Original Quantum Sin

"Once we have bitten the quantum apple, our loss of innocence is permanent." —R. Shankar, Principles of Quantum Mechanics

Dear Readers,

I thought I might keep my post material light for your Monday. After all, your weekend has just ended, why should I start off with a very complicated post? In the end I decided that if I was going to do that, I might as well do nothing at all, so instead I am going to jump right in and talk about a topic that has been on my mind quite a lot lately.

That topic is the concept that I like to call Original Quantum Sin. It's a lot better explained as just "decision making" but that lacks the flash (and the significance) that the term really deserves.

This got onto my mind when I saw the recent trending topics on your time-stream's Twitter. Lately there's been a lot of buzz on two films: Inglourious Basterds and District 9. One depicts an alternate past and the other an alternate present. Other than that, I won't refer to them specifically again. As an Anachronist, I have a strong aversion to spoilers, even those I know won't alter the course of history.

The idea of these films' popularity was intriguing to me, especially in light of their reality. They are both possibilities, you see. In one version of the Bible, your time stream's version, Adam and Eve eat the fruit of knowledge. In that version, God does the following: "So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way [or which "transformed"], to keep the path of the tree of life." In this myth, the flaming sword can transform the "path" of the tree of life, in light of the choice that Adam and Eve made. That choice was one of many uncertain possibilites for their iconic "first choice." It is not the fruit they ate that mattered, or anything else from this Bible story. It is that they made a choice at all. That is the lesson here.

I talk about possibility. t because the things that are dreamt of in your philosophies are the things that can be in all heavens and earths. What I mean to say is that Borges made the greatest point of human history, and that our world indeed is a Garden of Forking Paths.

These paths are recognized in Quantum Mechanics, which talks about the chances that certain decisions will be made. Before such a decision is made or observed, there exist many possibilities, and so there are many forking paths that extend outward into the labyrinth of time.

Once the decision is made, however, the possibility that happened gets isolated. There is no second possibility; one thing happened, and you can no longer count on its alternatives. You can still imagine them, however. And as you imagine them, you mirror other realities, other time streams, where they are the real events. So each film that presents these alternates, real in its microcosm of your reality, is also real in some other reality where the past flowed differently from its watershed point. Maybe in these other realities they have films where they consider your world to be the fantasy.

It's that concept of fantasy that I call Original Quantum Sin. You make a choice and lose uncertainty, and you can't go back to it. There is no way to undo that choice, its time has passed. And so you have experienced that choice moment and made the decision to bite the apple, take the blue pill, or kill Mace Windu. It doesn't matter what choice you made; for my purposes, each choice is a "sin" because it biases you to believe that the events that resulted from that decision are "reality" and that the events that did not happen are "fantasy." What if you took the red pill? Would the resulting events thus become reality, and the events that "happened" become fantasy? If you are an Original Quantum Sinner, then yes. The choice you made before is the choice that defines your reality. There is no way for you to avoid this "sin."

Not so for me. Not for anyone at this University. We exist in a place where no real choice has been made, or ever will be made. In this place, we can look infinitely far forward and see all of the possibilities stemming from each decision using our Augury technology. The same technology, when invented in a time-normal context, only grants the ability to see the future, not the alternate possibilities in the past and present. It too, is a victim of Original Quantum Sin. It cannot go back or switch realities, like water flowing from a mountain into many tributaries.

What if Adam and Eve, of the myth I referenced before, did not bite the apple? What if no flaming sword transformed their path, but instead they remained naïve to the choice? And what if, in such a place where no choice was ever made, the technology for Augury somehow appeared?

We see worlds where your alternate histories really happened, or the many possible futures that stem out from your time stream itself, and we see it from a world without the "sin" of a preexisting condition. There is no "past" that defines a distinct form of reality for us. Ther are no "consequences" to our decisions. Likewise, we get very little in the way of a future, or a past. For this price--and I assure you, it is a great price that we pay to be here--we can see it all, and study it all forever, without preconceptions about the nature of reality. That is how my "Augury" shows me what I tell you, and it is how I am an Anachronist. I do not study the past, present, or future. I study other times, for no time is my own, in my prison. My "Eden."

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

"Weave a circle 'round him thrice, and close your eyes with holy dread."

Friday Seminar: Case Study #2, Emotional Undertones

Dear Readers,

It's time for my Friday Seminar again. This is a weekly feature, where I take you through part of the material in my introductory class, CHRN/AUG 100.

For the past two weeks of Seminar we've discussed the leap from emotive connotations in sources to conclusions about overall "zeitgeist," or spirit, of a given society in a given time stream. To review, we use the emotive undertones of a source to extrapolate what the driving passions of the culture that produced that source are. In principle, it's straightforward. In practice it can be tricky.

Since I featured neo-Aegea this week, I'll use the source I posted yesterday for our case study. My analysis of that source is by no means complete, so the conclusion I come to here are as new to me as they are to you.

The first steps in our analysis, as they have been since the beginning, are to establish a quick idea of the source type and a short critique of that source for us to keep in mind as we go forward.

What I posted yesterday is an easy source type. It was a myth, recorded for the purpose of public performance by a storyteller who hoped to earn money for his efforts. Therefore, I'll call it a mythic play, and leave it there.

What about our critique? That is a little more complicated. Let's keep in mind:

• This source is a myth. Myth typically describes any story with some religious tones that would be called "true" by the people who produced it, but doubted by people from virtually any other society. We have to keep in mind not that this source seems false to us, but that it is quite real to a neo-Aegean.
• This source is for commercial gain. Because it was meant to make money for the storyteller, there are places where clearly the events in the original myth are over-dramatized. It's possible that the original myth, even, is not as bombastic as this source. It's possible that the religious account has wild differences from this text. We need to keep that in mind as well.

While the downside of these two points is that we can't trust the source for much about the everyday life of an average Aegean, the upshot is that this source gives us a great idea of both the sorts of beliefs held by Aegeans as well as the kinds of entertainment that they sought out. Perfect for our emotive undertone analysis.

Let's look at some of the major emotional elements of this story:

• Engineers: Cadmus represents an active authority in his role as an adventurer, explorer and religious official. He is the "hero," and the fact that he is an "Engineer," which means a priest to an Aegean, tells us that religion is rather central to their society. Furthermore, the only entityies that Cadmus subordinates himself to are either gods, or another Engineer like Tiresias, with inspiration from the gods. Clearly, this society has a hierarchical view of the world, with religion at its apex.
• War: this myth is quite foreboding. The "sown men" are meant for war, as Athena warns us. The Storyteller is invited by the stage directions to advertise further stories of war, as well, and to increase the suspense just before the prediction of war is made. That tells us that stories of battle captivate the Aegean audience. These are not pacifists.
• Darkness: dark areas, caverns, and pitch-black oracular halls dominate this story. Aegea is a place full of darkness, and the contradiction presented by a blind seer in a dark room tells us more about Aegeans. Their need to "see" around them is more limited than societies that include greater description in their stories. This may have something to do with their sea floor life, or perhaps some the anti-curious drives that are prevalent in such a Dark Age society.
• Light: still, there is one very strong source of light in this story. The "Golden Bathyscaph" that Cadmus uses to travel, which you would probably call a "golden submarine," is a source of brightness and light. Through the Engineer, darkness is banished, light is produced, and preparations are made to defend from war. This kind of thing entertains the Aegean audience; again we see a centralizaation of the Engineers in their culture, as a source of light against the pervasive darkness.

So far, we have themes of subordination to religious order, in other words, submissiveness, as well as themes of violence, darkness, and light, again from the religious order. These emotive themse combine to paint a picture of at least part of Aegean society. In the era of this story's telling, it is a violent, dark place in most of its corners, with the stability and light sourced only from the powerful religious system. The rest of the people look to these Engineers for the goodness in their lives because of the darkness that surrounds them, both in terms of knowledge and literal currents of war and danger in the environment. And with that, we've reached an understanding of part of the zeitgeist, the driving spirit, of their Age. This understanding, gleaned also from other sources, inspired my "Day in the Life" post earlier this week.

Now, off to your weekend.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Myth of the Spartoí

Dear Readers,

Earlier this week, in some of my explanations of neo-Aegean society, I discussed the development of different types of constructed soldiers in that time stream. One early type, which the local contemps will call spartoí, will essentially be clones made for warfare. In the original, spartoí means "sown men," and the name is based on an Ancient Greek myth.

In the original myth, Cadmus, future founder and King of Thebes, visits the Oracle at Delphi. Augury at the Orcale (though extremely rudimentary Augury) tells Cadmus to follow a cow until it stops, and then found a city there. During his attempt to do this, Cadmus and his men ran into a dragon, which Cadmus killed. Athena, who stopped by to have a look, took the dragon's teeth and gave half of them to Cadmus, and told him to plant them. She saved to other half for an adventure with Jason, of Argonaut fame, later on.

Unfortunately, this dragon was sacred to Ares. When Cadmus planted the teeth, men grew from them. These men were the spartoí. In some versions, Cadmus tricked them into fighting each other, and the five survivors helped him found Thebes. In other versions, only five arose to begin with. Either way, it made Ares angry, and Cadmus had to make up for this, but that's another story.

I tell you this background because today's myth, translated from my neo-Aegean Augury data, builds on the myth of the spartoí, though it is not an alternative myth of them. This story, as far as I can tell, is one of many stories that will be written by Civet the Storyteller, a neo-Aegean bard with similar fame to Ancient Greece's Homer, Spain's Lope de Vega, or England's William Shakespeare (the latter two, at least, in time streams where the Spanish Armada lost). Civet's writings, like most neo-Aegean myths, are a mixture of Ancient Greek stories and elements from across the cultural history of the humans of neo-Aegeea. From these references, I am able to surmise that the neo-Aegeans descend from your time stream, or something very close to it.

Story translated below. The manuscript is intended to be read aloud by a storyteller, from memory, and some performance notes appear italicized in brackets.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Gather round, deck apes and Pilots alike! Hear the story of the Spartoí, from the greatest story-teller in all Aegea! [It is recommended that one compliment the audience at this point. Jokes also help your audience grow.]

In the days before the Clone War with Nemesis, the Great Engineer Cadmus lived in Aegea. he was so respected that all Cities begged him to serve as their Chief Engineer, but each he refused. Instead, he traveled all of Aegea in a Golden Bathyscaph, almost the size of a small colony in itself, in search of the greatest Oracle. While he possessed some skill with augury, everyone knows that you can never see your own future, and so he needed someone else to read his fate.

In those days, the City of Oz held the best augur-Engineers in the Ocean, and so Cadmus followed the rumors to their Machine Shop. There, he met Tiresias, the blind augur and Oracle of Oz. [Some storytellers tell this dialogue; that lacks style. Act it out!]

Cadmus entered Tiresias's Great Hall, shrouded in complete darkness. The seer preferred it that way. He also demanded that his guests remain silent until addressed.

After three days of waiting without food or water, Tiresias's voice boomed from the darkness, "A SUPPLICANT HERE HAS DARK HAIR AND GREEN EYES, LIKE A NOBLEMAN, BUT LIGHT SKIN, LIKE A PEASANT. HE IS CADMUS, THE GREAT ENGINEER. COME FORWARD, CADMUS."

Shocked that the blind seer could know his features in the dark, Cadmus walked forward several paces. His footsteps echoed through the cavernous chamber.

He began, "Great seer, I-"

"I KNOW WHY YOU ARE HERE, CADMUS. YOU WISH TO FOUND YOUR OWN CITY, FOR YOUR SON, TUT, TO RULE. YOU WILL FOUND THIS CITY, CADMUS, AND YOU WILL NAME IT THEBES. WHEN YOU LEAVE HERE, YOU WILL FIND A SCHOOL OF SELKIES. ALL WILL CHANGE COLOR AS YOU APPROACH, SAVE ONE. FOLLOW THAT ONE TO THE ENDS OF AEGEA, AND THERE, FOUND YOUR CITY. NOW GO. I WILL FIND YOU WHEN YOUR CITY IS FOUNDED."

Cadmus, still in awe of the great seer, followed his instructions exactly, and departed as soon as he saw the selkie that did not change color. They followed it as it swam away. His bathyscaph traveled for forty-one days and forty-one nights, to the ends of Aegea itself, just as Tiresias predicted.

On the forty-second night, the selkie stopped in a deep cavern on the sea floor. Cadmus saw this and knew that they found the place to build his City. "Stop the bathyscaph, Thistle," he told his chiliarch, "We shall build it here. First, though, we must find petrol to burn this selkie as an offering to the gods who brought us to this place."

Thus, he and his men put on pressure suits and wandered out in search of a source of petrol for their offering. It was not to be so. Instead of petrol, they found a great beast that breathed like a Promethean Sling, and shot out fire that could burn even underwater. They called this beast Smog, for it choked out black clouds of charcoal and fire into the water around it.

From the moment they saw it, Smog killed hundreds of Cadmus's men with his fiery breath. Enraged, Cadmus pulled out a weapon that he built many years before, with Athena's help. A saber made of Aegis-light, it would kill anyone or anything which did not possess the Engineer's bloodline. He ran the beast Smog through with his saber, and though it tried to belch its flame upon him, the blade proved too much for the creature, and it instantly died.

When it fell, the sea floor rocked and petrol shot up from vents beneath. As the ground quaked, Cadmus and his men were knocked unconscious, and cast into a deep sleep. In dream, Athena visited Cadmus.

"You have come back to me, Cadmus," he glory and beauty were so strong, that she did not need to say these words. Cadmus merely looked upon the goddess, and knew her warm greeting.

Then she spoke, and the power of it almost killed him, "You will take Smog's teeth, and plant them near your City. From these teeth will grow men, the spartoí, who will become your soldiers. You can grow more, also. They can be copied, like any other men. You will need them for the times to come, or too many of your people will die in war. You have done something terrible, Cadmus."

"What have I done?" he wept before her. [This is the point of greatest suspense; your audience wants to know what will happen next! Make them pay you to hear it, since later, they will not feel so generous!]

"Smog was sacred to Ares, Cadmus, and you have slain this creature. The god of war does not forget, Cadmus. War will come, between the Engineers and the City of Nemesis, who do not follow the gods, but follow anger and hatred instead. This war will be called the Clone War, and it will be because of you. Prepare yourself!"

Cadmus awakened, the air in his suit almost empty. He gathered his men, and they returned to the Golden Bathyscaph. They returned to gather the dragon's teeth, and ust as Athena said, they grew into soldiers in just hours. These were the spartoí, the first grown soldiers of Aegea. The Thalassians you know today descended from these soldiers. Each of you might have known war in your lifetimes, if not for Cadmus, who invented the spartoí, so that men would not fight and die in war. [Here you may advertise that you will tell battle stories if your audience stays longer, or if they come back tomorrow.]

A Day in the Life: Cyzican Steamworks

Dear Readers,

This marks the second week that I provide a fictional narrative that represents a "slice of life" from a time stream that has captured my interest recently. Like everything else I've written this week, today's Day in the Life focuses on neo-Aegea.

Originally I thought I would write a story of one of Aegea's soldiers, but I decided instead to write about a slave in the vast steamworks and factories of Aegean industry. This one takes place in Cyzica, one of the more industrial of neo-Aegea's city-states.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

"Olive, you all right?" he heard his mother's voice yell from the other room.

He wanted to say, "No, I'm not all right. I'm coughing up black soot and snot into our tiny-ass sink, Mom, because I'm a slave in a weapons factory." Instead, he coughed up more of the charred mix into the steel basin, as the glowstrips above his head flickered at the end of their lives.

"Olive?" his mother yelled a little louder.

Olive looked at the grey mess he had made. That damned Prometheus Engine caused all this. He cursed his own blasphemy as soon as he thought it. Second Engineer Odysseus would no doubt prescribe a penance. There would be no Aegea without the titan Prometheus's fiery gifts and technology.

He coughed once more, and yelled in answer, "Yes, mother, I'm fine, just...tired from work, I guess." It came out raspier than he hoped. Maybe she would not notice.

In the sheet of polished plastic his family called a mirror, Olive looked at his pale face and tried to wipe away any collateral black streaks. He also tried to fix the places where sweat matted his dark hair. Both efforts were a little bit futile; everyone in Cyzica's dregs looked like that. Slaves could afford little else.

"Olive, we need to go to the Ceres Engine, come out of there." His mother again.

He sighed into the mirror. Dinnertime. He did feel colossal hunger, so he decided his hair would have to wait.

"Coming, mother!"

He opened the rickety metal hatchway and flopped over the threshold, into the other room of their quarters. Its dishevelled space served as bedroom, kitchen, sometimes hospital. Again, the lot of a slave. In the middle of the room, his mother, in her usual sackcloth, stood ready to leave. At twenty-nine, she might even have looked pretty with her copper hair. If she could afford to wash it.

"Let's go," Olive said.

She half-smiled and turned to leave. The Ceres Engine was a short walk from their quarters, though by this time there might be a long line, so they rushed there. Even so, about a hundred other slaves, just off of their day's work, waited ahead of them to receive their daily bread.

At the head of the line, two Brothers of the Gasket assisted the local parish Engineer, First Degree Artemis. They removed the bread from the Ceres Engine as she addressed the crowd, "Thank Ceres, the great goddess, that your food comes this day. Only by her magic does her Engine bring your portion into this world, and so only by her magic, do you live. Rejoice, slaves of Cyzica. The gods do not forget you!"

Olive tuned her out as she continued to preach the faith. As he neared age fourteen, he focused more on Artemis's extremely physical, exotic appearance and less on her words. He heard that speech every night, anyway.

"Don't stare, Olive, it's too dangerous." his mother chided him. He knew she was right. The gods forbade all non-Engineers from lustful stares on their chosen clergy. Slaves, especially, could be killed for leery gazes at young First Degree Engineers.

Still, as he stood in the line of dirty, broken slaves, Olive felt nothing fair in that rule. Everyone around him, just as worthless as he, saw not even a shred of anything holy or clean, save Artemis and the Brothers who supported her. Tomorrow, and every day after that, he would go back to his work in the steamy weapons factory, where much harsher Engineers, like the older Second Degree Odysseus would drive him to repair and feed the Hephaestus Engines. All to make more weapons for Cyzica and her allies' armies. He saw no justice in it, but then just was scarce this deep in the City's levels. Olive shrugged and returned his gaze to the back of the person ahead of him in line. At least he would have bread soon.

Theocracy or Technocracy?

Dear Readers,

I've decided that this week I'll continue to feature neo-Aegean society, since that is the focus of my work right now. Today: neo-Aegean religion, and its unique elements. Remember, of course, that most of what I write here on this subject is in the very early stages of understanding, so there may be inaccuracies or omissions.

Theology in Aegea (I will use this term interchangably with neo-Aegea for this article) is a rather complicated subject. As far as I am able to tell, the most powerful people in Aegean society are the priestly caste, forbidden from intermarriages with the rest of the population. Of course, that motif is rather common across a variety of eras and time streams.

What's peculiar about neo-Aegean society is that these priests seem also to have very tight control over the technology of their civilization. Knowledge, whether practical or philosophical is protected by this priesthood.

At its core, their religion is based on what you would call the "Ancient Greek" pantheon. This makes it remarkably easy to study. How or why this is possible is not something I really understand, but it seems that in the neo-Aegean time stream, this religion re-emerged even though in your time it is quite dormant. There are clear hallmarks, however, that the pantheon has expanded to include certain folk heroes and icons from the intervening time.

It's also curious that the neo-Aegeans seem to have reasonable Augury technology. That certainly raised an eyebrow. Their machinery still relies on the sacrifice of living things, however. Thankfully the University was able to do away with that particular practice.

So, to sum up: religion in Aegea is inspired by Ancient Greece, but with other cultural baggage. It maintains a tight grip on society, with control over much of the available technical knowledge. It has access to advanced Augury technology, unlike your society. And yet the entire society seems to have plunged into a largely faith-based dark age with little scientific advancement. This is a conundrum that I cannot explain at all.

Furthermore, I have some trouble translating the name for their priests. While I find it hard to believe, the linguistic evidence all points to the idea that they will be called something roughly akin to "Engineers." How interesting.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

So-called "Battle Studies"

Dear Readers,

When Twitter was up, an upcoming album by someone named John Mayer--all right, fine, I do remember him from when I was alive--made it onto the trending topics. This reminded me that I've been meaning to write something about battle strategies in neo-Aegea.

Of course, I really do not know that much about the society at the time this is written. I know that later I will write more, and become the preeminent scholar of that civilization and its time stream, but for now I do not have the expertise yet.

What I can tell you follows. First, neo-Aegea, or "Aegea" to its residents, is a place different from Earth. It exists in the future, from your perspective. Don't worry, I'm not giving you "spoilers" for reality. If you want your time to get there, you still have to figure out how.

Neo-Aegean society is also entirely underwater. This leads to interesting implications for warfare.

Neo-Aegea's inhabitants will have technology far beyond yours, including advanced weapons and genetic engineering. However, it's clear to me that for at least the first millenium of its existence, the civilization there will lose most understanding of its advances, and simply take them for granted. At least, I believe that is what will happen.

Part of this technnology appears to be robust, genetically engineered soldiers. It seems that they will be developed over time. It seems the first generation will be called Spartoí, and will not be much different than growth-accelerated clones. Their name, of course, betrays this society's heavy Greek cultural influence. I believe that this week, my "Day in the Life" post may focus on the rank and file lives of these early soldiers.

The second generation of soldiers I know far less about, except that they exist. During their time, however, I begin to hear more words relating to larger military organization. A hierarchical structure based on powers of two arises at this time. The Phalanx sits at the top of this military organizational pyramid, commanded by Admirals called Nauarchi.

We know much more about the third generation of soldiers, the Thalassians. Named for the goddess Thalassa, or so I suppose, they are a seamless marriage of human genetics and machine technology. How these Thalassians arose from a Dark Age is something that I do not yet understand, but I will endeavor to find the answer. For now, all I have is an image of massive, muscular, steel-blue amphibians swimming in clouds and descending on one another underwater, as harpoons and fiery fluids fly between the two sides. I can think of little more terrifying than these descriptions of Thalassians in battle.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Weekend Muse

Dear Readers,

For your weekends, I like to ruminate on things. When you read this, no doubt you are more at peace than the typical times, so I try to be more casual and more personal. The same for this message.

My thoughts of late, provoked by writing for my loyal audience here, have wandered to the different threads of culture that the Fates wield. They are, to overuse a metaphor, my currecny in the navigation of Anachronism. There are so many: letters, newspapers, novels, stories, advertisements, posters, photographs, paintings, poetry, music.

The classical tales hold that there are Nine Muses, and the contemps of neo-Aegea would likely agree. They d not quite match up with my list above; really, I've made no attempt for them to do so. Yet, I still cannot help but imagine these fine women--no, goddesses--staring over my shoulders as I pore over the works that people have made in their names. I wonder if they judge each interpretation I read, if they agree that I should hold no truth necessary in my analysis. Even this is a bit of cultural corruption that I should not allow into a mind that should read each source without a hint of bias, but I still find the feeling creeps up upon me.

Different sources, or different muses, however, raise different problems. The printed sources are the easiest. Challenging when the language is obscure, but still relatively easy to deal with. Photographs are not too hard, though sometimes esoteric time streams have quirky ways of framing a picture. Paintings are more of an enigma.

It's really music, though, that causes the most problems. Scales, rhythms, tempo, all of it is very, very culture. You know your musical tradition, but there are many many others that exist among even your contemporaries. What you call music your parents might call noise. I know mine did, when I was time normal. The anachronist may call nothing "noise." It is all music, and it is all beautiful to someone...and still, given my cultural proclivities, the search for that beauty can be a source of extreme frustration.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Deparment of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Friday Seminar: Emotions and Zeitgeist Inform Anachronism

Dear Readers,

As usual, this is my Friday Seminar, posted to you on each of your Fridays. It covers topics drawn from my Introductory class, CHRN/AUG 100.

In the past (from your perspective) I wrote about the importance of zeitgeist in my work. My last Friday Seminar covered this issue tangentially as I discussed emotions' role in gleaning the universal from anachronistic esoterica. Now I want to tie these two topics together for you.

There are obvious intersections; zeitgeist, as a spirit of an era, has a clear emotional basis. Therefore, we ought to be able to get at the zeitgeist in universal terms.

Yet there is an important difference between zeitgeist and emotions. Emotional currents in period sources are a currency of sorts, whereas a zeitgeist is a fortune of that currency.

Think back to my first few Friday Seminars, on criticizing sources and stitching them together. It is the stitching together that makes an assessment of zeitgeist from little snippets of emotion. Each source has emotional connotations, and I pool these together between sources that I know are from the same time stream and era. The emotional collage this produces allows me to say things about culture and zeitgeist, and from there a good anachronist can start to talk about what really makes a society tick.

And that's where it gets interesting. Next week, I'll apply these ideas to a case study.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Facebook Page

Dear Readers,

The Augury Department has made it possible for me to have a Facebook Page! Find it at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/John-Skylar/116918984678?ref=nf.

Look forward to my Friday Seminar post later today.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Untethered Thursdays

Dear Readers,

For most of the rest of your week, I have figured out some kind of feature or another that I can give you. Except Thursdays. I can't seem to get the hang of Thursdays, for some reason.

Anyhow, today the muses have given me some inspiration to write a quick note for you on the idea of "time streams" that I've so casually slipped into my conversation. It's a notion that seems easy enough from the two words that make it up, but is actually a bit more tricky than face value.

You might assume, and it might be good enough for a cursory examination, that time streams are just different instances of a specific time period with different quantum variations. If this were strictly true, though, my job would be a lot harder. The scale of decisions made every day, on a subatomic level, is absolutely staggering! There would be no way I could group anything together, and infinite possibilities would arise.

Well, all right. I could rule out the possibilities where the Universe destroyed itself, or some similar calamity took place. Still, though, it would be more than one person, even one immortal person acting from a vantage point outside of time, could handle.

The concept is, therefore, a bit more subtle. As I said, there are a lot more decisions made than I can possibly comprehend. Some of them are on scales where computerized analysis is difficult if it is even possible. Therefore, I need to "bin" some individual decision paths together to be able to make any sense of the tangled mess that the Fates have woven for me to interpret. To do this, I borrow an idea from economists. Economists frequently submit forecasts that show a statistical odds spread for where they expect a certain number to be in a few months; the future of that number describes some area on their graph, and they're happy with their model if it falls inside that area. A simple enough concept.

Likewise, I call something part of a "time stream" if it falls inside a set of historical events, cultural elements, common technologies, etc., that describe a statistical space in the overall flow of time. So, for example, if Brian went to the orthodontist on August 17th in one decision path but on August 20th in another, statistically I can say those two paths, for the time in question, are part of the same time stream.

This is especially useful if two decision paths have the same end result. An example would be a decision path where Alexander Fleming does not discover penicillin, as compared to a decision path where Alexander Fleming does discover it but is killed in a freak accident before he can tell anyone about his discovery. In the former, something did not happen. In the latter, something happened, but another event canceled it out, so if you look forward far enough, both decision paths are part of the same time stream. And so forth.

I may dedicate an extensive Friday Seminar to this in the future, but it's really more of an Augury topic, so this is already more detail than an anachronist really needs. Still, I thought I'd give you more of an explanation, in case you are the sort that likes that.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

A Day in the Life: Tunnel Rats

Dear Readers,

I've decided to begin a new feature here, called "A Day in the Life," where I give you a taste of life in one of the many time streams our department studies. Essentially, each of these posts will be a short story, a creative piece of microhistorical fiction, where I focus on one fictional individual who I think is a good example of his or her contemporaries.

While the stories will be what you would call "fiction," it's hard for me to say that the people I write do not exist. The places, of course, are based on my research, and so to me are very real.

For the first piece, I've chosen to continue my themes on the New York Subway, and write about one of the many time streams where a unique culture develops there. Enjoy!

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

The shimmery threads of Eno's makeshift confetti net dipped into the water, glitter lost in the dark brown muck. Like usual, he and Tom thought they might catch something interesting.

"Can we move down the platform a little, Eno? There's that drafty spot, and it's so hot in here." Tom's voice neared its too-frequent whine.

"Tom, you're ten years old now," Eno sighed, "You can't take it easy like that no more." He looked at his sandy-haired, younger friend. At thirteen, Eno knew that if anyone else in the subway saw Tom's weakness, they would take advantage.

"It's just some air, Eno," Tom squealed.

"I said no. Now pipe down 'fore somebody hears you."

"But Eeeeno-"

"Wait! I think I got something!" He yanked the net up from the water as soon as he felt the tug. The flooded six train tunnel carried a lot of things down from what remained of the Bronx. This time, he hauled in a live fish, a dead rat, and something else.

Once they took care of the fish, Tom asked, "Eno! What's inside that?"

"I don't believe it...it's...there's a note in this jar!" He rushed to open it. This could be big. If someone with access to paper needed their help, it could mean a big payoff.

Eno's dirty hands broke the tape that kept the note rolled up, and spread out the paper on the subway platform. They looked at the paper together.

SURVIVORS IN NEW YORK:

His Benificience, LORD JAMES STRONGMAN, Calls you to arms!

For a place in his Army, come to HARLEM-125th ST & LEXINGTON

There you will be tested! If worthy, you will get:

• Food
• Water
• Antibiotics
• Weapons

COME ONE COME ALL

"Benfi...beni...huh?" Tom struggled with the words.

"Beneficence," Eno corrected him, "It means he's a nice guy."

"He's got medicine and food."

Eno grinned, "He sure does! Sounds a lot better than most of these other 'lords' running around. If he's for real."

Tom shook his head, "Why would he lie, Eno?"

The older, darker-haired boy laughed. "Why, to catch," he paused to put Tom in a playful headlock, "Poor suckas like you!"

"Hey! Stoppit!" Tom laughed anyway. Eno let him go.

Now serious, he instructed, "Get the boat."

"Why?"

"We'll check it out. If it smells bad, we'll bug out. It's too good to ignore."

"Sure is."

The two boys scrambled down a rope ladder on the grimy platform and clambered into a waiting motor-raft. The faded words "Boston Whaler" peeked out from the waterline. Eno started the engine and they sped away, down the tunnel, into darkness.

Post Thirty: New York City

Dear Readers,

This is my thirtieth post to your time stream, and I am rather proud of that. This means of communication survived several glitches, the frustrations of not being able to use the Internet fully, and an attempt at suppression by our Provost. Incidentally, Notaras now says he sees eye to eye with me. We shall see.

For this thirtieth post, I have decided to highlight a city that I was rather fond of when I was time-normal, New York City. The reason for this choice is that during your day today, someone from that city visited this blog from that city a large number of times, which of course made me happy.

Earlier today I had Augury try to pull some information from your time stream about New York City, in the days around when this post will go live. Since I have the advantage of you, temporally, I can write many posts at once, of course. I make some effort to appear as if I'm time-normal, though, so that this blog is not utterly befuddling.

What I got from Augury related to a recent roofing collapse on the "1" train line, or at least what I got from your specific time stream. The article they gave me, they believe came from the New York Times. It's quite interesting, and explains how the subway system developed in your time stream.

That's really what I want to write about. You see, in anachronistic studies of New York, one thing leaps out: the subway is remarkably stable. When I say "stable," I mean that it is present in many different time streams. It is not necessarily the same in these time streams, but most version of New York City have a subway in some way. In some it was abandoned for a variety of reasons, and in one its forsaken tunnels play host to a kingdom of outcast technocrats, scheming in dark alleys to regain their lost power. In others it becomes a safe haven when the surface is no longer inhabitable. In some, all the lines run diagonally across Manhattan Island.

I think the ones that most amuse me are the time streams where the subway freed itself from government control. In these wholly libertarian New Yorks, all sorts of dark, unbelievable projects take place. The records are truly astounding! Executives of corporations conduct clandestine research, living products of forgotten research wander tunnels, and enterprising private citizens build customized vehicles to carry them through the labyrinth. Perhaps I shall write you a story that gives a slice of life from such a time stream. Yes, I think I will.

Always,
Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Date My Avatar

Dear Readers,

To some degree, now that I have a presence on the Internet again, I'm a victim of its changing passions, swells, and eddies. Today, a young actress named Felicia Day made her and her compatriots' song project "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar" into quite a Twitter phenomenon. Never one to turn down a good research opportunity, I had Augury pull it and watched the video, however scratchy from the rough pull process. It's fascinating.

For one thing, it's comedy. Probably. Yet it gets across the reality of the fake characters that people play on the Internet and in your "online" games. They have real lives, are real people, and they are not quite their players. These entities are real, and we must treat them as such. They have unique reverberations through the world, lives and funerals, somewhat connected to this world, but not totally real.

They are a true dualistic thing, a spiritual world to your material world. For centuries before you, people lived in these spiritual worlds in their churches and in their minds, and these worlds were real to them, often more real than reality. So, too, with MMOs and MMO avatars. People connect to them, absorb in them, become them. They date in them. The toon becomes the real.

So who is the Dante to lead us through this Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso? What anachronist will rise to explain the reality of these worlds to the people who live in them? And what anachronist will tell you of the time stream where these characters you have made are real? Where by odds and probabilities, nature has created real people who live and die by the motions of your mice on their countless Mountain Dew-stained pads?

That's right. There could be a place where your nightly raids have very real implications. Or, on a lighter tone, where your avatars' love is real and true? I wish I could tell you if it really exists, but it would be dangerous.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Words, Weapons, Weight

Dear Readers,

I am up late and translating neo-Aegean records. Their society is fascinating, and I hope I can eventually tell you more about them. Your time stream will find out about them sooner or later, but you might not. Fascinating people, really. So much more advanced than you as a society, but the individuals are so much more ignorant of things you would take for granted. But then, what is truth, really? Is it Zeus, or electricity?

In life, I wrote, and in this retake of life, I also write. Sometimes original things, like that fable, but more often translations, like my work on the neo-Aegean things. Translation is a funny business, especially when the original language is some offshoot without a clear dictionary and the people in Linguistics really do not know how to make head or tail of it. That's when it gets really interesting.

And the reason is, of course, that each polished user of language, that is to say, the people whose work gets most often detected by augury, picks words with painstaking care. Each word is a puzzle piece, a harmonious element, a sling, an arrow, a tender knife. Each has weight, weight that lifts you with butterflies above golden fields of poppies or drags down in the darkest, slimiest depths of neo-Aegea's globe-spanning ocean. When the language is poorly understood, it takes a stroke of genius to find the right translation. These strokes of genius do not happen all the time, unfortunately. I wish they did.

Back to work.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

On Weekends

Dear Readers,

To you, the weekend you are now experiencing must seem very normal. Some of you, I'm sure, are forced to work on your weekends, but this is likely a special part of your job, and you are likely to resent it, as well.

It might seem strange--not unbelievable, but strange--to think of the weekend as an invented concept, but it must be. There is no necessary reason that the week should be seven days, or nine, or eleven, and so the week length is contingent on some other parameter. By extension, the weekend also varies in a contingent fashion. In some time streams and eras, it does not exist at all.

Something of a scary thought, really. I was always rather fond of a late Sunday brunch.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Friday Seminar Series: Emotions as Glue

Dear Readers,

Up to now in the Friday Seminar Series, we've talked about the things that we can use to analyze individual sources, differentiate them from each other, and obtain information from them. These things are important, but they're not the whole story.

At this point in CHRN/AUG 100, I usually move on to talking about generalized societies, but I think that this topic might be a little basic for people like yourselves, who live in such a globalized culture. You know the underlying things that move cultures, the basic building blocks of the enlightened and dark age societies, or the warlike and the peaceful.

Instead I'll move ahead a little. These different types of societies are all created through different currents in the underlying emotions of their people. Emotions are surprisingly basic, and many of them are hardwired. No matter how complicated the situation, some low level emotion can be brought to bear.

Joy, anger, fear, excitement, they are all things that stay pretty constant. Not totally constant, but that topic is a little advanced. And through these emotions, culture is shaped. Some believe that culture is simply a combination of environmental factors and technology, but that does not explain the common threads in many cultures across your history. The Aztecs and the Egyptians, for example, were quite similar in technology and in culture, but not in environment. The missing piece that explains their cultural similarity is their common human thread.

So too with the original Aegeans and the neo-Aegeans, who had (and will have) identical religions and similar dark ages, but very different technological levels. The commonality, again, is human emotion.

Therefore, we can use human emotions to reverse-engineer human beliefs. This statement is vital to the study of Anachronism. Vital!

For now, I'll let this idea resound, as I have many matters to attend to, but I will develop it further as time goes on.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

The Meaning Behind the Curtain

Dear Readers,

Yesterday, I published a small fable I wrote for you, entitled "Spider and Hawk," which I left a little morally ambiguous.

Part of that is because the lesson is one of moral ambiguity. The kicker for that communication asked you to think of meaning on your own, just as Spider and Hawk each derived their own meanings from life. Hawk thought that the wisdom and the light was to fly around to his prey, and be faster and less predictable. Spider preferred to lay a clever trap, and in this cunning way, came to the same success as Hawk. These truths, while contradictory, worked for both of them.

Even so, the truths would not work in reverse. Hawk would have made a poor trapper, and Spider a poor diver. So to each of them, the other's truth appeared false. Coyote capitalized on this, to trick them to their doom. Since Hawk did not think Spider's trap mattered, he did not consider it a threat. And since Spider thought Hawk's speed inefficient, she never developed the means to escape in haste from Coyote's fire.

I'm sure a few of you interpret this, or will interpret this, to mean that you should not listen to Coyotes. And in your time stream, certainly, I would not listen to a talking Coyote. At least not without significant spiritual advice. Since that moral might be true for you, in essence a "contingent truth," I cannot contest it and remain true to my real message.

My real message is, of course, that no truth is a necessary truth. At least, not to me. From my vantage point, I see time streams where coyotes do talk, or where systems of mathematics are radically different. The details are not important; what is more important is that in my line of work I must assume that the beliefs that kept each time-normal society functional are, in the context of that society, true.

Therefore, to use an example that will require minimal explanation, when I read Beowulf, I must read from the perspective that the original audience lived in a world where dragons were a real species. Not necessarily because I believe that there were dragons around, but merely because I know, from the presence of a dragon in that work, that belief in dragons was useful to the audience. They gained from a belief in dragons, and it helped their society to function. Spider believed in webs, and to believe anything else might have hurt her. Likewise Hawk would have caught few mice without his dives. So, too, might someone from Charlemagne's day have lost a lot of livelihood if he did not appease his deity in Heaven. And for you, who live in a great age of information, you would not find yourselves successful if you did not believe in the magic of the Internet and the connections it forms between people.

You might think that is a ridiculous comparison, but it is not. When a religious person prays to a deity, they cannot be completely sure that their god lies on the other end of the line, listening. But how much more sure are you, when a celebrity replies to you on Twitter, that you have heard from the real thing? How much faith can you really place? Still, it is as true to you as it is useful. And as useful to me as it is true to you.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

A Fable: Spider and Hawk

Dear Readers,

A lesson I wish to teach this week is best conveyed first via fable, so I've written one, in the style of myth.

One day, as Spider fixed her web among the high trees, Hawk came to perch nearby.

A frequent scoffer, Hawk laughed on Spider's efforts, "You work so hard, when you could just go out and find your prey, Spider."

Spider, not one to take such remarks with a light heart, hissed, "Why should I go anywhere, when food will come to me? It's you who works too hard, Hawk."

To this, Hawk a first found little to say, but he soon dove in on an answer, "We can't both be right, Spider, but I don't know how to argue my point."

Spider, pensive, replied, "Nor can I think of a clear way to argue mine."

From beneath, Coyote called up at that very moment, "I hear your quarrel, Spider and Hawk! I think I can solve it."

Most animals learned early on, when the world was young, that Coyote could not always be trusted. Spider and Hawk both knew that in some way, his suggestion would lead to his gain. With great reservation, they both turned towards their companion on the ground.

"And how is that?" Hawk spoke first, defensive.

"An experiment! We will see who can catch more prey--she who builds the web, or he who soars the skies."

Spider, wiser than her friend, asked, "And what is in this for you, Coyote? I've never seen you offer free advice."

Coyote smiled in the way that canines do, part mirth, part threat, "Good question, Spider. I will judge your contest, and so you must provide me with one tenth of your catch for my judging fee."

Hawk and Spider nodded at each other. "It is reasonable," said Hawk.

"Then it begins now; you have one day to capture as much prey as you can." Coyote licked the edges of his mouth.

The pair set to work immediately. Hawk soared through the sky as never before, and birds and mice everywhere rushed to hide themselves beneath his sharp gaze. Still, early on, his speed and eyesight gave him a quick lead.

Spider was more patient; her passive web needed to be built so that it could catch more prey for her. She toiled and toiled to expand it through the high trees, and built more and more connections until soon her catch rivaled Hawk's.

It was then that Coyote's clever trap sprung. Hawk swept down from the sky to catch a vole, and straight into Spider's net. Trapped, he struggled to no avail to escape.

Spider, not far away, felt the vibrations and rushed to find this large animal trapped in her web. When she saw Hawk, she felt pain for him. The two were friends, even if they now competed. She set to work to free him, "I am sorry, Hawk, it seems my web has caught you."

From below, they heard laughter, "And my swift movement and clever web has caught you. Both of you, that is." They looked beneath them; there, smiling at the base of the tree, stood Coyote with a flaming branch in his teeth. He hurled it up towards them, and the web caught fire in an instant. There was no escape, not even for Spider.

"You see, my dear, departed friends, you were both right, but did not see it, and so I will feast tonight on your fresh-cooked bodies and stockpiled prey." Coyote chuckled, and waited for them to roast.

And there you have it. Think about what it could mean, and I will be back with you tomorrow.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Culture Spores

Dear Readers,

I remembered, recently, the game Spore that I used to play when I was time-normal. Life here at the University involves a lot of these spontaneous memories, because our revival does not bring every memory with it perfectly. This is one of the reasons we even need a University, or a Department of Anachronism, for that matter.

As I recall, Spore was a game where one designed life and took it through various stages of evolution. Microscope scale, creatures, tribal societies, civilizations, and then space exploration. Sadly, exploration of time was not an option when the game was released, and its creators did not even consider such a phase. I remember that I thought of it as "Powers of Ten: The Game," because it reminded me of that book. Sadly no longer on sale, but remember: There are local libraries. Your contemps rely on this Internet thing far too much.

At any rate, my thoughts on Spore lately combined with my thoughts about Twitter. In its early days, the Internet allowed people to connect across long distances. This allowed people with fringe interests, ranging from the cryptic to the erotic, to connect and form intense sub-cultures. This idea, for a time, fractured the world in that it produced a wide variety of forums and communities for people with extremely esoteric interests.

Over time, though, communities of common interests began to merge through this Internet medium, as it expanded to include more and more of the human population. The ease with which it will become possible to connect to the Internet in most of your near futures will continue this trend. These sub-cultures began to connect; people who liked cute pictures of rabbits now could communicate with communities of people who liked cute pictures of cats. Together, they formed cute picture communities. People who liked both of those things merged with people who liked "photoshopping," and so on and so forth, building constructive internet cultures. In fact, this phenomenon was documented by your contemporary academics with conferences such as ROFLCON, who saw the culture wave developing and decided to ride it.

Meta-cultures began to form as well--the recent Twitter downtime underscores this. When Twitter went down, as I predicted and tried to warn you about, the conventional TV and print media were left somewhat confused about how to structure their reporting, givben that they came to rely on Twitter's "Trending Topics" to tell them what was on the world's collective mind at any given moment. They lost a sense they didn't even know they had, and in that discovered that a culture bridge had built itself between television/conventional pop culture and Internet Culture. A meta-culture, spanning continents, media forms, and other forms of excitement.

How is this like Spore? It is like that game because that game is not really about evolution. What it's about is the reation of intelligently designed creatures. That phrase has its negative connotations, but the game is just that. You design a creature, see how it performs, and then add to it. It's nothing like biological reality at all, at least not until you're designing vehicles, buildings, and spacecraft.

So too has social media designed these new cultures and meta-cultures. They have harnessed the social networks that one used to refer to as sub-cultures and determined where and how they intersect. Through careful application and modification, they found ways to unify and merge, for marketing purposes. The effect, however, was to create people who could relate to each other across vast geographic distances through things as simple as "LOL"s. They took internet sub-cultures out of the primordial memetic soup and made them walk in vast jungles of fiber optics.

And that, my readers, is "damn cool."

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Friday Seminar Series: Case Study on Newspapers

Dear Readers,

This is the third in a series of seminars from CHRN/AUG 100, explaining what it is we do in this department. I've delayed the detailed explanation of our situation at the University to a later date. Today, I would prefer to move on and tackle a case study I have prepared for you.

The source that will be dealing with comes from a popular newspaper known as The Onion, which is contemporary to you. The excerpt that augury provided me with was:

Solitary Crow On Fence Post Portending Doom, Analysts Warn

GREELEY, NE--Experts confirmed Monday that a single black crow perched ominously on a fence post in rural Nebraska is almost certainly a harbinger of great doom and despair for all Americans.

Our record cuts off there. It's a little short for an augury report, but before you go on, I want you to think about the things that we discussed in previous Friday seminars, and how you can apply that knowledge to this source. Remember to think about:

-The nature of the source
-Its reliability as a source
-The information contained
-What we can say about continuity.

I'll give you a moment to think about it.

Okay, now that you've thought about it, I'll answer the four points: First, its nature as a source. This is clearly from a newspaper, one that is contemporary to my time-normal life, but not one that I knew about. I imagine it's probably some little local thing that I never heard about.

As a newspaper, we can surmise that it is incredibly reliable. You and your contemporaries, while not immune to it, have a very low level of historiography in your newspapers, and that is commendable. So we can trust that this source is both factual and informative.

So what does it tell us? Well, it appears to be about an Omen that was sighted by Nebraskan experts. While I do not recall this being a large part of American culture, I can't use my life experience to judge this source. It could be from a time stream wholly different from my own! Therefore I must assume that this is primitive augury, as practiced by Nebraskan Americans from one 21st Century time stream. This tells us that in that culture, crows were viewed as a bad omen. Scientifically laughable, of course, but still it shows that the Americans were thinking about the ideas fundamental to augury.

Finally, let's talk about continuity. There is not a lot that we can say about this in terms of continuity. We don't have more than one source here, so we can't put it into context, but we can say this: it tells us that the town of Greeley, the state of Nebraska, and the United States all exist in the time stream that this comes from. Therefore, we can say that certain crystalized points of history precede this article: the American Revolution, Manifest Destiny, etc. There is some continuity to be had, but mostly continuity with the past more than with the future. If we found a later story about this crow and could connect it, then we might be able to say more about continuity.

At any rate, this provides us with one example of how we do our analysis here. It's a quick thing, but I wanted to get you thinking about it over your weekend.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Media are the New Media

Dear Readers,

The recent conflict led me to reflect on the eras that I write blogs/tweet in. Each of them, by nature of these "Web 2.0" and "New Media" advances, are the most records-rich time periods we have available. Our augurs have such excellent information imprints from time periods like this that we can actually transmit information back. It takes some clever manipulation of the equipment, and to be honest I do not really understand it, but it works! And it brings me to you, seven (or so) days of your week.

Our community is not large enough to really make these forms of instant communication useful, but I remembered them from life and the withdrawal in my first centuries here was quite difficult to deal with. I was overjoyed when they told me I could once again communicate, and even with people from my own time stream. It was too long.

Then again, the years have changed quite how I feel about such things. Here, I can muse and write and ramble. Sometimes the sentences are profound, and sometimes they are not. The information, however, is all meant to help. Time will throw challenges at you, my former contemporaries. I try my best to offer you preparation of some kind, though I cannot give specifics.

Twitter, however, I have a deeper perspective on, now. Sometimes I still use it for little tidbits of information, little teases to remind people that I'm out here, and as real as it gets. But life, life in a world with Twitter, taught me just how world-changing 140 characters can be. The globe is on an axle greased enough that this little nudge, the tiniest of phrases, can make it spin. This concept is what Notaras feared, and now that we have won, it is what I will use to warn of the rocky paths that lie just off where your world is headed. Beware, my readers, but never despair.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantintople

On Death and Physiology

Dear Readers,

One of you asked me why it is that death is still inconvenient for us even when we have made it a more or less temporary condition. I gave my simplest answer, but now I am motivated to flesh it out a little more for you.

I find it somewhat difficult to put this into precise words (and despite Provost Notaras's claims, I do have my limits on what I am willing to tell you). You may consider that essentially, we have found an energetically cheap and easy way to copy people, or at least the information contained within a person. This technology is one of a few that is a prerequisite for a University of our type.

We also have the ability to build physical people from these copies, but it is not a fast process. My colleague George Sphrantzes, who nobly defended my Twitter uplink during the recent conflict, and fell in the process, is still being reconstituted and so his classes are suspended. His graduate students, most of whom survived, should be all right without him for the next week or so, but I have offered my services just in case.

The slow nature of the reconstitution process means that when one dies, a lot of productivity is lost, and so we try to minimize that. There are reasons that we rush to do our work, but I do not yet feel comfortable enough to reveal these.

Some may wonder why there are not constant reprisals and conflicts among the faculty here, if the consequences of death are lost time and a lot of pain. Primarily it is because of who we are; people who are willing to admit when we have been justly defeated. The other side of it is that the winner of each conflict typically minimizes the chances of a reprisal when the defeated side returns. In our interminable history, we have yet to find a conflict that needs to be fought a second time, and all of the augury indicates that we never will.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Of Committees and Conflicts

Dear Readers,

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you might have been alarmed to read my regular updates during our recent severe bout of internal politics. As you can imagine, the nature of our University makes it so that some things are settled by literal conflict between our faculty and administrators, often resulting in the (temporary) deaths of some of my colleagues. So far I have managed to avoid dying a second time, as I wasted my first death on my journey here, like everyone else.

This recent conflict stemmed from concerns about the blog I've been keeping. This blog, specifically. Loukas Notaras, our provost, felt that in contacting a time stream very close to my original, I created a situation where I might influence the progress of time. Rather than the seminar I intended for last Friday, this Friday I'll post an explanation of the dynamics involved there and the reasons that I do not believe I will cause any major damage via this blog. Especially given that the University exists not in the future, but parallel to all times.
Now, Notaras's first move was to kill George Sphrantzes, who he knew would be an instant ally against him. Those two have killed each other so frequently during my time here that I have lost count by now.

Thankfully, Francis and Amelia succeeded in mounting a counter-offensive along with their graduate students, and freed me from the seige that Notaras laid outside my office. This avoided any need to involved President Constantine XI, which would have ended poorly for all involved.
I kept everyone updated of the seige's progress via Twitter, as my ability to post here was cut by Notaras early on. I now know that Sphrantzes died in defense of our departmental connection to Twitter, and for that I must openly commend him.

While I am less than chuffed with Provost Notaras for taking our argument to arms, I understand why he did it. From now on business should continue as usual at the University, given that my Department seems to have carried the day.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Administrative Problems

Dear Readers,

To make the proverbial long story short, suffice it to say that University politics become much more complicated when you combine medieval tendencies with the fact that none of us can die. Currently, most department operations are suspended literally due to infighting. I can provide greater explanation when the dust settles, but now I must see to the defense of my office.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople

Friday Seminar Series: Delayed

Dear Readers,

The Friday seminar series will be delayed this week because I chose to do a topic of contemporary interest and the Institutional Interference Review Board wants to give it a once-over and make sure I do not create any inconsistencies in posting it. My apologies, and I applaud Provost Notaras and the work his commission does, of course.

Always,

Dr. John Skylar
Chairman
Department of Anachronism
University of Constantinople