$1 & $5 bills

Stag
As with all currency found in Matthew Jarndyke’s wallet, the $1 bill depicts a doubled image – in this case a stag. Other than the Great Lakes region’s popularity with deer hunters – and the obvious masculine connotations of the animal – the significance of the image is unknown.

$1 bill
3.38” x 2.44” (8.6 cm x 6.2 cm)

The design currency of the Great Lakes Zone follows a system not unlike that of the European Union, with size and color varying with each denomination. As with the European Union’s system, the bills grow larger as denominations increase.

The back of a $1 bill found in the Jarndyke Ark

Weapons
As with other denominations, the seal is seen here ringed with a corona of assault rifles, which serve as an anti-counterfeiting filigree.

$1 bill (verso)
3.38” x 2.44” (8.6 cm x 6.2 cm)

Bombs
As with many artifacts found in the Great Lakes Zone, the seal contains militaristic imagery, in this case a trio of bombs positioned over the heads of eagles. It may be an overt reference to the Zone’s leveling of St. Louis in its conflict with the Heartland Zone or its frequent anti-insurgent air strikes in the Twin Cities Region.

Eagles
The doubled, disembodied eagle head icon is one of many mirrored images found on artifacts in the Great Lakes Zone. Scholarly opinion is divergent regarding this phenomenon, but most agree that the mirroring is related to the trauma the Zone experienced in its failure to secure Minneapolis in the war it prosecuted in the Twin Cities region. Though most scholars believe the drips emanating from the necks of the eagles represent blood, some have posited that the drips are actually oil, a reference to the region’s industrial might.

Vae victoribus
This Latin phrase, meaning “woe to the victors,” appears to be the GLZ’s motto. It may refer to one or more of the military defeats the GLZ suffered in its ongoing wars with the Heartland Zone.

Great Seal of the Great Lakes Zone (detail)

The Great Seal of the Great Lakes Zone has been a source of intrigue for Ark scholars for decades, as it provides a window into how the Zone government represents itself to the world. The seal’s blend of violent imagery and mirrored iconography, present throughout official GLZ documents, is thought to have reinforced the Zone’s perpetual war footing among its populace. ^a

^a Van Tubergen BG. Symbolism in Midwestern Ark Finds. Papers of the European Ark Society. 2007. 10(32);75-84.

Tom Casillas
Casillas was the chief negotiator during the Christmas Standoff of NE0013, when militants from the Two Keys group held hostages at the Deer Glade Mall in present-day Des Plaines, Illinois. Eighteen men and four women from the group struck during the busy holiday shopping season, rounding up 129 hostages after murdering 15 shoppers. They then threatened to kill one hostage each hour until their demands were met. Casillas, the Chicago area’s top hostage expert and a veteran of the Hanneke Crisis and the Trout Siege, successfully negotiated the release of the shoppers with just five additional deaths. The mall was later raided and ten of the assailants were killed; those surviving were later tried by a military tribunal and executed.

Background image
The image behind Casillas is believed to depict smoke rising from the field behind the Deer Glade Mall after security forces detonated a cache of explosives seized from the Two Keys group.

$5 bill
4.75” x 2.44” (12 cm x 6.2 cm)

The back of a $5 bill found in the Jarndyke Ark

Map
A map of the Great Lakes Zone is featured prominently on the reverse of all GLZ currency.

$5 bill (verso)
4.75” x 2.44” (12 cm x 6.2 cm)