Red:  So what's with GTB-1 back by the garage door?  Broken Quadrant?  Inside for maintenance? 
Percy:  The GT-Braudel...that's for mapping inside the Dome.  We've already established that this period lacks a viable Propaganda Portal, so no need for it now

Red:  Who is Braudel?

Percy:  A French historian.  And I am a huge fanboy of his work.  We will meet him soon enough.  But in perimeter mapping we use the GTM, our long-distance cruiser.  It has everything you need to plot a navigational course through energy fields of Abstract Space.  Go ahead and place your Tablet on the dash.

Red:  Is this the ignition key?

Percy:  Kinda.  The GTM spec sheet is the next graphic on your Tablet.  Let's start with the components.   All familiar, but please ask for clarifications.  As you can see, this is a pedalo placed on a Plotter's Wheel.  We will pedal it backwards -- meaning our perspective is of events in the past as we navigate along the entropy of empire to future Screens.  

Red:  Can't turn around.  No rear view mirror?  Or, I guess, rear-rear view mirror?

Percy:   Your perspective must be the same as the people who live under the propaganda systems we are plotting...you cannot know about future events.  Obviously everyone looks ahead in the present, but to keep us honest we will only look behind and see events as they appear from under the pedalo.

Red:  Alright.  Pedal me through the rest...

Percy:  Let's go clockwise from noon.  The Propaganda North Star is the ever-present celestial concept in Abstract Space's night sky.  Ours, of course, is the Bible.   The Navigational Quadrant connects the pedalo to the Wheel's base.  The Backward Lamp shines a conical light into the void.  The Photoreceptor (PR) Reel registers the coordinates we plot.  Think of it as our retina for visualizing Abstract Space.

Red:  Where you expect to find your recursive formula?

Percy:  Where someone will find it.  Doubt it will be me; I am ignorant of advanced mathematics...moving along.  The Trade Node Center of Gravity is the dialectic's infrastructure object.  Ours is the Jezreel Valley.  The Ground Truth Anchor is exactly that: it actually sits under the pedalo at the base of the Quadrant.  But because we are through the Looking Glass, its function is inverted:  we drop the anchor to begin the journey.  The Pedalo Steering is the pedals, which rotate the Wheel clockwise (the right seat) or counterclockwise (the left seat) if we need a better perspective of other nodes in the circuit.   The Entropy Sail is the Wheel, which captures the energy bursting off the Trade Circuit.  The Quiver of Quadrants contains spare Quadrants that we plant in viable points for a dialectical inquiry.   This will make much more sense once we take off... 

Red:  Yeah...I hope so...how about those other specs?  YPH?

Percy:  The GTM's engine is the Ground Truth Dialectic.  It has five gears -- which represent the nodes in the Trade Circuit we are plotting.  The Illumination is conical.  This differentiates from the lamp on the GT-Braudel -- a wireframe cube.  The power is the Entropy of State or Empire.   The Entropy Sail captures energy as the state or empire's legal structure cycles from low to high entropy.

Red:  And that must somehow link to your time speed of 75 YPH.  Let me guess.  Years-per-hour?

Percy:  Well done.  See Sidebar:  The 75 YPH Speed Limit

Red:  So...that's it? 

Percy:  Let's go.  The voyage begins by dropping the anchor on the trade node...next turn off the room's lights and turn on our Backward Lamp so we can only see the events we are leaving behind. 

Red:  What's that line of lights receding into the dark?

Percy:  I want to show you the Jezreel Valley's pre-alphabetic empire coordinates based on the Bible and archaeological confirmation...

Red:  That's visually impressive.  Looks like a landing strip for an airplane...

Percy:  Yep.  But reversed.  We are departing from the landing strip.

Red:  So those are wars described in the Old Testament?  One a century it seems...

Percy:  Note how the two combatants bracket the Quadrant.  This structure will come into play when we deploy the GTB pedalo inside state domes.  Now let's prepare to launch.  Attach the PR Reel to the spindle and plant the Ground Truth Anchor squarely on Har Megiddo...and let's ride the entropic cycle of the Persian Empire from its creation to destruction.

Red:  Whoaaaaa...nice.  Love this 30,000 foot view. 

Percy:  Now we plot coordinates in 75-year snapshots with the next tool, the TimeFrame Disc.  I've set up the basic Disc template for marking coordinates on your Tablet.  The inner circles divide it into 25-year periods.  That's the Jezreel Valley at the center.  We shine event cones from it into the other four nodes on the Plotter's Wheel. 

Red:  I get that.  But I don't get the center of the disc, kinda like the center of a dart board. 

Percy:  Those rings also represent the same 25-year time markers.  

Red:  Huh?  How can you have the same time rings inside each other....?

Percy:  It will make more sense when we stretch everything into 3D.  But for now just do the plotting.  You have an hour to search Wikipedia for wars and other objective events...

...one hour later....

Red:  Alright.  Here's what I have inputted on the Tablet...

Percy:  Notice any patterns?  See Sidebar: TimeFrame Screen B-1

Red:  Well, that was an interesting spin of the Wheel...I get what you mean about being vigilant. 

Percy:  Now lets rotate the TimeFrame Disc for this 3D conical perspective on your Tablet.

Red:  Hey.  That's a live view of us in the pedalo...

Percy:  Yep.  Amazing what you can do in 3-Space.  This perspective is the TimeFrame Cone.  Imagine we are in a hypercone moving through 4D spacetime, like the Tesseract's cube within a cube.  Actually, we are in cone within cone within a cone.  

Red:  Wouldn't that be a hyper-hyper cone?

Percy:  Dunno.  Maybe a hyper-cone recursion...for we created the Jezreel Past Event Cone from today's HyperScreen of the Present.  And then extracted a Future Event Cone from inside it.  Now we are creating smaller Past Event Cones -- 75-years or so -- and surveying them with the GTM.  And you can see how the inner green and red "target" rings for the anchor form the core of the cone.   The trade circuit rotates around them.  Ideally, the coordinates you plotted would scatter across the interior of the cone, but I lack the software for that type of graphic.  One key thing about this cone: you can switch out the current anchor for any other circuit node, and plot coordinates.   This will be very useful when we drop inside the state domes.

Red:  I suppose you visualize this in your Mind?  Because I can't.

Percy:  Yep.  We are visualizing my cognitive processes in HyperFlow.  But this conical visualization highlights the limitations of a 2D Screen -- combined with my rudimentary design skills.  So what we are plotting is a blueprint awaiting a stellar digital designer who can turn our coordinates into an immersive three-dimensional space with GIS mapping baselayers...Bottom line, you will become very familiar with these 75-year TimeFrame Cones.  For they create the contour lines in the topological map of Abstract Space we are creating above topographical reality.  Now let's do the next 75-year snapshot.  The template is on the tablet. 

...one hour later....

Red:  Alright.  Here's my coordinates on the Tablet.  It was a little difficult separating events in mainland Greece from the framework we established.  Because the key events surround the wars between Athens and Sparta.  As you can see, I included one of those under Western Mines, the Battle of Amphipolis -- which contained silver mines. 

Percy:  That's very appropriate.  It's apparent that the Western Mines now bracket both sides of the Aegean and that the Persians no longer control the sea lanes.   We can't include Athens in this trade circuit, because it is outside the Persian Empire.  But we should note the changes because they directly impact it.  

Red:  You see how everything appears to shift in 404 BC?  A local rebellion expels the Persians from Egypt the same year that Athens surrenders to Persia-backed Sparta to end the Peloponnesian Wars.  Then Cyprus revolts against Persia, with Athenian and Egyptian support.  Persia then intercedes in another war between Sparta and Athens, which ends with a peace treaty that re-establishes its control over Cyprus and Ionia -- in other words, the Sea Lanes.  What a confusing mess...

Percy:  Yep.  Something happened across the trade circuit then.  And we do see patterns.   One is that Persia's ability to control the nodes of the Western Metals Trade Circuit starts to crumble after 75 years.  Is one reason that the most prolific silver mines are beyond its reach?  It's also worth noting that we have perhaps the oldest recording of events by an eyewitness, the Athenian General Thucydides. 
Red:  What does the loss of Egypt mean for Persia?

Percy:  At minimum, I would think loss of revenue and food and an increase in the cost of writing.  It would be worth investigating the papyrus trade from this period...but all in good time.  Now let's turn your TimeFrame Disc into a Cone...you can see it on the Tablet.

Red:  So this is what you mean by four-dimensional hyper-cones?

Percy:  I think so...shall we do the third TimeFrame?  This one is shorter, from 375 to 332, truncated by the year the Jezreel Valley changed imperial control.   The template is on the Tablet.  Happy plotting.

       ...one hour later....

Red:  Wow.  Check out this Disc on the Tablet.  Things getting very confusing, and messy.   Uprisings everywhere.  Greeks fighting for and against everyone.  But what caught my eye was the rise of Macedonia, and its seizure of those mines in Thrace -- Amphipolis -- after subduing Athens.   Also, the repeated attempts by Persia to regain control of Egypt -- which they finally did in 344.  And then Alexander the Great comes storming out of Macedonia and takes the entire Trade Circuit in a couple years!

Percy:  Yep.  That Trade Circuit clearly was up for grabs.  Now...one last conical view on the Tablet. 

Red:  O.K.  I am getting the hang of this.  

Percy:   Great. Let's get ready to dock at the backside of Screen C and pop through it into the semi-cone room on the other side.

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