After the Great Cataclysm: A Xenological Analysis of UBC's Inscriptions

This is an assignment I wrote for my anthropology class. It's kind of lame, since it's about inscriptions at my university, but I thought that I might as well upload it anyway.

The following article is a translated copy from the original Libran text by Xcewl Vlentyqp in the periodical Anthropology and Xenology.

As is well-known by every Libran, our race has recently discovered the remnants of a great civilization on the planet that we have come to know as Earth (since the dominant Anglo race of the extinct Earthlings referred to it as such). Besides the ecological damage that was inflicted upon the planet by the Earthlings' primitive technology in the century before their demise, the planet appeared to be devoid of serious trauma. Our initial team of explorers concluded that a disease created to specifically targeted the species homo sapiens spread across the planet and killed every member of the human race. Other life forms survive intact on the planet's surface.

My team of xenologists was charged with the task of investigating the humans' educational institutions in order to decipher their languages and learn about their academic culture. Our ship touched down in the city that was known as "Vancouver", and we were greeted by the sight of human skeletons strewn throughout the buildings, roads, and vehicles of the metropolis. From the city's state of decay, we analyzed that the Great Cataclysm had occurred one hundred years before our arrival.

The focus of this particular article is the "University of British Columbia". This sprawling school was separated from the rest of the city by an expanse of forest, and the focal point of its grounds was a concentrated cluster of buildings in the northwest corner of the territory. Two large knowledge repositories, named "Irving K. Barber Library" and "Koerner Library", attracted our attention during our search for information. In surveying the surrounding area, we came across a circle with an inscription on the front of it. The inscription informed us that the school was established in the human year of 1915. The phrase "world renowned institution" was of particular interest to us, as it implied that scholars on this planet were highly connected, and that the global respect for an educational institution was of great importance for its reputation. The strange echoing stone in the centre of the circle confounded us, though we suspect that it carried some significance in regards to honouring the deceased individuals listed on the monument. The echo that the stone causes may symbolize the echo of past students and teachers that can still be "heard" in the surviving structures of the University.

Wealthy individuals seemed to be over represented in the inscriptions that we discovered. We inferred this fact from the extreme gratitude that the University displayed towards these individuals, and the large sums of currency that these individuals contributed to it. Near the knowledge repository named "Walter C. Koerner Library", a sign was erected that contained a list of individuals that had donated currency, presumably for the construction of the building. Their names were arranged based upon how much currency that they had contributed, with the humans that had contributed the most apparently receiving the highest honour, and the humans that had contributed the least receiving the lowest honour. It can be concluded then that affluence was one of the most important attributes with which an individual was endowed in this society.

Earlier, my team and I had noticed an insignia flying on top of a metal pole in front of a large plaque. The plaque was a replication of the mountains that were across the water from the peninsula on which we stood, and each mountain was labeled with a name and altitude. The fact that this society named terrain features indicates that they may have endowed cultural significance to them. The grandiosity of the mountains could have been a source of pride for the primitive "Vancouverites", who viewed them as intrinsic to the inhabitants' identity. The plaque itself was erected for the 75th anniversary of the institution's founding. It is not hidden away; but rather prominently placed at a majestic vista point for all to see. The longevity of the institution then was a noteworthy attribute , one that had to be shared with visitors.

On our walk back to the knowledge repositories, we noticed a statue depicting the individual known as "Norman A.M Mackenzie". He was leader of the University for 18 years, and possessed several different identities. He was a “student, soldier, sportsman, scholar in international law, educator, administrator, and senator”, though it is evident that his role as “President” was the most highly regarded of his identities. Nevertheless, his ability to fulfill a diversity of positions in Vancouverite society was considered impressive, as it meant that he had contributed much to its progress. The building behind the statue was named after Norman Mackenzie in recognition of his great deeds. Many of the buildings in fact seem to be named after wealthy and/or powerful humans. The inscription in the “Sauder School of Business” clearly stated that Sauder's monetary contribution to the construction of the School was crucial for the success of the project, and his life story was held up as a model of sorts for the students that learned within the walls of the School.

Findings from other sites have suggested that humans were fairly short-lived on average (with the achievement of 100 years a momentous occasion), so it stands to reason that one's legacy was of the utmost importance. Thus, the University's names for these buildings indicate that these physical spaces embodied an abstract ideal held by the revered individuals (Mackenzie, Koerner, Sauder, etc.), and were a continuation of their life's work either during or after their demise.

Up to this point, our investigation of the site had only yielded evidence of one language and one culture, which was that of the Anglos. We were sidetracked yet again from our ultimate goal of searching the libraries when we happened upon strange rocks that displayed a language none of us had previously observed. Why the dominant Anglo culture was paying homage to a foreign culture was at first mystifying, for it appeared that the Anglos enjoyed hegemonic control over this region through their wealth and prestige. What would be the point of bowing to a lesser power? Further inspection of the area quickly answered our questions. Each rock symbolized a different facet of the “Asian” society, such as righteousness, wisdom/knowledge, and humanity/benevolence. The inscription next to the giant sonorous device (named the “Memorial bell”) mentioned “Eastern soil” versus the “Western way”, with the former embodying ancient tradition and the latter embodying new technologies. From this clue, it can be inferred that the University was a “Western” establishment, since the Memorial bell seemed to date from an even more primitive period of human history than the one of the Great Cataclysm, and therefore demonstrates “ancient tradition” moreso than the newer technology of the University. This Western culture in fact appreciated the influence of the “Eastern soil”, for the Memorial bell was dedicated to Dr. Cheung-Kok Choi, who spoke both the Asian language (since he was the author of the translated poem) and the Anglo language (since he worked for the University). The West, at least recently, had become multicultural to some extent, although without further evidence, it is difficult to determine how liberated the minority cultures truly were.

The “Great Trek Memorial Cairn” was another monument that waylaid our original objective. This artifact commemorated a significant triumph of the University's students. In the year 1922, All 1200 of them protested delays in the construction of a new building for the University by occupying the unfinished structure. This convinced the administration to secure additional funds for the project, and hastened its completion. The Cairn's evidence clashed with the all the evidence from the previous inscriptions that we had studied. These other inscriptions had led us to believe that the wealthy elites of Vancouver wielded absolute power at the University. However, the Cairn's inscription seemed to indicate that an effective grassroots campaign could force the leaders of the University and Vancouver to respect the voice of the vox populi, and that the common human could wield great power when in a group.

We finally arrived back at the Koerner Library, entering through the clear doors and descending the stone steps into the lower recesses of this peculiar building. To our astonishment, the stacks of “books” (knowledge imparters that we found at other sites) had been completely cleared, leaving not a single book, any one of which could have offered us enormous quantities of information on Vancouver. We ascended back to the ground floor to check the stacks on the upper floors. Again, not a single book could be found. The corpses strewn about the library also did not offer any indication as to where the books had disappeared. We eventually exited the building and walked along the path to Irving K. Barber Library, hoping that it would provide us with more substantial data.

Adjacent to the second library was a time-telling tower that was archaic in its methods of keeping time, even by the standards of the technology that existed at the time of the Great Cataclysm. There we came upon our most tantalizing clue yet in regards to the history of this fallen society. This clue was an inscription that explained why the “Ladner Carillon and Clocktower” existed here at the University. This entire region was not in fact originally inhabited by the Anglos. The Ladner brothers had emigrated to this land from the country known as England via the country known as California. And, since one of the local settlements was named after the Ladner brothers, it may be the case that Vancouver (or rather British Columbia as a larger entity) is an Anglo construct that overran an indigenous culture.

With so much left unexplained, we entered Irving K. Barber Library with great anticipation and hope. From the inscription in the hallway, we learned that this building was not the original building that stood upon these grounds, but was rather an altered version. Because they retained aspects of the older building, we surmised that the history of the Vancouverites' structures was revered in some way, though progress was deemed to be of greater importance (hence the alteration of the building to accommodate the needs of the Cataclysm-era students). The “Statement of Purpose and Charter of Principles”, which was near the stairs in the great hall of the library, clearly supported our theory that technological advancement, cosmopolitanism, and egalitarianism, despite the ubiquitous presence of the institution's deference towards elites, were significant principles in Vancouverite society. The plaques on the second and third levels of the Library revealed a truth about the Vancouverites that we had already suspected (based upon the information from the Clocktower inscription): they were but one small part of a vast empire. The variety of wood utilized to construct pieces of the Library was shipped to other far-flung reaches of the “British Empire”. The monarch of this Empire, Queen Elizabeth II, had in fact visited the University in the human year 2002. Unfortunately, this was to be the extent of our discoveries in the Library, for it was also devoid of any books. Someone had systematically stripped the libraries of their knowledge.

Various questions about this civilization still remain for us. For instance: how extensive was this British Empire? Did the monarch have a representative in the region? What happened to the indigenous culture in Vancouver? Was Vancouverite society more oligarchic or more egalitarian? Who is responsible for the disappearance of its books? Alas, these questions will have to linger until we are able to investigate further.