problem would become infinitely worse on account of just how many prominent surviving monarchies there are in the gameworld.
While as monarch of a superpower it is likely possible to have the entertaining of monarchs and other heads of state and government of small nations handled by other people the mc would probably have to personally entertain more prominent ones such as the British Emperor, the Kaiser, possibly the Emperor of China and of course the President of the USA (although depending on who the president is my mc might not mind the last one if the Americans chose someone like Sanders or Warren who is not from an elite background. Having to entertain someone like Trump or even Romney on the other hand 
).
While it is not what my mc would personally aspire to (those K-pop and J-pop boys are still super-cute tho), now that he knows exercise isn’t liable to cripple him but should instead make him stronger and healthier. The fact remains that his brother still looks incredibly good…while he very much doesn’t. 
Now if the game lasts long enough that hopefully won’t have to remain the case, but by that time my mc’s extremely negative view of his own body and appearance will likely have been cemented, even if they no longer match the objective reality.
Much like with Saudi Arabia I would wanna destroy the regime, but destroying all of the people particularly through use of WMD’s is still too horrifying for me to seriously consider, even if I had the Q-like power to snap my proverbial fingers and make it so.
You’re even more stubborn than I am. My mc would probably gravitate towards “trusting” his brother as the seemingly least bad option…even if the guy is disgustingly good-looking.
If his body is even capable of it my mc would probably want to look like the insanely cute Neal from White Collar (aka Matt Bomer)
Which seems to be at least slightly more muscular than the present Atlantean aesthetic ideal.
Though even if he does manage to achieve it his warped perceptions due to trauma induced BDD make it unlikely he’ll be able to see himself like that.
I don’t think it is an abomination per se and much of the trauma inflicted on the mc is squarely to blame on our late mother and the imperial family, not Atlantean culture as such. Still it is definitely the weirdest place and most divergent culture in the game world.
By the way what happened to China and Brazil in this world. Did they manage to reform while remaining nominal empires too?
I do like learning about the weird Atlantean culture it is very unique and seems to have had profound effects on the gameworld making it even weirder than one of my other favourite alternate histories: Kaiserreich.
The mc is just finishing high school and applying to university so a good bet would be 18-19.
I hope the game will take place over a couple of years at least as getting our education up to speed even with the new compromise will take a couple of years and the same goes for the mc improving physically.
The world building behind Atlantis and the Atlantians is super interesting, does the world as a whole know that they’re technically an entirely different species? Im actually pretty l psyched to meet more of the cast, even as my character is equal parts angry, scared, and thoroughly unimpressed with these people’s attitudes.
What are beauty standards for everyone else? And what are the actual fashions like? Would they be particularly aghast at things like tattoos and piercings or would an Mc favoring modern western fashions be particularly out of place?
How old is the mc? And how long will the game take place over?
By the way, what is the police and justice system in New Atlantis?
I played it once, it was really good. Hopefully we’ll be able to go to war.
I have enjoyed it so far, as others have said I didn’t like the number of times my MC was forced into something, look forward to the rewrite/alterations of chapter One. When Jessica came to the door I looked for the option to close/slam the door in her face, come on its before midday:)
Good start so far!
Noticed a couple of things:
Needs space in between words. Did you mean hypothetically? It reads a little awkward with hypothetical. Maybe reword the sentence to make it clearer?
Should be your synesthesia
I love the game so far, it’s very interesting to play as the heir to a kingdom or empire depending on what Atlantis is, I wish we got to choose our last name though for rpg reasons but as for the stats maybe when the mc starts getting a little serious you could put skills such as strategy when working with the army, diplomacy for speaking to nobles or trying to work out an alliance and intrigue for spies and assassinating your rivals or foiling assassination attempts on your life just a suggestion but overall it is very interesting,good luck and I hope it goes well
Okay I just remembered this blog TSSL showed me way back (thanks again @TSSL 
) that had some good introductory stuff on crafting plausible matriarchies that move away from the lesbian amazons who seem to do very little but cater to the gaze of the straight male audience.
Since you said homo Atlanticus is technically its own human offshoot, who unlike the Neanderthals survived mostly intact to compete with modern homo sapiens I wonder if there is a subtle difference in biology beyond the eye cones, more specifically in the female reproductive system.
Warning, some world-building 101 questions, rambling and wild speculation ahead
From the mythcreants blog:
“Even better, you could make women infertile when they are under stress. That would make it very difficult for a man to get a woman to have his child under duress. Whatever your methods, your goal is to make pleasing women the only way that men can reproduce. That will change the balance of power dramatically.”
Though of course that biological change alone is not sufficient the create a matriarchy even if it does increase female power and gender equality somewhat. It does have me wondering if ancient Atlantis during “the reign of kings” was already a matrilineal patriarchy. Which is not as far-fetched as it sounds as before dna testing and even now matrilineal is actually the more efficient way to determine lineage.
However while an important biological advantage it is not itself enough to prevent patriarchy although it would shift men’s tactics more towards being peacocks and casanova’s rather than brutish thugs.
Although a matrilineal and probably matrilocal system in ancient Atlantis even when men were in control of the bigger share of cultural and political power would likely still have meant that even back then Atlantean women had at least somewhat more influence and opportunity compared to many other ancient cultures which would have left them in a better position to seize the reins in the immediate aftermath of the traumatic cataclysm.
One point of minor contention I do have with the mythcreants is the meat and vegeterianism thing as in adulthood and adolescence women and girls would actually benefit more from the protein and iron in meat than boys do, comparatively. Even if in many if not most of our cultures the lion’s share of good meat historically went to the guys. This would probably have held less true for pre-cataclysm Atlantis and likely not at all for the post-cataclysm and modern one. This has the beneficial side-effects of eliminating the iron-deficiency and anemia that still plagues too many modern girls and women and particularly over generations would tend to make women larger and stronger and thus narrow (though not completely eliminate) the strength gap between them and the boys.
Of course if you really like vegetarianism I suppose you could hand-wave in an Atlantean staple food that is (unusually) high in protein and iron for a plant. 
It does nothing for the relative expendability of men and women although I think it may be assumed that even if the common Atlantean grunt soldier is still male some of the more elite ones and a majority of the officers are women.
The last side effect is that it would change the beauty standards too and likely make having (some) visible muscle and weight a female beauty standard in Atlantis.
But then beauty standards tend to be less stringent and less of a concern for the dominant gender anyway.
We of course already know the male beauty standards of Atlantis are much closer to Japan and Korea than the West, though that is mostly aesthetic as those K-pop idols can often punch just as hard or harder than the grizzled heroes our Western cultures tend to lionise.
It is another thing that heavily points to Atlantean men operating more like peacocks when it comes to dating and sex.
I also wonder with those beauty standards if Atlantis ever does open up more if it will be Atlantean instead of Korean idol groups taking the world by storm, particularly if Korea too is still in the thrall of a much more conservative Joseon Kingdom, whether genuinely independent or a vassal of either Japan or China still .
I have many more questions on the lore but the more contemporary ones will probably be revealed through gameplay later on. So for now I’ve restricted myself to some speculations on pre-cataclysm Atlantis and further possible biological differences present in homo Atlanticus as a species.
Nah, the Roman Empire ain’t around anymore, but the British Empire still hangs on and depending on whether or not they still have India and let the tail wag the dog a bit they might be the foremost great power, aside from the evil empire of Atlantis itself. Italy may or may not still be a monarchy tho. Like in Kaiserreich it seems (constitutional) monarchies are much more prevalent in this world and of course Japan and maybe even Brazil might still be empires in name and even the Kaiserreich itself and the Romanov dynasty in Russia still seem to be around. The upside would be that I can’t possibly see a Brazilian emperor being worse than Bolsonaro.
I guess republics are in the minority in this world, obviously the USA is one and it is likely that France is one too and there are likely a relative handful around in other places too.
We’ll probably have bodyguards of some sort, though to my mc they feel more like prison guards and at some point, if the game allows it, he’ll at least try to ditch them to explore Atlantis on his own and actually meet some of its ordinary people.
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May I ask why we were chosen over our siblings
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Our special eyes!
That was pretty obvious now that I think about it
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Well folks, I do so severely like this story but I already can tell what has probably inspired part of this story.
The death of a parent or relative, being physically weak and with thy parents fretting over your health, having a physically stronger best friend, being risen up to power after the death/murder of the parent.
Boys and girls I believe this is the Fish people’s Augustus (Octavian) and if I am correct then oh boy I love you author for that alone provides so much happy jumping times.
Since I know for a simple fact your Athenia wip was great and what limited stuff we got now is awesome. So! I am ready for this wholly, my tail be waggering with wants.
Also we all know Rome would definitely be a thing, having a two thousand year old nation just walking around being the grumpy old man XD
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Yeah you are probably correct, I was just making a simple joke since our MC has some close references to Augustus (Octavian) plus Rome best
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I would like to have a personal swat team in your game 
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