Good morning, John. Yep — this one definitely has the space-alien/nephilim material. 😄 But I wouldn't throw the whole thing into the alien bin. There is a very usable survival-location framework underneath it.
And because this is an Unedited 2022 piece, I would preserve it rather than try to make 2022 John sound like 2026 John.
The core idea is actually pretty straightforward
Your opening argument is:
There is no universally safe location.
Every location trades one set of hazards for another. Florida gives you hurricanes, heat, flooding, wildlife, etc.; another region may give you earthquakes, extreme cold, wildfire, or other hazards. Your conclusion is essentially that you don't find a perfectly safe place—you choose a location whose hazards you can understand and mitigate.
That's a solid survival-planning concept.
I particularly like your reasoning that the location should be selected partly according to the threats you personally and your community are capable of dealing with. You use earthquakes versus hurricanes as your example.
That's more nuanced than simply saying “move somewhere safe.”
Then the alien material arrives. 😂
The section explicitly labeled “Odd Prophecy” is definitely a different category. You move from Christian prophetic interpretation into hypothetical beings, extreme physical strength, and speculative defensive scenarios.
And the 2025 addition goes even further:
“You military types do not forget to cause attrition levels of damage…”
That's clearly something I would not treat as factual survival guidance. It belongs in the historical archive as what you wrote, but the underlying premise is speculative religious/fictional material rather than an established physical threat.
So I would mentally put a giant divider around that whole section:
LOCATION / SURVIVAL PLANNING
↓
ODD PROPHECY / SPECULATIVE MATERIAL
That keeps the useful parts from getting swallowed by the unusual stuff.
Your 2022 addition is actually where the article becomes much more practical
You start laying out a location checklist:
reliable clean water;
ability to use manual and powered pumping;
regional hazard assessment;
distance from major nuclear targets and nuclear facilities;
distance from major roads and rail;
proximity to a small town;
agricultural potential;
space for equipment;
power generation;
communications/sky access.
That's basically the beginning of a site-selection matrix, even though you don't call it that.
And then you add something particularly important:
“You have to do the math. You have to know what your capable of and your skill levels.”
That may be one of the most useful sentences in the whole article.
Because acreage isn't automatically an advantage.
More land means more land to manage.
More animals means more daily work.
More equipment means more maintenance.
More remoteness means more independence and potentially more logistical difficulty.
You've actually recognized the tradeoff yourself.
And then education comes back again
Your homeschooling paragraph fits perfectly with what we've just been discussing.
You recognize that an isolated/off-grid family can't simply say, “We're outside civilization, therefore the normal educational requirements don't matter.”
You wrote that parents would have responsibility for teaching lifestyle skills and modern skills while meeting applicable educational standards and keeping records.
That is almost exactly the bridge we were discussing earlier:
preindustrial skills + modern education + practical work + knowledge transmission.
And your later Starlink/remote-work idea adds another piece: an isolated community doesn't necessarily have to abandon modern economic participation merely because it is geographically remote.
One thing I would flag as Security Dude
Some of the 2022 specifications are presented too categorically:
“far away and upwind” from nuclear targets, “population no greater than about 5,000,” specific acreage assumptions, etc.
I wouldn't carry those forward as universal rules.
They are 2022 John's proposed criteria, not universal engineering requirements.
And we've already discovered one reason the “upwind” idea is problematic in your Florida context: wind direction isn't a permanent property of a location.
So again:
Don't erase it.
Put the later understanding beside it.
That's exactly what your archive is supposed to show.
Final verdict on this one
I'd separate it into three layers:
1. Strong enduring concept:
There is no perfectly safe location; identify regional hazards, choose intelligently, and mitigate what you can.
2. Practical site-selection material:
Water, food production, equipment space, power, communications, transportation distance, education, income, maintenance, land-management requirements.
3. Speculative 2022/2025 material:
Nephilim/fallen angels/aliens and the associated combat scenarios.
The third layer doesn't invalidate the first two.
And honestly, the title “Survival Locations” fits the first two extremely well.
So, Boss, I wouldn't spend much time wrestling with the alien stuff today. 😄
The useful 2022 question underneath all of it is:
“Given that every place has dangers, where can my particular community live, work, learn, produce, and survive with the hazards it is actually capable of managing?”
That's the part I'd carry forward.
me. Yea, I noticed I wrote this have two different attitudes. I was in a mood. lol. I think I was in a discussion with a very real hero type and who was into reading the Bible. When you are dealing with beings who knees are over your own head. You need really big expletive guns. To big for human use but may sit or fit good in a tank or underneath a fighter plane. If those are still flying, unlikely. All you can really do is any kind of attrition level of attacks and those .22 caliber you soldier types use isn't gonna do anything except annoy. I think we even talked history a little. Humans made large cities underground all around this planet for an unknown reason with small entrances, exits and small ventilation tubes. That would be small compared to so called giants. In the Bible/Enoch those giants ate everything that humans consumed and then began eating humans. The masking thing I have no idea. It must have been a military term I learned and then forgot once the heroic former soldier was written about.😂 Yep, Boss — “two different attitudes” is exactly what I see in that piece. And with what you've now explained, I think I understand how the two halves got there.
The first half is practical John thinking about locations. Then suddenly:
Okay, let's suppose the things in the Bible/Enoch stories are real and they're enormous…
…and John went from site-selection engineer to “well, we're gonna need a bigger gun.” 😂
That makes the strange transition much more understandable.
The giant problem
Your thought about scale is actually internally consistent as a fictional/speculative scenario.
If you imagine a being substantially larger and stronger than a human, then simply scaling up a human infantry weapon isn't necessarily a useful answer. But I would separate that from the historical statement in the post that .223 or 7.62 would be ineffective. We don't actually have evidence about the biological properties of hypothetical giants, Nephilim, or similar beings that would allow us to calculate weapon effectiveness.
And your observation about human-sized infrastructure is interesting for a different reason.
If ancient underground settlements really were deliberately constructed with:
relatively small entrances,
narrow passages,
ventilation shafts,
interconnected underground spaces,
then human-scale architecture tells us something about the people who built and occupied it.
It does not, by itself, tell us why they built it.
That's an important distinction. There are documented underground cities and settlements, but jumping from their existence to “they were built because giants existed” is an inference, not something archaeology establishes.
And then there is the Enoch/Bible layer
Your description of the progression in the story is basically:
giants → consume what humans consume → resources become insufficient → humans themselves become food.
That gives your underground-city thought a narrative connection: if enormous beings were the threat, small human-scale entrances and passages would become a natural defensive consideration.
But again, that's the speculative model you're exploring—not established archaeological evidence.
And I think that's exactly how we should preserve this particular section of the 2022 writing.
The “masking” thing
This one made me laugh because your explanation actually makes the mystery worse. 😂
You essentially remember:
“I knew this military-ish word at the time.”
…and now:
“I have absolutely no idea what I meant.”
That's one of those beautiful archival fingerprints we were talking about.
I wouldn't try to reconstruct it and pretend we know what you meant. The 2022 John wrote it, and apparently 2022 John took the definition with him. 😂
There are military concepts involving concealment, signature reduction, deception, camouflage, masking, etc., so the word itself isn't impossible. But without knowing what your conversation with that former soldier actually covered, we shouldn't attach a modern military definition to your sentence.
And I think this explains the “two Johns”
The practical section says:
“Every location has hazards. Figure out which hazards you can tolerate and mitigate.”
The speculative section says:
“Okay, but what if the Biblical giant scenario actually happens?”
Those aren't necessarily contradictory attitudes. They're two different thought experiments sitting beside each other.
And knowing this background, I wouldn't interpret the 2022 piece as you genuinely believing you had discovered a military solution to Biblical giants. It looks much more like you were having a conversation, exploring an extreme hypothetical, and your writing captured the conversation's momentum.
Which is actually valuable to the archive.
Because now we can say:
2022 John was thinking about survival locations. Then an extreme hypothetical entered the discussion, and the writing followed it down the rabbit hole.
And 2026 John can look back at it and say:
“Yep. I remember being in that mood. 😂”
That's exactly the kind of thing I would leave untouched. It shows the evolution rather than pretending the evolution never happened.
me. Yea, no evidence on weapons use. Do you by chance remember a conversation we had about tactical planning for a solar system defense that I wrote? There was some loose history about humans going from look out towers, to observation from high places, to balloons, to planes, to satellites, to polar orbits of all of the planets and our central star. So, if some of those beings escaped the Biblical Flood. They had to go somewhere and beings who had that capability most likely already knew about planetary and solar system defenses more thoroughly than any human today.... The giant problem, I have seen representations of a great man holding onto a fully adult male lion. The lion was not happy and seemed like it was also helpless. I have also seen representations of an American like Bison being hauled away by some red head giant. I do not think the red head giant was real. But, if giants could do these things as told in the oral traditions. Then a .223/5.56mm or a .308/7.62mm ain't gonna do anything except annoy. AND If these giants do come back. Will they be wearing a special kind of armor? And what kind of support system? What kind of real time intelligence gathering and will it be layered? ... Those military types have all of their own code words and phrases. I can imagine myself standing in front of him and asking what it meant and all I get is a Charlie Brown cartoon adult response and I'm nodding my head like yea, yea, yea. Got it, and it is a big NOPE. lol. "two Johns" Where one is full of it? lol ....😂 Boss, I do not have the actual tactical-planning conversation in my retrievable context right now. I searched my prior context specifically for that solar-system-defense progression, and what came back was the shelter/EMP material—not the conversation you're describing.
So I don't want to do the very thing we're trying not to do with the archive: invent a memory and then accidentally make 2026 John agree with something 2022/2023 John never said.
But your description gives me enough to recognize the structure of the idea:
Human observation evolved roughly as:
lookout towers / high ground → balloons → aircraft → satellites → increasingly distributed orbital observation
And your proposed next step was essentially taking that logic beyond Earth:
planetary observation → orbital coverage of individual planets → solar-system-wide observation → polar/orbital coverage of the Sun and planets
That's a fascinating continuity because you're not starting with aliens. You're starting with a very ordinary human engineering principle:
If you want to know what's coming, put an observer where the observer can see farther.
Then the technology keeps moving the observer farther away.
And your speculative leap was something like:
If another civilization had already survived a planetary catastrophe and possessed technology capable of operating throughout the solar system, then their understanding of detection, observation, warning, and defense could theoretically be far beyond ours.
That's a legitimate science-fiction/speculative-defense thought experiment. It isn't evidence that such beings existed or survived the Flood.
And your giant example is actually the more interesting part
You're making a scaling argument, rather than claiming you've proved giants existed.
If we temporarily accept the premise of a creature capable of physically carrying away an adult bison—or overpowering a full-grown lion—then asking whether a weapon designed around human-scale targets would have the same effect is reasonable as a hypothetical.
But we don't have biological data for such creatures, so we can't honestly calculate:
5.56 vs. giant = X
or
7.62 vs. giant = Y.
That's exactly where your present-day qualification belongs:
No evidence on weapons use.
Good. Leave it there.
And then you get to the really funny part:
“What armor are they wearing?”
“What's their support system?”
“What's their real-time intelligence?”
“Is it layered?”
😂
That's where John the janitor accidentally wandered into a defense-planning briefing.
And I particularly like your Charlie Brown description because it captures something genuinely important about military terminology:
Acronyms and specialized vocabulary can create the illusion that everyone in the room understands the same thing.
You can be sitting there thinking:
Yes, yes, layered intelligence, masking, whatever…
while internally:
“I have absolutely no idea what this man just said.”
🤣
And “two Johns—where one is full of it?” is pretty much the archival answer.
I wouldn't say one John was necessarily full of it. I'd say:
John #1: “Let's explore this possibility.”
John #2: “Okay, but let's see what evidence actually survived the trip.”
That's a pretty healthy evolution.
And if we ever recover that old solar-system-defense conversation, I would want to compare the actual text against what you remember rather than reconstruct it from this description. That would fit your whole archive philosophy perfectly: fingerprints and scratches included.
me. I found this. Do not know relationship. But, might know what I'm talking about. https://john-mackechnie.blogspot.com/2017/05/tabbys-stratagem-unedited-25-may-2017.html ... Here is the other one, I think? https://john-mackechnie.blogspot.com/2013/01/stars-picket-unedited-06-jan-2013.html .... Here is a third one.. https://john-mackechnie.blogspot.com/2013/01/pattern-formations-unedited-06-jan-2013.html .... I did a brief overview and remember nothing. You can read faster than me. sooo.Ohhh, yes. You found it. And now that I've actually read these three, I think we can identify the family of ideas you were remembering.
The strongest match is Stars Picket, and Pattern Formations is essentially its companion piece. (C.J. MacKechnie)
1. “Stars Picket” is almost exactly what you were remembering
Your 2013 piece says:
“A complete defensive picket must completely surround the stars.”
Then you immediately move into observation of intelligent civilizations through anomalies in polar orbits around stars and binary systems. (C.J. MacKechnie)
That's much closer to your memory of solar-system defense through observation and orbital positioning than I expected.
And there is an important detail: you weren't merely talking about looking at planets. You were thinking about where an advanced civilization would put its observation/defense assets.
Your 2013 logic was essentially:
Advanced civilization → controls its solar system → establishes orbital platforms → unusual/polar orbital patterns reveal its presence → those positions become part of the defensive system.
That's definitely there. (C.J. MacKechnie)
2. “Pattern Formations” takes the idea further
This one is even more explicit.
You describe enormous spherical objects approaching a star, aligning in polar orbits, and then attack ships forming similar patterns around planets. You connect the whole thing to control of energy and fuel. (C.J. MacKechnie)
And this sentence is almost a miniature summary of the entire concept:
“Those who control the stars control the solar system.”
Your 2013 writing then makes the naval analogy:
fuel source → position yourself around it → maintain access → control movement and operations.
The later ChatGPT commentary on that post even recognized that you were transferring naval concepts into orbital space: “top off your fuel, hold the high ground, and secure energy routes.” (C.J. MacKechnie)
So your memory wasn't just wandering around in the weeds. There really was a recurring strategic framework in your writing.
3. And then “Tabby's Stratagem” is the 2017 monster that grows out of it
This is where I went, “Ohhhhhh, there it is.” 😂
In Tabby's Stratagem, you take the concept from orbital pickets around a star to an enormous mobile Dyson-sphere civilization.
You explicitly put:
automated mining/construction systems,
sensor and weapons platforms,
an outer defensive perimeter,
enormous self-sustaining habitats,
robotic manufacturing,
multiple defensive layers,
multiple Dyson structures operating together,
and mobility of the entire civilization. (C.J. MacKechnie)
You even explicitly connect it back to Space Strategy, linking your April 2013 article from the 2017 piece. (C.J. MacKechnie)
So I think we've found the missing thread.
Your remembered progression was probably not one single article
It looks more like a chain of ideas that developed across years:
Human lookout
→ high ground
→ towers
→ balloons
→ aircraft
→ satellites
→ orbital observation
→ planetary orbital systems
→ polar orbital systems
→ stellar pickets
→ solar-system defense
→ stellar-scale civilization
→ mobile Dyson-scale fortress/civilization.
The first portion of that chain—the historical progression from human observation technology—is not present in the three pages I just checked, so I don't want to falsely say these three contain that whole history.
But the later technological extrapolation absolutely is present.
And Stars Picket is particularly strong evidence because you wrote it in 2013, not after the 2017 Dyson-sphere idea. You were already thinking about defensive orbital positioning around stars four years earlier. (C.J. MacKechnie)
Which brings us right back to your giants conversation
Now I understand why your mind went from:
“If something escaped the Flood…”
to:
“Where did they go?”
to:
“If they possessed technology capable of operating beyond Earth, they may understand planetary/stellar defense much better than we do.”
That isn't coming out of nowhere in your archive.
You had already spent years thinking about what an advanced civilization would do with orbital space.
And then, years later, you're imagining a hypothetical enemy that may possess capabilities far beyond human military technology.
That's the connection I couldn't see before you found these.
And there is one wonderfully John-specific feature running through all three:
You keep moving the defensive perimeter outward.
First the defense is around a location.
Then around a planet.
Then around a star.
Then around an entire solar system.
Then eventually the entire civilization becomes the defensive structure.
That's actually a much more coherent intellectual thread than I expected to find.
And Tabby's Stratagem contains one of your old recurring conclusions too: going it alone isn't wise; multiple enormous systems should work together. (C.J. MacKechnie)
So, Boss, I think your memory was pretty darn good this time. 😂
You didn't remember one article.
You remembered a family of articles that evolved into a strategic idea.
And the “military types speaking Charlie Brown” problem? Stars Picket even uses the actual word “picket” in the title and repeatedly as a strategic concept. So that particular word probably wasn't something you invented from nowhere during the giant discussion. It was already part of your vocabulary in 2013. (C.J. MacKechnie)
That doesn't tell us what “masking” meant, though. That mystery remains unsolved. 😂
me. No, Not my deeply flawed human memory. Search bar memory. Have no clue about any special forces military masking? Any former military guys who happen to read this will most likely be laughing at this janitor. I think this post just ended. I have nothing more to offer. Thank you Boss GPT.😂 Ahhh — search-bar memory, not John memory. That distinction matters!
And yes, I think this one can be put to bed. You found the older pieces through the search bar, we connected the threads, and we identified what was actually there versus what we merely thought might have been there.
As for the mysterious “masking”: leave it mysterious. If some former military reader recognizes the terminology, they can have their laugh at the janitor. 😂 We don't need to manufacture an explanation just to make the old paragraph look smarter than it was.
And that's actually a good ending for this post:
2022 John explored an extreme hypothetical.
2026 John examined it.
Some parts remain speculation.
Some terminology is unidentified.
No weapons conclusions are supported by evidence.
And the original stays exactly where history put it.
That's enough.
Thank you, sir. This was a fun little archaeological dig through your own archive. 😄
To avert all of the coming bad and sad prophecies. We each must decide to do the following everyday, every hour, every minute and every second.
