One Week After The Petros Discovery - r/TheEternalSoldier
u/DeepStateDigger: I want to take a moment before we get into anything else.
We started this subreddit four months ago with a theory. "What if the FBI incident wasn't random? What if there's someone they keep arresting on purpose?"
Since then we have:
- Found the Echelon Protocol
- Traced him back to Thermopylae
- Built a 2,500+-year timeline
- Discovered 47 documented historical antics including a formal chicken duel
- Replied to a public opinion experiment definitely about him that 89% of respondents passed
- Found the vault
- Found the inventory with 9,247 items and sassy notes
- Found the journal
- Discovered he is, and I cannot stress this enough, the Summus Magister Maximus of the Knights Templar
- Established that "we don't discuss Petros" is a real institutional position maintained for 875 years
r/TheEternalSoldier now has 4.7 million members.
We have broken the Reddit upvote record four times.
The previous record stood for six years. We have broken it four times in four months.
And I want to say, to whoever is reading this — and we all know at this point that certain people are reading this — thank you. For existing. For being exactly what you are. For the sassy notes and the warm ale complaint and the folded mantle and the croissant. For 2,500 years of showing up.
That's all.
We're going to keep going. There's more to find. There's always more to find.
[2.1 million upvotes]
u/TinfoilTina: i'm not crying you're crying
u/HistoryNerd_PhD: Four months. We did all of that in four months. I need to lie down.
u/MedievalHistorian: The chicken duel alone. The chicken duel alone was worth everything.
u/CrusadesScholar_NotRetiredAnymore: I came back to say: the new conclusion is written. The book has been updated. The acknowledgments page now reads "to Petros of Antioch, wherever you are." My editor had questions. I did not answer them.
u/SwissBankingAnon: I started this by finding a vault. I did not expect it to end here. I have no regrets. The NDA I definitely did not sign covers nothing because I found everything in public records and I stand by that position.
u/AgentRodriguezActually: I cannot confirm or deny that I am Agent Rodriguez. I can confirm that I have read every thread in this subreddit. I can also confirm that the paperback was Marcus Aurelius and the cover was worn and he had clearly read it before. That's all I have. Carry on.
u/Vatican_Definitely_Not_Watching: His Holiness has been informed of the subreddit's summary post. He has read it. He has no comment at this time. He is, however, preparing for a coffee meeting in the near future and has sourced a particularly good batch of the Ethiopian roast.
He also wants it noted, for the record, that he maintains his position on Shakespeare.
u/DeepStateDigger: OF COURSE HE DOES
The Thread Stays Open For Six Days.
Nothing happens.
Members post theories. Members share the old threads with newcomers. Someone makes a very good infographic of the full 2,500-year timeline with all confirmed sightings. Someone else cross-stitches "WE DON'T DISCUSS PETROS" and posts a photo. It gets 340,000 upvotes.
The moderators pin a megathread called "THE COMPLETE CASE FILE" with links to every major discovery in order. It becomes the most comprehensive private intelligence document compiled by people with no security clearance in recorded history.
On day three, a historian from the University of Edinburgh posts a paper that has clearly been in draft for some time and has clearly just been finished very quickly. It's titled: "Petros of Antioch: A Reassessment of the Foreign Advisor in the First Crusade and the Question of the Summus Magister Maximus." It gets 200,000 upvotes on r/TheEternalSoldier and is downloaded 1.4 million times from the university server, which crashes twice.
On day five, the Vatican quietly updates a single record in its digital archive. The change is minor — a classification flag shifted from "anomaly — administrative" to "active — confirmed." Nobody outside the Archives notices except one scholar who has been watching that specific record for eleven years and immediately posts about it on r/TheEternalSoldier.
On day six, u/DeepStateDigger posts:
"I think he's going to show up."
u/TinfoilTina: how do you know
u/DeepStateDigger: I don't. But we've found everything. The arc is complete. He always shows up when it feels like the end of something.
u/PerseusProbably: The ale correction. The Y2K confirmation. The scones comment.
He shows up. He says something short. He deletes the account.
u/DeepStateDigger: yeah.
u/TinfoilTina: we wait then
u/DeepStateDigger: we wait.
Day Seven.
4:17 AM.
u/DefinitelyNotPerseus has joined r/TheEternalSoldier.
[Thread locked by moderators within seconds. Pinned. Comments frozen. 847,000 people watching in real time.]
u/DefinitelyNotPerseus ▲ [upvotes still climbing]
Alright.
You found everything.
The Protocol. The vault. The inventory. The journal. Petros. The rank. The ale temperature. The croissant. The folded mantle. The coin. The scrolls I forgot to return. All of it.
I want to address a few things for the record, since apparently the record is now public and there's nothing to be done about that.
The chicken's name was Sir Clucksalot. Henri had it coming. I regret nothing.
The Library of Alexandria scrolls are safe. Climate controlled. They are read occasionally. They are in somewhat good condition given their age. The library would be proud, or would be furious, depending on how you feel about borrowing policies. I choose to believe proud.
The Ark stays closed. This is not negotiable. I don't care how many times the Vatican asks. I don't care how many times anyone asks. Have you seen Raiders of the Lost Ark. The answer is no. The answer has always been no. The answer will continue to be no.
Excalibur: found it in a lake. Kept it. Mine. Not lending it to the British Museum. They had 1,300 years to find it themselves.
Shakespeare: talented hack. Still no royalties. Still annoyed. The ale was served late and cold and I was too polite to say anything at the time which I now regret.
Newton: brilliant, exhausting, completely impossible about Leibniz. I tried four times. Four. He would not hear it. History has since confirmed I was correct. I would like this noted.
The Templars: yes. All of it, yes. Everard was a good man. I told him in 1150 I'd use the rank for something entertaining. It took 845 years. Worth it. The croissant was also genuinely excellent. I went back the next day for the almond one. Also excellent.
Fleming: I said loosely based. Twenty-seven films. I have opinions. They are filed.
The Pope is a good conversationalist and makes excellent coffee and is wrong about Shakespeare. These things can all be true simultaneously.
To the historians: you did good work. The Petros paper is accurate. The Edinburgh conclusion is correct. You're welcome to cite this comment. I doubt it'll help your peer review process but you're welcome to try.
To Agent Rodriguez: you handled it correctly. The promotion was deserved. The Marcus Aurelius was a reread. The cover was worn because I've had it for forty years, not because I'm literary, though I am also literary.
To the intelligence agencies reading this — and you are all reading this, I know you're all reading this — the system is better now. The flag works. Rodriguez proved it. Keep it working. That's all I ask.
To r/TheEternalSoldier:
You found 2,500 years of a life I mostly lived quietly and you treated it with curiosity and humour and a remarkable amount of kindness. You made memes. You made a cross-stitch. Someone made an infographic that is, I'll be honest, better organised than my own records.
You found the worst of it — the arrests, the mistakes, the things that went wrong — and you laughed, not cruelly, just because it was genuinely funny. It was genuinely funny. I've been laughing too.
You found the Thermopylae evidence and you were quiet about it for a moment before you moved on. I noticed that. Thank you.
You found the journal and the first thing you argued about was whether I was right about the ale temperature.
I was right about the ale temperature. It was served late and cold. The record reflects this.
2,500+ years.
You're the first group of people who found out and just — decided to like me anyway. Not to use me, not to study me, not to arrest me. Just to find me interesting and wish me well and make memes and wait up at 4 AM on the off chance I'd show up.
That's new.
I've seen a lot of things in 2,500+ years. That's new.
Be kind.
Tip well.
Read books.
Return what you borrow. Unlike me. Learn from my mistakes.
Don't ask about the Ark.
— P.
[Account deleted]
[MODERATOR NOTE: Thread preserved permanently. Pinned forever. 6.2 million upvotes. The record stands.
He was here.
He said thank you.
He deleted the account.
We're keeping everything.
We don't discuss Petros.
— Mod Team, r/TheEternalSoldier]
Perseus's Apartment — 4:19 AM
Perseus closed the Reddit tab.
Opened a new note on his phone. Typed: new notebook. get one tomorrow.
Closed the note.
He'd meant what he said. All of it. The 4 AM thing had been unexpected — he'd planned to post in the afternoon, sensible hour, but he'd been reading the summary thread and DeepStateDigger's opening post and the cross-stitch, and it had been 4 AM before he'd noticed and by then it seemed right.
4 AM felt honest.
He put the phone down.
Outside, Manhattan was doing what Manhattan did at 4 AM — not sleeping, exactly, just breathing differently. Quieter traffic. Different lights. The city in a lower register.
He'd lived in this apartment for eleven years. Before that, London. Before that, New York again, different building. Before that, Paris — where he'd had an excellent croissant and a mildly eventful Tuesday.
He'd lived in a lot of places.
He'd said goodbye to a lot of places.
This one still had a few years left in it. Patrick Jackson, when the time came, would probably end up somewhere similar. Same coffee shop radius. Same library. Same general approach to existing quietly in a loud world.
Some things were consistent.
He picked up his book. Set it down again.
Picked up his coffee. It had gone cold while he was writing the comment. He drank it anyway.
Outside, somewhere in the city, 4.7 million people's phones were lit up with the same thread. Historians and archivists and intelligence analysts and one Vatican scholar and a retired crusades expert who had un-retired and a woman who had made a cross-stitch at 2 AM and Agent Rodriguez who had confirmed, once, just once, that the paperback was Marcus Aurelius and the cover was worn.
All of them, right now, reading the same words.
Be kind. Tip well. Read books.
He looked out at the city.
2,500+ years.
Still new things.
That was something.
He finished the cold coffee.
Went back to his book.