About

Welcome to the New World Order

THEY decide which candidates you can elect. What TV shows you watch. Who is The One Percent. What food you eat. What prescriptions you take for the diseases they create.

They are The Alignment.

But they can’t stop you from choosing the books you can read—yet—or the Kickstarter projects you can launch today, before it’s too late….

What is The Alignment?

The Alignment is a double entendre, referring to both the factual, secret star alignments of key landmarks in Washington, D.C., and the fictional, centuries-old organization bent on establishing a New World Order from my Raising Atlantis series of New York Times bestselling novels featuring archaeologist Conrad Yeats and Vatican linguist Serena Serghetti.

The Alignment first appeared in the hit Web series Atlantis Mapping Project (2000-2003), which attracted an audience larger than many cable networks and was one of the first to leverage social media to become among the most widely shared experiences on the Web. My company @lantis Media Corp. soon began producing multiple No. 1 bestselling ebooks and audiobooks. But it has always remained independent in spirit and structure, like the heroes and heroines of great stories, resisting today’s rapid, Alignment-like consolidation of the world’s media and entertainment industries.

Game Without Borders

@lantis Media Corp. is partnering with legendary game designers behind the biggest mobile, social and console games to create The Alignment: Federal City, a new kind alternate reality game (ARG) inspired by my New York Times bestsellers that you download to your phone as a mobile app. This mobile app, built upon next-generation mapping, geolocation-aware and social networking engines, then turns your phone into a point-and-click device in the real world.

Besides bursting beyond the “edges” of onscreen gameplay into the real world, The Alignment: Federal City is also a transmedia franchise. I’m going to write a brand new series of Conrad Yeats adventures in conjunction and as part of the game. The series will include a number of downloadable ebooks, virtual and collectible artifacts, and a 24/7 live audio stream of original programming called @lantis Radio. You will have free access to all of it.

So your are funding both a next-generation mobile app and a new series of books, thus creating a new kind of transmedia franchise and alternate reality.

Can We Get More Specific?

The Alternate Reality Game Network has just published a story about Google's top-secret Niantic Project, which appears to be a game that, like The Alignment: Federal City, turns smartphones into alternate reality portals. While Google's game is not associated with our own, backers are encouraged to sample it to glean just a hint of the mystery and intrigue awaiting them in The Alignment: Federal City.

In The Alignment: Federal City, you will unlock the secret star alignments of Washington, D.C., and in success map 13 other world capitals from the past, present and future to unravel humanity’s oldest and greatest conspiracy. In the process, you will make and share real-world discoveries for the rest of us through your flags, comments, pictures and video, making your mark on the world and helping to shape our vision of reality.

For example, since the publication of The Atlantis Prophecy four years ago, staff at the Library of Congress have used its revelations to discover a half-dozen additional and previously undocumented secret zodiacs hidden in the art and architecture of the Jefferson Building, all in plain but hidden view of the public since 1897.

In plain sight? Hmm...wonder where this zodiac compass points to....

Thousands of other, even earlier codes since the founding of the republic have been embedded into the key D.C. landmarks, waiting to be discovered by you. Even secret, unmarked doors and tunnels (which the feds assure me are NOT waiting to be discovered by you, even though they do want to encourage your exploration of America’s rich heritage and steer you to their souvenir shops).

The same is true for other world capitals, all of them linked through time and space via The Alignment—the astronomical Rosetta Stone of all conspiracies. As the Masons like to say: “As above, so below.”

What are they REALLY digging up under the U.S. Capitol? ©2004 @lantis Media Corp.

The game designers—the creative forces behind some of the biggest games you already play or soon will—are going to incorporate the ebooks, audiobooks and media streaming components into the ARG game as virtual artifacts. Meanwhile, various real-world landmarks, storefronts and geocaches will offer physical artifacts in the location-based form of freebies, collectibles, coupons, special offers and more that stand alone as their own rewards as well as assist you in the game.

To deliver the alpha game for you along with all associated transmedia content will cost $500K, according to the game designers. That’s BIG MONEY and yet relatively little for a next-gen ARG game that in success is expected to engage 10 million eyeballs daily within the first year.

The ETA is Spring 2014, although in many ways the alpha game starts here with Kickstarter and continues after the holidays with monthly documentary videos and private discussion boards between you and the game designers. We’ll also be rolling out some of the transmedia elements for you as early as this spring.

The idea is to create a stream of interactive goodness between here and there, making the transparent process itself its own reward.

Rewards

The wholly new ARG and transmedia experience is being offered for the flat backer contribution of $15. That includes the mobile app and ebook previews of the new books.

Beyond the reward of the finished game, the ability to participate in the discovery and development of this unprecedented, history-making project makes it a priceless experience.

All backers will receive one-time commemorative social badges per their respective reward tiers that recognize their elite "originals" status and unlock special "Club 13" privileges in the game forever.

We also have great premium rewards ranging from collectibles to original concept art and music.

Finally, and this is huge: 50 backers of The Alignment: Federal City will be characters in the game itself.

Why Kickstarter?

CLICK PICTURE TO WATCH Amanda Congdon's interview with me.

First, it’s about creative integrity.

As someone who has helped put together, participate in or advise several billion-dollar film production and finance deals with the major Hollywood studios, I can confirm what you already know: Hollywood today is culturally downstream. While the studios and television networks want to control development of intellectual properties they purchase, and they certainly have the P&A budgets to advertise them, they now discover properties off the lot, beyond their own development executives, in the form of bestselling novels, comic books, games, even Twitter feeds.

Creators can sell their rights and maybe even make big money, but there is very little to control from there. A studio sinking millions into, say, The Alignment movie or “big event” TV series has every right to call the shots on their capital-intensive investment. The best guarantee for uncompromised creative vision, I’ve found, is a dedicated fan base that the studio or network does not want to alienate. That usually (but clearly not always) keeps the project on the straight and narrow.

See, it’s not the money that ultimately makes this happen. And it’s not even me. It’s YOU who makes it happen. Kickstarter is your canvas to begin painting the future of this transmedia franchise.

Second, you are the market—not private equity.

Too many creative projects are produced simply because the money is there from the studio or investors. Contact with the “marketplace”—meaning YOU—doesn’t happen until the big pub date, pilot airing or opening weekend. We’ve all seen the results and wondered, “What were they thinking?” By starting with you in Kickstarter, and developing the game with you via regular discussion reviews, we can create real value without wasting time and money on gameplay or features you don’t really care about. Magicians know this well: some illusions that require the most skills and sleight of hand elicit yawns, while other practically self-working tricks any eight-year-old could perform prompt awe and applause. We certainly don’t want to build stuff just because we can if other things deliver more fun for you. You are the beginning and end game. Not VCs, Hollywood studios, TV networks or game partners. You.

Third, it’s about discovery.

You get to discover The Alignment: Federal City here on Kickstarter, stumbling upon it the way I first discovered tunnels older than the republic just minutes after completing the broadcast above for NBC affiliates years ago on a particularly fateful night.

Now you can easily spread the idea of The Alignment: Federal City by sharing this page. You can even get and give away the white paper “cheat” by Conrad Yeats that originally inspired all this: Washingtonople: The Secret History of America’s Capital. It’s $2.99 on Amazon and free on my website.

And by funding The Alignment: Federal City game, you can go into deep discovery and share it with the world, creating a fan-driven, Marvel-like transmedia entity in the process that entertains, enlightens and empowers millions and hopefully makes the world a richer, more connected place.

This project on Kickstarter is my way to organize forward thinkers, and to send a signal to my risk-averse partners in publishing, streaming, game, television and film. We can let them know loud and clear that this is a transmedia series of books, streaming, games and more that's going to get more than talked about—it’s going to get read, listened to, watched and played in real time and in the real news. Kickstarter amplifies the message, but you amplify the reality.

Fan art from the U.K.

Closing

For anyone interested in the inner workings of the New World Order, either virtually or in the field, this project will be a landmark like those of The Alignment: Federal City in the new age of discovery. For people who just love great books, great stories and great games, this is an opportunity to help bring a unique and enduring experience for the ages to millions.