Percy and Red: a Dialogue
Percy: Room 5 prepares us for the transition into three-dimensional Abstract Space. A big warning. Abstract linearity has two main components: writing and time. It's easy to forget the power of the latter, and very difficult to break it. Because we are conditioned to think of the past as behind us and the future ahead.
Red: Well, that's understandable.
Percy: I know. Just keep this in mind, because to break the cognitive distortion of linear time we will jump to various points in the 4D fabric of Abstract Space. And the primary tool for this plotting is the Navigational Quadrant...let's head on in and meet it.
Red: Huh...this opening appears larger...
Percy: The Navigational Quadrant is based on the old maritime instrument that triangulates bearings off celestial bodies. I've updated it for Abstract Space, where the bodies we triangulate off are Concepts/Object pairs. Take a look up on the Big Screen. See anything familiar?
Red: So...I see the Propaganda Portal up top. And I suppose the anchor represents the paired Object -- the territory of the trade infrastructure.
Percy and Red: a Dialogue
Percy: Room 5 prepares us for the transition into three-dimensional Abstract Space. A big warning. Abstract linearity has two main components: writing and time. It's easy to forget the power of the latter, and very difficult to break it. Because we are conditioned to think of the past as behind us and the future ahead.
Red: Well, that's understandable.
Percy: I know. Just keep this in mind, because to break the cognitive distortion of linear time we will jump to various points in the 4D fabric of Abstract Space. And the primary tool for this plotting is the Navigational Quadrant...let's head on in and meet it.
Red: Huh...this opening appears larger...
Percy: The Navigational Quadrant is based on the old maritime instrument that triangulates bearings off celestial bodies. I've updated it for Abstract Space, where the bodies we triangulate off are Concepts/Object pairs. Take a look up on the Big Screen. See anything familiar?
Red: So...I see the Propaganda Portal up top. And I suppose the anchor represents the paired Object -- the territory of the trade infrastructure.
Navigation Ellipse
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The Armageddon Torus Rm 3 - 3S
THE END OF DAYS
Navigation Ellipse
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Percy and Red: a Dialogue
Percy: Let's hop in the GT-Mandelbrot and do some 75-year perimeter mapping of the Roman Empire after its conquests of the Jezreel Valley's Trade Circuit. I've set the start date at 30 BC, which means our snapshot goes to 45 AD.
Red: Straight into the Jesus period. But can't we first shine a light back, and see the events that led to Rome's takeover of the eastern Med?
Percy: We could. And you would see a lot of familiar names. Like that great propaganda figure Julius Caesar. But for now, with the GTM at least, I prefer backing into events. Keeps us firmly in the "present" reality of the past. The TimeFrame Disc template is on your tablet. Clock is ticking...
...thirty minutes later....
Red: O.K. I didn't need an hour. Here it is on the Tablet. There weren't any major imperial events in the time period. Other than a brief Roman-Persian war over their joint custody of Armenia in 36 AD. I decided to include it in the Asian Gateway category.
Percy: Why?
Red: Well, Persia controls the overland gateway via Mesopotamia. And although Armenia is north of that, it appears to also be astride land routes east.
Percy: Makes sense to me.
Red: But what's remarkable is that there we no other major conflicts in this period. Apparently what they call Pax Romana lasted until 180.
Percy: Yeah. Well let's see what happens in the next 75-year period, from 46 to 121. Go for it.
...one hour later....
Red: So, well, not very peaceful at all in this period. Here is the new Disc on the Tablet. There was another Roman-Persian war over Armenia in 58-63. Then things get ugly in our Ground Truth Anchor and its environs. A Jewish rebellion from 66-70 that includes a key campaign in and around the Jezreel Valley and, then, the infamous destruction of the Second Temple and Jerusalem.
Percy: Did you note the main source for that war?
Red: I sure did. The Jewish general in the Galilee, Josephus. He switched sides, and advised the Romans during the siege of Jerusalem. The Jews fought among themselves as much as against the Romans, it seems.
Percy: Yeah, the interweaving of civil wars with imperial ambitions is certainly a pattern from the ancient world. Apparently the Book of Revelation was written less than a generation after this devastating war.
Red: Which is why we dipped into Abstract Space from Screen D?
Percy: Yeah. We should know a little context about our propaganda frame.
Red: You mean the one that frames Evangelical propaganda today?
Percy: Indeed. But according to your Disc it looks like a more extensive conflict came less than fifty years later...
Red: Uh-huh. But the pattern remains. A Roman-Persian war over Armenia and Jewish rebellions. This time Rome grabbed all of Mesopotamia. But then Jews revolted around the trade circuit. In Egypt. In Cyprus. In Mesopotamia. And in Judea. Looks like a real threat to imperial rile. But they were defeated. And Rome returned to what appears to be a natural frontier -- the Euphrates.
Percy: You know what this looks like to me?
Red: The Jews were tough and rebellious. They didn't like imperial overlords.
Percy: More or less. Though like all vassals, some of their elite preferred to collaborate with the imperial overlords. And this dynamic was intensified in this period, in part because they lived in between Rome's most prized possession in the east, Egypt, and the front lines with its biggest rival -- Persia.
Red: Tough neighborhood. I sense lots of propaganda swirling around these events. Never mind that Revelation and the rest of the Bible was written in this period. Do we have anything to work with?
Percy: Did you see any contemporary sources?
Red: Just Josephus, who wrote his accounts several years later.
Percy: Can't form a Concept/Object dialectic here either. Let's get that conical view of your Discs on the Tablet, then return to Screen D.
Red: So weird seeing myself on a Screen within Abstract Space...
Percy: I know.
Red: So what happens with later mapping from Screen D?
Percy: We just pick up where we left off. But I suspect we will be returning to this sector of Abstract Space via a different pathway. Now we are going to fast forward to Screen F, in Room 5, to see what happens in the Jezreel Valley almost a thousand years later. It's time to meet the final tool in our mapping toolbox.
