1748: Future Archaeology

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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 comic is a continuation of the previous comic, 1747: Spider Paleontology, about a time-traveler from the future who has come to see spiders. See 1747: Spider Paleontology for a more complete explanation. The idea is that history is filtered in similar fashion to fossils. What is contemporaneously important, like a spider's web, dinosaur feathers, or the United States presidential election may not survive. Bandwidth limits may pass seemingly less important but much simpler features like chitin exoskeleton, tooth bone, and flood meme.

The joke is that, in the future, the 2000 Aaron Carter pop song "That's How I Beat Shaq" (lyrics, video) is considered as valuable a historical document when researching humans as the Biblical story of Noah's Flood. 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 travel 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.

The title text expands on the joke by saying that the future archaeologists connected the two historical documents via the biblical story of Moses. Moses (a descendant of Noah; the two stories appear close together in the Bible, though not close together chronologically) also had an older biological brother named Aaron; the future species has hastily concluded that Moses' brother and Aaron Carter are one and the same. According to the Bible, God parted the 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.

Both this comic and the previous one have titles of a noun followed by a field of research. This comic was also published the day after What-If #152, "Flood Death Valley."

Transcript

[A four-panel comic featuring Cueball, Megan, and a time-traveler from the distant future, possibly from somewhere other than Earth. The time-traveler is depicted as a solid, floating black dot surrounded by six outwardly-curved segments, surrounded by small dots. In the second panel, the depiction is slightly larger, implying greater focus by Megan and Cueball.]

[Megan and Cueball walk casually alongside the floating Time-traveller, conversing as they do so.]

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

Time-traveller: Haven't the faintest idea. Hardly any text has been recovered from your era,

so we know little about your history and culture.

Time-traveller: [Quietly] We're mostly here for the spiders, anyway.

[The Time-traveller stops. Megan and Cueball focus on the Time-traveller.]

Time-traveller: There are only two written accounts we've reconstructed.

Time-traveller: We don't know whether they describe real events or myths.

[The Time-traveller drifts backward, Megan and Cueball, stop and look back toward the Time-traveller.]

Time-traveller: 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 Time-traveller drifts slowly further backward. Megan and Cueball, continue standing as they listen intently.]

Time-traveller: 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.

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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)