EVE Fiction

Long story short I heard about the loot now found in Circadian Seekers and tried to find what the Antikythera Element meant. What I found was pretty interesting.

Antikythera is an island in the Mediterranean. An ancient wreck was found just off the coast of the island which contained an extremely complex device named the Antikythera Mechanism.

NOVA Ancient Computer (50+minute in-depth explanation of the discovery)

My favorite part is around 31 minutes through where it talks about the meaning of these lunar eclipses and why the predictions are important.

"Eclipses of the same kind, say lunar eclipses would occur with very similar upheavences[sic]."

"Substitute King Ascended the Throne and took these bad omens unto himself"

Antikythera Mechanism Research Project

Wikipedia

This stuff to me is fascinating, it also provides some clues as to what is going on. I highly suggest watching the Nova piece.

Anyways I just wanted to throw this information out there but also thank CCP for opening my eyes to and encouraging me to research things I would otherwise never hear about. Pretty amazing world we live in.

Cheers,
-Eran

From my original mail to the A'J mailing group:

Antikythera Element

From: Eran Mintor
To:

Antikythera Element has become a topic of concern recently; besides the infomorph corpses that the Seekers are collecting, they also seem to have collected something called an Antikythera Element. An element in this context can be described as "a part or aspect of something abstract, especially one that is essential or characteristics."

Looking at the pubic information available we can see that this definition agrees with what has been noted by other scientists and DED specialists. ( http://imgur.com/CKhRMDB )

But what is Antikythera?

I tried to break up the word into seperate roots. Anti*ky*thera.

'Anti' means to oppose something.

'Ky' has many different meanings depending on who you ask. One of them relates to 'this', 'that', 'this side'/'this way'.

'Thera' has it's closest relation to the word Therapeuein which means to minster to, or to treat medically.

To me this meant a whole lot of nothing, so I did a lot more digging. Eventually I found records of an ancient device, it's origin long since lost to time and war, but it is an astronomical measuring device. This device is called the Antikythera Mechanism. The purpose of this device is to predict cycles, specifically astronomical cycles.

That sounds great but what does that actually matter to any of us or is it just a coincidence?

The Antikythera Mechanism operates on very precise predictions of lunar and solar patterns. It is an intricate machine that uses many gears to predict orbits and eclipses. This is not so easy considering there are so many external factors that could effect any orbit of any solar system.

Now with the Seekers containing pieces of 'Antikythera Element', perhaps this has some relation to the legend of this famed device, or perhaps I'm grasping at empty air. I don't have any answers for the question I posed but perhaps it could offer some insight for others.

Let's also consider the word Circadian:

"being, having, characterized by, or occurring in approximately 24-hour periods or cycles (as of biological activity or function)"

"circa 'about'; diem, accusative singular of dies 'day'. The original use is in circadian rhythm."

Circadian Rhythms:

"Circadian rhythms are physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a roughly 24-hour cycle, responding primarily to light and darkness in an organism's environment. They are found in most living things, including animals, plants and many tiny microbes. The study of circadian rhythms is called chronobiology."

Some food for thought, I haven't made much of this information yet so perhaps more minds can.

P.S. Ky can also refer to 1000 years though I feel it's just a coincidence. It was approximately 1000 years ago that the Minmatar and Amarr came into contact. Looking at other events I haven't found any real relations between known events every 1000 years.

I knew the mail was bending the rules but I did not mention much detail about the mechanism or where/how it was found and felt comfortable with it. It seems to have upset quite a few people unfortunately. I admit when I started discovering more I got really excited and wanted to share it with people.

If something is named Antikythera then IC you could say it's an unknown/ made up word but I feel that it is unfair to the clues the name provides. It is called that for a reason and it has been labeled as an Antikythera Element by the SCC. A lot of information from the other side of the EVE Gate was lost with the collapse. However the Jovians were able to rebound quite quickly, and it's not unlikely that a lot of history survived with them, albeit there would be a lot of loss and I wouldn't go so far to talk about an ancient civilization on the fabled planet Earth.

It's not much different than when 'Oruze Obsobnyk' was determined to refer to the stars and I believe confirmed by CCP Dropbear (did a search, couldn't find it), though there were other clues provided in the site itself and the Slavic translation wasn't completely necessary.

Minmatar use Norse Mythology
Caldari use birds from Earth
Gallente are decedents of Tau Ceti Frenchmen
+ Countless other references to ancient/real civilizations, it is clear some information survived.

I'm certainly not saying the device the Seekers are grabbing is the Antikythera Mechanism found in the Mediterranean which consists of a bunch of gears, but something relating to predictions/cycles similar to the ancient device. I wasn't sure how else to approach this as the etymology also relies on ancient languages (latin, greek, etc.) yet plays an important role in a lot of things in EVE.

Another example, the site 'Ruins of Enclave Cohort 27'. Cohort is an old word that is used to refer to a taxonomical group but the root is from Latin 'cohortem' to mean "enclosure."

Anyways, if people reject the mail that's fine I don't mind either way :P Just wanted to share!

Cheers,
-Eran

Cohort has many meanings. The one that most people concluded was that it related to military units like you mention. I disagree though, as Cohort is also a taxonomical group and with all the sites that focus on genetic research I feel it is more likely to relate to taxonomy. Their experimentation on genes was so great that they would classify themselves basically as different species, ie. Cohort #27.

I admit my attempt at the etymology of the word Antikythera was pretty poor, that is why I moved onto the Antikythera Mechanism.

Anyways, appreciate the responses!

Fun fact, Thera is also another Greek island. its claim to fame is the Minoan Eruption, speculated to be one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history. its eruption may have inspired Titanomachy, the Greek mythology of the Titan War.