Episode 01 Overview
EPISODE 01
COURSE OVERVIEW
INT. LECTURE HALL - DAY
A recording device clicks on.
RAQUEL
Ok. Ok. I got it.
PROFESSOR
Yeah its not hard.
RAQUEL
Totally. No problem. And this button stop--
The recording cuts. And then starts again.
PROFESSOR
--And you see that- the levels? If you keep an eye on that red light, you’ll know its recording.
He claps to make noise.
RAQUEL
Got it, ok. And then post it?
PROFESSOR
Right, you post it to the class webpage. You got that one sheet with all the info? I don’t really understand--
RAQUEL
Yeah. Its pretty easy.
PROFESSOR
Ok Thanks for help--
The recording cuts. And then starts again.
PROFESSOR
Ok. Hi. Great, glad you’re all here let’s take our seats please. Thank you. Great.
Students shuffle into their seats.
PROFESSOR
Some quick housekeeping, yeah? This is Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature, second year Literature and Classics. The syllabus number is C667 and- because of the Literature thing- L630. C667 and L630. Your course list from the registrar should have one of those two numbers on it, or else, well, you fucked up. What’s that?
A unintelligible question from a student.
PROFESSOR
Just put C667. No they don’t include it in the Intellectual History major automatically, but if that’s your major, your advisor can fix that, its pretty routine, I’ve never seen anyone have a problem switching those credits around. Yeah? Cool?
The PROFESSOR takes a few steps and starts SQUEAKING on the white board.
PROFESSOR
Alrighty then.
(slowly, writing)
The Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature.
Cap on pen, pen in tray. A few footsteps.
PROFESSOR
I’m going to start off with a story. I’m reading from Mem Ehafi, here.
A phone dings.
RAQUEL
Professor?
She walks close and speaks quietly.
PROFESSOR
Yeah?
RAQUEL
I just got a text from Carol in the front office, she says there’s a phone call for you? She said its urgent.
PROFESSOR
Its nothing. Just ignore it.
Papers shuffle.
PROFESSOR
Ok. Mem Ehafi. Here we go. Quote: Teotia, first mother of the world, Divine human female, was sorrowful in the darkness, which went everywhere and was under everything. And she exclaimed ‘why should I be alone, and know that I am alone?’ And her tears filled the rivers and the oceans. In her anguish, she bent her hands and fingers until at last she removed the fourth finger from left hand and planted it in the darkness, nursing it with the milk of her breast, until Ikopaa was born, already a grown man, with full beard and broad shoulders and legs that straddled the mountains. And looking upon him, she knew she was not alone. And he said to her “you are the mother of the world. I will build a city from your milk.” But his voice, being the voice of a god, was too strong for her, and set the winds in motion, and made the clouds and rain. And her ears bled, and her head was crushed from the sound, and her body was crushed from the sound, and she became the stars. This is how Teotia became the mother of earth and heaven. End quote.
Papers.
PROFESSOR
That’s one version of the creation myth of Anterra. There are a bunch of others, we’ll get into those. But there are two points in starting off with this. One- this is the only civilization we know of that has a human foremother. Usually they start off with gods, right? So that’s unusual. The other point- and this may seem subtle- is the line “why should I be alone, and know that I am alone?” This is the oldest known reference to knowledge as a dangerous thing, a lethal thing. It comes about 3000 years before the bible, before the story of the Garden of Eden. Pretty cool.
PROFESSOR
So, ok. What is the Anterran Civilization? Most of you know that six- no seven- years ago, there was an archeological discovery of enormous significance. A chinese submarine went down- it was a tragedy, all 133 sailors aboard the sub perished. But! But- when the chinese military sent down rescue drones, they got some very interesting pictures. It turns out the sub had fallen smack in front of what we now call Isoceles 3, in the northeastern quadrant of the main city. The Chinese cordoned off the site pretty quickly, and they’ve been pretty closed-lipped about the findings, but since it was, initially at least, an international rescue effort, we did get some data, and the scientific community continues to share research the best they can, considering the politics are just stupid. So, ok, here’s what we know so far:
Papers shuffle.
PROFESSOR
Way out, in the middle of the pacific ocean, about 1300 kilometers south west of Papeete Island, at a depth of about 4500 meters, in what they call the Abyssopelagic zone, the ruins of an ancient city was found. Shortly after, a road was discovered stretching out from the city towards the north east. In the direction of that highway, about 17 kilometers away, a second site was discovered two years after the initial find. They called the first city PRIME A, and the second city- wait for it... yup. PRIME B. Obviously we’ve come to know these by different names but we’ll get to that. The carbon dating on the site brings us to the date 82,500 BCE. So yeah, 84,000 years ago. Well before the oldest known culture- the Australian Aboriginals, though some scholars debate the 50,000 BCE date the Aboriginal culture usually gets, but either way... Without any doubt at all, this is the oldest known human civilization, and it predates anything even vagualy close by almost 60,000 years.
Cough.
PROFESSOR
So what do we have to build our understanding of the Anterran Culture? What’s the hard evidence? Let’s do the historiography thing. We have the Archeology- they’ve done some amazing work down there, considering the depth, just amazing. They’re using sonar, and also this really cool new technology called Lidar, we’ve gotten some great 3D maps. Lidar. LIDAR. Say it. Its fun to say. Anyway, yeah, the imagery- its all strictly topographical, so we don’t know what’s beneath the surface...
(Beat)
That’s a metaphor.
Barely audible quip.
CHRIS
Deep.
Everyone laughs.
PROFESSOR
Ha. That’s a good one. What’s your name?
Sounds.
PROFESSOR
Chris? Great- I just want to write down a gold star right here, ok got it.
Chuckles and such as the Prof pretends to make a note.
PROFESSOR
So, ok. Besides these maps, we have some photography of the sites- which is all low-light, underwater photography, so that adds to the Blair Witch-through-night-vision-goggles look. But, this along with samples they’ve been able to surface is the total hard evidence we’re dealing with. For samples, well there’s not a ton, but they have managed to bring a few fascinating things up, and we’ll get into that stuff pretty deeply, I can assure you. What?
Inaudible question.
PROFESSOR
Oh I wish! But no, most likely no we won’t get to see any of the objects in person-- they’re being studied at Beijing University. But they have a great department there- amazing facility. And I’m touch with them on the reg. Does anyone still say that? No? Cool, then I’m bringing it back. Good for me.
Some pen squeaks.
PROFESSOR
Again- I’m not going to go deep on this, but if you want more to look at, start off with Reed’s Anterran Historiography and also Arroyo and Oscar, The Place of Antera. That’s a good one too.
SQUEAKS of the pen.
PROFESSOR
Ok. Any questions on that stuff? Uh, sorry I don’t know your names yet... You. Go ahead.
CHRIS
(very distant and muffled)
I looked for Reed at the bookstore and they didn’t have it.
Some giggles.
PROFESSOR
Yeah, that’s not too surprising. Well, actually it is-- because that book is fascinating!-- but it goes out of print all the time. Which is why its NOT surprising. BUT, considering how fascinating the topic is, and how world-changing a discovery Anterra is, I’m just blown away that these materials are hard to find. Makes no sense.
PROFESSOR
So the evidence can broken into Art, Technology, and Writing. Yeah? Art Technology and Writing. And then if this were a surface based culture we’d look at DNA but so far, because of the conditions, we just have DNA from a whole lot of fish. So not much use there.
Chuckles.
Beat.
PROFESSOR
Ok. Art. You’ll get a better grip on this after you’ve done the reading for next week, but meanwhile- let’s jump in. In the Anterran tradition we have sculpture and carving, and architecture. You’ll see how the styles refine and evolve over the various periods- which we call Empires- in an extraordinary way. We’ll start with carvings and architecture from the old city of Prime A. For technology, seems like Anterra was a bronze age culture, with equivalent simple machines that we see in early Egypt, or more apropos Mayan or Incan culture. But using these simple machines, they were able to accomplish incredibly complex goals. Really incredible. And lastly, writing.
Another phone ding.
RAQUEL
Professor, its Carol again. She’s texted like 4 times...
PROFESSOR
Just ignore it, ok? I’ll talk to them later. Its fine. Thanks.
CHRIS
You owe someone money?
HAI RONG
(annoyed with Chris’ joke)
Oh come on.
PROFESSOR
Yeah, I gotta stop betting on pro wrestling- I think those fights might be fixed.
He gets back into it.
PROFESSOR
Ok: writing. Inside the buildings around the sites- both sites, Prime A and Prime B, there are walls covered in thousands of characters. THOUSANDS. This writing covers four main subjects: religion, history, trade, and philosophy. That’s where we’re going to put our focus in this class.
Beat.
PROFESSOR
Last thing I’ll add, before we call it. And that’s a story the Anterran philosopher Rah Sammanah wrote during the Second Empire, at roughly 68,000 BCE. A man was at a banquet, when he overheard a secret plot had been hatched to assassinate the King. The man figured the King will want to know, and will reward him with jewels and titles, right, for saving his life? So in this moment, Rah Sammanah explains, the man ai standing in the light of knowing. The Light of Knowing. And the King is- get this - in the cave of Ignorance. That’s Plato’s cave! Only is about 65,000 BEFORE Plato!
Pause.
PROFESSOR
So the man goes and tells the King about the plot. And the King doesn’t believe him. The King says- no way, everyone loves me! Its unthinkable! Why would anyone want to kill me? So the man realizes he was wrong- the King did not want to know about the plot. And Rah Sammanah tells us that the man went from a Cave of Not Knowing into a darker Cave of Not Knowing. So ok, what does that mean? Let’s look at Plato’s cave. Plato’s cave of course is the allegory of ignorance versus enlightenment- right? Step out of the cave into the light of knowing. Her point is that the first man thought he had stepped out of his cave into the light of know, but in fact he had just stepped into a deeper, darker cave.
Beat.
PROFESSOR
That’s our journey together, folks. We’re going to learn things that our ancestors struggled with over 7000 years ago, that are still relevant today. And even knowing these things, we are only going into deeper, darker caves.
A HIGH PITCHED WHINE fades in.
PROFESSOR
Ouch! OWW!
A grumble of dull pain from the students, who were standing up but now hold their heads and moan for a second until the sound subsides.
PROFESSOR
Do you guys hear that? That’s not just me, right?
RAQUEL
(distant)
I heard it, for sure.
PROFESSOR
Must be the recording equipment or something. Weird.
He shakes it off.
PROFESSOR
Ok, my friends. That’s it for our introduction. Raquel has the reading lists printed out- they’re on the class webpage too, but if you’re an analog kind of person -- which I am, if you can’t tell -- then come grab one... Next week-- we’re doing more Creation Myths, its a good idea to read the first 2 chapters in the book... Yeah, you’re probably not going to do that. But you should! Ok thanks.
Beat as students shuffle out and quiet returns to the classroom as the Professor packs up his satchel.
Suddenly EVERYTHING RINGS - his cell phone, his laptop, the class laptop, and the old hard-wired phone on the wall. He answers the wall phone.
PROFESSOR
Hello?
STATIC jumps out and settles into a distant, ambient conversation from far away. A voice BARKS in Chinese.
WOMAN
(distant)
You can’t keep me here! I want to leave! You hear me? I want to leave right fucking now!!
WOMAN
I’m not translating a goddamn word until you let me make a phone call. You hear me? Not a single goddamn word.
An unintelligible answer in Chinese.
PROFESSOR
June? June is that you!??
The line goes dead.