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I went through the comics and read the story plot on http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1190 http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1190 b

by riobard 13y ago

I went through the comics and read the story plot on http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1190 http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=1190 but I have to say as a non-native speaker, I don't think I “get it”. Could anyone explain in a few paragraphs what the story tries to tell us? In particular, why is the dialog of the woman in the big castle on the mountain all blurred but still somehow readable?

MereInterest 13y ago
The person in the castle is a non-native speaker of the valley-people language. The dialog is blurred to give the impression of a mix between the two different languages. Some phrases are translated into the valley-people's language better, and so the non-native speaker's text is less garbled. http://readwrite.com/2013/07/26/xkcd-time-saga-comes-to-the-end http://readwrite.com/2013/07/26/xkcd-time-saga-comes-to-the-... This gives a better explanation of the plot, I feel. Essentially, it is a possible future wherein the Mediterranean Sea has become landlocked and dries up considerably, similar to the Dead Sea today.
- riobard 13y ago
  Thanks very much! Now I feel I have even more questions… If the story happens in the far future of year 13291, as mentioned by the link above, I'd assume the people would understand the geography of their surroundings pretty well, no? Well, unless this is a post-apocalyptic fiction… Also, at the beginning of the comic there is a quite lengthy depiction of the two main characters building sand castles, which appear at the end of comic. What does it imply?
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    It probably is post-apocalyptic of a sort. ~11,278 years is an extraordinarily long time in human terms. That's about how long it's been since the earliest stirrings of civilization. We've gone from the discovery of electrons to present-day technology in ~1.2% of that time. A lot could happen in that time to reverse society to near-subsistence levels. Wars, climate change, major impact events. It's also notable that we have only the faintest insight into anyone other than the two main characters, who are of indeterminate age, education, and experience. They might easily be teenagers. Go find a bunch of 16-year-olds of average intelligence in 2013. What do they really know about the world around them? If you ask them to name a sea which might be realistically drained and refilled, what will they say? Now imagine their lives having been spent in 40-person village effectively knocked back a couple hundred years, focused on farming and fishing and just generally getting by. Humanity might be aware of a great deal. These two might be aware of relatively little.

by riobard 13y ago

MereInterest 13y ago

The person in the castle is a non-native speaker of the valley-people language. The dialog is blurred to give the impression of a mix between the two different languages. Some phrases are translated into the valley-people's language better, and so the non-native speaker's text is less garbled. http://readwrite.com/2013/07/26/xkcd-time-saga-comes-to-the-end http://readwrite.com/2013/07/26/xkcd-time-saga-comes-to-the-... This gives a better explanation of the plot, I feel. Essentially, it is a possible future wherein the Mediterranean Sea has become landlocked and dries up considerably, similar to the Dead Sea today.

riobard 13y ago
Thanks very much! Now I feel I have even more questions… If the story happens in the far future of year 13291, as mentioned by the link above, I'd assume the people would understand the geography of their surroundings pretty well, no? Well, unless this is a post-apocalyptic fiction… Also, at the beginning of the comic there is a quite lengthy depiction of the two main characters building sand castles, which appear at the end of comic. What does it imply?
- nknighthb 13y ago
  It probably is post-apocalyptic of a sort. ~11,278 years is an extraordinarily long time in human terms. That's about how long it's been since the earliest stirrings of civilization. We've gone from the discovery of electrons to present-day technology in ~1.2% of that time. A lot could happen in that time to reverse society to near-subsistence levels. Wars, climate change, major impact events. It's also notable that we have only the faintest insight into anyone other than the two main characters, who are of indeterminate age, education, and experience. They might easily be teenagers. Go find a bunch of 16-year-olds of average intelligence in 2013. What do they really know about the world around them? If you ask them to name a sea which might be realistically drained and refilled, what will they say? Now imagine their lives having been spent in 40-person village effectively knocked back a couple hundred years, focused on farming and fishing and just generally getting by. Humanity might be aware of a great deal. These two might be aware of relatively little.