Surely you would know we have a new way of government, with the ascent of His Royal Highness The Blessed Santa XIII, The Good, The Fair, The Wise. How lucky we are to have this paragon of mankind at our helm and you will not hear a disputing voice in all the rafts that remain afloat. Of course HRHTB Santa XIII has no qualm with dissent, but such disorder leads to errors in nature itself and the spontaneous capsizing of those that would speak such madness.

One that spoke in such terms was our previous Dean, who took it upon himself to denounce Our King’s leisurely book burnings. What are a few ancient books when compared to the merriment of our liege? That the Dean ended up with the books is only natural. For a short while we fell disgraced, until our new Dean spoke to the King, reminding him of his lineage running all the way back to the Santas of antiquity. Who else but the Faculty could establish once and for all His Highness as the one true world king? From that day we became the Royal Faculty of Recall, something that UNP Engineering can only sourly admire.

So your loyal correspondent has a task of some importance, tracking down the great kings of the past and ensuring that all reigns lead to Santa XIII.

So what was a king in the pre oops period? It seems there once were many kings, all with quite exotic and magical names. There was King Tubby, who could explode and not be hurt. King Jeans was very strong, King Kong was very tall. The Sofa King could sleep 100 years and the White King seems to have something to do with bathrooms. The modern reader is dazzled by so many and suspects that tales are being told as they often were by the ancients. That’s not to say they are lying – the ancient mind is just an alien world for the modern to explore.

One interesting theory put forward by Prof. Mersh is that each queue had a king at the front. That would make the numbers, but doesn’t explain another story about kings, that they lived in castles that did not move about, and so it is equally likely that a king was someone not in a queue at all. (For ancients a very rare position!) Dr. Robutussin has pointed out that ‘castles’ follow straight lines in the game of chess and suggests this is based on some forgotten fact. For my part I have seen evidence of things called rail tracks, which are straight lines running across the old cities. I will soon be presenting a paper that argues that castles moved along these rail tracks, each controlled by a king and that this is how queues were able to move great distances.

But my main interest of the moment is King Krause, sometimes written Kai Krause, who lived in a castle hidden somewhere in Germany. He became King (the story goes) by inventing certain magical technology.

As with most images of the ancients, we are left puzzled by their position somewhere ‘twixt reality and speculative magic. What to make of this?

Robutussin has argued that kings were able to make animals out of surplus people and there is quite solid support for this in the archaeological record. That would mean they were the suppliers of flying animals to each Santa and had a symbiotic relationship with the ultimate ruler.

Krause alone is credited with (at least) the following incantations:

The Lens Flare bedazzled enemies and caused them disorientation and nausea. This weapon soon multiplied into genocidal proportions and was banned by treaty shortly before the Oops Event.

Drop Shadows seen here surrounding magical orbs. Quite what these symbols mean is curious, but the two seem inextricably bound together. We suspect a kind of code where the king alone may see through the confusing muddle.

Similarly the Page Curl, which fools the viewer to turn over the image and find nothing on the other side.

The Algorithmic Texture is hotly contested. Some have it as a form of camouflage, yet are unable to demonstrate any naturally occurring area where that would be effective. I would concur with Mersh that what we are seeing is a kind of threat exhibited to the enemy – if you do not accept the king, this is a symbol of your fate. Hence the resemblance to diseases and parasites.

More magical orbs. We can fathom no use for these.

Santa XIII is very taken with this information and an expedition will venture south in the winter. We seek a castle somewhere in the land just below our state. From there we hope to find the means to convert some of our crew to animals, and set course by air for Germany. If you are in your final undergraduate year at UNP Recall we are seeking volunteers via the drop box outside the school office.

Thank you for the letters you have sent to us! We had no idea that people were alive in so many places! We treasure them all but it can’t hurt to mention some of our favourites. Hello to Issi in Ice Land – a land made of ice is wonderful (but The Faculty of Physics were very sceptical when we told them). And to Yuri in faraway Omsk whose letter came via the water trail from Mumanak. Nathaniel says greetings from Al Aska. Hello also to our familiar friend Margethe in New Nuuk, Green Land.

This time we are looking at a recurring fragment from the pre Oops days – this strange blue rectangle:

Those of you that have been following this series would recognise it as a simple design from The Gap. Some of it is deceptively obvious, some is beyond our wildest guesses. Literally translated it reads: “Rank greater than captain, 64, simple, Second World War rocket(?) – 64K, male sheep biological structure(?), 38911 simple bites(?) free. Ready.”

We are sure you find that as unhelpful as do we.

Frankly this is not a message that can be understood with a modern mind. The ancients, as we have seen time and time again, had a proto-mind that straddled that of man and the animals on which they flew about – some of their thoughts are like our dreams – others are based on magic concepts alien to our scientific world.

We can develop a guess based upon common sense and other artefacts from the period. Firstly, this image is found very often in digs, so it must be an important or at least popular item. Secondly, the word ‘commodore’ is an old word that is still in use today for a 10 raft officer, which you would agree is a very important posting. ‘64′ is likely to be the age of a person – it is always 64 and never older than that. Which must surely lead to the conclusion that we are seeing a memorial to a naval officer of some sort. So what is meant by ‘basic’ and ‘V2′? This is not even an ancient name but – recalling our own history we come up with famous raft captains of legend such as Captain ‘Rusty Birdhook’ Evans & Admiral ‘Clubber’ McJollo. This surely is a similar use of nickname for some great achievement of this primitive seafarer – and from what we know of the Second World War (which drove the Germans back up onto Mars), he or she must have been a great warrior. A rocket was a flying animal that fought in wars and we know from pictures that the V2 was a very large rocket indeed.

So great was this Commodore that people seem to have carried the memorial around with them inscribed on small shrines.

As great as the person may have been we cannot think that their ‘gravestone’ would be carried about unless there is more to this than we first expect. Consider the next part of the message: again the age, with a K attached – frankly we know not why, then a confusing reference to a male sheep ’system’. We know that sheep were animals, we now know what animals were like, we also know that the male sheep is used as a symbol of virility in other writings we have collected. If the ram was used here as a symbol of potency the clues start to arrange themselves: Our great man is being used to ensure fertility.

Does your head spin to try comprehend the ancients? Put yourself in a half sleep. Dull your logic. This is a time of magic – where likeness could often mean equality. The great man dies (we suspect a man based upon this magic) and yet his energy is captured in this fetish – if you keep his name close to you during the act of love your offspring will be as he – bold and powerful.

The blue square is likely some formalised vision of the sea on which this man sailed. 38911 has no meaning for us; perhaps it is a magical number or the number of people on his rafts – we suspect that as it is followed by his nickname and ‘bytes’ it could be the number of enemy he killed in the conflicts he fought or perhaps as it implies – captives freed. Truly an astronomical number! The ancients loved to exaggerate numbers whenever possible.

Here at UNP we are gaining respect for this long gone civilisation – true, they knew nothing of science but their lives were full of mystery and enchantment. Every year we discover more puzzling evidence of a past that seems like a madman’s poem. In our softer moments we ponder: perhaps it is not that we are right and they were wrong – it is just that living on the ground, queuing, at places where the spin of the world was noticeable in tides and nights that came every day … how could one expect any mental overlap between these people and their polar descendants? No – they are as distant from us as the Martians. But more about them in the next instalment!

An ancient person, not in a queue.

We have already provided a number of updates of great interest to the modern student. Here and here and here and here and here also. Their didactic power is now overwhelmed by fortunate events.

While we do not hold the theoretical abilities of our Southern rivals in much esteem, it must be admitted that South Pole University makes good use of their diggings. In the mountains that rise above the Tasman Desert, the ancient city of Hobart looks out over the Derwent Chasm – a charred remnant like most cities but offering up the occasional surprise to the archaeologist. Such a surprise was unveiled some 6 months ago, and the professors of the South have bundled up copies of the artefacts for our Northern minds to dissect and discern.

Three months it takes from pole to pole and expensive it is, given the toxic landscape and the primitives that harass the motorcades. But this is a prize worth the highest price.

For we have an image of a living Santa. And AN ANIMAL.

Behold. The man wears the ceremonial facial hair of the Santa. We see him at a time when he is not garbed in red but in blue – being a Prime Minister; we would venture to say that this image records the very moment when the older Santa has died and this male child has been handed the first of many animals that will fly him around the globe. The animal is content to rest momentarily in the Santa’s hands, it will fly off through the exit at the right.

On the back of the artefact is the word SNOWBALL. We have already a cylinder marked SANTA SNOW. We believe that SANTA, SNOW and BALL are linked, but SNOW remains meaningless.

By what means does this animal fly? The professors of the South were defeated. No two limbs of the device are the same – two seem to be legs fore and aft, then there is a small dark curved arm at the right, perhaps another dark arm at the middle? Dispute rages about a shape below the head of the animal – is it arm? Why is it so short? Our faculty have worked long through the dark part of the year on this question and have decided that the clothing on the pictured animal is loose. It has not been put carefully into the cloth and so some leggings are not aligned with the limbs underneath. This is disappointing in that we cannot be sure of the shape of the animal. We suspect it has two legs and three equally spaced arms.

The head of the animal faces left, close inspection seems to show two eyes about a nose and strangely cupped ears. This is disturbing because insects do not have two eyes, only people. Are animals related to people? The line of thought here is disturbing.

Also found at the site and awaiting examination.

Is this some kind of fertilty charm?

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Professors may dispute, this does not call upon their charges to carry the dispute to violence. Weigh the evidence and not the reputation or singing voice of Doctors A or B. Read below and think on it.

Just beyond the Oops we have great difficulty in forming a reputable time line. Consider – here no written records were kept, we have only oral history – the epic history of the age were rendered in rhyme such that a travelling bard could memorise the tale. If they could not recall a name or a date, they would simply insert something of their own rather than disappoint the audience huddled about the fire. And so the epics are organisms that mated, mutated and cross pollinated – you cannot draw absolute truth from a song cycle.

The earliest songs of which we have fragments are simple tales of survival and wit, sung by all. We mention a few. I’ll Swap My Daughter For A Cup Of Water is direct and heartfelt. Man’s Best Friend obscurely refers to an edible something with four legs, perhaps a dining table. That life became a little more grim over the 21st century can be glimpsed in the popular titles that follow on: Mus’ Be Mud ‘Cos Jam Don’t Taste Like Dat, Spoonful of Roaches, Lil’ Old Cave Of Mine and the evergreen Please Kill Me.

But some pockets of the world entered into a time of chivalry, of kings and battles that resound through the ages. Here we find the professional troubadours, the songsters – rhyming for their tinned meat. This is where we learn of the legendary Mac. You will recall from your schooling the Ballad of Mac. We reproduce an excerpt:

Crept ’round the depths of the castle
the surly terrorists
tested the windows of the tower and found them lame
and in they came!
Alas! Alack! Their attack swept up the fire stairs
(as fire indeed they were that day!)
bursting through the wall of desks
lept o’er the office chairs
they bested the best of the Heroes.
Lolcat fell that day, and aside him poor Prince Fresh
Opensource and handsome Cartridge too
No match for this evil crew
Yet when all seemed lost the king of kings
fleet of foot and mighty of brow
our Good Lord Mac held fast the foe
swinging His mighty Laptop ‘gainst the fray
The Devil would not wrest His water on this day!

As commonly conceived King Mac is a character of fiction – the mighty Laptop, his Suit and Tie, the Boardroom Table – all of these elements in the Ballad stem from the Great Tales of Mac written in around 2620 by Fred of The First Raft. In this respect, Doctor A is correct. Before you crow, followers of A, there is evidence that someone like Mac was a real person and the battles we know are exaggerations of real events. Doctor B is correct that there was a king, just that he has been inflated in the telling. You students, shake hands and sing the anthem of UNP. There.

In 2890, an expedition to ancient Edmonton in the Shallow North discovered a castle, tall, with multiple windows just as described in the legend. They saw only the top but by dropping stones down the central shaft confirmed that it was very deep. Near the top in a central chamber they found a dusty table of great size, round at the edges, as if many men sat about it. And yes, a water container, although not of the size needed for such a mighty building. The chairs of this chamber had wheels just as described by the Bard. Surely stories of Mac circulated on the First Raft and were collected in writing by Fred – with some extra spice thrown in to win popular acclaim.

The historical Mac was just one of many petty kings that ruled the edges of the old civilisation, migrating their people north and south as the temperature gained. Illiterate and guided by cunning they would squabble over the aging cities and sources of water up to the earliest stages of the Age of Science. The last inbred kings, Alert IV and Resolute III of Nunavut, claimed a mixture of real and mythological ancestors and their lineage itself is of feeble use. Nevertheless desire for lineage restored the act of writing. The rest of this tale can be found in any modern history textbook.

We shall start from the simple and proceed to the complex. There are five days in the week, seventy three weeks in a year. The names of the days being in order – Sunday, Today, Midday, Mayday, Santaday.

Sunday recalls an ancient ritual in which persons would read a journal of the week’s events. These journals were called Suns, and went by multiple versions including The Sun, The Sun Herald, Sun News etc. Our concern is that such a weekly ritual would require many more books than can be found in the archaeological record. The most cynical view is that each Sun had the same contents as used before and that the ancient had simply forgotten the events of the week previous.

A common misconception is that the name has connection with the sun itself. The notion is nonsensical given that the sun shows no particular preference for the day in question.

It is generally held that Today is a corruption of ‘two day’, namely the second day of the week. Recent work by UNP’s Faculty of Recall suggests an interesting alternative. Recently unearthed artefacts have inscriptions such as COOKING TODAY or USA TODAY which seem not to mean cooking (or ‘usaing’) only on the second day of the week, but over a longer period. Here we need to grasp the ancients’ primitive conception of time. Being equatorial they would see the sun rise and fall fully each day over the entire year, which to them ’caused’ days. But they had need of longer periods of time and so created a ‘day’ more like our seasons of long light or dark. That might be the old ‘today’.

Most startling is an artefact labelled TODAY TONIGHT. Obviously the nights had their names as well – we are at a loss to comprehend a culture that had a ’sunnight’ but the evidence is plausible that a ‘tonight’ existed. If so the ancient week was complex indeed, having 5 days of which one was a season, and 5 nights.

Midday is the most sensible and scientific of all the names and can be traced to more modern times. It is the middle day of the five, and the day on which resting takes place. It is claimed (without proof) to be the invention of the first Chief Scientist of The Southern Polar Region. While we would not dispute this claim without hard evidence, we do note the superior record of invention in the Northern realm.

Mayday has conflicting origin myths, none of which are convincing. Best known is the legend of the parade that would take place on each Mayday. The ancients would assemble at one place carrying tools and weapons and walk all day in the one direction. The most important of them would stand and watch with approval. The recent theory of queues lends some credence to this tale, but what are we to make of a heavily equipped journey with no task at the end? If they had been about building a monument we could fathom it.

Another tale is about flying people, who would call ‘mayday!’ at each other so as to avoid collisions. Again, another line of explanation is suggested by a music container of the brittle sort that is labelled HERE WE GO GATHERING NUTS IN MAY. No nuts were found at the site.

Santaday is so known after the greatest ruler of ancient times. That this Santa ruled the globe for such a length of time was due to his place being taken in turn by many generations of the one royal family. Each person was known individually as Mr. President, and would in turn step through increasing levels of power, from Elf, to Senator, to Prime Minister to Santa.

So that each Santa would seem to be the same immortal, the royal would be disguised in a red suit with white hair, holding a Coca Cola as sign of rank. He was said to fly with the aid of animals. He would judge all of humanity and reward or punish as the case demanded. Obviously the one Santa could not be everywhere at once and so Prime Ministers would act in each Santa’s stead. Santas were enthroned at the North Pole, hence this legendary figure is displayed within the logo of UNP. Alas, we know not why he wore such heavy clothing for our tropical clime.

The doctor would have us take note of ancient people’s ability to snap together into larger units.

The queue, of which a large version is shown above, is an entity for which we have no modern analogue. Individuals would join this queue, and from that point on act as if a single individual. The queue would go about daily business of obtaining food, viewing entertainments and using transport. The doctor notes that these queues are portrayed in 43 percent of our available pre Oops artefacts and show therefore an astounding co-operative spirit ‘that is at odds with any savagery’.

The queue existed as a number of geometric shapes governed by rules of surface tension. We have images of circles, lines, stars and complex forms that are not obvious – but that the members are wearing similar garments.

The smallest form of queue was called marriage.

Even more fascinating for Dr. Assets was the living arrangements of these people. While un-queued persons lived in houses not far different from our own, with doors, windows and a roof, those in queues had smaller houses on wheels, that joined together in long chains that matched the person’s position in the queue.

While we share the good doctor’s fascination with our distant ancestors, we must remark on the repulsion that any thinking person will hold for the dissolution of individual intellect in this queuing. To have one’s mind subsumed into the mass is horrifying to the Scientist. While we can faintly imagine being the front of such a meat ‘hose’ (the comparison is hard to deny) to be the rear end would be alien to our ideal of mankind’s progress.

We see this kind of thing in ants, and in the absence of any contrary evidence, suspect that animals once operated in this way. If, as some firebrands have argued, the image underneath is one of animals, the case is made for our original opinion.

First, the Oops. This is the popular name for a momentary interruption of power that took place early in the 21st century. By all accounts this was much the same power we use to cook and light our homes at night. However, back at that time, power was also used for ‘books’. What we call ‘books’ might not have had the same meaning long ago. We have images of people apparently using books that open vertically, and seem to involve some kind of touch. Perhaps the endless plagues of that time made many people feeble sighted.

It was long believed that paper had not yet been invented, until in 3044 the archaeologist Dr. Hans Polar discovered a large supply of ancient paper covered in numbers and symbols. Perhaps paper was only available for special religious purposes. Since then we have found paper stored at several places around the globe, always with unreadable quasi text.

In any case at some point in 2056, power was lost and all the books made blank. The only known contemporary record of what took place is a single word, ‘oops’ marked on a wall in charcoal. It took nearly 100 years for a unknown historian to explain in passing the loss of power and the date while eulogising a petty king of the equatorial region. This event marks the point where our pre-history crosses over into history.

While it may seem that mankind lost a great deal, it’s important to note that much of it was endlessly duplicated magical recipes and not the scientific information we store on paper today.

As for musical containers. Today we have many musical instruments – flutes, drums and xylophones are some common types. Prehistoric people also had music containers, which had different sizes and colours at different times. Digging at archaeological sites first reveals small silver discs at about the end of the 20th century. Just below these are comparatively large flexible black discs. The most numerous containers lie just underneath, these are slightly smaller and more brittle.

The only clue we have to their use is a single image:

No doubt this is a tribal leader of some sort – he wears a sign of rank around his neck and his hair is dyed with a priestly colour. More importantly he is using the large music containers and two of them are powered – possibly in the same way as prehistoric books. We think that he is making music and the pile of broken containers are ones where the music has been used up. The ones we find are like this.

A close examination of a dig site shows that all the containers seem to have been made over a short period and were used up long before the Oops. The last sort are poor copies of the earlier, with only one side and no black ink. This has led to most scientists agreeing that the ability to make music containers was in decline around 1970 and completely forgotten by 1990. The same seems true for paper – by the time these savages had arrived at the Oops, they had lost their skills and become decadent – that event was just the final blow to an inferior people.

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TAPR 06/07

12″ ”LP 62 SOUNDTRACKS 10 SECONDS EACH W/ LOCKED GROOVES

BARBARA SCHROEDER CLARE COOPER & CHRIS ABRAHAMS MICHAEL PRIOR ANTUONG NGUYEN & BLASE ROCCISANO ROSS MANNING ANTHONY MAGEN DING DONG BONNIE CLARKE BOORGES ERNIE ALTHOFF CLAYTON THOMAS MU CHILD JOEL STERN RAT CREEPS SUMUGAN SIVANESAN MICHAELA DAVIES QUE NGUYEN JIM KNOX MARKHAM WIGHTMAN BUFFALO JUMP BAND 12 DOG CYCLE HARRY WILLIAMSON ZOE SCOGLIO MONICA BROOKS DAN WEST ALICE HUI-SHENG CHANG KRISTI MONFRIES MOFFARFARRAH THEMBI SODDELL THEE MONUMENTAL MATTHEW DAVIS NAT DYLAN MARTORELL HORSE HOSPITAL ANTHONY MAGEN LAWRENCE ENGLISH ROSALIND HALL TARAB ECHO KHALIDA IT’S IS MALAKAT EMMA JEAN GILMOUR ANTHEA CADDY WERNER HOECK PHILIP SAMARTZIS JACQUES SODDELL ROBERT CURGENVEN SEVERED HEADS BEN BYRNE DAVE PHILLIPS PAUL RODGERS DEAN LINGUEY SAMUEL ACRES I=IT DER KOSMONAUT TOECUTTER EMILE ZILE DJ YSL DJ RAINBOW EJACULATION

The gap. The woman is not shown, perhaps as the artist has not learned how to make the woman symbol.

Gap closes. The woman is there but is poorly drawn.

Example 2. Before the gap, there is a complex symbol. Note the clouds again which symbolise magic.

The gap. This pictogram is small and primitive.

Gap closes and the clouds are seen. The symbol is probably a tribal mark.

Further pictograms from the pre-gap and gap.

“The gap” is a mysterious incident in the late twentieth century in which a wild change in commonly reproduced artworks came and went in as little as a decade. What we believe to be religious inscriptions on popular artefacts changed very quickly from ornate painted works to extremely simple combinations of letter shapes in bold colours. These were soon discarded and just as quickly poor copies of the original artwork were reintroduced.

There is much dispute over the cause of this rapid change, for which no documentation survived the great power failure of 2056 (‘The Oops’). Some theories include:

1. There was an invasion and the invaders forced a change of culture before eventually being beaten. The problem is that the gap did not seem to take place everywhere at the same time, but was only roughly centred around the years 1975 – 1985. An invasion would more likely have caused change all at once. Also it must be asked, invasion from where? We know at this point all Germans had been sent back to Mars.

2. Plague. Disease is more likely to have reached different places at different times. But, while the gap symbols are more simple it is not universally agreed that they indicate a decline of culture. Some scientists argue that the more precise symbols required just as much skill to carve as those before and after, although this not the mainstream view.

3. Animals did it. An interesting opinion is that at one point animals were being trained to perform this function and the gap symbols were only the start of a failed attempt to pass on this knowledge. This is superficially engaging until the obvious question is asked – what were animals? Without knowing what animals looked like it becomes mere supposition.