The Terror

[SimonXIX]

Deep-Maps-Blue-Humanities/20241022 - Chapter 1 Draft 1.0/CH1 Paragraphs/CH1 - Commentary.md

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The structure of this book is necessary, a path of signifiers for the reader to follow. When descending into the depths, a cable is required in order to return. A little piece of the surface world must be the descender's constant companion. The human body, and indeed the human mind was not meant to exist beyond a world of air and light. The fragility of bathymetric descent is compiled by the fragility of the tether. One might recall the early deep sea diving suits, bulky cumbersome armour against the airless membrane and attached to a mother vessel by an umbilicus of rancid and stale pumped oxygen. It is important to note that human relationships built between the surface world and the depths are ever fragile. They grow in sophistication - and in recent decades, in automation and remote operation capacity - but are tenuous. Follow the path, but do not mistake it for completion or safety or destiny.

"One might recall the early deep sea diving suits, bulky cumbersome armour against the airless membrane and attached to a mother vessel by an umbilicus of rancid and stale pumped oxygen." This made me think of a scene in the first episode of The Terror: perhaps a useful multimedia touchpoint?

[SimonXIX]

Deep-Maps-Blue-Humanities/20241022 - Chapter 1 Draft 1.0/CH1 Paragraphs/CH1 - Violet-Black.md

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Water confounds even when it flows over national borders that can in principle be delineated. The ocean may be traced over with economic zones, maritime borders and trade routes, but it eternally evades neat classifications of ownership. As Stacy Alaimo points out, this ungovernability only increases the further one descends. They are beyond human control, largely beyond human vision, and contain life beyond easy study or classification. The oceans exceed the stories we tell of them, and are a lacuna that can never be filled.

Similarly, there was something to this section that made me think of the game Dredge which is a kind of fishing game set in a Lovecraftian ocean of deep monsters.

[james-l-smith]

I would like to include what I would describe as 'popular culture touchstones' in the Deep Map. another excellent case might be the video game Bioshock, for example.