Consensus Reality II

In The Three Armageddons of Enniscorthy Sweeny, consensus reality appears as a centralized construct, and Lafferty’s main concern is the diachronic process, the way that consensus forms and transforms over time. In Where Have You Been, Sandaliotis?, the focus shifts to the synchronic: the structure of consensus as it stands at a given moment. A central philosophical conflict in both works arises between Platonic realism and philosophical nominalism. I think Enniscorthy Sweeny is the stronger novella in literary terms, but Sandaliotis ventures into more profound philosophical territory, which gives it a different kind of interest.

Leaving that question aside, we can look more closely at how consensus reality operates within Sandaliotis. As he often does, I think Lafferty draws on 1 Enoch for some of his weirder ideas. Readers who want to go deeper might want to check out what 1 Enoch says about Azazel and then consider Azazel’s ritual role in the Book of Leviticus. The "shining" technology ("improbably technology") and the novella’s ending, with the spontaneously appearing "precipice"/holes in reality ("full of holes since the minute we made it"), reflect these sources. And the strange figure of “Haziel,” whose name recurs, is not incidental. But how does consensus reality work in the book?

Here, reality is not a truth waiting to be uncovered; it is a construction. The process begins with a small group of creators, “forgers” like Angelo DiCyan, who invent an entire physical setting, in this case a peninsula, complete with a fabricated history and official documents to support it. The implication is clear: in Sandaliotis, existence is wholly performative. Once an enforced story is present and the necessary paperwork is in place, the physical world forms around it. Narrative is the engine that calls reality into being.

This invented reality becomes solid through a sequential process: belief must be cultivated, and not individually, but across a crowd. The system works through a kind of social funnel. It begins with fringe clubs and targeted interest groups, progresses through curated tours and exhibitions, and ultimately gathers people into a “Drift Crowd” of curious tourists. What matters is not the content of their belief but the fact of their participation. As their attention gathers and their credulity builds, they perform the reality-creation act. They do not just imagine the place; they finish making it. The landscape becomes real, not because it is true. It's just that enough people agree to act as if it is.

On the other hand, the illusion does not sustain itself; it requires constant work. Behind it lies an industrial-scale system that we can call “Illusion Technology,” comprising artificial mists, controlled lighting, and constructed landscapes. These tools do not change the world directly. They reshape what people perceive. The goal is not to alter matter, but to guide attention, to edit belief. This makes clear that perception, not substance itself, is what holds a world together. To strengthen the illusion, the Sandaliotis system adds layers of story and structure. An active mining economy draws settlers with the lure of riches. At the same time, a ritual calendar, centered on a symbolic clock tower, organizes the year and makes the invented history feel continuous and real. Through repetition and ritual, the fiction begins to behave like fact.

Yet this constructed reality is extremely fragile. It is not governed by a single authority; there is no crux individual or a Devonian equation or Effector Fumulae to shield him. Instead, control is cultural, scattered among rival groups (forgers, sadists, media moguls, devils), each with access to tools for shaping perception. As a result, the consensus can be tampered with from multiple directions simultaneously, creating an unstable and insecure environment. Entropy is not a distant threat—it is built into the system from the start. If upkeep falters, the illusion begins to unravel. The world does not fall apart through violence, but through neglect. Conflict here is not mainly physical; it is narrative. Groups fight by rewriting stories, shifting memories, and redirecting attention. In this sense, consensus reality becomes a vast and ongoing civic project, part spectacle, part system, running on belief and design. It can be engineered, sold, hijacked, but it never stops needing repair. If the maintenance fails, the illusion falls to pieces under its own complexity.

When thinking through the book, I find it useful to break it down into a set of distinct “packages.”

P1 · Artifice & Authentication: This first package involves master forgers creating the foundational artifice of the peninsula by fabricating its history, maps, and official documents to make it seem authentic.

P2 · Audience Generation: This package systematically generates an audience by moving people from curious outsiders to on-site spectators through clubs, fleets, and guides, creating the demand for the illusion.

P3 · Perception Scaffolding: This package functions as pure stagecraft, using illusion technology like artificial fogs, landscapes, and simulated locals to edit perception and provide the audience with convincing sensory proof.

P4 · Economic & Ritual Anchors: This package locks the illusion into the real world by creating tangible economic and ritual anchors, such as a profitable mine and a unique calendar, that embed the fabricated place in external systems of money and time.

P5 · Consensus Belief Solidification: This package solidifies the illusion into a consensus reality where shared myths become accepted fact, creating a reinforcing feedback loop that validates and funds further artifice.

PE · Instability / Entropy: This package represents the constant force of entropy, introducing instability through physical decay, rival narratives, and random chaos that threatens to unravel the fabricated reality if maintenance falters.

The packages set up the world-jack, which is the most visible and straightforward part of the plot.

As I suggested at the beginning of this post, the philosophical drama of the book centers on a basic problem: Platonic forms are too "airy" for reality; Ockhamite nominalism cannot hold it together, which fuels Constantine's comedic search for reality in the form of words: written history, deeds, and other records. The packages show how consensus reality can be made to cohere, at least for a while.