There were Earthquakes 2013-05-13

[Julie]

So, the disappearance of the Anasazi was Brandi's fault? The Kikai caldera lies along the geological discontinuity known as Brandi's Fault?

Ignoring the pun for the moment, think about it... The Kikai Caldera is in Japan. The last noted Eruption was on the order of 6300 or so years ago. How on earth could the Kikai Caldera V.E.I. 7 eruption cause the demise of the Anasazi? One would think the cause would be a lot more local. Also, closer in time geologically. The Anasazi existed between 100 AD and 1300 AD... The demise of the Anasazi is thought to be caused by a drought which caused them to abandon their settlements though some evidence points to a massive breakdown in the social order (i.e. cannibalism and mass graves). Does anyone have any evidence of volcanic and earthquake activity in the southwestern US around 1300 AD?

Dave... *sighs* If it wasn't Brandi's Fault, it is now... the... name... the name of the fault... is now Brandi's fault... LOL

EDIT:

After doing a bit of research, there is a commonly reported idea that there were 4 massive volcanic eruptions in the 1275 to 1300 time frame. I've only been able to find the names of three of them.

Quilotoa, Ecuador (VEI 6 in 1280)
Katla, Iceland (VEI 4 in 1262)
Hekla, Iceland (VEI 4 in 1300)

The next known large VEI event was Mount Pinatubo in the phillipines in 1450 plus or minus 50 years, rated at a VEI 5 event.

Between the 1450 eruption of Pinatubo and 1482, there might have been four VEI 5+ eruptions – Mount Pinatubo, Mount Sakurajima, Japan (1471), Mount Bardarbunga, Iceland (VEI 6 in 1477) and two VEI 5 from Mount St. Helens in 1480 and 1482.

Of all these, Quilotoa in 1280 and the two St. Helens events in 1480 and 1482 have the possibility of being close enough to them to be known to the Anasazi.

That being said, what is he possibility that the Quilotoa eruption caused the demise of the Anasazi? The other eruptions are too long after the Anasazi are supposed to have disapeared.

How did the Anasazi entering the data learn of these volcanic and earthquake events?

Questions Abound!

If the entry Kat is reading is from 6367 years ago, I think it's safe to say that the Anasazi weren't the ones who built this crystal library or made the last entries...because they weren't the Anasazi yet. We already know that the Anasazi were decendants of the Lanthians, but we don't necessarily know all of the places the Lanthians who survived the Chimera may have gone prior to settling and becoming the Anasazi. It's possible that some of them were in Japan when Kikai went off. Additionally, with the ability to use "stargates" to travel, it wouldn't matter if Kikai was a Japanese volcanic event. They could travel with ease to whatever new location they chose...though it does make you wonder why the last entry is dated so long ago when the Anasazi were fully capable of using the stargates and should have been able to get into the library to make additional entries into the records. I wonder what the civilazation who built this crystal library called themselves (since they probably weren't calling themselves Lanthians or Anasazi at that point)...or if it was even created by the Lanthians.

What if this place was created by another group of people, and the Anasazi merely found a way to get there...but didn't have the ability to create new records like the ones they found? After all, it's possible that the creation of the World Grid may have affected another "superior" race...especially since we know that it keeps out meddling god-figures. Maybe they were trying to make a hole in the grid with this "dead zone," but were only successful in protecting their Library where they recorded the languages and lives of the peoples of the Earth. </end wild speculation>

I am wondering if this fits the over all time line? If the last of the cells was put in place 6,300 years ago this is before the time loop started. How does this match up against the fall of Lantis, the GG girls being under control, and Brandi making her deal with the demon realm?

Based on the Chronology page that we have available to us, the time loops began in approximately 562 CE, which was not only after the grid's set up, but also long after the fall of Lanthis, the splitting of the GGs, and Brandi's deal with the demon realm. Remember, Brandi was a part of setting up the Vimana Grid, so naturally this would have to have occured after the Chimera was split into three.

[TheDOCTOR]

Kath is getting more impressive by the moment. Not only is she translating an ancient language on the fly, AND apparently healing at a rapid rate, she can figure out how many centuries have passed by examining a star chart. It's like watching a female Dr. Who in action. Lord knows what she's going to do next, but I bet it will be amazing.

Oh,I don't know....Build a TARDIS perhaps?

[Dave]

Kath is getting more impressive by the moment. Not only is she translating an ancient language on the fly, AND apparently healing at a rapid rate, she can figure out how many centuries have passed by examining a star chart. It's like watching a female Dr. Who in action. Lord knows what she's going to do next, but I bet it will be amazing.

Oh,I don't know....Build a TARDIS perhaps?

I'm-a-thinkin' that the Museum has definitely not been paying Kath in proper proportion to her skills and experience. If they had been, she'd own that whole building she lives in, and wouldn't be troubled by such mundane things as stuck-shut front doors.

Academic snobbery, I suppose... if you didn't get your Ph.D. in Sumerian, astronomy, and applied cellular regeneration from just the right school, you don't get treated like a real scholar.

[Wdot]

Is the tech really keyed to Anasazi genes or to Lanthian genes of whom the Anasazi are descendants?
Super Volcanoes screw up climate on a planetary scale, it could have caused a period of drought which is one of the possible reasons for the collapse of civilizations in the new world at that time. If Pele was locked out, she might have expressed her displeasure by causing eruptions globally as the 'door' was closing.

[Yamara]

VEI 7 events disrupt agriculture worldwide:

The Year Without A Summer

And that was during the Industrial Revolution.

It's like watching a female Dr. Who in action. Lord knows what she's going to do next, but I bet it will be amazing.

Yes, being able to calculate time passage by sight from a star chart would suggest a Gallifreyan-level intellect. And the honorific is "Time Lady".

As for the calculations themselves, I don't know if it's a typo, Paul being obfuscatory, an oversight or an insight, or mix of the lot, but the numbers result in four different possible years in which this action takes place.

Kath has calculated 6367 years, but Atsali repeats it as "6360" years, and comes up with 4354 BC when subtracting from "today".

1) Atsali correct, and not correcting for (keeping) Year Zero ... it is 2006
2) Atsali correct, and correcting for (removing) Year Zero... it is 2007
3) Kath correct, but not correcting for (keeping) Year Zero ... it is 2013
and the most likely...
4) Kath correct, and correcting for (removing) Year Zero... it is 2014

Assuming Kath's Time Lady skills are all they seem, and 4354 BC is a date certain for Kikai, then she is having her adventure in AD 2014.

Maybe they're both right. Maybe Atsali comes from seven years in Earth 57's past. If so, 2006-07 is before the Calendar Machine is fixed (by the Chronology page's calculations) ...which could make her getting lost and found in Library Limbo even more unsettling.

[zachariah]

I am wondering if this fits the over all time line? If the last of the cells was put in place 6,300 years ago this is before the time loop started. How does this match up against the fall of Lantis, the GG girls being under control, and Brandi making her deal with the demon realm?

Based on the Chronology page that we have available to us, the time loops began in approximately 562 CE, which was not only after the grid's set up, but also long after the fall of Lanthis, the splitting of the GGs, and Brandi's deal with the demon realm. Remember, Brandi was a part of setting up the Vimana Grid, so naturally this would have to have occured after the Chimera was split into three.

I am not too sure about the splitting thing taking place that long ago. In the Chronology one link leads to Bud reminding Jin that she recognized May as part of the time keepers council that put Tepoz in charge of them. That Jin followed her mother and witnessed May trying to destroy the calendar. If so that would put them passing to Tepoz control around 562 CE, not prior. The wording also leads towards the GG being put in his control just after they were split. He was the one who gave them their memories back. If it did happen at that time then how did Brandi manage to set the grid prior to that? I suspect the few actual dates we have can mislead us in guessing when other events happened.

[NOTDilbert]

Brandi's deal with the demon realm....

Maybe I've been ascribing volcanic events and such to the wrong source - "Gimme the tech I need to lockout the old gods, and you can open up a gate or two to the demon realm on earth." It just involves volcanic calderas....

Lotsa demons running around in Japan's mythos; all over the far east and all around the Pacific Rim.

[Sideromelane]

Getting a very Stargate: Atlantis vibe from this arc. And not just because of the Stargates. Ancient tech, activated by people with the correct 'ancient' gene etc.


Could Kath actually be some sort of female John Sheppard? (Heck, she was even in the Air Force...)

Also, rapid healing vampires which do not conform to normal vampire stereotypes, the stargates, um...

<- Kath has a nicer rack though.

[Wyvern]

I am wondering if this fits the over all time line? If the last of the cells was put in place 6,300 years ago this is before the time loop started. How does this match up against the fall of Lantis, the GG girls being under control, and Brandi making her deal with the demon realm?

Based on the Chronology page that we have available to us, the time loops began in approximately 562 CE, which was not only after the grid's set up, but also long after the fall of Lanthis, the splitting of the GGs, and Brandi's deal with the demon realm. Remember, Brandi was a part of setting up the Vimana Grid, so naturally this would have to have occured after the Chimera was split into three.

I am not too sure about the splitting thing taking place that long ago. In the Chronology one link leads to Bud reminding Jin that she recognized May as part of the time keepers council that put Tepoz in charge of them. That Jin followed her mother and witnessed May trying to destroy the calendar. If so that would put them passing to Tepoz control around 562 CE, not prior. The wording also leads towards the GG being put in his control just after they were split. He was the one who gave them their memories back. If it did happen at that time then how did Brandi manage to set the grid prior to that? I suspect the few actual dates we have can mislead us in guessing when other events happened.

I've been intentionally not calling attention to that question for a while now. The time loops started up circa 562 AD, around 1450 years ago, and the available evidence is that the split of the Chimera was not that long before Mayahuel's unfortunate encounter with the Calendar Machine. I actually do have a model for explaining this, but would prefer not to outline it publicly, because if I'm correct it implies another upcoming plot detail. We've had only very sparse clues about any of the Golem Girls or others doing anything at all between the Lanthian Apocalypse and about 562 AD, which may be important.

The timeline is not irrecoverably broken. It is incomplete, though. Paul will reveal more when he's ready.

[DilyV]

A massive event in Japan would trigger events all around the pacific. The ring of fire would feel the shock wave and react to it. So there were probably events all around the ring. This means volcano's, earthquakes, and other fun stuff. It didn't wipe the Anasazi but it definitely started their migration away from those areas. There are extensive lava fields in that part of the US desert and a few are that old. The same is true of Mexico.
The big question is why would putting the last cell in the grid set those off? A change in the energy field of the earth should not create the internal pressure needed to trigger the first event? For a major event to occur the pressure has to increase inside the magma chamber until it is great enough to blow the top off it. The only way I can think of it causing it is if the field somehow squeezed the earth and raise the pressure enough for the event to start. You know, pop the pimple.

Drop a HUGE antiseptic cleaning pad in the pun jar.

I think I need a whole roll of mental floss after that imagery....

[DilyV]

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/kikai-caldera/

Things went all blooey.


Hang on a second... Kath knows about the Earth grid?

I got the impression reading the strip that Kath was reading the information on the screen... She may not have known before, but she does now...

[kingklash]

Dogs and cats sleeping together! MASS HYSTERIA!!

[Boxilar]

Kath is getting more impressive by the moment. Not only is she translating an ancient language on the fly, AND apparently healing at a rapid rate, she can figure out how many centuries have passed by examining a star chart. It's like watching a female Dr. Who in action. Lord knows what she's going to do next, but I bet it will be amazing.

Oh,I don't know....Build a TARDIS perhaps?

I'm-a-thinkin' that the Museum has definitely not been paying Kath in proper proportion to her skills and experience. If they had been, she'd own that whole building she lives in, and wouldn't be troubled by such mundane things as stuck-shut front doors.

Academic snobbery, I suppose... if you didn't get your Ph.D. in Sumerian, astronomy, and applied cellular regeneration from just the right school, you don't get treated like a real scholar.

I think the only thing limiting Katherine all this time is/was Katherine. After the Dead Sea incident she buried herself in her work and shut herself away from society for over a decade, and only started to get past the trauma when Monica befriended her.

Moments where she is fighting herself just to get out of the house and go to the botanical gardens in winter become a lot more poigniant when you realize she was fighting a deeply ingrained terror to get on with living again.

Regardlees of whatever else happens, I think that version of Kath is gone now.

[Dave]

I think the only thing limiting Katherine all this time is/was Katherine. After the Dead Sea incident she buried herself in her work and shut herself away from society for over a decade, and only started to get past the trauma when Monica befriended her.

Moments where she is fighting herself just to get out of the house and go to the botanical gardens in winter become a lot more poignant when you realize she was fighting a deeply ingrained terror to get on with living again.

Regardless of whatever else happens, I think that version of Kath is gone now.

I think that your thinking is good thinking.

I think we may even be able to identify the precise moment (frame 5) when the Katherine-as-reclusive-traumatized-victim that we knew was set aside, and the powerful Katherine we've never really seen before came back to life.

[Yamara]

I am wondering if this fits the over all time line? If the last of the cells was put in place 6,300 years ago this is before the time loop started. How does this match up against the fall of Lantis, the GG girls being under control, and Brandi making her deal with the demon realm?

Based on the Chronology page that we have available to us, the time loops began in approximately 562 CE, which was not only after the grid's set up, but also long after the fall of Lanthis, the splitting of the GGs, and Brandi's deal with the demon realm. Remember, Brandi was a part of setting up the Vimana Grid, so naturally this would have to have occured after the Chimera was split into three.

I am not too sure about the splitting thing taking place that long ago. In the Chronology one link leads to Bud reminding Jin that she recognized May as part of the time keepers council that put Tepoz in charge of them. That Jin followed her mother and witnessed May trying to destroy the calendar. If so that would put them passing to Tepoz control around 562 CE, not prior. The wording also leads towards the GG being put in his control just after they were split. He was the one who gave them their memories back. If it did happen at that time then how did Brandi manage to set the grid prior to that? I suspect the few actual dates we have can mislead us in guessing when other events happened.

I've been intentionally not calling attention to that question for a while now. The time loops started up circa 562 AD, around 1450 years ago, and the available evidence is that the split of the Chimera was not that long before Mayahuel's unfortunate encounter with the Calendar Machine. I actually do have a model for explaining this, but would prefer not to outline it publicly, because if I'm correct it implies another upcoming plot detail. We've had only very sparse clues about any of the Golem Girls or others doing anything at all between the Lanthian Apocalypse and about 562 AD, which may be important.

The timeline is not irrecoverably broken. It is incomplete, though. Paul will reveal more when he's ready.

FWIW, I've kept the sequence of the Chronology page in what seems to be the most likely order of events. (Always note that Tepoz lies, so it's hard to take anything he's claimed as fact, unless corroborated.)

If Brandi is building the World Grid in the 5th millennium BC, the Chimera must have been split, and the GGs under Tepoz's care before then (they credit him with rebuilding their personalities). Brandi makes the deal with demons while under Tepoz's care, and then is independent enough to travel around the world and build the Grid.

Before this storyline I've assumed the Portal Cloths were really necessary for the GGs to travel to the Americas; the Anasazi wanderings of Lily suggest other means, and Brandi's dissociation, coupled with the dating of the Mapimí Crystal Library that Kath and Atsali are in to before 4354 BC, means that even the memory of how, when and where it was built has been hidden or erased-- Secrets kept from the Bibliothiki, presumably to keep them out of the hands of those who would circumvent the Grid.


As for Jin and Mayahuel, there is, at minimum, 5000 years between the GGs separation from the Chimera to the breaking of the Calendar Machine. Plenty of time for them to cross and recross paths before losing one another during the Loops.

[Yamara]

I think the only thing limiting Katherine all this time is/was Katherine. After the Dead Sea incident she buried herself in her work and shut herself away from society for over a decade, and only started to get past the trauma when Monica befriended her.

Moments where she is fighting herself just to get out of the house and go to the botanical gardens in winter become a lot more poignant when you realize she was fighting a deeply ingrained terror to get on with living again.

Regardless of whatever else happens, I think that version of Kath is gone now.

I think that your thinking is good thinking.

I think we may even be able to identify the precise moment (frame 5) when the Katherine-as-reclusive-traumatized-victim that we knew was set aside, and the powerful Katherine we've never really seen before came back to life.

There have been hints.

As I recall, the general reaction to Kath's baiting Shelly in the old comments was, "Where is that coming from?"

[Yamara]

As for the calculations themselves, I don't know if it's a typo, Paul being obfuscatory, an oversight or an insight, or mix of the lot, but the numbers result in four different possible years in which this action takes place.

Kath has calculated 6367 years, but Atsali repeats it as "6360" years, and comes up with 4354 BC when subtracting from "today".

1) Atsali correct, and not correcting for (keeping) Year Zero ... it is 2006
2) Atsali correct, and correcting for (removing) Year Zero... it is 2007
3) Kath correct, but not correcting for (keeping) Year Zero ... it is 2013
and the most likely...
4) Kath correct, and correcting for (removing) Year Zero... it is 2014

Assuming Kath's Time Lady skills are all they seem, and 4354 BC is a date certain for Kikai, then she is having her adventure in AD 2014.

Maybe they're both right. Maybe Atsali comes from seven years in Earth 57's past. If so, 2006-07 is before the Calendar Machine is fixed (by the Chronology page's calculations) ...which could make her getting lost and found in Library Limbo even more unsettling.

Okay, Paul has corrected Atsali's line as "6367".

But there is still no year between 1 BC and 1 CE in the Common Era. Since the Mapimí reckoning Kath is reading from would predate the use of the Common Era, those missing 365.25 days would place the current action in 2014.

[jwhouk]

There have been hints.

There have been more hints as to Kath's issues.

And as for the date thing - this may have been written in the final days before the destruction, which would give you the extra year's time in the past.

[zachariah]

Sorry for not posting the lead in coments.

I agree the GG were split when Tepoz was assigned to watch over them. In fact there is a strip that shows them, apparently newly split being given to him. He also states he rewrote the code on their bones to prevent the scribes from completely controlling them. Another strip shows Bud reminding Jin that May was in the group that gave them to Tepoz. Bud also reminds Jin she followed May to when she made the attempt to destroy the calendar. Jin then recalls the ripping sound May;s body made when the accident occurred. All of these taken together indicate the GG were split shortly before Topez became their controller and the Calendar was damaged. To me this is a conflict in the timeline. Yes there can be alternative explanations and I hope I find them, or hear about them. Paul has the explanation for us in the future and I hope he doesn't keep us hanging too long..

[Timotheus]

May was the first one to be golemized (if you don't count her test runs like Tepoz). She allowed herself to be golemized by the priests but retained free will, thus gaining immortality and extra power so she could thumb her nose at the priests grab the calendar machine and make a run for it across the ocean. The priests then tried to make another golem, a more powerful one using two girls as the base but first crippling and abusing them to break their wills and spirits. At first Jin tried to kill the girls in secret by feeding them poisonous insects, then when she was found out (betrayed by her then lover) she was thrown into the pit cell with the girls. She fought back but was eventually crippled and severely maimed by the guards. She seemed to just give up then, but actually went into a trance like meditative state to prepare herself as a sacrifice. Bud lost herself completely to her fear and despair after this while Brandi made deals with someone or something to keep part of her safe from the madness to come. When they were golemized Jin wasn't strong enough to control the rage unleashed by Bud and Brandi, Bud had no control left and Brandi's was being held elsewhere. In the aftermath May and the surviving immortals from the calendar machine start up came back and tried to stabilize what they could, but in an attempt fix what was perceived to be a problem with the calendar machine May was lost to the demon realm.

Reference December 27, 2007 to January 1, 2008