Filthy Treatise

**Filthy Treatise** is a postmodern novel by Nicolas Sequeira, released in a serialized format on the Filthy Treatise website. It is an entry in The Alternate State Sequence and revolves around a character known only as The Journalist who wanders aimlessly through an alternate version of the 1970s. It is composed on Sequeira's electronic AX-12 typewriter, lending it a distinct appearance.

## Setting

Filthy Treatise takes place in a retrofuturistic 1970s where Gerald Ford is elected into office rather than succeeding Nixon post-resignation, Barry Goldwater has been president at some point in the past, and technology is vastly advanced. The moon has been colonized by 1970, and NACA (The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) remains active in NASA's place. An organization known as The Union exists instead of the United Nations.

While the Cold War still takes place in the world of Filthy Treatise, World War 2 never happened, instead consisting of a singular war referred to only as "The Great War" which was ostensibly more destructive than both of our World Wars combined. World War 1 never took place (Presumably due to Archduke Ferdinand avoiding assassination) and therefore Hitler never rose to power. Instead, a similar reign of terror was instituted by Joseph Goebbels in the 1940s. By the time of the novel, Britain has become a Democracy after witnessing the dangers of unchecked power, and France played a much larger role in The Great War than they did in our version of World War 2.

## Chapters

**Prelude: The End Of An Epoch:** This brief section introduces the story via stream-of-consciousness dialogue by The Journalist, who sits in a hotel room in the fictional town of Sucret, Indiana on December 31, 1979, awaiting some kind of apocalyptic event.

**The Off-Worlder:** Having settled into a position at a Las Cruces news agency during his early years, The Journalist finds himself assisting a wayward Martian whose people have been subjugated by a shadowy organization known as The Consortium.

**The Fourth And The President:** The Journalist attends a fireworks display with the rest of the staff at the aforementioned Las Cruces publication, then enters the Space Between where he confers with a figure known as the President of Dreamland as well as constituents who appear to be manifestations of collective human thought.

**The Woman With The Power:** The Journalist meets the father of Pat Mitchell from the short story "The Traveler" in Graffiti On The Walls of Pierce Brosnan's Garage, Hank Mitchell, who has crossed over from our timeline into the Filthy Treatise timeline, and works as a biologist in a vast underground complex located on the plains of Eastern Colorado. The Journalist spends months isolated alongside Hank's genetically engineered surrogate daughter, Hypatia, whose telekinetic powers gradually increase in strength and danger.

**The Lake Of Broken Sorrows:** The Journalist wanders the Great Plains before happening upon a vast anachronistic inland lake with prehistoric flora and fauna, which indicates that he is drifting further into altered states of mind.

## Composition

Entries in Filthy Treatise are released sporadically, creating a candid diary tone. It features a postmodern affect, calling to mind the work of Kurt Vonnegut or Thomas Pynchon, and has been described as either postmodern fiction or science fiction.

The work was brought to mainstream attention with the release of Wendigoon's video on the Hypnagogic Archive, which mentioned the Filthy Treatise briefly and correctly identified it as being related to the Archive via a small advertisement which mentioned the fictional town of Los Gusanos. A secret audio file, titled "8X300," was discovered by players who guessed the password, "Signetics," a reference to a computer system of the era.

The Filthy Treatise website also features short prose pieces from a number of obscure characters who do not appear in the text itself, including The Journalist's daughter, Asphasia Reinholt.