Angry communication from Professor Ankle Assets, chair of Ancient History at UNP, who has taken exception to the word ‘savages’ in our last article. While we hold our opinion of pre-Oops civilisation as decadent, we provide highlights of Dr. Assets’ notes so as to provide a balanced discussion for our younger readers. All future scientists should note True Science had no fear of disputing voices in the search for Truth.
The doctor would have us take note of ancient people’s ability to snap together into larger units.
The queue, of which a large version is shown above, is an entity for which we have no modern analogue. Individuals would join this queue, and from that point on act as if a single individual. The queue would go about daily business of obtaining food, viewing entertainments and using transport. The doctor notes that these queues are portrayed in 43 percent of our available pre-Oops artefacts and show therefore an astounding co-operative spirit ‘that is at odds with any savagery’.
The queue existed as a number of geometric shapes governed by rules of surface tension. We have images of circles, lines, stars and complex forms that are not obvious – but that the members are wearing similar garments.
The smallest form of queue was called marriage.
Even more fascinating for Dr. Assets was the living arrangements of these people. While un-queued persons lived in houses not far different from our own, with doors, windows and a roof, those in queues had smaller houses on wheels, that joined together in long chains that matched the person’s position in the queue.
While we share the good doctor’s fascination with our distant ancestors, we must remark on the repulsion that any thinking person will hold for the dissolution of individual intellect in this queuing. To have one’s mind subsumed into the mass is horrifying to the Scientist. While we can faintly imagine being the front of such a meat ‘hose’ (the comparison is hard to deny) to be the rear end would be alien to our ideal of mankind’s progress.
We see this kind of thing in ants, and in the absence of any contrary evidence, suspect that animals once operated in this way. If, as some firebrands have argued, the image underneath is one of animals, the case is made for our original opinion.
