1899: A Dream Adrift on Myth, Memory, and the Maze of Time

The series 1899 was the second series by Baran bo Odar. The first one was Dark—in the sci-fi genre, which I still consider the most perfect piece of work ever made. Baran’s second series, 1899, is essentially floating on water. A ship named Prometheus went missing four months ago, deep in the Atlantic. Another ship, named Kerberos, en route from London to New York, receives a signal midway from a ship that might be Prometheus. While searching for Prometheus, they encounter unbelievable truths and lies. In short, that’s the story in two lines.

The series 1899 was filled with mythology. The four most focused symbols were—Prometheus, Kerberos, the pyramid, and the Allegory of the Cave. These symbols and their background stories are quite interesting.

First symbol: Prometheus.
According to Greek mythology, Prometheus was the great god who created humans in the image of the gods, loved them, and out of that love gave them knowledge, beauty, and intelligence. He even stole fire from Olympus and gave it to humans. This was a crime against Zeus himself. Zeus punished Prometheus. He was bound in strong chains on Mount Caucasus. Every day, an eagle would fly down and eat his flesh, which would regenerate overnight, only for the eagle to return the next day and eat it again. His punishment was an endless loop. Many years later, Hercules freed Prometheus from the Caucasus.

Second symbol: Kerberos.
Kerberos looks like a dog with three heads. The name Kerberos is believed to originate from Cerberus, or they might be the same word with different pronunciations. There’s a version of this creature in Harry Potter, as far as I recall, named Fluffy or Flappy. In mythology, Kerberos guards the gates of Hades—a place where the souls of the dead reside—so that the souls don’t return to the world. That’s mythology. In modern times, Kerberos is also the name of a computer network security protocol that likely keeps hosts secure in unsecured networks via trusted third parties. In short, Kerberos is a symbol of a guard.

Third symbol: The Pyramid.
The pyramid needs no introduction. It’s known that pyramids were made to preserve the mummified pharaohs after death. The belief was that there is an eternal life after death, and the body needs to be preserved for that life. To ensure the body remains unharmed, it was encased in solid stone. That’s the pyramid. Greek philosopher Aristotle used the shape of the pyramid—i.e., the triangle—as a symbol. A right-side-up triangle means fire. An inverted triangle means water. A line through a right-side-up triangle means air. And its direct opposite means earth. In the 1899 series’ poster, the inverted pyramid with a line through it represents the earth. That symbol recurs throughout the series.

Fourth symbol: Allegory of the Cave.
This depicts a cave with a wall inside, in front of which sit people, with a fire behind them. Because of the fire, their shadows are cast on the wall. The people think those shadows are real—that the shadows are the only reality. If one turns his head, he will see the fire. If he steps outside the cave, he will discover the real world. That’s the Allegory of the Cave, or the cave metaphor. A widely discussed philosophical idea born from Plato’s mind. It teaches us to question our surroundings—what we see: is it real or an illusion?

When you align the above myths, philosophies, and symbols with the 1899 series, the story becomes:
Prometheus is lost.
Kerberos is lost while searching for Prometheus.
And the biggest confusion among the two ships and their passengers is—time and reality.
That is trapped inside a pyramid.
The pyramid connects the three storylines.

Had the story ended here, things would have been less complicated. But the twist deepens after the story ends.
We learn that what’s happening in 1899 isn’t real.
It’s all unfolding inside someone’s dream—a whole world created in some form of simulation.
So, the question arises: whose dream is it?

First, we learn that the dream belongs to Henry—the owner of the ship company.
His wife, after childbirth, began suffering from a condition where she started losing her memory.
To cure her, Henry needed to observe human brain activity up close—how people react in different situations, how they hide crimes, reveal them, commit murder, lose memory, try to forget, etc.
So, Henry conducts an experiment—with a ship full of people—placing them in various scenarios, observing their behavior closely.

But towards the end, we discover someone is dreaming—yes—but that someone isn’t Henry.
It’s actually Henry’s daughter, Maura.
Maura is herself a passenger on the Kerberos ship.
Because her brother sent her a letter from New York.
He’s been missing for four months—exactly the same time Prometheus went missing.
Maura believes her father Henry did something horrible with the Prometheus ship—something her brother found out about, and was thus removed.
She needs to meet her brother.
So, Maura takes the Kerberos to New York.
Midway, they find Prometheus.
Adrift in the sea for four months, with no trace of any passenger. Except for one boy.
The boy doesn’t look like he’s been on the ship for four months.
He’s well-dressed, holding a small pyramid, and completely silent.
The boy is brought from Prometheus to Kerberos.
From then, strange things start happening on Kerberos.
Deaths begin.
The most terrifying incident is that after hearing a strange, eerie noise, all but ten passengers lose consciousness.
And in a trance, they march off the ship and jump into the sea—dying together.

Why did Maura create such a dark, terrifying world inside a dream?
Because she has a child—who is dying.
Maura and her husband created this world together.
In this world, their child doesn’t die.
Even after falling into the sea, he comes out of a box again.
Maura remembers nothing.
Because she didn’t want to remember.
And it’s not just her—the captain, crew, and none of the passengers remember anything either.
So they don’t know that Kerberos has found Prometheus ten or twelve times before.
Ten or twelve times that same boy has moved from Prometheus to Kerberos.
Ten or twelve times they’ve all died.
Even Henry, Maura’s father, is stuck in this endless loop in Maura’s world.
A loop in which Kerberos never reaches its destination.

If you keep mythology in mind, you’ll understand easily—the real villain of the series is none other than Maura herself.
She created a world.
She’s using people.
And whenever she realizes her wrongdoing, she chooses to forget—resetting the loop again.
The question is: is this loop her punishment?
Those who’ve seen Triangle might suspect that this loop is perhaps her punishment—just like Prometheus’.
In Triangle, the woman couldn’t accept her child’s death either.
So again and again, she chose to board that ship.
To create another loop.
Maybe this time she could save her child.
There was no one to break her out of that loop in Triangle.
But in 1899, there is someone.
Just like Hercules broke Prometheus’s chains, Maura’s husband—Daniel—frees her from the loop.

That’s the story of Season 1 of 1899.
If you’ve seen Triangle, Inception, WandaVision, The Truman Show, Source Code, Shutter Island, or Westworld, this series won’t be too hard to understand.
Clues are scattered all over.
Based on them, four possible storylines for Season 2 can be speculated.

First clue: Kerberos.
It’s a symbol of a guard.
So if we look through the lens of mythology, we’ll see—Kerberos isn’t really bringing back Prometheus.
Rather, it’s ensuring Prometheus remains afloat there.
Prometheus has no destination.
If the sea is considered as Hades or the Caucasus, Kerberos is desperately trying to keep Prometheus trapped there.
Meaning—the story shown is the opposite of the real story.

Second clue: In the final scene, Maura wakes up 200 years later.
Daniel tells her—this world was created by us, for our child.
But now it’s no longer in our control—it’s under the control of Maura’s brother.
The very one Maura was going to New York to find aboard Kerberos.
Most likely, in the real world, Maura’s brother wants her to be trapped in this loop forever.
But Maura uses a “key” to wake up in the year 2099.
She sees a message from her brother on screen: Welcome to reality.
And in the final shot, the camera zooms rapidly into Maura’s eye.
This shot has been shown multiple times in the series.
Every time it zooms into someone’s eye, that person wakes up into a different world.
After watching the last few seconds of the final scene, my suspicion is—
2099 isn’t the real world either.
That too is a simulation.

Third clue: Each passenger on Kerberos is linked to one or more of the following—murder, death, lies, betrayal, or crime.
They are regretful of their actions.
Even those who didn’t kill but witnessed death feel responsible for it.
One could say it’s a ship full of repentant passengers.
And perhaps, their eternal punishment is to carry this guilt.

That’s the end of the clues.
Based on these clues and various symbols, I can speculate four possible core storylines for 1899 Season 2.

1. Possible first story: There is only one ship—Prometheus.
   It faces a terrifying storm in the middle of the ocean and loses course.
   The captain is blamed for incompetence.
   The passengers split into two groups.
   They throw the captain and crew off the ship—except for the main captain, whom they keep alive, needing him to sail the ship.
   The passengers take control.
   But it does no good.
   The ship gets more lost.
   Food…

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