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VITALS

Poseidon

EARTH LOCATION:
Island of Honshu (partially)
FORMER NAME:
Japan
CAPITAL:
None (state is non-contiguous and decentralized)
POPULATION:
Not known
INDUSTRY:
High tech, defense, cybernetics, consumer electronics
POLITICAL SYSTEM:
Not known, but possibly Communist


Poseidon, also known as Japanese Poseidon and Poseidon Global Industrial Technologies, is the name of the maritime industrial nation that is featured frequently in the Appleseed manga and film series. Beyond its territories located on the old Japanese island of Honshu, Poseidon is also suggested to have expansive factories atop the sea itself, on arteficial structures similar to derricks or sea platforms. The country is mostly non-contiguous, with many smaller facilities or colonies around the world that are full state entities, and not commonwealths or outposts.


Background[]

History[]

Although the background to Poseidon's creation is not clear, Asia's international supremacy following the third and fourth world wars may have contributed to a vastly advanced Japan, and given China's downfall after the Beijing meteoric impact, it's population base may have rapidly expanded from immigration, requiring the acquisition of additional foreign land. In the Appleseed ID graphical encyclopedia, it's stated that construction of the first sea platforms belonging to Poseidon began in 2002, starting with an offshore spaceport, or launch pad.


Political System[]

Poseidon Factories

Production facilties on the surface of the sea.

Also not very well understood, Poseidon makes no efforts to conceal the fact it's a closed state, operating in high levels of secrecy. There is no apparent structure for democratic election, and by most indications the government appears to operate similarly to a communist state, very likely, especially given how the state is also a corporation, and a profitable business.


World Relations[]

As the postwar world's largest producer of industrial goods, Poseidon's survival is somewhat dependent (or according to Emissary Yoshino, entirely dependent) on trade with other developed nations. While Olympus was its primary customer for products (mass-produced Landmates and defense equipment like the AF5 aircraft, for example) during the late 2120s to early 2130s, it presumably also forms trade pacts with the reformed EU and G32 alliance by 2138.

Leadership[]

Yoshino

Poseidon's Emissary, Yoshino.

Although, as mentioned, we don't know the political system of Poseidon, we do know that the country has a well developed diplomatic corps, led by Yoshino. Known as a quietly chilly diplomat who says few words, she is exceedingly persuasive when she does talk. More or less the alter-ego to Olympus Prime Minister Athena Areios, the two have met several times during an envoy visit to discuss how Poseidon cybernetics technology had been acquired by a domestic terrorist outfit in the city, also in 2138.


Industrial Background[]

Products[]

Trimaran

One of Poseidon's corporate-use high-speed trimarans, seen from the stern.

  • Sidearms, personal defense weapons (by wholly-owned subsidiary Seburo).
  • Landmates and other powered battle armour
  • Aerospace (presumable examples the AF5 Tiltrotor and Wasp Insertion Aircraft)
  • Gravity Control (the Hermes and Damysos Gravity Control anti-grav systems)
  • Consumer electronics (products similar to the Connexus)
  • Cybernetic components (Cyborg bodies, organs, extremities, etc.)
  • Seacraft (such as the trimaran seen in Ex Machina)
  • Radiation absorbing "scrubber robots" (by wholly-owned subsidiary, Orion Group see below).


Healthcare Ventures[]

In the past, Poseidon operated a division dedicated to restoring mobility and perception in the scores of severely injured veterans from the fourth world war. Using a combination of advanced nanotechnology, cybernetics, and brain-tissue control, it quickly became possible to reverse total paralysis with a small backpack-like device worn by the patient, with electrodes connecting to a datalink permanently mounted on their head, interfacing with their brain and an artificial nervous system. The project was enormously successful, and prompted the leadership of the company to spin off the division into the independent firm Halcon, which went on to form it's very own small city-state, also maritime based. A partnership with Poseidon's anti-grav division appears to have been struck, for the Halcon headquarters employed the largest application of Damysos modules at the time, allowing their city to levitate above the ocean's surface.

Halcon was later disbanded and several key employees (such as Dr. Elizabeth Xander) even assassinated, when Poseidon suspected that the arm was developing political aspirations, and desired to use their technology for illicit, mind control purposes.

Comparisons[]

In the anime . . .[]

In the recent CGI movies (2007, to be exact), Poseidon is resurrected from the manga and remains as one of the few plot throwbacks that stays relatively faithful to its original self. Even Yoshino looks somewhat like her pen-and-ink likeness, and satisfyingly, her role in the strange country/corporation is defined finally as a political emissary, where in the book very little was known about her or what she did. The dark mystery surrounding Poseidon is wonderfully recreated, and at the end of the movie, just like at the end of the book series, you'll be left begging to see more of the state next time. Early scripts of Appleseed: Ex Machina took place entirely in the state, but these plans were shelved in favour of exploring deeper into Olympus instead, and left for future installments of the supposed trilogy. Maybe that's the kind of ground Appleseed XIII will tread . . .


In the manga . . .[]

Like most of the other international states of the 2120s, Poseidon provides more of backdrop and plot reinforcement than anything else, and little to no time is actually spent there in the book series. Apart from numerous mentions and a few nationalist characters like Yoshino, in The Scales of Prometheus, the most that's said about the country is found in the helpful Appleseed ID encyclopedia.

Here we learn that while Olympus and Poseidon are rivals, sometimes all-out nemeses (a theme explored in 2007's Ex Machina), the two ultimately seek détente, and eventually unite as one country, about nineteen years prior to the timeframe of the film series. Poseidon's space exploration capabilities also far outweigh that of Olympus, which will come in handy for the interstellar diplomatic era that begins in 2147, between Earth and Centauri.

Owing to the differences between the manga and anime, particularly how the world wars which precede the creation of Olympus are portrayed, the films exclude any mention of another Poseidon company, charged with decontamination of the earth's radioactive wastelands, called the Orion Group. Like Seburo, Orion appears to have once been an independent specialist firm, which was later absorbed for maximum profitability. Their invention of the so-called Japanese "miracle scrubber robots," bio-mechanical nanomachines which eat radioactivity and excrete neutral mass, is credited with saving the earth.

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