Is Netflix’s ‘1899’ Inspired By a True Story?

With the premiere of 1899, Netflix has introduced the world to one of the craziest series of the year. Within minutes of this tale of historical horror, a nice story about passengers traveling to America devolves into chaos.

Of course, this show isn’t based on any true story. That’s always the case when it comes to a mystery so convoluted and ambitious it makes Lost look sane. But you may be surprised to learn that 1899 is rooted in reality. Which reality is the one true reality remains to be seen. Mild spoilers ahead.

Is 1899 Based on a True Story?

This Netflix original starts with a fairly simple premise. A group of travelers from around the world take a steamship from London that’s bound for New York City. But when Captain Eyk (Andreas Pietschmann) realizes that they may be able to save a long-missing ship — the Prometheus — this journey goes from hopeful to horrific. We’re talking weird panels that lead to impossible fields, confusing triangle-based languages, mass suicide, and a shipping company that repeatedly begs its captain to sink his vessel. As insane as 1899 becomes, its roots are based in the very real European migrant crisis.

Also known as the Syrian refugee crisis, this global event happened as a response to the Syrian Civil War as well as the Kosovo War and the War in Afghanistan. Throughout 2015, 1.3 million people fled from these affected areas and requested asylum from countries in Europe. These refugees were largely Syrian, but migrants from Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iraq, Eritrea, and the Balkans also came to the continent. It marked the most people requesting for asylum in a single year since World War II, and this massive shift changed these countries’ politics.

You can see traces of this event in 1899. As much as this series is about its central mystery, it’s also about how a group of people from differing cultures can come together to face a waking nightmare. 

“The whole European angle was very important for us, not only story wise but also the way we were going to produce it,” Jantje Friese told Deadline in 2021. “It really had to be a European collaboration, not just cast but also crew. We felt that with the past years of Europe being on the decline, we wanted to give a counterpoint to Brexit and to nationalism rising in different countries, to go back to that idea of Europe and Europeans working and creating together.”

In the same interview, Friese also explained that it was important that these characters from various countries aren’t all able to speak English. “We wanted to explore this heart of Europe, where everyone comes from somewhere else and speaks a different language, and language defines so much of your culture and your behavior,” Friese said.

So we know the origins of this story was inspired by reality. What about the Kerberos itself? Is there a real world counterpart to this vessel?

It seems as though the answer to this one is no. Throughout the year 1899, there were numerous shipwrecks, 30 of which were from the United Kingdom. But 1899 isn’t exactly a shipwreck situation. The series focuses more on the disappearances of the Prometheus and later the Kerberos. There was one United Kingdom ship that disappeared in 1895, the SS Java, which was later renamed the Lord Spencer. During a voyage from San Fransico to New York, it went missing, and some have claimed it collided with the Prince Oscar. That’s about where the connections between 1899 and the real world end.

Is 1899 Based on a Book?

This question is far easier to answer. No, 1899 is not based on a book, comic, movie, or any other piece of pop culture. It’s a wholly original idea from the gloriously original minds of Friese and Baran bo Odar. And who said that new ideas are dead?