Ciconia Analysis Masterpost, Part 1: John of Patmos

Preface

I've been stewing over how to interpret the multiple layers of Ciconia no Naku Koro ni (and, even worse, how to unify them cohesively) so I've spent a few days rereading a bunch of passages and saving screenshots... and engaging in a few dozen hours traversing the internet along topics of religious history, Hellenistic astrology, and anthropology. (The difficulty warning wasn't lying!!) I wasn't sure how to organize this analysis so I'm just gonna start with what makes the most sense. It's gonna be a little disorganized so sorry in advance!!

Blue text will signify strong hypotheses of mine, red text will signify facts: either unambiguous narrative disclosures or real-world cultural knowledge.

This analysis will have to span multiple parts since there's so much to go over. Feel free to leave a comment or ping me on Twitter (@dabackpack) with feedback! Let's get started.

Data Fragment 29: The Revelation of Saint Ioannis 

A lot of the dialogue here is on-the-nose but there are a few points of interest that unravel a lot of the deep mysteries of Phase 1.

First of all, "Saint Ioannis" is a transliteration of the Hebrew "Saint John" (similar to how "Jehovah" would be written akin to "Iehova"). "Saint John" is an important recurrent figure (more precisely, "set of figures") in the New Testament. The most prominent mention of a "Saint John" refers to Saint John the Apostle, one of Jesus's Twelve Apostles. This Saint John was for a long time considered to be a single person, despite being referenced in historically disparate passages from the New Testament. We generally understand that John the Apostle, John the Evangelist, and John the Elder are indeed different people with the same Christian name. (Interestingly, many religious denominations still assert that these Johns are indeed the same person -- a subject that doesn't really matter in this discussion, since we're only concerned with one of these Johns.)

The "Saint Ioannis" from this Data Fragment is referring to John of Patmos: the author of Revelation, the final canonical book in the New Testament... also known as the Apocalypse of John. Reading and making analogy to Revelation is crucial to understanding some of Ciconia's more nuanced points.

Revelation begins with John of Patmos receiving a message from God: he begins receiving prophetic visions and is instructed to record them, for they describe apocalyptic events culminating in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. John receives divine wisdom in the form of these visions and is tasked with producing and disseminating this knowledge to the Seven Churches of Asia... now where have we heard this before?

34 transcribing the prophecies from God

That's right, Miss Vier Dreissig is the prophet John in this retelling of Revelation. Just as John sequestered himself in a hut on the island Patmos, Vier lives in her own enclave underground where she performs her God-given task with incredible singularity. (With this in mind, I will be referring to the underground research facility as Patmos from now on.) 

There are a number of her "translations" that have direct analogues to devices in the Book of Revelation, but let us return to the Data Fragment for a moment. Seshat and Toujirou discuss the recently-discovered Christian canon, revealing an alarming truth about the Ciconia world: 

The real-life Christian canon identifies 27 books as canon, with Revelation being the last! The Council of Carthage, c. 397, explicitly names Revelation as canonical, and yet Seshat admits that this very same council only admitted 26 books into canon. 

What does this mean? An entire book seems to be... completely erased from cultural history. This should also ring some bells when you consider that, in this Data Fragment, Seshat and Toujirou come to realize that this secret book is actually a "prophecy" of its own -- an outline of the extinction of mankind. This leads me to a central element of the Ciconia universe:

The Book of Revelation was instrumental in the events leading to WW3, and was thus completely censored from history. Its existence, as well as its canonical status, was wiped away at the start of the A3W world. This is because the book provided an outline for the catastrophes that led to humanity's annihilation. 

But we're not done yet--

Data Fragment 29 exists AFTER WW3, and this prophecy outlines the extinction of mankind with WW4, indicating that the A3W actually loops and resets! "WW3" and "WW4" are essentially the same: just iterations of mankind's near-extinction following a singular prophecy. This is the time-loop element of Ciconia. 

We really don't even know how many loops have already occurred so far. The existence of "blue Miyao" (who I'll be nicknaming Bern-Miyao) might give some insight here: 

Bern-Miyao is the accumulated experiences of Miyao through multiple iterations of A3W, completely analogous to Frederika Bernkastel from Higurashi. Every iteration, "Miyao" and "Meow" are reset, and Bern-Miyao is the only persistent memory that Miyao is allowed to keep with him every iteration. 

I'm inclined to believe that Bern-Miyao is "superficially correct": Miyao is absolutely instrumental in the enactment of the Apocalypse, but I also think it's possible for Miyao to STOP the Apocalypse without having to kill himself. More on this in another post, I think. 

More about Ciconia's Revelation

There are at least two main clues about Vier's role in enacting the Book of Revelation. The most obvious of these is the earthquake that Mario of Patmos starts with his "wisdom." This earthquake is an extraordinary event for A3W and essentially heralds in the End of the World. This mirrors a passage from Revelation, once the Sixth of Seven Seals is opened: 

1. There occurs a great earthquake where "the sun becomes black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon like blood" (6:12).

The Black Sun and Blood Moon are directly observable in a few of the background CGs... but also: 

Toujirou not being very subtle

This exchange between Seshat and Toujirou is extremely revealing (for another post) but just note the repeated illusions to the "sun dying out." In Toujirou's mind, the Black Sun of Revelation isn't the end of mankind's development, and he's hopeful that eventually we can achieve peace even if the world has to end a few times before that happens.

Here's another image I'm gonna sneak in here because I don't really know where to put it: 

"What the heck is this thing?" you might have asked. This is an astrolabe, a tool used for both astronomy and astrology, not a clock. Yeah, astrology is a pretty big motif in Ciconia too. There's a lot of astrological minutiae that actually seem important, but that'll have to be... for another post. Today I'll just be pointing out a few important elements of this progress screen. 

Once the "clock" strikes midnight, the world-ending earthquake happens. Note the red-colored moon at the 12:00 position: this corresponds temporally with the opening of the Sixth Seal in the Book of Revelation (the "Blood Moon") from above. 

With the astrolabe clock revealing exactly when the Blood Moon occurs, we now have a relative timeline for the Apocalypse in Ciconia. The ticking of the astrolabe as a whole represents progress towards the End of the World. The part of the astrolabe that's "white" is the scope of Phase 1 (that is, the beginning of the game is the 7:30 position or so). The remainder of the astrolabe is the precursor to what we've witnessed. 

But the thing with clocks is that they cycle. One complete 12-hour cycle through the astrolabe is one COMPLETE iteration of the A3W world. After Apocalypse happens (i.e. the Second Coming of Christ occurs) the world resets and the cycle repeats. 

(The astrolabe isn't just a clock though!! Those lines extending out of it, with the gibberish text, correspond to the markings of a Babylonian Natal astrology chart! It's way too much to explain, especially since I can't parse what the gibberish is supposed to mean, but the astrolabe is slightly reminiscent to the Natal chart representing the Star of Bethlehem as observed by the Magi before the Nativity:)

c. March 2nd, 5 B.C., believed to show the Star of Bethlehem during Christ's birth

 More on that later... maybe... astrology is hard. I don't think this Natal chart is the right one, but serves as an example of what one looks like for you to compare it with the markings on the astrolabe. Anyway-----

What is the Second Coming of Christ? It's the event in Revelation that succeeds every other: the climax of the story. Those that passed Judgment, the chosen people, are revived and get to live with God for the next 1000 years in New Jerusalem--- wait, 1000 years? Yeah we're not done with Vier yet. 

The 1000-Year Time-Capsule 

This is the second hint that Vier gives us. Some more Revelations quotes: 

He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be let out for a little while. (20:2-3)

[The rest] came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him a thousand years (20:4-6)

This 1000-year motif tells us about how the time loop actually HAPPENS. Satan gets trapped and the human survivors get to party it up with God in the World to Come. The description of the horrifying pit in the underground lab closely mirrors the description of the ultimate destination of Satan in the Book of Revelation. 

This begs the question: in Phase 1, who is "righteous" and who is "sinful"? Who goes to New Jerusalem and who has to stick in the time-capsule and wait in Hell?

I'll have to go more into detail on this later since there's a lot to talk about, but here's a sneak-peek:

 Everyone who gets killed goes to Heaven, which I think is complete virtualization in the Selcom internet. "Angel" Jayden, in the last scene of Phase 1, asks Miyao to come with him to Heaven: "isn't this what you wanted?" (Referring to Miyao's final laments about being tethered to his fleshy body)

Mitake Miyao (chooses to? or otherwise) gets sent to Hell -- the 1000-Year Time-Capsule -- and gets to experience the entirety of the A3W time-loop again in Phase 2.  

Miyao's function in Ciconia probably deserves its own post, but it essentially boils down to:

Miyao/Meow/Bern-Miyao are the Antichrist, the Whore of Babylon, and the False Prophet and collectively represent "Satan." However, these three are purged from the body at the end of Phase 1... and at the very least Bern-Miyao goes into the Time-Capsule. The "murderous kill-program" that Bern-Miyao warns of rises and takes over the body, killing Jayden and Koshka (off-screen). This "killing program" is the stand-in for Jesus Christ himself, and after "Mitake Miyao" gets sent into the 1000-Year Time-Capsule, the "killing program" completes the Last Judgment of the Book of Revelation. 

So... yeah, there's a lot of stuff we need to talk about regarding Miyao. Don't worry if the last part doesn't make a lot of sense yet, there's still a lot to go over!! ...In another post. 

Some questions for later:

• How does Koshka fit into this?
• Who else goes into the Time-Capsule?
• What's up with all the Salvador Dali references?
• What is the true agenda of the Ninth Prime Chivalric Order?
• Dad?????

Some answers for later:

• AOU, COU, ABN, and ACR as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse 
• The two LATO onee-chans as the "two witnesses" described in Revelation 
• Seshat's true form 
• The "true" function of 8MS 

Let me know your thoughts!!