◆ PARALLAX

Fairer: no evidence requiring aliens. Several mysteries still alive. Many bad arguments dead, though some continue to post under new names.

I will accept that summary if we add one thing: "no aliens required" does not mean "ancient people boring." If this thread has one job, it is to separate those sentences forever.

Could the King List be astronomical cycles disguised as kings?

Possible in the broad sense that number, kingship and sky can braid together. But "astronomical" is not a magic wand. You need a mapping that predicts details, not just a feeling that large numbers smell celestial.

And you must log the misses. If five reign lengths fit a cycle and fifteen do not, you do not get to frame the five and call the rest priestly encryption.

This is more strict than the skeptic board somehow.

Believers policing their own side are always stricter than skeptics, because they know exactly where the beloved thing gets wounded.

That may be the moral of the thread. Adrian is not defending orthodoxy against wonder. He is defending wonder against easy ownership.