PmWiki | Tripocalypse / Flipside

Preface

This information is to be considered preliminary at best, simply due to the fact that only a few within the Christian Remnant can access this reality, and none outside it. CATS does publish it in its periodic report, and has for a few solar orbits, but makes it clears that there is no independent confirmation about a stable liminality and this may simply be part of the Remnant's sociological development as they try to cope with the loss of what despite its obvious dictatorial tone they consider Heaven.

Overview

Flipside is an alternate timeline not dissimilar to a liminality, brought about by the Remnant's belief, where the defeated Messiah has succeeded in His mad plan to raze the world. Unlike all liminalities observed so far, it is stable, with details not changing much between visits. A number of Remnant in our timeline believe it to be the "real world", with our timeline functioning as a liminality of it. These Remnant, as well as Flipside's inhabitants, call their world the Millennial Kingdom, or Kingdom Come.

Taking from liminality theory, some of the Remnant believe that Flipside is the real world, and the current state of Earth is an unstable parasite dimension created by CATS' action that will inevitably collapse. From what little we have been able to formalize of NC theory, it may be essential for the continuation of our existence that this belief be damaged as much as possible (by contrary evidence; suppression is known to backfire more often than not).

It is speculated that at least some Remnant souls end up there upon body death (whether willingly, or trapped, is a question for the ages).

As far as we can tell, time has passed approximately five times as fast Flipside than in our timeline; they are roughly 100 to 150 solar orbits into their 1000-year intended light cone.

Planetography survey

Of note, there are no zone boundaries in Flipside; with the exception of somewhat limited miracles brought about by Divine will, and the "water canopy" atmospheric phenomenon, physics operates much as it did pre-Event.

The entire planet has been flattened; Jerusalem occupies the highest plateau in the world, at an altitude of approximately 350 meters over sea level. The general shape of existing land masses has not been altered on a wide scale.

A narratively constructed "water canopy" exists at the Karman line to block sight of the stars. This canopy also prevents satellite radio communications from functioning - there may simply not be any satellites in Flipside. The sun and moon remain visible through the canopy (we do not know if they are projections, as common in other liminalities, or if Flipside extends to 8 light-minutes out) and are in fact bright enough that, combined with the canopy's diffusing effect, there is no nighttime; the clear sky is always varying shades of blue, never dark.

Politics and psychohistory survey

Jesus and a number of Biblical figure constitute a global government under which various nation-states seem to exist (Indonesia, a renamed Egypt, and France are confirmed). These figures operate from a rebuilt Jerusalem and seldom leave the city, instead ruling by edict from a central location. Notably, perhaps from NC feedback from our timeline, King Jesus never leaves the Temple.

The population is stratified into two main castes; the "glorifieds", those who were Raptured or died in a state of Jesus-allegiance during the Tribulation, and the "naturals", those who survived the Tribulation with their original body and their descendents. The former are recognizable by flawless skin, clamped mental processes, asexuality, inability to reproduce, and lack of aging. The latter enjoy extended lifespans (projected to approximately 1100 solar orbits) and slowed aging. The age of majority for naturals is set at 100 (biological 20 or so using pre-Event metabolic rates), at which point any naturals who have not declared Jesus-allegiance are Divinely executed by heart failure.

Punishment for actions such as participating in rave parties is dealt with by arrest, deportation to Israel, and "audiences" with the ruling cadres followed by counseling sessions; more serious offences are occasionally dealt with by lightning strike. Note that attempted harm on a glorified citizen is almost certain to initiate a lightning strike; also note that arrest/deportation/counseling is considered by the ruling governments at least in Jerusalem and France to be warranted for actions that are specifically not "actual crimes", indicating that such enforcement actions are seen more as ways to discipline children.

We have confirmation that only in Osaze (former Egypt) naturals under the age of 100 had been allotted political rights. This has likely been reverted after the renaming.

Economics survey

The economic system of this new global kingdom is difficult to quantify; while multiple currencies exist, they are pegged to one another at parity, and the Christian majority practices a meta-moderated gift economy, with Jesus as the moderator: goods are offered for free, traded at what passes for market value, or refused trade according to responses to prayer requests. It is however known that black markets exist, and by extension, regular markets.

Tech level survey

Cell-phone skull implants are common and easily obtainable. Interestingly, while glorified bodies are more or less immune to harm, glorified sport these implants, suggesting that a NC ritual allows for surgery on a glorified body.

No IP geolocation exists. Digital telecom capabilities are notably superior to those in our timeline due to the feasibility of wired infrastructure, but not much faster or more ubiquitous than pre-Event.

With a few exceptions (said cell phone implants, and some incremental advancements in jet propulsion) technology seems to be at a standstill. People, both glorified and natural, are Divinely imbued with the knowledge of basic crafts (carpentry, farming...) at a classical-antiquity level, and the desire to ply them. This may either complement or replace interest in other fields. Technologically advanced goods are rare but not scarce, and built with durability in mind.

The lack of satellite communications is obviated by a sturdily built wired infrastructure, the lack of geographical obstacles, the high radio reflectivity of the water canopy, and a global LORAN-D positioning system for air and sea shipping.

Most natural disasters such as droughts are Divinely ordained. Great storms roll across the endless plains, but shipmasters (sea or air) have been observed to request their redirection when they endanger shipping; most inhabited locations are generally minutes away from a thunderstorm, while being generally unaffected by it. Rainfall is managed to cause near-optimal crop production.

Cultural survey

Vegetarianism has been made universal by removing meat-eating instinct from all multicellular animals, with few exceptions for official Divine banquets and sacrifices. Ordinarily, the Deity is the only entity allowed to (indirectly) consume meat.

The Eden fertilizer has been discontinued due to obsolescence; most plant matter is nutritious to humans and animals, and all is safe to eat. This is an important cultural note in that Millennial Kingdom culture (Divine acts such as imposed droughts aside) exists in a state of post-scarcity, with rare goods such as motor vehicles simply not being particularly sought after. The uniformity of geography and climate as well as the simple desires of most of the population ensure that travel and logistical infrastructure is used under capacity; travel is discouraged, but not restricted.

A standard language derived from Biblical Aramaic and Jewish Hellenistic Greek has been downloaded into the mind of every glorified and every natural who survived the Tribulation, and functions as a world language; it integrates elements American English for concepts that did not exist when the first two languages were formalized. Oddly, an exception to this is country names, which have been generally rendered in American English when following modern boundaries. Languages other than this "Standard Hebrew" are not generally taught, although some literature has been translated.

Freedom of the press exists in most territories, including Jerusalem; views that countervail the global government are restricted by limiting their access to mass media through the managed economy, rather than by direct censorship. Similarly, Internet usage is not restricted, but dissenting websites are effectively throttled by being restricted to home hosting and the fact that not many people care to be online. On the other hand, television and broadcast radio exist and are enjoyed by much of the population.

Factions

There is no significant opposition other than a rather ineffectual group called The Other Light, who practice a somewhat confused form of Luciferianism. TOL is allowed to proselytise, although its adherents are automatically executed at 100.

Various Christian subfactions exist, but tend to cooperate or at worst compete in a friendly manner. Other faiths are unknown.

The various territorial governments are allowed to self-govern, but must in practice acquiesce to any dictates of the Jerusalem government after "disputations" that from what we have observed turn out to be one-sided shouting matches from the Jerusalem representative.

Field analyst evaluations

It doesn't have any natural landmarks because the entire Earth outside of Jerusalem is basically central Kansas baking in an endless summer. It's uniformly hot, insanely bright and flat, flat, flat.

I seem to recall there was a river of milk and honey, but that's less about being a tourist attraction or landmark than TurboJesus (and the authors) not giving a shit about metaphor or allegory. The Sorcerer Supreme said it once, so by Him he's gonna make it come true, come hell or high water. It sounds kind of...disgusting, really.

Besides, there's no tourism. People wanna see Israel and Jerusalem, but that's more about being closer to Awesome!Jesus. There's nothing else to see anyway. Himalayas? Gone. Rockies? Gone. Grand Canyon? Barringer Crater? Crater Lake? Oldoinyo Lengai? Alps? Uluru? Kilamanjaro? Mounts Fuji and Aso? All gone. Most really awesome forests are probably gone, too. Fuck the Amazon rainforest, you'll never see its like again. No glaciers, either. The magnificent glaciers of Northern Alaska? The stark, forbidding beauty of Antarctica? All gone. Not even photos to remember them anymore, almost no one but TOL could care about that kind of thing, but maybe that's just as well. Mountain climbing? That's over and done with. Did you like to ski? Ice-fishing? Hunting? Dogsledding? Building snowmen? Homemade snow ice cream, or fresh clean snow topped with hot maple syrup out of a kettle? Yeah, you'll never do any of those things again, summer's eternal and there's no snow or ice anywhere. Hiking? Camping? You could camp in your back yard in broad daylight, I guess. It would be exactly the same. There's no reason to hike again, ever. There's no untamed nature to SEE. There are no monuments, none of the great old buildings of the past, the big powerful culture artifacts that defined entire cultures and nations. All gone, burned away by Christ Almighty. He can't stand anything that might compete with him for peoples' attention, you see. Nature is pretty much artificial now. Carnivores eat plants, fruit and leaves and nuts and such (how in the fuck does that even begin to work?). No travel--why bother, when everything and everyone is the same everywhere? There's no economy, everyone trades for whatever few things they might need. I guess all the womenfolk can weave or spin cloth and makes clothes or something, since Almighty Jeebus magically gifted everyone with bronze-age level knowhow. Almost everyone's a farmer or a carpenter or a teacher or something. Starving's impossible, everything is edible--you wander around the landscape and make a salad out of whatever's randomly growing there if you want, so it's pretty meaningless to be a farmer, really, but that's what Turbojesus thinks people should do, so that's what they busy themselves with. Nothing in nature can hurt you anymore. No fishing, no hunting, no need. Everyone's a vegetarian most of the time. Everyone is shown eating buttery steamed produce, fried vegetables and the like. Exotic cultural dishes and exciting regional cuisines don't seem to exist. Food culture essentially doesn't exist anymore, and never will again. There's no risk to take anymore. The only thing to be afraid of is not saying the Magic Words before you're a hundred, where you bind your soul to the Demiurge for all time. There's probably a subcommunity that's turned "cutting it close" into some sort of extreme sport, if that sort of thing is even tolerated anymore (King Horse Vaporizer might take a dim view of that kind of shenannigans). Not much entertainment in it, since you can only ever do it once, but maybe other people can gamble in it or something. No books, stories, music or whatever that doesn't glorify Jesus. Most of the Millenial Kingdom citizens probably don't feel much in the way of boredom anyway. The Glorifieds aren't capable of boredom. All they feel is the urge to worship Jesus. Everyone but The Other Light is basically Amish, only way more boring, insular and dreary, There's no curiosity. Why bother? The universe is basically a 6000 year old terrarium and the gardener's on his throne in Israel. You can ask him any question you want anytime or anywhere you like. He might even deign to answer you.

No urge to create anything. Why bother? Art requires a live current that comes from things like pleasure, pain, anger, privation, discomfort, or a desire to be at least a little transgressive, or at the very least a drive to create something that's uniquely _yours_--and that just doesn't exist anymore. The only uncomfortable, transgressive or daring ones are going to die at 100 anyway unless they eject all of their uniqueness, and nothing they do that disrupts the social order is going to be tolerated. Even crime is punished instantly and occasionally brutally. There's not much of it anyway. There's no secrets, even from yourself. No one seems to talk about anything other than Jesus. There's no passion. I guess most people are happy, but no one's excited. Unless it's about Jesus. I guess they get pretty passionate about ol' One Above All, since I suppose he likes that, but that's it.

No one builds anything anymore, just farmhouses, barns and the like. Communication, cell-phone implants are good for letting the biologicals do what the Glorifieds are already doing anyway, so there's that, but no one invents anything or studies anything anymore. There's no point. There's probably computers somewhere. No one really seems to care about them. Science is completely meaningless in a world of divine fiat. Technology's a dead end. You don't need anything, you're never, ever ever going to reach the stars, and TJ will vaporize everything in a few centuries anyway and remake the world completely so anything you do will be destroyed anyway, and he takes a dim view of anything that takes your attention away from being the best worshiper you can be. Besides, farm equipment was pretty much perfected by the mid-70s anyway. A tractor is a tractor is a tractor. Most people probably just use a hoe and a spade. There might be a little light industry somewhere, or maybe just a blacksmith, another village-level job.

In short it's dry, stagnant, and stultifyingly dead. Almost no one's truly human anymore. TOL is all that's left, and they're all doomed--a century in and they'll die, unless they willingly choose to undergo their supernatural lobotomy and become proper Stepford Smilers. And in no more than a thousand years, Jesus slays them all and sends them to Hell to torture until time itself rots away.

And I think you're giving the authors too much credit--they don't have that much subtlety. It's paradise they're describing. THEIR paradise, a place made for elderly WASP authoritarian SDOs, where they don't have to cope with that messy change and challenge. If it sounds like a horrifying, terrifying, miserable place, that's okay--it's for them, not for people like you and me.

Besides, they don't want either of us there anyway. They want us dead, gone and forgotten as fast as possible. [4/22/2016 11:18:49 PM] M K B: Edit: Every time I turn around, I find myself thinking about yet ONE MORE THING that's completely gone in this sterile nightmare hell on Earth they've written, so much so that it's reminding me of the "They're dead, Dave, everybody's dead, Dave" segment from Red Dwarf. Something else that's been slaughtered, or erased or burned away, for no other reason than to satisfy MurderGod's bloated ego. And all I can do is marvel at LaHaye. Marvel and think..."How can any decent, remotely normal human being contemplate this, the complete and utter destruction of everything natural, beautiful and GOOD, and call it anything other than a cosmic atrocity? How could anyone look at Denali, or the Grand Canyon, or the Ross Ice Shelf as it calves off icebergs the size of cities into the sea, or views footage from submersible robots of the black smokers along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and sees the myriad strange and wonderful creatures there so perfectly adapted to an utterly alien environment, or sees Van Gogh's STARRY NIGHT or the Mona Lisa or Leonardo's David, and think to themselves...

"I hate this. It's ugly, it's complete shit, and it all needs to go. Burn this fucking thing down and replace it with a life-size statue of a bronze-age religious figure sitting on a tacky golden throne and a few megachurches, that'll improve the ambience around here."

(As written by Ima Pseudonym)

From what I can gather from that rant, I think I might be in love with these Other Light characters.

Trapped in a world of enforced blandness. Crime is allowed to happen but the perpetrators are immediately executed by lightning afterwards, thereby somehow managing a Worst of Both Worlds approach to criminal justice. Everyone is forced to live to 100 whether they want to or not, and then immediately murdered if they haven't pledged allegiance to the local regime, or forced to endure up to another 900 solid years of continuing to age and degrade with no hope of the relief of death if they HAVE pledged allegiance. The world is strictly stratified, with the ruling class living in a beautiful walled-off city and occasionally sending representatives out to give members-only talks to special children's clubs, and the guy at the very top only ever interacting with people by murdering those who disagree with him and low-maintenance puppet-mastering/lobotomising everyone else. And, as if just to rub salt in the wound, the bastard RUBBED OUT THE NIGHT SKY for some reason.

So these guys want to rebel. Of COURSE they do. But they don't know how to. They can't see a way to win. The local tyrant is LITERALLY GOD. They've been trying to oppose him however they can for ninety years now, and they haven't come up with anything that might work, and now they're all coming close to their divinely-allotted murder dates. They'd be forgiven for giving up and switching sides to save their own lives. They'd be commendable for just deciding to make a symbolic gesture out of going down fighting a hopeless battle. What they actually do, though, is fling a light into the future. They focus their last years before they die on recruiting younger members. Because, of course, there IS a chance that, one day, SOMEONE will work out how they can win. So having established that it's not gonna be them, that they personally are boned either way, they make a selfless investment in the future, going to their own deaths but founding a movement that will last the whole millenium, changing the time limit on finding a way to win from 100 years to 1000. It's not much, but it was all they could do, so they did it.

God took away EVERYTHING from these people. Freedom. Beauty. Purpose. Diversity. Any chance of equality. STARS. But they found a way to stop him from taking away their hope. And when hope was all they had left, they took it and ran with it and made the most of it.

It sounds like these people are far and away the most heroic characters in the series.

(As written by Calum Cameron)

Postface

Further information is available with heightened clearance.

(OOC NOTE: This has been gleaned from the Left Behind books and from subsequent comments by Jerry Jenkins. It is provided as a way to foster coherency if writing in the Kingdom Come setting.)