#I was comparing the maghus institute to the oiar and i remembered that elias liked paperwork and lena stopping sam and went

[ceaseless-rambler]

Okay bear with me for a moment because this is something of a stretch but I swear I'm onto something

So in the TMagP ARG all the emails had footnotes about not printing them and limiting paper use, right? And I kept snagging on that but to my knowledge it didn't go anywhere with the ARG

BUT. Whatever is listening in can't know about things on paper. It only knows about it if there's a digital record. It definitely wouldn't want things on paper, it's blind to paper.

And then there's the paperwork that Sam's compelled to fill out. This doesn't fit in, whatever's listening can't do anything with that paperwork unless he scans it in, but then why not make it digital to start with? But Lena doesn't want him to do it. She doesn't want him to fill out. So if Lena doesn't want paper. And whatever's listening doesn't want paper. Then who, what's compelling Sam to do it?

Alice does mention them being big on paperwork when Sam complains about having to write his name on every page, and says they can't do it online due to the age of the system. I don't actually know much about the system, but I'd imagine since it's business focused it would have a way to do most of thw basic paperwork stuff, writing in your tax information and whatever else they need to know just to have a record of it, and since then the only paperwork that's been mentioned has been the stuff Lena doesn't want Sam to do.

Sam accidentally (accidentally? Or was he compelled to?) ticked the box for the response department, which supposedly does not exist anymore, and got more paperwork due to that. Paperwork that he's compelled to fill out and that Lena doesn't want him doing.

Presumably the response department's job was to, y'know, respond to the incidents after they've been assessed by those in the basement. Sam seems to want to do that, try and stop these incidents from happening again. Lena (or her superiors/predecessors, but for now let's just say it's all Lena because that isn't yhe important bit here) doesn't want that. She doesn't want any sort of security (Starkwall) because they "escalate" things, she wants to control and use the externals rather than stop them. Some of the emails Sam got, from gibberish email addresses, included correspondence between the old response department and Starkwall, showing that they worked together to destroy the Magnus Institute.

So. To sum this up. Sam is compelled to fill out response department paperwork, which can't be seen by whatever's watching him and which Lena doesn't want him to fill out, while also wanting to act in ways that seem more in line with what the response department did. Lena's goals and the response department's goals seem at odds, due in part to the presence (or lack thereof) of Starkwall. I think the response department still exists, in some way, I think that it's working against the rest of the OIAR or wants to (although probably not in way that's great for anybody involved), and I think it's drawing Sam in.