Land Of The Giants Multi-Cache

One day, one of the giants said to the others, “Why is it that we are not the rulers of this land? Are we not bigger and stronger than the little people that live below us? And they do not think like us. They have…. “ideas”.”

“I know what you mean,” said another. “Just the other day, I heard them talking. Planning. Scheming. About what I’m not sure. But it can’t be good.”

“There must be something we can do,” said another.

On the side of the hill, lay one of the giants. He had been listening to his brothers. Although they all agreed there was something that needed to be done, it was all they could agree on.

“Enough!” shouted the giant as he rose. “I believe, if we come together, we can conquer the people and rule the land!”

The others snickered at his Utopian idea. “Oh, what do you know?” they said. “All you do is lay on the side of the hill and sleep all day!”

“I’ve not been sleeping!” he said. “I’ve been thinking!”

After a moment, one of them said, “Really! And just what have you been…. “thinking”?”

They all smiled. “Sit down my brothers and I will tell you,” he said.

“I know the secret of making the average person believe anything we want him to,” he said. “We control the media. You put something in the media and it becomes reality. If the world outside the media contradict the images, people start trying to change the world to make it like the images. Haven’t you ever noticed that?''

“But we already give people the media,” said one giant.

“I realize that, but we don’t control it,” he said.

“OK. So what do you propose?” he said with an incredulous grin on his face.

“People don't really think - they have opinions, feelings,” he said. “Media creates opinion, and then validates it. Are they brainwashed by the media? It is really more than that. I think that people have lost their ability to relate the images of their own lives without the media intervening. Mass media is capable of reaching large numbers of people with programmed or controlled messages, which is key to the creation of “controlled environments” for brainwashing purposes. Where possible, the messages should be offered and reinforced through “shows”, which would be watched or listened to and with the people perceiving themselves as making a choice between various options and outlets. With the 10 of us, this should not be too difficult.

“So you’re suggesting that we brainwash the people into believing only what we tell them?” they asked. “Are you mad? What if we get caught?! Besides, how do you propose we perform this brainwashing?”

“New advances in technology will greatly expand the power of the media, both in the advanced and developing sectors. We’ll include writers and psychiatrists who help shape the content, and pollsters who will fine-tune and analyze the impact on targeted populations. But instead of bringing us closer to the truth, this increased volume of manipulated information and “facts” produces a need for more. There is no real knowledge there, only confusion. Ultimately, that confusion leads towards increasing passivity, and with it, the destruction of the will to seek truth.”

“The “liberal” and “conservative” media will all be part of a single media brainwashing operation, whose elements are tailored to give the appearance of difference, for the purpose of snaring the largest number of duped citizens in their traps.”

“Even the live coverage can be served up on the basis of “victimology”, which is premised upon the theory that people can be put through trauma by being exposed to shockingly graphic visual accounts of violence. By controlling the levels of anxiety, it is possible to induce a similar state in large groups of people, whose behavior can then be controlled and manipulated by the forces.”

“But not every one is as unintelligent as you think,” said one of the giants. “Surely someone will catch on.”

“Possibly. But we won’t give them any media attention,” he said. “Even those citizens who complain will continue to watch and listen because that’s all we’ll give them”

“Look,” said the thinking giant. “People are more than willing to reduce complex problems to simplistic formulas. Truth hardly enters into their considerations. People would rather cling to assumptions that are comforting, even if false, than to discard such assumptions and venture into what is new and unknown. The “virtual reality” created by the media, tells citizens what they would prefer to hear. The ability to think would be destroyed once the majority of them had been induced to spend all of their leisure time in front of their media centers.”

And for the next 50 years, the 10 giants slowly worked out their plan to take over the minds of the people and force them to not think for themselves, but rather, to serve the giants’ whims. Until recently.

Lately, there has been a group of people who have begun to fight the brainwashing. They are armed with weapons that allow them to leave the media behind them or manipulate it to their personal use. Weapons such as GPS receivers, PDAs, Pocket PCs, and satellite imaging maps. They meet in groups and some venture on their own, but they all have one goal. And that is to leave the media behind them, return to things that are real and true, and spend some time thinking for themselves. And hopefully, there will be treasure at the end of their journeys. They are called “Geocachers”.

One such Geocacher has gone a step further. He has created a device that effectively deflects the brainwashing waves dispensed by the 10 giant media cartel. The giants have learned of this device and want them destroyed. In order to protect what few devices have already been built, he has hidden them right under the giants’ noses. Getting to them won’t be easy. Because of their size, the Giants will see you coming. If your radio starts to fade in and out and your GPS starts to jump around, they have noticed you and you must use your caching instincts as well.

First, you must go to the entrance to the giants’ lair which is located at the above coordinates. There, you will find that the gate keeper, who is sympathetic to the cause of the Geocachers, has written a 4 number code hidden in plain sight amongst other numbers that gives the location of the entrance to the hiding spot. You must insert this code into the following equation where A is the first number, etc.:

N 32° 3B.35A
W 096° 58.C8D

Second, you must find the secret vial located near the entrance to the hiding spot. Inside, you will find the coordinates to the actual location.

The trail, if you can find one, is fraught with peril. There are crawling things and sticking things and biting things and buzzing things and irritating things. Things that all giants hate as evidenced by their stark surroundings in which they live next to the hiding location.

The container holding the devices is in a precarious position, so be extremely careful. Do not attempt to retrieve it unless you are physically able to do so. Please take only one deflecting device per Geocacher. “First To Find” gets an unactivated 2007 Texas Geocoin. You must sign the log to get credit for this cache!

Remember, trespassing onto the giants’ land is punishable by… well, no one knows. No one has ever returned from their lair after entering by any other way than the front gate. You have been warned!

Good luck brave Geocacher! If you return to tell your tale, post it here for all to read and continue the “Geocaching Revolution”. And may the power of individual thought go with you!

For more information on the "Media Cartel", go here. And remember to take all theories with a large grain of salt.