Percy:  Alright.  Time to prepare for our mapping journey in the GT-Braudel, our Tessera Taxi.   Think of it as a stripped down, nimble version of the GT-Mandelbrot. 

Red:  I'm gonna sit down in it, if you don't mind.  That last session was a little, um, taxing. 

Percy:  Go for it.  

Red: I notice some items missing from this pedalo.  And who is this Braudel?

Percy:  Fernand Braudel.  The great systems historian.  As I was gathering information for my book, I kept running across his name in journal articles.   Then I read his classic The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II.  It was a revelation.  Like putting on a comfortable, worn-in pair of blue jeans instead of the straight-jacket prose of conventional historiography.  His writing, in short, meshed with my patterns of perception and cognition.  He wrote in layers, starting with the geology of the Mediterranean, up through geography, climate and then how humans adapted to the landscape within the framework of commodity trade.   One blurb on the book cover described his writing as pointillism, a layered painting of dots that create a coherent whole. 

Red:  And we are plotting dots in Abstract Space.

Percy:  Exactly.  I hope, with this experiment, that we can initiate a pointillist collaboration that reveals the detailed patterns of Abstract Space within a state Dome.  And the Tessera is our tool. 

Red:  So what's the difference between the GTB and GTM?  I see there's no anchor or PR Reel.

Percy:  Correct.  The Tessera handles both, as you will see.  But they key difference is that we only look at 25-year snapshots.  And can move back and forth.  We don't need to keep our backs to the Screen.  Again, best understood in action.  Put your Tablet in the dash.  It contains the Propaganda Matrix & Depth-of-Field, which the GTB will integrate into three-dimensions.  Now turn off the lights and turn on the pedalo's beam, which is another difference.  A wireframe cube instead of a cone.  And there it is, the first level of the Tessera.

Red:  So you are integrating the Matrix with the Depth-of-Field one layer at a time.

Percy:  Yep.  We want to see what Frame components intersect with previous changes, which will light up the network spinning between propaganda and trade within the Dome of the Holy Roman Empire.  Here we see that the Establishing Spectacle, Target and Goal all match.  Namely, the actions and holdings of the Seljuk Turks.  Now level two of the Tessera.

Red:  Alright.  I get this.  In the previous change in Catholic law related to the Crusade we also have three connections.  Instigator, Setting and Means.  

Percy:  Pretty easy.  Now level three of the Tessera.

Red:   Pretty obvious.  The connections in the governing layer.

Percy:  Yeah.  But those changes in government can link to events in surprising ways once we have a fuller picture.  Finally, we have level four -- connections to previous propaganda campaigns -- and the full Tessera.  A 3D perspective behind the Screen based on dialectical deconstruction that doesn't use sentence grammar for meaning.  

Red:  Visually impressive.  What next?

Percy:  Now we gather up the key actors connected to the Tessera, and see how they link to the trade lanes and  First, our cast of characters.  Which is on your Tablet.

Red: That's a lot of names.  What do we do with them?

Percy:  Put them in geographical context.   Check out these two maps on your Tablet.  The upper one is a simple one of trade routes circa 1028.   Consider them as you look at the geographical dispersion of the actors in the lower map. 

Red: Elites in the west launched the Crusade.  And from the trade perspective, well, they wanted in on the game?  You've also introduced something new here -- the mine, way up in Saxony. 

Percy:  Yep.  The Crusader coalition controlled the seas to the west of Italy and south of France.  And as the 1028 map shows, there are two routes from Saxony to the Mediterranean: around the east or west of the Alps.  One was active: over the Brenner Pass down to Venice, which monopolized the maritime routes to the east and traded with both Constantinople and Cairo. 

Red: So, who controlled the mine?

Percy:  That mine was controlled by the Holy Roman Empire of Henry IV.  In fact, his dynasty built their imperial capital overlooking the mine, called Rammelsberg.  The most prolific source of silver in western Europe since the fall of Rome seven hundred years earlier.   It had been pumping out the "white gold" for over fifty years when a Saxon uprising closed the mines.  This coincided with that battle over control of the Vatican, called the Investiture Controversy, that created the Pope/Anti-Pope dichotomy.   And bracketing this period was the seizure of Byzantine southern Italy by the Normans, Viking settlers from northern France who a few years later went after its capital Constantinople. 

Red: Complex and messy.  Yet again.

Percy:  Yep.  But the bigger picture reveals some clear fundamentals.  Saxon silver reconnects the region with the international trading system centered on the Eastern Mediterranean, prompting a swirl of activity -- both economic and military. 

Red: It sure looks like the Crusader Coalition wants in on the game.  And they deploy Biblical propaganda alongside the standard sticks and carrots.  So what next?

Percy:  This period, I believe, is the crucible of the system we still live in today.   So as we monitor today's Great Game, we will return to this period and continue mapping with the Tessera.   The other two platforms I intend to explore are signposted by the 1517 and 1918 transitions.  We should head back into Room 5 and jump to the first of those transitions.  But I think it's finally time to discuss my agenda.  See Sidebar:  Percy's Proposition to Red.

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