Photo by: Jen Windsor
The turmoil in Turkey following the recent failed coup attempt in July seemed to find a reprieve last week as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced an ambitious new alternative energy project that promised to satisfy Turkish power demands “forever.” The supposedly unlimited source of energy was revealed to be the corpse of Turkey’s founding father, Ataturk, rolling over in his grave.
The discovery was reportedly made the day after the end of the failed coup, when Erdogan began conducting a purge of civil servants believed to be connected to the coup organizers. After the purge was publicly announced, reports began to emerge of strange rumblings underneath the Antikabir Mausoleum in Ankara, where Ataturk’s tomb is located. Official investigation revealed that the source of the rumbling was in fact Ataturk’s corpse repeatedly turning over in the tomb.
“This is a monumental discovery, and not just because it was a discovery made inside of a monument,” reported Resmi Memur, the leader of the investigation. “Now Turkey can brag about violating the principles of thermodynamics in addition to the principles of human rights!”
Erdogan led the charge to harness this phenomenon, assigning a team of researchers to study the corpse’s behavior and put it to use. Head researcher Bilim Kisi explained the details of the project while accompanied by a sharply-dressed “escort.”
“We weren’t sure what was causing Ataturk to turn over in such a manner, but we did have a hunch. So we had President Erdogan – er, sorry, Erdogan the Magnificent, he demands we call him that – come down to the research site,” said Kisi, nervously glancing at his escort before continuing his explanation. “We gave him a list of suspected dissenters from our university and asked him to loudly announce that they would be purged as enemies of the state. And then, as we predicted, there was a significant increase in Ataturk’s rotational velocity! So now we’ve found a way to control the energy output of the corpse, and we’ll be getting our next research grant approved for sure.”
In the basement of the Antikabir Mausoleum, now dubbed the Great Turk Ataturk Enerji Santrali Power Plant, lead engineer Bas Muhendis offered further insight on the control mechanism while overseeing the conversion of Ataturk’s casket into a turbine.
“You can’t see it right now, since Erdogan is in charge of it, but the mechanism is quite simple; in fact, it is merely a piece of paper and pencil on a clipboard,” Muhendis explained. “There is a list of the reforms Ataturk conducted as President of Turkey. When we want to increase power output, all Erdogan has to do is take the pencil and slowly erase one of the entries in the list. And the transition is seamless! No one will really notice.”
Erdogan himself commented, speaking to reporters as a moving team carried a historic Ottoman throne into his office.
“This is obviously a great step forward for the Turkish people. But I cannot take all the credit; Ataturk must be given his due,” Erdogan said, as he began wrapping his head in an ornate turban. “This feels like one of those ‘king under the mountain’ stories — Ataturk, the great father of Turkey, awakens from his slumber deep in the earth to aid his country in a time of peril. And indeed, in these treacherous times, he has helped me, and continues to help me. And surely, he will still be there, turning over, as I bring Turkey into a new golden age that will make our Ottoman ancestors proud.”
Chris Jin is a fourth year at UCSD
