Pepe Silvia: Conspiracy Mapping

Introduction

Missing citations propagate through institutional mailrooms in ways the literature has declined to examine [1]. Every department has a Carol: cited in passing, copied on everything, present in no directory. We trace the missing-citation network back to a Carol who may not exist.

Method

The corkboard is canonical. String topology was used to join 117 documents across three mailroom epochs, with red string reserved for first-order claims and twine for hearsay. Correspondence with Carol was attempted repeatedly [2]; replies were received occasionally, which is worse.

Results

We surface three consistent gaps in the institutional record. Carol has no office, no inbox, and no start date, and yet all mail eventually concerns her. Removal of the Carol node disconnects the citation graph entirely, suggesting either a clerical singularity or tenure.

Conclusion

We identify which gap an external examiner is most likely to ask about, and recommend pre-emptive corkboard disclosure in all future theses. The corkboard will be available for inspection after the session, supervised.