Friday Update

Friday Update: Conspiracy Theories, ARGs, Novel Update and Weekend Plans

Happy almost-weekend, friends! We made it all the way through the week without any frightening historical events taking place, at least as far as the U.S. is concerned. It was kind of nice to get a little bit of a respite, although something tells me this is merely the calm before the next big storm.

Despite my resolve and best intentions, I was terrible at staying away from the news this week, but at some point yesterday I started to burn out on it and realized that everything at this point is speculation and rumor and propaganda and nobody really knows anything. What a crazy, turvey-topsey world we’re living in. Interesting times, indeed.

I’ve also been keeping my ear to the rumor mill, partly just to be ready in case any of it turns out to be true and partly out of the fascination you get when you drive by the scene of a bad accident, and… wow. If I ever decide to write a political thriller I’ll have no shortage of fantastic plots to choose from.

Which brings me to my theory about Q and QAnon (if you don’t know what those are, count yourself blessed). I’ve been a casual observer of this whole movement since they made it onto my radar shortly after the lockdowns began. One thing that struck me right away is the similarity between Q and an ARG.

ARG stands for alternate-reality game, a type of game that operates in the real world but is set within a fictional universe, in which the players follow clues and bread crumbs dropped around the internet–and in some cases real-life locales–to solve a mystery. JJ Abrams popularized these games in the late ’00s, starting with games set in the LOST-verse and later expanding to the entire JJ-verse.

For those who are unaware, Q is supposedly a military operation run by a person or persons high up in the government with access to the president, and they are all working together quietly behind the scenes to expose and drain the swamp and all of their corruption, which includes but is not limited to profiting off of child sex trafficking. This entity, so they say, wanted to start a movement and get this information into the hands of the public, and they do so by leaving “drops,” i.e., breadcrumbs and clues, on a message board for its followers — who call themselves QAnon — to parse and act on.

There’s quite a bit more to it than that — like the almost cult-like devotion of QAnon members to Q and the president and their absolute belief that they are our saviors, including a lot of Christians who ought to know better. In spite of all appearances, these true believers are trusting in a Plan that will result in a second term for the current president, busting child trafficking rings wide open and rescuing thousands, if not millions of abused children, and in mass arrests of the corrupt government leaders behind it all, followed by military tribunals to bring them all to justice.

As an admittedly casual observer, I’ve developed a strong suspicion that all of this is, in fact, an elaborate ARG, the players of which are intentionally led to believe that it’s all real and not in actuality an elaborate fiction. Why? I can think of a few reasons. Maybe the actual deep state set it all up to dupe and discredit Trump supporters as crazy and paranoid conspiracy theorists and stir up those within that group who have a less firm grasp on reality combined with a propensity to carry things to the extreme. Or maybe it’s just a group of bored hackers who enjoy screwing with people for kicks.

Or maybe I’m wrong and it’s real and Trump is going to pull off a second term with the help of Q and save freedom and democracy and thousands of children from the clutches of the satanic globalist cabal.

I don’t think so. Mostly because I’m a student of prophecy (and I also read Fate of Empires, and I recommend you do, as well), and these things that are happening in this country seem to be right on schedule. Both Jesus and Paul, as well as Peter and John, told us things would get to this point, that people would be the way they currently are, and also there is no America in end-times prophecies, so we shouldn’t be too surprised that its time has come. And from a Biblical and spiritual standpoint, I believe the true author of this Q phenomenon is the author of lies and confusion, that this is ultimately a spiritual deception designed to distract believers from putting their hope and trust in Christ and, as I fear will happen for some when the “plan” doesn’t pan out, cause them to fall away from the faith.

Again, maybe I’m wrong. I hope I am. I guess we’ll all find out on Inauguration day.


I didn’t plan to write all of that when I sat down here. I was just going to tell you how I spent too much time this week glued to the news, which is one of the reasons I didn’t make much progress on Revolution 2 this week, but not the only reason. Part of it is also because it always turns out that I need a few days off from writing after a long run of article writing. The rest of it is that I just need to let this story simmer a bit and allow time for the movie of it to play out in my mind so I can get some clarity on exactly how to tie everything up and get to the end.

So I didn’t feel like a total slacker, apart from blogging here, I spent some of my non-writing time switching this site over to a new theme and redid the home page. It’s still a work in progress as I ad some more pages, including a page dedicated to my sweet romance pen name, and update outdated info, but I’m pretty pleased with it so far.

I’ll try to get back to the novel on Sunday and get some momentum going again before the Inauguration happens and whatever drama occurs along with it. I’m truly hoping and praying that there will be none, and that things will be peaceful, and that all of the anticipation of something big happening fizzles out into a big nothing. I just want people to be safe, for as long as that remains possible.

In the mean time, I’m going to do my best to turn everything off and take a real break. Outside, the sky keeps spitting snow, and it’s going to be a cold weekend, so I’m going to stay cozy, maybe read a book, and watch the rest of Fellowship of the Ring.

So what do you think? Sound off in the comments. And have a safe, peaceful, restful weekend.