Story Concept: A secret society of paleontologists and archeologists who make a pact that when each of them dies the others will go to wild lengths to stage burial circumstances most likely to be preserved, even fossilized to confound the intelligent life of the far future. This includes weird burial objects, suggestive poses, etc.
They make the pact when young & silly, but as they grow old and carry it out it becomes a much more serious & momentous thing. About keeping promises & friendship.
@futurebird I don’t know why but this made me think of when a bunch of archeologists were asked what the most misleading artifact of our time they could imagine and they came up with a green highway sign that said Orange.
@futurebird epilogue: one of the last surviving members notes that they’re deleting this memoir, the author is “dealt with” and, despite their betrayal in writing this down, the preparations are already underway to inter them in the mausoleum.
@futurebird
I think my brain must work in a similar way to yours - cue sudden flashback to some very relevant answers from a bioarchaeologist (Dr Brenna Hassett) and an osteoarchaeologist (Prof Alice Roberts):
@futurebird : I could see that as a TV show, with new death every episode or so. It'd be a fantastic exploration of the inexorability of deaths and the ways we make sense of it, of the rituals that keep the living going in a time of loss, of that hunger for learning from the past that turns into leaving your own mark in the present, of a metaphor about legacies and what we choose to leave behind for later generations... I'd watch that.
@futurebird gotta admit, if I ever learned I was terminally ill, I planned to do just this. Ancient apparel, pockets full of tech, and a long glacial/boggy nap.
@futurebird But, I am too lazy to do it. I have read there are paleontologists and archaeologists who have put a fair amount of thouught into seeing their bodies get every chance of being preserved, and I suspect some have gone so far as to actually put instructions in their wills, and it's probably even possible to track down an example of the instructions being carried out, as part of background research for a story.
@futurebird I like it already. Make it a project they work on together, meeting up at a cabin that someone's grandparents own, kinda run down but still pretty, and they meet there every year, but as they get older and have relationships and Stuff, it ... gets more complex.