1748: Future Archaeology

|< < Prev Comic #1748 (October 19, 2016) Next > >|

Future Archaeology

Title text: "The only link we've found between the two documents is that a fragment of the Noah one mentions Aaron's brother Moses parting an ocean. Is that right?" "... yes. Yes, exactly."

Explanation

This Wednesday comic is a direct continuation of the previous comic 1747: Spider Paleontology from Monday about a time-traveler (the black floating energy Sphere) who has come back from far in to the future to see spiders (only known from fossils in their time). See 1747: Spider Paleontology for a more complete explanation of this part of the joke. This series ended with this comic. Both comics in this series have titles of a noun followed by a field of research.

Since Megan and Cueball now have access to the Sphere from the future, they ask if it knows who will win the election. This is a reference to the 2016 United States presidential election, which pitted the very controversial Donald Trump against former United States First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was also involved in several controversies. This comic was released about three weeks before election day. (The election was the subject of the comic released the day before the election 1756: I'm With Her, in which Randall endorsed Clinton directly.)

Sadly for Megan and Cueball, the sphere has come back from so far into the future that even spiders have gone extinct. (Whether humans also have is unclear, see discussion about this in 1747: Spider Paleontology). The Sphere makes this clear by stating that its civilization hardly knows anything about our era, and they know little about our history and culture. (And by the way it only came back for the spiders, anyway). The idea is that history is filtered in similar fashion to fossils. What is contemporaneously important, like a spider's web, dinosaur feathers (see previous comic), or the United States presidential election may not survive. The Sphere tells them that only two written accounts have been reconstructed (note that they are not found in their entirety). And they do not know whether they even represent real events or myths. One of the two is indeed a myth, as it is about a man building a boat to survive a great flood. Megan recognizes this as being about Noah and his famous Ark from the Genesis flood narrative, as Cueball refers to. The other is a reference to a popular pop song.

The joke is that, in the future, the 2000 Aaron Carter hip hop song "That's How I Beat Shaq" (lyrics and video) is considered as valuable a historical document when researching humans as parts of the Bible. While secular historians consider the story of the Flood to be mythical, they still use it to infer facts about the early history of the Middle East, simply because there are a fairly small number of texts surviving from that era. "That's How I Beat Shaq" is, likewise, a fictional story including some true elements; it's just that as long as there are abundant sources documenting life in the year 2000, there's no reason to consult the song in any historical context. Yet it is the latter story that the time traveler assumes to be a clearly religious one, while seeing the former as a relatively straightforward survival story. A further layer of humor is that "That's How I Beat Shaq" is an archetypal David and Goliath story—the story of David and Goliath of course being a Biblical one as well.

In fact, the Spheres civilization believes Shaq (Shaquille O'Neal, a 2.16 m (7 ft 1 in) tall professional basketball player) to be a god, who was then defeated by Aaron, a 14-year-old (and rather small kid) at the time of the release of his single in 2001. He beats Shaq on the basketball court one on one. Megan comments that the pop song may have been mangled by the eons.

The title text expands on the joke by letting the Sphere explain that the only connection they have found between their two historical documents is via the biblical story of Moses. As Moses is one of God's chosen prophets and leaders, like Noah and Abraham before him, these two stories appear close together in the Bible, though not close together chronologically, and it would be likely that their document with the Flood story also has some parts about Moses. Moses had an older biological brother named Aaron and the Sphere's civilization has hastily concluded that Moses' brother and Aaron Carter are the same. According to the Bible, God parted the Sea of Reeds (commonly mistranslated as Red Sea) for Moses and the Israelites. This is often referred to, either erroneously or out of simplification, as Moses having parted the Red Sea. Along with Noah's Flood, this is one of the two major times in the Bible that God effects grand change on a body or bodies of water.

This comic was published the day after the what if? article Flood Death Valley, thus referring indirectly to a new possible flood history. It was the first what if? post in almost three months, the longest break between two post during 2016 (and third longest of all time at the time of its release), and it thus seems reasonable that there should be some kind of connection between that and this comic. A later comic (1750: Life Goals) also referenced this what if? post more or less directly. In this comic, Randall managed to combine no less than four of his favorite recurring subjects with time travel, spiders, politics and religion.

Transcript

[The Sphere, a time-traveler depicted as a solid floating black energy sphere surrounded by six outwardly-curved segments (first seen in the previous comic), is floating in front of Megan and Cueball who is walking after it towards the right part of the panel. The Sphere looks like this in all panels, but in the zoom in from panel two more details can be seen. A voice emanates from the Sphere.]

Megan: Since you're from the future, do you know who wins the election?

Sphere: Haven't the faintest idea. Hardly any text has been recovered from your era, so we know little about your history and culture.

Sphere: We're mostly here for the spiders, anyway.

[A close-up of the Sphere, still depicted as a black sphere, but not perfectly round at this zoom level and also clearly with some white dots in the dark area. It is still surrounded by six narrow rays with irregular dots between the rays.]

Sphere: There are only two written accounts we've reconstructed.

Sphere: We don't know whether they describe real events or myths.

[The Sphere is now on the left side of Megan and Cueball who has stopped walking and has turned to look at the Sphere.]

Sphere: One is a story about a man who built a boat to survive a great flood.

Megan: Oh yeah. Noah.

Cueball: We do like our flood narratives.

[The Sphere has drifted further away from Megan and Cueball.]

Sphere: The other is an account of how a man named Aaron Carter defeated a god named Shaq.

Megan: That one may have been mangled a bit by the eons.

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

Second reference is actually to music video: [Aaron Carter - That's How I Beat Shaq] 141.101.98.5 04:11, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Here I thought it was a reference to The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny--108.162.226.115 04:25, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I made the same mistake! Had to recite the entire thing in my head to see if those two fought, then impressed myself with my memory of lyrics I hadn't heard since high school. 173.245.48.87 04:51, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

"we do like our flood narratives" - the same day (or the day before?) a new what-if.xkcd (152) about flooding death valley was uploaded - the first for a while... 162.158.86.29 08:18, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for telling me! New What-If? Sweet! Jacky720 (talk) 10:52, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

A rare type of series?

{sorry if it sounds dumb: first time here} Have any two consecutive xkcds ever been part of such a clear "series" without being labelled "part I", "part II", ...? Or is this a rare occurrence of such thing? In case, it should be mentioned in the trivia, maybe? 141.101.98.70 08:04, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

No it is interesting and not seen like this before --Kynde (talk) 19:28, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I take these facts into consideration in the series category for these comics: Category:Time traveling Sphere --Kynde (talk) 21:24, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

To make sure I went through all series and then made a detailed list of all types of series on the Category:Comic series page. All "real" series are listed chronologically there and the type (five in one week/two over long time) are mentioned and specified. There is also know a detailed discussion on how strange this comic series release schedule is. --Kynde (talk) 23:44, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Aaron who? PoconoChuck (talk) 12:27, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

See first comment and now also the explanation of course... --Kynde (talk) 10:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Someone should make a character page for the time traveler dot dude. This is at least the third time xe has appeared. 173.245.48.69 13:15, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

No. As noted in the previous comic there is no reason to assume that previous dots are the same. The Category should be deleted. But later when finding out if there are more than these two comics to come a series category should be created with a good name not this one that has been used: Category:Comics featuring the floating sphere from the future... --Kynde (talk) 19:28, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Instead this series (of only two comics) now has it's own series category Category:Time traveling Sphere --Kynde (talk) 21:24, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

"xe"? Seriously?

This is the internet. We exclusively use spivak [e/em/eir] here (like Agora), as it was created out of necessity, not a desire to not offend anyone. Hppavilion1 (talk) 07:20, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Which sounds more reasonable?

I think there's another layer to this comic not yet address by this page.

From Future Dot's perspective, a man building a boat to survive a flood sounds like a real event. A man challenging and defeating a God, less so.

However, in modern times, the story of Noah's Flood is widely regarded as a myth, while the music video is widely regarded as having actually happened.

I believe this comic is meant to make us ask "What stories that we dismiss as myths have a kernel, however small, of truth to them?". 108.162.237.84 14:49, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

So far the comics in this series have had the name pattern [noun] [field of science ending in -ology]. Too perfect to be a coincidence. CJB42 (talk) 17:36, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Anyone taking bets against Friday's comic is also in this series? ;-) --Kynde (talk) 19:28, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Of course it could also be about the failed Mars lander from ESA... Waiting for int now...--Kynde (talk) 09:58, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Well luckily no one did, because that comic was just about mushrooms. A shame ;-) --Kynde (talk) 21:24, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

So if I'm right, I believe there has not been any consecutive continuity in xkcd since The Race, which ended a little over seven ago.... Schiffy (Speak to me|What I've done) 20:45, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Not unless you count the vague continuity in the five-minute-comic series.--KirkLand (talk) 22:16, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes I agree that this series is special, mainly because the strips are released consecutively, but not dayfly and secondly because the naming is completely different not like the series. Once the Friday comic is revealed to be either related or not, some good naming for this series should be invented and these facts about this kind of series deviation from other series should be mentioned there (and referenced from each comic). --Kynde (talk) 10:01, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

I take these facts into consideration in the series category for these comics: Category:Time traveling Sphere --Kynde (talk) 21:24, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Any chance the human characters were mistaken in interpreting Future Dot's flood story as Noah's? It seems possible - perhaps equally likely - that Future Dot had found 1190: Time. DemetriosBloodstone (talk) 03:43, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

It's also possible that during the time, Noah's arch story and 1190: Time got mixed together (along with several other similar stories). -- Hkmaly (talk) 15:32, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Note: There shouldn't be any bandwidth problem in future: Windows 3000 will likely require 1TB just for boot sector. The problem wouldn't be not enough information, but too much information with hardly any way to determine what was important. -- Hkmaly (talk) 15:32, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

New character?

Should we consider the future organism a new character, since it has appeared in two consecutive strips. Will X (talk) 18:13, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

No, we should not make a new character page because anything or anyone appears twice. That is too little. But of course these two comics belongs together and should be made into a series. But let's wait and see if there are one more to come today Friday. The naming of the comic series is not clear yet as the names of the comics is not related. (Like the other series) --Kynde (talk) 09:58, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Instead this series (of only two comics) now has it's own series category Category:Time traveling Sphere --Kynde (talk) 21:24, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

1747 is referenced too much. 108.162.245.40 21:19, 14 November 2016 (UTC)