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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Oct 17, 2019 9:11:50 GMT -5
Letter to reader.
"Secret organizations you should know but don't know because this brochure will be published in a very limited circulation because of its very poor publisher advertising policy."
Dear reader,
I was hired to write about VFD, a secret organization that no longer exists. (Perhaps this organization still exists, but if so, the organization is again secret). Unfortunately, the organization's "secret" character has prevented many documents from reaching the general public over the ages. Most of the information I have access to comes from the writings of the late author Lemony Snicket. In addition, Lemony Snicket has compiled some important VFD-related documents. This brochure will first list relevant facts involving approximate dates of events that are important or not to VFD.
Regards,
Maria Mallahan
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Oct 17, 2019 14:33:29 GMT -5
Chapter 1 - The MM Method
Amazing as it sounds, Mr. Snicket wrote his documents in such a way that determining approximate dates for recorded events is very difficult. In addition, some documents have been intensively shredded to prevent date identification. The carbon 14 method was suggested by my editor, but when he realized the costs involved in hiring a research center for this purpose, he immediately rejected the idea. In addition, apparently some of these documents have been removed from places where there is evidence that they have suffered fire. Fires consume much of the available original carbon, and in addition add colloidal carbon to documents, making dating using the carbon 14 method in such old documents a questionable procedure. Another method suggested by my editor was paleography. Paleography is a word that means here "a method of dating documents by the way letters are written, by comparing these documents with others with very explicit dates." (Note: I created the indiosychrasy of defining words in the texts I write because I read Lemony Snicket's writings too much). However, most of the documents found were typed, making pelography a very limited method for some very specific documents. So I created my own method, which I called the MM Method. (MM means "more modest") Basically, the MM method indicates the dates through the allegations found in the work of Lemony Snicket and his associates associated with the known general history. Because it is a modest method, it has limitations. But the MM method presented the best cost-benefit ratio.
The first step of the method is to find base dates.
The collection of documents which one of Lemony Snicket's associates called "Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography", which I will refer to only as "LSTUA" on page 161, contains a clipping from pages 47 and 48 of a book from book written by Lemony Snicket called "The Bad Beginning", which I will refer to as TBB. In LSTUA page 161, in addition to that clipping, there is an observation written possibly by a human being. Paleological studies will be carried out in the future if there is enough money to prove whether or not this note was actually written by Lemony Snicket or not. This note, possibly written by a human being, indicates that TBB was published in 1999. This information does not help to understand whether this year refers to 1999 BCE or AD. However, a recent excavation found a book by the same author called "Lump of Coal" in which Lemony Snicket quotes a story that took place at the time of the celebration of the birth of a baby. The textual analysis of "Lump of Coal" indicates that this celebration possibly refers to the "Christmas" celebration. Therefore, the MM method defined that the year of publication of TBB was in 1999 AD.
About 10 years ago another valuable archive was found under the rubble of an old library in the city of San Francisco. The archaeologist who found him called the file The Beatrice Letters, which was a good idea because it was written on the outside of the file. The archive contains some important documents, some of them signed by Lemony Snicket, and some signed by one (or two) women named Beatrice Baudelaire. Some of the letters are not signed, another is actually a telegram, another is signed by B. In addition, there are photographs of objects that have been added within the same file. Studies on the meaning of these letters are still ongoing. My editor got access to that file, and sent me photocopies of the letters. (The original letters were curated at the University of Tokyo.) Most of the letters have no clear indication of when they were written. However, one of the letters that was signed by Lemony Snicket (which originally received a "LS to BB # 2" registration mark) contains an atypical time stamp. According to the author of the letter, it was written during the Year of the Snake. According to an earlier letter, Lemony was 11 or older at this time. My editor, who is Chinese, could explain to me what this means. According to him, it was a custom in ancient China to relate the years to animals. This involved some kind of popular belief, where people born in a given year were believed to have some kind of personality trait that was associated with that animal. By the 20th century AD, this custom became popular in various parts of the planet, including many of the kingdoms and cities of North America. So it is believed that Lemony Snicket published TBB in 1999 AD, that letter must have been written around the 20th century AD. According to my editor, the years of this ancient Chinese tradition would repeat animal names every 12 years (probably because there are a limited number of animals while there are an infinite number of numbers). I had to research a book about calendars used by the Chinese, and asked my editor to read it to me because it was in Chinese and I don't understand Chinese. But during the 20th century AD, the years of the snake were as follows: 1905, 1917, 1929, 1941, 1953, 1965, 1977, 1989
The another information for determining a base date for VFD-related events through the MM method comes from my own family. Moxie Mallahan was a forerunner of mine, which I I admire a lot. She retrieved 5 very special books, written by Lemony Snicket himself. These books were passed down from generation to generation until they were sold by my great-grandfather. And I bought them because my great-grandfather is too greedy to give to his great-granddaughter. According to such books, Lemony Snicket came to Stain'd-by-the-Sea after his theoretical training at some kind of VFD school. At this time Lemony Snicket was 12 or 13 years old.
Apparently in the 20th century AD, the life expectancy of humans was about 80 years. But some humans live to be 105 years old. Other humans lived to 3 days or less, especially in the African and South American kingdoms and cities. (It was a difficult time).
Finally, LSTUA contains a collection of photographs between pages 48 and 52. After using a magnifying glass, I found a date on page 49. "Oct 77". Considering what has already been said, I deduce that the date in question refers to October 1977. Something interesting is explained through the text of LSTUA. According to the compilation of documents, when this picture was taken, Lemony Snicket was an adult human being of childbearing age. In the 20th century AD, the fertile age of humans usually began at age 12, and ended at around 40. However, in addition to being fertile, Lemony Sincket at the time the picture was taken, almost married a woman named Beatrice. Due to a series of unfortunate events, Lemony Snicket was unable to marry at this time. In fact, possibly he had to flee to another (undefined) country in order not to be murdered. According to our sources, humans generally married after their eighteenth birthday (unless parents or legal guardians allowed them to marry earlier.) Our sources indicate that Lemony was a grown man when he was planning to marry. If Lemony followed the custom of the time, he must have been married in his mid-twenties.
Accordingly, the MM method determines that Lemony was born in 1953, was 12 years old in 1965, 24 years old in 1977, 46 years old in 1999 when he published TBB. The method has an approximate error of 2 years plus or minus because we do not know precisely the month Lemony was born, nor do we know if Lemony was 11 or 12 years old when he wrote the letter in the year of the snake.
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Post by Dante on Oct 18, 2019 11:33:17 GMT -5
Well, Jean Lucio, having said in the past that you write your theories like fanfiction, I can hardly complain if you write your fanfiction like a theory. I'm curious about the approach you're taking here; approaching an investigation of Snicket's world from such an evidently far-future perspective - and a very academic, almost archeological one. I could dispute some of your assessments of the evidence, but given that you present them here as the premise of a fanfic rather than of a theory then that would seem to be missing the point. I will be interested to read more.
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Post by Hermes on Oct 20, 2019 14:43:35 GMT -5
This is really interesting, JL, and I look forward to the details of the investigation. I'm interested to see that Moxie passed her surname on to her children (they weren't called Quagmire, then?), and also that she received the books of ATWQ, implying that her friendship with L continued after the events of the series. I wonder if the destruction of San Francisco may relate to the catastrophe chronicled in Adverbs.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Nov 2, 2019 18:13:50 GMT -5
Chapter 2 - Secret Organizations Throughout History
When I explained the MM method to my editor, he went into a frenzy, a word that here means “a state of joy due to the possibility of getting rich by selling several publications that will describe the chronology of historical documents whose general public shows interest."
My editor has sponsored several chronological studies, and has been publishing numerous brochures about publications such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Vaticanic Codex, Plato's Dialogues, Flavius Josephus: The Unauthorized Autobiography (Also Known As The Life of Flavius Josephus) The Red Book, among many others, spanning many years of human history, from the earliest days until the third world war. With the help of the results found by these other chronological research groups, associated with the results of my own research, I could relate some events recorded by Lemony Snicket with some specific years.
The earliest event recorded by Lemony Snicket is found in the book entitled "The Slippery Slope." (TSS) Lemony cites an account involving Adam and Eve, who had to flee a garden facing snake problems. According to Lemony Snicket, the event is recorded in the Holy Bible. I contacted the group in Tel Aviv, and according to them, when applying the MM Method in the Holy Bible, the event recorded by Lemony Snicket occurred in about 4,000 BCE.
According to the group in Tel Aviv, there is no evidence that Adam or Eve was part of any secret organization. However, apparently the snake in question was part of an organization, and was apparently leading the first Schism to be recorded. More information on this subject can be found in the Tel Aviv Brochure.
The next event related to VFD formation is in the book The Wide Window (TWW), also written by Lemony Snicket. In chapter 12, Lemony describes the events involving a man named Alexander the Great. According to Lemony Snicket, Alexander the Great was a Greek conqueror. Based on this information, I requested help from the Samothrace Archaeological Research Group. The group sent me photographs of the manuscript named Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis Libri Qui Supersunt (aka the Biography of Alexander the Great, Written by Someone Else, Not Himself). I told this to my editor, and he said, "No one will be interested in that." Therefore, I myself had to apply the MM method on the document. I am glad to have done so, as I have found a lot of useful information about VFD formation.
Lemony Snicket wrote: "Alexander the Great lived more than two thousand years ago." Whereas the TWW book was Lemony Snicket's third written book about the Baudelaires, and the first of the books was written in 1999 AD, one can conclude that Lemony Snciket believed that Alexander the Great lived before the year 1 BCE. Applying the MM method to the book Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis Libri Qui Supersunt, I calculated that Alexander the Great was born on July 20, 356 BCE and died on June 10, 323 BCE (He lived only 33 years, which was a life short for humans at the time). So Lemony Snicket's statement that Alexander lived more than two thousand years before TWW's writing is chronologically correct, according to my research.
Lemony describes a specific event involving this conqueror. Lemony wrote: "Besides invading other peoples countries and forcing them to whatever he said, Alexander the Great was famous for something called the Gordian knot. The Gordian Knot was a fancy knot tied in a piece of rope by a king named Gordius. Gordius said that if Alexander could untie it, he could rule the whole kingdom But Alexander, who was too busy conquering places to learn how to untie knots, simply drew his sword and cut the Gordian Knot in 2. This was cheating, of course, but Alexander had too many soldiers for Gordius to argue, and soon everybody in Gordium had to bow down to You-Know-Who the Great. "
According to the MM method applied in Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis Libri Thu Supersunt the event took place in the year 334 BCE. This report is very compelling to understand VFD-related events. By cutting off the Gordian knot, Alexander the Great gained the confidence that he could conquer all Asia Minor, and that is exactly what he did. According to his biography, in the year 331 BCE Alexander defeated King Darius III, and came to dominate the entire region ruled by the defeated king, including Palestine. Palestine was the homeland of Lemony Snicket's ancestors, and probably the birthplace of an ancient secret organization formed by scribes known as the Sopherins.
According to the writings of Flavius Josephus (a Jewish historian whose writings are being analyzed by the Tel Aviv group) Alexander the Great had a dream about a Jewish high priest. When Alexander came to conquer the city of Jerusalem, which was the religious center of Lemony Snicket's ancestors, this same high priest met Alexander. After this, the priests showed Alexander an ancient manuscript that contained a prophecy about Alexander's conquests, written by a man named Daniel. Because of the dream and the prophecy, Alexander made a deal with the people of Lemony Snicket's ancestors. The people would peacefully submit to Alexander, and Alexander would allow an organized and secretive group of scribes from the people of Lemony Snicket's ancestors to spread throughout his empire, promoting peace, order, justice, literary education for all.
I couldn't find the name of this organization, so I even got a name for it myself: "Alexander Supporters." (AS) According to the writings of Flavius Josephus, after Alexander's untimely death, the enormous empire to which he had formed passed a huge Schism. Four of their generals divided the empire, which included parts of large parts of Africa and Eurasia, into the regions of ancient India. The influence of the AS focused heavily on the African part of Alexander's empire, which came to be dominated by General Ptolemy's family. Alexander created a city called Alexandria, and with the influence of the AS, Ptolemy's family arranged for the creation of the largest library to date, the library of Alexandria. The Alexandria Library was a huge undertaking. AS's headquarters were installed inside the library. AS's goal was to catalog all the world's knowledge in one place, but they soon realized that this would be impossible because people around the world know so many things. Thus, attached libraries were created, and later branches of the Alexandria library were created in other cities. More and more AS members were trained to catalog the manuscripts of these libraries. The work was so much just for maintenance in all libraries that AS set aside the obligation to promote peace, order and justice, and focused solely on promoting literary knowledge. Because of this, AS did nothing to stop the wars that took place at that time. But AS soon realized that failure to comply with the entire agreement they had made with Alexander would prevent the maintenance of all their libraries. Because of the revolutions and wars that were taking place around the world, several AS libraries were being destroyed one by one. Finally, in the year 45 BCE, an accident caused a fire in AS headquarters, the library of Alexandria. When the fire began, several volunteer librarians fought the fire using water and buckets. Flavius Josephus called this event "The Moment When Librarians Realize That Both Water and Fire Destroy Books Made of Paper." Much of the Alexandria library collection has been lost. The librarians who were members of AS who fought the fire gathered in one of the library's secret rooms. They decided that day, May 4, 45 BCE, that they would restore the basic principles of AS. They realized that to be able to fight the fires libraries that were happening around the world, it was necessary to combat the causes of these fires, which was precisely the lack of peace, order and justice. In addition, they realized that it would be a great idea to devise more practical methods of fighting fires after they started, something better than splashing water on precious books. That's why they formed a faction within AS. While AS members received government salaries to work in libraries (as part of the deal with Alexander), members of that faction would receive no money to combat the injustices of the world, and to promote peace and order. Therefore, this faction came to call itself Ethelontikí pyrosvestikí ypiresía (they spoke Greek at the time). That faction had to act even more confidentially than AS. Many believe that Flavius Josephus himself was part of it. It was he who recorded the creation Ethelontikí pyrosvestikí ypiresía in his Authorized Autobiography. However, Flavius Josephus recorded no information other than the creation of the faction. But the translation of Ethelontikí pyrosvestikí ypiresía into English was very important in my research. Ethelontikí pyrosvestikí ypiresía means Volunteer Fire Department.
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Post by Dante on Nov 3, 2019 4:33:34 GMT -5
It's interesting to see you return to this, Jean Lucio, though I confess at first I wasn't wholly sure where you were going. But your alternative history is gathering increasing quantities of detail, and I can see that you must have done a certain amount of research to compile this; bravo. I look forward to not knowing what to expect from the next installment, too.
Why Chapter 3, though?
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Post by thathoboravioli on Nov 4, 2019 20:12:43 GMT -5
This is quite impressive
I find it funny considering how much I got a handful of the historic references (a prophecy from a guy named Daniel about Alexander of Macedonia...the iron legs, I'm quite familiar with the work of Josephus), so I'm quite interested in seeing how this goes.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Nov 20, 2019 12:28:02 GMT -5
Chapter 3:The initial 13 Heralds.
Since I could not find additional information about VFD in Josephus' writings, I began researching other historians living at the same time. I found nothing useful. At first I believed that the writings had been completely destroyed by the passage of time or the passage of fire. So I decided to turn my attention back to the main content of my research, which was the writings of Lemony Snicket. Finally, one detail caught my attention. In book 13, called The Penultimate Peril (TPP), there is a passage in which a close relative of Lemony Snicket is described as saying two extremely significant sentences to the history of VFD.
TPP chapter 2:
"There was an enormous cavern, but a treacherous team of realtors claimed it for themselves. And there was an immense headquarters high in the Mortmain Mountains..."
The mention of a cave seemed to suggest that VFD used caves as a base of operations. So I contacted the group in Tel Aviv if they had found evidence of some secret cave organization around a few centuries after the establishment of the VFD in Alexandria. The Tel Aviv group sent me the following information:
"Miss Maria Mallahan, the answer to your question is yes. There was a secret society in the Middle East called the Essenes. This group is known to be the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Apparently the Essenes used various caves in the Qumran region as large libraries, they also devised methods to preserve their writings over the years, preventing moisture from reaching the libraries, and the rocky walls prevented the spread of fires. They promoted peace and order, and formed very peaceful communities. We hope we helped you.
PS: They have developed very interesting secret codes. They also did not accept money for their work.
Apparently I had discovered one of the VFD groups. I wanted to know about the secret codes used by the Essenes. The group in Tel Aviv allowed me to talk to their Kabbalah specialist, Dr. Handler. According to this expert, the Essenes develop a method to hide some important secrets of the organization through letter counting. Basically, the thirteenth letter of each text should be selected so that the hidden message can be understood. Based on Dr. Handler's information, I came to the following conclusion: If the Essenes were a derivation of VFD present in the Middle East, perhaps they would have had in their writings more information about the origin of VFD. This information would have been hidden from the world at large for so many centuries because it was encoded. But the Essene writings were so large that finding specific information in so many manuscripts would take too long. After speaking of my concern for Dr Handler, he told me, "Well, we found a catalog of manuscripts inside the cavernous libraries, and when we used the letter count, we realized that the catalog itself and the index of each manuscript was also in code. Then we can find the information you want relatively quickly. "
Dr. Handler, however, explained that this service could only be performed by 4 hands, but he only had two hands available to perform this activity. When I spoke to my editor about this, he said some bad word in Chinese, and said that one a plane ticket to Tel Aviv would be too expensive. The only option would be to travel by ship to Tel Aviv, hitchhiking with the merchant ship called Bendecido.
And that's exactly what I was determined to do. I thought I could take the trip to research what Lemony Snicket's trip might have been on board the Prospero ship, as recorded in LSTUA. But I had no opportunity for that, because the day before the Merchant ship arrived, I received a letter from Dr. Handler containing a one-way ticket to Tel Aviv. For some reason he also sent a photograph of him on a beach wearing only swim trunks, sunglasses, holding a blue cover notebook, matching the color with swim trunks. Anyway, I flew the next day to Tel Aviv.
After a strangely warm welcome from Dr Handler, and an excellent lunch at a restaurant far more upscale than my editor could afford for me, I asked Dr Handler to personally see the caves where the Essene libraries were located.
The trip to the West Bank was faster than I expected. It was amazing to see the damage caused by World War III, and how despite all that, the local population was making it back after more than 100 years. After an hour we were on the shores of the Dead Sea. We continued the walk until we reached the entrance to the Qumran museum, which was mounted at the entrance to one of the largest caves used by the Essenes. I briefly visited the nearest gallery with Dr Handler. But as I was in a hurry, we went to one of the offices set up inside one of the caves. Dr Handler was happy to accompany me for the next 4 weeks. He and I work about 10 hours a day dealing with precious manuscripts. We needed to wear gloves and masks all the time, and we couldn't take pictures of the manuscripts. So we need to copy many, many words in blue cover notebooks. Good thing my understanding of ancient Hebrew was at an acceptable level for that work. It was amazing to be able to sleep in an adapted cave as a bedroom, and to have meals in an adapted cave as a bedroom (there were no restaurants inside the caves to avoid the possibility of fires). It was also fun to bathe in the Dead Sea, and not sink even at great depths because of the large amount of floats I took with me. Dr Handler said there is a legend that people in the past could bathe in the Dead Sea without sinking, even without the use of floats, but I don't believe in legends. Anyway, after four weeks, we returned to Tel Aviv, with a lot of information about VFD. The most relevant information from my research was as follows: Unlike what I imagined, the Essenes came into existence as a secret organization before the creation of VFD in Alexandria. However, around 5 BCE, a man arrived at the Essene camp. This man came from Alexandria, Egypt. He carried a sealed manuscript. He requested a meeting with the older men in that group of Essenes. The mysterious man reported that his name was Sachiel Snicket. He was one of the 13 heralds of Alexandria. These 13 heralds were sent to 13 different locations with a manuscript in hand. They had the mission of finding people and organizations noble and willing to promote the principles that were written in the manuscript. Dr Handler and I found the names of the 13 heralds, who was informed by Sachiel Snicket. (I will translate the names from Hebrew to English using an approximation system taught to me by Dr Handler).
Sachiel Snicket
Shamshel Snicket
Ramiel Snicket
Gaghiel Snicket
Israfel Snicket
Matariel Snicket
Sahaquiel Snicket
Ireul Snicket
Leliel Snicket
Bardiel Snicket
Zeruel Snicket
Arael Snicket
Armisael Snicket
I cannot deduce if these are codenames or if they are all members of the same family. I spent a month without reading the news, so when I arrived in Tel Aviv I decided to buy a newspaper. My gratitude for Dr Handler increased greatly when I read the news of the Bendecido ship sinking. If I had boarded, I would be dead and my body would be found in that converting zone of sea currents where Lemony Snicket narrated that there was the Island a long time ago, before rising sea levels. "I'll keep an eye on you, Miss Mallahan," was what Dr Handler told me earlier at the airport. He also bought a return ticket that day. Now I could continue my research from the comfort of my apartment. The only problem was that when I arrived at the building where I lived, I realized that the whole building had been consumed by a fire.
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Post by Dante on Nov 20, 2019 15:52:25 GMT -5
I see the narrative element is now becoming more prominent, after a great deal of alternative history, and I wonder if that will continue to be the trend. Is there somebody intent on frustrating Maria Mallahan's research, or is it only coincidence? And are Dr. Handler's intentions purely academic, I wonder? You draw on some interesting and eclectic source material, Jean Lucio. I did a double-take at the names of the heralds.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Nov 20, 2019 16:27:21 GMT -5
Thank you Dante! I'm having so much fun writing, and seeing your positive reaction. This part of the story is for me a subtle tribute to the history of the Jewish people. I am not a Jew, so I am afraid of offending any Jew, and by chance the references I make are offensive in any way, please let me know, as this is not my intention, quite the contrary.Because Daniel Handler is Jewish and makes many references to Jewish culture in his books, I thought VFD should have a Jewish background. Even in our real universe, the history of the Jewish people is exciting, and little known to the people of my country. Many know of the story told in the Bible, which is already very interesting. But beyond the biblical story, the Jews have a rich story full of puzzles to solve. Probably from now on, however, Mariah Mallahan will focus on other countries and other peoples. I hope she makes other trips.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Nov 22, 2019 18:25:13 GMT -5
Chapter 4 - The 13 Commandments
I'm glad to say that part of the amount that the residents of the building I lived in paid all month for condominium expenses was to pay fire insurance. But I am sad to report that some of my neighbors perished in the fire. I can say that dealing with the death of people close to you is really very difficult. It was also very difficult to deal with so many funerals in a single week. The insurer provided me with a new apartment in the same city, and a week after my arrival from Tel Aviv, I had a meeting with my editor.
"Let's give it all up," he said. "I have received threatening letters, and I don't want to die. In addition, some members of the Samothrace and Tel Aviv groups have been attacked." I deduced that the fire in my building and the sinking of the ship that would be my transportation to Tel Aviv had not been a fluke.
Without an editor it seems that I will have my unfinished brochure and no job. That's why, dear reader, I'm sorry for wasting your time. My editor said I would not publish the brochure and that I should not make any further changes to the text. I insisted that he at least leave the off-set boards produced in case we ever return to this project. I don't know if I will convince him.
Dear reader, I managed to convince my old editor, and the off-set boards were produced. Unfortunately I will not be able to review the text. I would like to inform readers that the publisher I was a part of was sold to Handler Editorial Productions, being Dr Handler CEO and lead editor. I am very grateful to him again that I no longer need to fry chicken in that fast food, and to have my research and journalist job back.
Dr Handler has promised more features for all previous projects. In addition, he has come up with the most amazing ideas involving the safety of members of all groups around the world. We will use aliases, secret codes in our internal communications, evening meetings, disguises and various other methods to ensure our safety until each group finishes their work. Dr Handler said that my work inspired him to take all these actions, and asked to leave my new apartment and go to work in a secret office until the brochure was finalized. "That way I could keep an eye on you," he said. So I went back to searching the blue cover notebooks where Dr Handler and I took notes from the Essene manuscripts. We got very useful information about VFD operation. I have always wondered how it could be possible for VFD to exist without central leadership. But the answer to my questions was in the manuscript that the Herald took with them. Below are the original VFD rules.
1 - We have formed a secret organization that aims to combat fire in the literal and figurative sense. It is prohibited to speak or write about our secret organization to anyone who is not part of our secret organization.
2 - We are volunteers, so we refuse to receive payment to perform the fire fighting service. Thus, we need to establish methods to raise funds to fund our activities and support each of us.
3 - To prevent fire, it is necessary to prevent the formation of explosive mixtures.
4 - If the formation of explosive mixtures is impossible to prevent, the presence of ignition sources in explosive mixtures must be prevented.
5. If it is impossible to prevent the onset of fire, measures must be taken to prevent the fire from spreading uncontrollably.
6 - Research on the origin of different types of fire and ways to combat fire efficiently should be conducted and results should be disseminated to members of the organization.
7 - Effective fire fighting requires trained and reliable volunteers
8 - Safe and efficient means of communication and recognition among volunteers should be created.
9 - Libraries and their collections should be protected from fire.
10 - Each Herald must select a specific number of trusted men and women. These will receive the title of Tutors. They will be responsible for training new members of the organization. When a Tutor dies, other Tutors must choose someone to replace him or her. Only tutors can access this manuscript and its copies.
11. Volunteers must be noble people who value and promote historical, literary and scientific knowledge, peace, order and ingenuity.
12 - Tutors around the world should meet once every 13 years in a safe place so that updates or information from various groups in our organization can be exchanged. The first meeting will be at the Alexandria Library. The location of the next meeting will be determined at the previous meeting.
13 - Fire can be used for good.
Thus, the tutors were the members of VFD who were given the greatest powers over the secret organization. The meeting every 13 years should unify VFD methods around the world.
I realized, however, that understanding how to apply these rules was very difficult.
The Essenes, for example, understood that to apply rule 3 it was necessary for all volunteers to separate from the cities where they lived. They also understood that they should not get married, since the relationship between men and women used to be explosive. Because of this interpretation, the Essenes were in danger of ceasing to exist because they could not reproduce. They soon realized that they would not be able to comply with rule number 7. So some Essenes decided to appeal to the kidnapping of children from nearby communities. They understood that they would be complying with rule number 13. One of the last writings that Dr Handler and I wrote in the notebooks was that the tutors decided to bring information about the results of the interpretation of the rules to Alexandria. I deduce that the practices adopted by those Essenes became popular through the first meeting of Alexandria.
Unfortunately the Essenes ceased to exist less than 100 years after the arrival of the Herald. However, Sachiel Snicket informed which cities the other Heralds were sent to. So one stage of the research had come to an end, and Dr Handler asked me to focus on finding information involving the city to which Matariel Snicket was sent: Rome.
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Post by Dante on Nov 23, 2019 4:17:42 GMT -5
I liked the implied off-screen time interval near the start of the chapter where Maria Mallahan could not undertake her research. Dr. Handler seems to enjoy a great deal of influence in this world, though I remain just the tiniest bit cautious of his attitude and motives. I had to raise my eyebrows a little at the commandments and their interpretation, but the premise of this work is that it is your fanfiction rather than something to question in relation to canon, so I accept it as it stands.
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Dec 4, 2019 14:11:18 GMT -5
Chapter 5- I may not publish this because I still need to know what I will find out.
With Dr. Handler as my editor, I gained access to many historical documents. Dr. Handler asked me not to explicitly disclose my sources. So, to differentiate them in this text, I will use some code of my own making. Keep in mind that the names cited are not necessarily the names of the groups.
Finding information about VFD has always been a big challenge. I was lucky to be able to trace the origin of this secret organization as well as the method of expansion that the organization decided to use. However, tracking down VFD's arrival in Rome proved to be a bigger challenge than I thought. The number of masnuscripts about the Romans between the 1st century BCE and 5 AD is indeed very large. The Namor Archaeological Information Group sent me thousands of photocopies of these manuscripts. After months of reading in my secret office in a city that I can't disclose the location, I can assure you that VFD managed to remain a secret organization at that time.
Most of the manuscripts about that time are written in Greek and Latin, so the method used by the Essenes (who wrote in Hebrew) to hide information was not used in other languages. Hebrew is written without vowels, so combining multiple consonants lets you hide various information. On the other hand, Latin and Greek are written with vowels, so hiding information in these languages using letter counts has apparently become unfeasible. According to LSTUA, a contemporary man from Lemony Snicket (Dr. Sebald) developed a method involving English word count instead of letter count. Probably this method was an adaptation of the method used by the Essenes. However, this method was developed long after the time of the ancient Rome. If there were documents produced by VFD members containing secret codes, I didn't know those codes. I turned my attention back to the writings of Lemony Snicket. The only message I could find is recorded in TBB chapter 1. About Klaus, Lemony wrote: "Being only twelve, Klaus of course had not read all of the books, but he had read a great many of themand had retained a lot of the information from his readings. He knew how to tell an alligator from a crocodile. He knew who killed Julius Caesar. "
When I first read this passage, I believe Julius Caesar was referring to the goalkeeper of the Brazilian national team, who in the soccer world cup in 2014 AD conceded 7 goals from the German national team, after all, we all studied about this historical fact in primary school. However, after the MM method, I realized that in 2014 the book TBB had already been published. So Julius Caesar could only refer to someone who lived before that. The second best known Julius Caesar in history was a Roman ruler and general whom I conclude Lemony Snicket was referring to. He was also murdered. Thus, this observation led me to conclude that there were indeed members of VFD in ancient Rome, and that the facts recorded involving the murder of this Julius Caesar were passed on to at least one of the 20th century VFD libraries. Realizing this made me increase my determination to find records of VFD activities during the ancient Roman Empire. But rereading TBB gave me another idea, of a second method essential to my research. After explaining to Dr Handler the principles of the method, he suggested that I call the method Verifying Full Defeats. How does he pay my salary, I had to agree. (I intended to call the method the More Marvelous Method). As a secret organization, most of the time that VFD was able to avoid literal or figurative fires, the success of these actions was not recorded. This should be a little frustrating, as VFD members throughout history have been anonymous heroes. Thousands (or perhaps millions) of fires may have been prevented by VFD members, but they never achieved glory for their deeds, due to the secrecy of their actions. On the other hand, the defeats of VFD are relatively easy for humankind to perceive. The literal and figurative fires wreak enough havoc for humanity to never forget (similarly to conceding 7 goals in a World Cup). Thus, if I researched major fire events, I would probably find people involved in trying to prevent such fires, as well as their methods and causes of failure. In other words, I would find the records of VFD activities. In addition to approving the method, Dr Handler realized that he could face an additional challenge using it. The fire itself probably destroyed most of the manuscripts in which I could find written information. So Dr Handler said it would be good for me to have the help of an archaeologist specializing in the ancient Roman empire.
A week later, I was flying to Rome to meet a member of the Namor Archaeological Information Group. Unfortunately, I couldn't talk to him in person. I was disguised as a vet at the West Side restaurant. I was holding a red flower, as coveted, and I had a name tag named Victoria. As I watched the sunset, waiting for the archaeologist to arrive, one of the waiters brought me a fortune cookie without my having asked. I was hungry, so I didn't complain. I was surprised to find that there was nothing inside the cookie, but I ate it lightly. But the next moment, a knife flew past my left side. As I looked back, I noticed that a customer had thrown that sharp object toward me. He had another knife in his hands. I do not know exactly what happened next, because I demailed in that exact moment. I woke up in a hotel room, next to a boy who looked to be 13 years old. He looked at me and said: "I'm sorry for the sleeping pill containing cookies. I didn't know if I could trust you. It's nice to meet you, Miss Mallahan. My name is Snicket. And you're being fooled."
I asked for a glass of water to the boy, and a time to be held to recover my strength. I took the time to write this chapter. I feel exhausted, and I did not want to have to go through it. I do not know if that kid will tell the truth about what that, but apparently he saved my life. So I will listen what he has to say.
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Post by Dante on Dec 5, 2019 4:06:06 GMT -5
2014 still a painful memory, I take it, Jean Lucio? Verifying Full Defeats is an interesting and quite clever approach to such a form of research, even if poor Maria Mallahan was overruled on its name - doubtless a familiar experience to many published writers. I'm intrigued by the sudden forwards continuity, though! I will look forward to the next installment (though I'm afraid your chapter numbering slipped again; there's presently no Chapter Four).
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Post by Optimism is my Phil-osophy on Dec 5, 2019 9:24:26 GMT -5
Thank you Dante! It's very important to me your review ... Whenever I write I think, "How can I write something that Dante will find fun or interesting?" I have already fixed the numbering of chapters. I'm mistaken it frequently because I am also publishing in amino and Tumblr, I there the letter to the reader I considered a chapter. Thank you for getting care for my misconceptions, and by your praise. I'm having a lot of fun writing this Fanfic ... much more than I imagined. About 2014 ... Unfortunately I think this pain will never get away from me.
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