# Archaeology 3010



## bazz cargo (Jan 22, 2011)

​
Archaeology 3010

Removed for entry to a competition.
Thanks to all those who helped me work this up.


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## Adeline Addison (Jan 22, 2011)

I really, really, liked this, its always interesting to see speculation on how the future will look back on the present- I don't see it very often- and I'm no good at critiqing so I won't eveb try, but...

I may have interpreted something wrong, but if the professor and his groupies only have one arm, how are they applauding?  I mean I know you can clap on your leg...  I suppose its a dumb question.


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## Tripp (Jan 23, 2011)

Things like these make it read more like a screenplay:
"from stage left" Try something like, "from the door to the left."
"Cue picture of a robot falling over." Try something like "The students looked down at a [hologam of a] robot without wheels falling over."

I like the imagination of someone from the future trying to predict how we lived. Make sure you keep it creative, but don't lose the reader as to what you're describing.


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## bazz cargo (Jan 23, 2011)

Thankyou Adeline
I was fearful that all my ramblings would receive is laughter and contempt, but you have treated me kindly.
The conceit behind this story is simple. After the world we live on is brought to the edge of disaster, the rich build themselves covers over some cities, then as time passes they build upwards filling the interior, burying their past and changing to suit their new environment.  
They use chairs to travel around, maglev style. Losing the use of their legs, and eventually losing their legs altogether. One arm is all that is needed to push buttons or to operate a fork. You can applaud by tapping your last remaining limb onto the armrest of your chair. The errors in  how the future looks back on the present are incidental to the story. The need for more credit shows how money still rules the new society. The coda is there to show that despite the cataclysm, humans could still survive on the outside, even if only by reverting to a less technological state

Looking for a good quote : Call Ishmael.



Adeline Addison said:


> I really, really, liked this, its always interesting to see speculation on how the future will look back on the present- I don't see it very often- and I'm no good at critiqing so I won't eveb try, but...
> 
> I may have interpreted something wrong, but if the professor and his groupies only have one arm, how are they applauding?  I mean I know you can clap on your leg...  I suppose its a dumb question.


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## bazz cargo (Jan 24, 2011)

Hi Tripp
Thank you for your crit. It has made me revisit some of the earlier incarnations of this story. Spoonbender is giving his presentation from a stage, so I am glad you picked up that point. In fact at one point there was a tail end of a play and an introduction by a master of ceremony's, but it was so stuffed with exposition I was wondering why I bothered to write the rest of the story.
The falling robot did have more of a description, ' Cue robot falling down a stairwell, wheels spinning in mechanical panic.' I just tried to edit out as much of the unnecessary descriptive parts as I could. 
One of the hardest things for me is to put something I have constructed out into the wild, because I have all the detail and have to restrain myself from over embellishing a story to death. I have to learn to rely on the readers imagination.
With helpful people like you I hope to get over my panic attacks.
Ta
 bazz

Quote: Consequences come second.



Tripp said:


> Things like these make it read more like a screenplay:
> "from stage left" Try something like, "from the door to the left."
> "Cue picture of a robot falling over." Try something like "The students looked down at a [hologam of a] robot without wheels falling over."
> 
> I like the imagination of someone from the future trying to predict how we lived. Make sure you keep it creative, but don't lose the reader as to what you're describing.


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## Neuroaxiom (Jan 24, 2011)

Hello bazz cargo,

I'm a newbie as well to sharing fiction online, so it's very encouraging to me to see such good work coming from you.

I think what I see here is really interesting. I would love to read the book that follows what I've read so far. 

The one major criticism I have is that the speech of the Professor often feels very much present-day, as though he were intimately acquanted with the way we talk. Same thing with the the Prof's collegue saying things like, "Splendid presentation." It doesn't help the suspension of disbelief when they aren't sure about the nature of the word "Fook" (which is hilarious) earlier. You might have been going for this, for reasons as yet unknown, but you'd have to consider whether it's a risk worth taking or not.

There are a few grammar issues - like ceremony's should be ceremonies or fathers fathers father should be father's father's father. Little things like that that spell-checkers might not catch, which can be helped by printing the work off and reading it over with a pen in hand to fix the errors.

Right on, though. Keep it up. It's a great premise, you've got some characters that I already feel strongly about, and there's lots of room to run with it. Nice job.


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## bazz cargo (Jan 25, 2011)

Hi Neuroaxiom
thank you for crit. My days  at school were not spent getting an education, so my written work is somewhat idiosyncratic, and I bless the spell checker. Thinking about it, the rather modern but stilted way the prof and his colleague speak is purely by accident, an affectation of theirs, as some people use cod olde worlde english to beef up their classical appeal. There is some more story kicking about in note form, but it has yet to reach critical mass. I feel the urge to slum it with a good old fashioned Girls, Guns And Car Chase blockbuster short story next.
Before that I feel another urge, the need to see other peoples writing, for without a reader we are all a one ended stick.
By the way, do you mind if I converse with you occasionally, when the loneliness gets to deep.
All the best
Bazz


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## Olly Buckle (Jan 25, 2011)

Those filter tips are nylon, they really don't decompose, I have sometimes wondered if the bic biro age and the disposable lighter age will be as distinguishable as the stone age and the bronze age.

I like the way you let your imagination roam and then bring in something which is very everyday, like funding.


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## bazz cargo (Jan 26, 2011)

*The pub discussion group.*

Hi Olly,
thanks for your tip on tips. I am a non smoker, but I wonder if many smokers know what goes into their cigarettes. One of the points made to me, was the volume of rubbish we now produce. A future archaeology team will be overwhelmed by the stuff.
Another rather heated debate was a Startrek type future verses the Mad Max type.
I have a feeling if we keep the global population growth going, and start to run out of oil, Mad Max may become a reality.






 Despite the whiz bang attraction of war, or the police, I think using the very ordinariness of everyday life is the best way to view the future, and any society with a degree of sophistication will need to invent money.
Be afraid.
Bazz



Olly Buckle said:


> Those filter tips are nylon, they really don't decompose, I have sometimes wondered if the bic biro age and the disposable lighter age will be as distinguishable as the stone age and the bronze age.
> 
> I like the way you let your imagination roam and then bring in something which is very everyday, like funding.


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## bazz cargo (Jan 26, 2011)

Hi anyone,
I know somewhere on this forum/writers exchange there has to be some kind of 'etiquette for the newby ' content. Only I have yet to find it.
Is it worth joining a club ? Do you have to wait to be invited, or can you just push in ?
What is the best way to browse other writers work ?
If you find a really great piece of work, can you put a plug for it on your own thread ?   
What is the general position on collaboration ?
Any help would be appreciated
Bazz


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## riverdog (Feb 1, 2011)

Just an FYI on the basis of your story...

It will take more than 1000 years for the evolutionary events you describe to happen without some sort of catalyst.  I'm not a biologist, but the changes you're advancing would take hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions.

Otherwise, its a pretty interesting storyline.  But cut that unless its absolutely necessary for the story, or set it so far in the future that studying the old cities is akin to our dinasaur digs.


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## Foxee (Feb 1, 2011)

Bazz, I'm afraid it's too late on the savaging thing. I've sent out the  dogs so I suggest you run. And while you're running, hey, welcome!

Anyway, while Bazz is busy I'll leave some feedback.

This is a really fun read, I enjoyed it a LOT. I like futuristic and I  like some humor so though I dropped by on a whim I ended up reading the  whole thing. Chalk that up as a win right there because that means your  story made it through the noise and grabbed my attention.



> As a species, we progress by error.
> If the latest theory is true, we only exist by a catalogue of mistakes.


I like the quote, I'd like to see who said it whether they're real or fictitious.



> Self styled Professor Spoonbender,


Awesome name. Your setup into the story was good, easy to see. Fantastic yet I'm buying it.


> Cue picture of a robot falling down a stairwell, wheels spinning in mechanical panic


Yes, I laughed. I love the picture you gave me here. 'mechanical panic' is a delight all on its own.
Now everything is progressing well until I reach this line:


> [FONT=FreeSans, sans-serif]_What I'm not telling you yet, is we seem to have found some kind of metal shape we think is a coded key device. _[/FONT]


There is a problem with this. From the time that Professor Spoonbender  rolled onto the stage and began, I felt like the story is being told by  someone who is NOT Professor Spoonbender. Someone who knows about him,  maybe, but someone who is watching and narrating. So this sudden line of  Professor Spoonbender's thoughts are a jarring POV (Point of View)  shift for me. Actually, I got the idea that this story was something  seen or heard on a recording device, broadcasting this. Or maybe more  like the feed from someone's lapel mic when they leave it on, you know  what I mean, an impersonal narrator.

If you mean for Professor Spoonbender himself to be the teller of this  story, you'll have to change some things to make that clear. For  instance, Professor Spoonbender won't look at the outside of his own  head unless he's looking in a mirror. If he's not telling the story then  it's better to leave his internal thoughts out.

I'm not sure how much you know about the concept of point of view. We can discuss it more if it would help.


> Church of Fook. As you know, all the Little Fookers have to put  their Deity's name into every sentence they utter, Fook knows, who the  Fook are you ? What the Fook do you want ? And so on. Also one of the  Churches ceremonies, includes inhaling the smoke from burnt  paper.”


And the Fookers got a well-deserved eye-rolling groan (and a muffled chuckle).


> That would attract the animal conspiracy theorists.


Intriguingly funny. Makes me wonder what the animal conspiracy theorists believe.


> The thirty three blog followers applauded once again.


Good job carrying something from now over into the future in a way that fits really well with your premise.


> "Thank  you, the high figures mean more credit, and more credit means we can  now afford to embark on the biggest adventure yet, we have a key device,  now all we need to do is find the Portal, and go outside of the  Citypyramid. Time for tea I think.”


Here the Prof tells someone something that he obviously didn't tell  anyone in his lecture, thereby adequately covering this ground without  any need for the internal thought that didn't fit above anyway.



> Coda.


I liked your use of the word here.

Interesting little piece at  the end, too, showing what we've seen from the outside. I'm not entirely  sure what the timeframe is from the first part but I found it  interesting. What is in those structures? Is it what we've just seen or  will it have changed? It ties back into the Archaeology idea while  hinting that there might be a future clash ahead.

Do you intend to write more to this or is it a standalone story? I very much enjoyed it. Thank you for posting!


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## bazz cargo (Feb 2, 2011)

Big hi to Riverdog
This is getting out of my league, I'm beginning to get an idea of what the startrek writers felt like when they got asked how a Heisenberg uncertainty compensator works.
So it's confession time.
This story started out as an opportunity to air some of my hobby horses, have a joke and  see if what goes on in my head would work in other peoples.
Just to get it down on paper, ( yes I use a pen ) took the best part of a thousand year back and side story, with a whole mass of technical notes. ( There is a catalyst ). I wanted to keep it short and snappy, because  a long story takes some dedication to read. So a lot of detail went. I do not know if there is enough demand for this kind of work to make it worthwhile writing a book, or maybe two. My life is insane at the moment so I use writing as a form of relaxation. ( Ok an addiction ). But I am curious to see if I could write one.
Thank you dropping by, 

Quote: I have a cunning plan.


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## bazz cargo (Feb 2, 2011)

Hi Foxee Administrator, 
The species quote is mine own, hands off.
'Professor' is Mr Spoonbender's own affectation.
The Spoonbender bit is a mild reference to charlatan's.
I had edited 'to robots mechanical panic' out, until TrippDakota made me realize it was missing. 
You are right, the key muggufin is a clumsy retro fit. Now I will have to re write.
Try saying thirty three bloggers 6 times fast.
I did have an idea for a sequel , Indian Jones in a wheel chair, but I'm still trying to daydream it up. ( So far it is no more than a series of really bad jokes).
Thank you for your insight, and thank you for reading

Quote: Money makes the world go round.
Free the penguin.


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## Chris Miller (Jul 18, 2011)

I believe archaeological examination of our present society by some future race is a fairly standard SF trope. But that's just the framework, and you handle it in a unique and humorous way. Biggest problem for me with the piece is its almost total lack of a POV. We're privy to no one's thoughts or feelings. This is further exacerbated by its "voicelessness" or maybe "correctness" would be a better word. Nut redeemed by all the clever ideas (the "Fook" god!) and clues. Interesting story in any case.


*Self styled Professor Spoonbender*
Self-styled
The hyphen is your friend.

*every ones net trawler.*
everyone's


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## Razzazzika (Jul 19, 2011)

I don't know what I can say that hasn't already been said. I enjoyed it.


> Although the word form is very strange, it does have something in common with the modern speech patterns of the Church of Fook. As you know, all the Little Fookers have to put their Deity's name into every sentence they utter, Fook knows, who the Fook are you ? What the Fook do you want ? And so on. Also one of the Churches ceremonies, includes inhaling the smoke from burnt paper.”
> The net trawler's of every Little Fooker would pick up the reference and the viewing figures would rise significantly.
> “ This is probably a very early Fook enclave. “


 ^--- My favorite part. I giggled.


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## bazz cargo (Jul 19, 2011)

Hi Chris,
Hi Razzazzika, Nice to meet you
Thanks for the comments. It was written a long time ago, it does show how much I have improved.


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## Bilston Blue (Jul 19, 2011)

Well Bazz, it's the second time I've lol'd at something of yours in a couple of days. The Church of Fook had me tittering more than a Frankie Howerd titter-thon. In its entirety I thought it was good, and I think some of its weaker areas you've developed since the time you wrote this, such as point of view. Interesting take on the cigarettes. Its natural they shouldn't think of them as simply an expensive way of quickening one's demise, but wouldn't they have the equipment to test the contents of the tips. Just a thought.

An enjoyable little thing.  :thumbl:

Scott


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## bazz cargo (Jul 19, 2011)

Hi BB,
When I wrote this it was just a maguffin, but I had a think about your cigarette question, it being quite a regressed society they perhaps wouldn't test, and it being a religious symbol even if they did they would ignore the evidence in favour of the Word of Fook.

I had a jokey chance to poke fun at some of our cultural ways and took it. Glad you had a laugh.
Bazz


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## InsanityStrickenWriter (Jul 20, 2011)

I forgot that I had read this, (can't remember how long ago). Its a great story and highly amusing. As for why they'd smoke in the future, perhaps they'd do it for the sake of getting closer to God, and the resultant early death is a sign that God favours you and wants you in heaven as soon as possible


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## bazz cargo (Jul 21, 2011)

> As for why they'd smoke in the future, perhaps they'd do it for the sake  of getting closer to God, and the resultant early death is a sign that  God favours you and wants you in heaven as soon as possible



Ooops, my intention was to show how no one smoked cigarettes any more, and they misunderstood what cigarettes were for. 'Holy smoke' was their interpretation.


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## vanguard (Aug 10, 2011)

It gets more immersing as it goes in!

I enjoyed the flow of the story after the "Fook tribe" was described in more speaking terms. There was something about it that was easy for me to connect to and my comprehension just kind of latched on more naturally.

One pitfall where I think the flow might have an issue is around the area of the slideshow.

"The picture changed, to a long conveyor, moving piles of rubbish between two lines of robots. 
“ The debris from this dig was placed in large metal boxes, and transported to the sorting line. Mostly it consists of paper, fabric, and plastic. Some of the more interesting items are being scanned for the Museum, and then packed away in the Vault.” p { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; } The picture changed.
“ This multi faceted shape has a core of metal, with an outer sheath of plastic, we believe it to be a coded key device. It might possibly be a clue to the mythical Portal.” 
The Portal myth would be on practically every ones net trawler.

[FONT=FreeSans, sans-serif]The picture changed."[/FONT]

[FONT=FreeSans, sans-serif]I can enjoy the depictions of the slides bit by bit, though perhaps word choice or description of the Professor changing the slides could make the flow a bit easier on the memory.
Sometimes I like to describe the same action with a slightly altered perspective, just to beautify the writing, but also to keep the same concept in light. 

Overall, I'm interested in the "bloggers" reaction to the slideshow findings.

Keep it up![/FONT]


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## SteveHolak (Aug 11, 2011)

Neuroaxiom said:


> The one major criticism I have is that the speech of the Professor often feels very much present-day, as though he were intimately acquanted with the way we talk. Same thing with the the Prof's collegue saying things like, "Splendid presentation." It doesn't help the suspension of disbelief .



You could make this work to your advantage as character color -- let it drop that the Professor has some sort of obsession with ancient dialog and syntax, and deliberately enjoys phrasing things in archaic way . . .


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## bazz cargo (Aug 11, 2011)

Hi Van, Hi Steve,
pleased to meet you.
One day when I'm feeling up to the challenge I will rewrite this. 

This was my first post, way back before I learned enough to make proper job of POV.

I was concerned that there had to be a way for other writers to see what I could do, and have the ability to return the favour of reading and critiquing. It didn't seem fair just to comment on some ones hard work without giving them the opportunity to do likewise.

Looking back now I can see so many ways it could be improved, yet it still works. 

Thank you for your comments, and for enjoying my work.
Bazz


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## candid petunia (Nov 17, 2011)

Looking at the past from a future perspective is interesting. Gosh, I don't know how people get ideas, I'd never be able to let my imagination run so wild. 
I liked how the characters have only one limb left, it's something to think about considering how lazy people are becoming now. The fook and the cigarettes part was really amusing. Haha what if someone in the future actually interpreted it that way? :topsy_turvy:


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## bazz cargo (Nov 18, 2011)

Ah Candid,
My mind is a ferment of peculiar ideas, and this was one of the easy to understand ones.


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## River (Nov 19, 2011)

I found the story slightly confusing, but everyone has covered it quite well so I won't beleaguer the issues, just to say the concept for the story was interesting.
I think the fookers thing, while comical, detracts from the story and jars the reader back to the present, but then I have been guilty of that meself.

All in all, good job at doing a difficult piece.


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## bazz cargo (Nov 21, 2011)

Hi River,
pleased to meet you.
To be honest I keep thinking about doing a rewrite, but somehow I can't seem to get started. It is an odd story, I'm not sure how the hell I managed to write it in the first place. 

I am happy to use it as an example of how far I have moved on. The LM comp has been a wonderful educational tool. And there have been some really nice/helpful Forum members. I was lucky to find this place.

See you round.


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