#Sam: CHESTER AND NORRIS WERE DATING??

[see-arcane]

Next episode,

Georgie, full gravity, hitting play on an old tape: Did the Archivist sound...like this?

Jon recording: --Statement begins. [INSERT HORRORS]

Sam: Oh my god

Sam: You guys know Chester?

[lostwords-found]

OHHH, I just thought of something.

It's been bugging me that Norris, Chester, and Augustus started speaking around a year ago, and I've been wondering about the significance of that timing. At first I thought maybe it was some consequence of whatever RedCanary stumbled into at the Magnus Institute, because that was a bit over a year and a half ago--we know from the case numbering system that the episodes are taking place in the present day (episode 2 was taking place on Jan 18 2024; note for my fellow US folks that the dates are the UK standard with day first, not month). And from the dates on the forum posts, RedCanary's series of unfortunate events was in April 2022.

BUT based on their case numbers, which give the date the case's events happened even if that's not said in the episode, all the incidents Sam has looked at so far were from mid 2022. They're not perfectly grouped together; the dolls and Arthur and RedCanary were all April through May 2022, while Daria's therapy appointment was September--that last one's a bit of a jump, but it could have happened depending on how cases are being allotted among the various workers. But they're all close enough that it's a plausible assumption, I think, that FR3-D1 is generally finding these things roughly as they're posted and then adding them into people's queues for review. This would mean they're at a current backlog of around a year and a half. (Looking at you, Gwen...)

If that's the case, and if the OIAR's workers have been maintaining a roughly constant rate, then around a year ago they would probably have been reviewing a lot of cases that FR3-D1 found in early to mid-2021. Which means they'd have been opening files that have been sitting in their database untouched since that time.

MAG200 aired on March 25, 2021.

Whether Chester and Norris are a Ushanka'd JMart, or something resulting purely from Annabelle Caine's manipulation of their voices, or something else entirely... l don't know. But I am betting that they didn't start as part of the system, like Colin thinks they did. I think there was some direct consequence of MAG200's events which led to them being embedded in a post that FR3-D1 scraped up, and that they simply weren't activated and "let loose" until some unknowing office worker clicked on their file.

[fridayyy-13th]

gonna be honest, feeling very conflicted about this episode, lads. i've been really hoping Protocol won't explain away the (NARRATIVELY IMPORTANT) mystery left at the end of Archives, i.e. Jon and Martin's fate, so seeing as they're the next thing Sam and Celia are gonna be investigating, this is kinda gonna be the thing that makes or breaks Protocol, for me.

i do think there's a solid chance Chester and Norris are the Jon and Martin from Protocol's universe, and that is something i absolutely would not mind. but i haven't actually made a post explaining why i think that, and i should probably do that before it's explained, just so i can mayyyybe say i called it.

(for the record, i'm pretty sure i came up with most of this before the series even officially dropped, when all we had was the ARG and the trailer. i haven't done much to connect this theory to the further information we've learned, so it's probably not fully accurate (if accurate at all). and quite a bit of it is kinda baseless conjecture; i'm just throwing my thoughts out there. just a little disclaimer.)

so!

in Archives, Jonah's primary motivation is fear of death. turning to the Eye is what allows him to body-hop as he does for 200 years, trying to create a world where his Patron reigns supreme, where he is seated upon its throne and cannot die. assuming his motivation is the same in Protocol, this new universe is (likely until recently) untouched by the Entities. if Jonah wanted to evade death, how could he do that without the help of an eldritch fear god?

easy—alchemy.

i'm not particularly knowledgeable about the subject as a whole, but i'm certainly familiar with the Philosopher's Stone (the symbol of which is also present in the OIAR's/podcast's logo, though it seems the OIAR is more focused on balance than on experimentation).

i also know that the seven metals used in alchemy (gold, silver, mercury, copper, lead, iron, and tin) are all components of computer chips. i've been thinking Jonah, or maybe his successors, saw that and began turning their research to how it could be utilized to extend—or preserve—life.

to cut to the chase, bc frankly it's hard trying to sound like i know what i'm talking about and this post would take forever to write otherwise, i think Jonah tried to Sergei Ushanka himself into a computer, because metal and plastic are a hell of a lot longer-lasting than a human being.

but he wouldn't shove his consciousness into some random motherboard without making sure it was safe, what do you take him for?? he is a man of academia. obviously he had to test it on others first, and then he'd do it himself.

cue the thought experiments the Institute ran on kids. the things the experiments quantify are empathy and obedience to authority, which to me screams that they were trying to find kids who were easy to manipulate into more dangerous experiments.

and who are two characters who were kids in the 90s, with circumstances that left them lonely, isolated, and who, even as adults, are desperate to please (whether a parent or a bad boss)? Jon and Martin.

i posit that Jon and Martin were both victims of these experiments, perhaps the first (and only) successful subjects, and Jonah uploaded his consciousness to the computer soon after. their records could have been stricken from the spreadsheet to hide that they'd even been part of the program, and given the Institute burned down soon after, and there were no survivors—it could have been assumed that they'd died in the fire. it isn't like they had the most doting guardians to worry over them.

...but Chester and Norris's voices are those of adult Jon and Martin.

best i can figure, Jonah's plan might have worked in the short term, but computers have had date/time hardware in them since the 80s, so they—and Augustus—are still aging. so they've been trapped in computer software since 1999, and now that Sam and Celia are digging into what happened, they're desperate to catch their attention and find a way out.

(and lastly, a fun little thought—given Jon and Martin were both born circa 1987, they would have been twelve in 1999. they didn't even get to be teenagers.)

[sassy-pistachy]

We know the purpose of the OIAR is supposedly "monitore and manage the bad guys", but still,

WHO'S LISTENING THROUGH THE DEVICES?

In TMA (spoilers if you haven't listened), the purpose of the Institute was to feed The Eye, and to work towards Jonah Magnus' grand plan. But the reason behind the tapes was completely different. The tapes appearing and listening were The Web, with it's own plan and intentions. Every piece of conversation that we heard, was because The Mother of Puppets wanted to hear.

So, in TMAGP, who's spying on our guys, and with what purpose?

Why is it important that we hear Sam and Celia's date? Or Alice and Celia's awkward conversation in the break room?

I'm guessing the listening is Freddie, or somehow Chester, Norris and Augustus. But no clue about their intentions.

[ollieofthebeholder]

I realize this is going to be a very unpopular opinion, but: I don't think Chester and Norris are Jon and Martin. Not from the original TMA, anyway.

In the first place, there's been so much emphasis put on the fact that you don't have to listen to TMA to get TMAGP that I feel like hinging a major plot twist on...something you'd have had to listen to the entirety of TMA to fully understand would be kind of unfair. And they've been calling it a "side-quel", not a "sequel". Besides, the whole beauty of MAG 200 was the ambiguity of the ending, and I can't see Jonny or Alex being keen to give a definite answer now. As they've said, "the text is the text".

In universe, the timing doesn't add up, either. The Eyepocalypse began October of 2018, and while obviously time didn't mean anything after that, I think Jonny said he'd envisioned it as being six to eight months between MAG 160 and MAG 200. Something like that. Either way, we're talking 2019 sometime that...whatever happened, happened. Alice said the voices only started "about a year ago", and the time stamps on the forum thread from TMAGP 001 were all dated 2022. Even if that was a thread that just got locked a couple hours before Chester read it to Sam, it still means the talking started around 2021 at the earliest. You could make an argument that they needed time to recover even a little of themselves, but two years?

I think it's more likely that they were someone involved in The Magnus Institute of this world. That maybe they were part of some study and...didn't come out of it well. That something happened to them relatively recently and they're trying to reach out to someone who can help them, who can fix it.

I dunno. I guess we'll find out. I just feel like it's too early to pin any one theory down as confirmed, and I am worried that if too many older fans get too hung up on the idea of it being JMart - of this being "somewhere else" - and then it turns out not to be them at all, there's going to be a massive fandom outcry about something that never existed outside of people's heads.

[vessilin]

hey guys i have decided that i will now become a TMAGP account. hashtag. love this new podcast!! as soon as my hands stop swelling I WILL be making RedCanary fan art. I cannot express how much i’m loving this series rn

more below the cut! ! (SPOILERS)

OKAY SO!! episode #1 has thoroughly shaken me to the core. thank you so @sunnyspookss for listening to me yap about it over discord. love u suns!! here are my thoughts on the characters :

Sam - I cannot describe how I feel about this creature. I’m loving them and they’re giving me very… main character vibes (obviously but… anything could change who knows). Currently loving the idea that they wear glasses !!! Def a really fleshed out character (even from just the first episode).

I know Sam SAID that they were working here to ‘get back on [my] feet’ but I feel like there might be something more behind it?

Alice - right off the bat !! I’m loving her. she seems so incredibly sweet and i’m HC-ing her as a trans woman. live laugh love Alice !!! She’s so silly and in some ways reminds me of Tim Stoker ? I think it’s really interesting and I can’t wait to see how her character develops!!

ALSOOO TTHE FACT THAT SHE AND SAM USED TO DATE!??? AUGH. during college too? I feel like this is running a real close parallel to Jon and Georgie.

Gwen <333 - I can totally see some of the Bouchard family line coming in here. At first (a.k.a. the first 10 minutes or so) i didn’t really have any strong opinions and kinda forgot that her last name was bouchard but after the little scene of her and Lena in the office I started to love her even more. The boldness and the gall this woman has makes me want to shake her around like a squeaky toy.

When Lena was like “what do you even want here anyways 😒😒” AND GWEN WENT “your job” I LOST IT. LIKE.

I don’t even know if she and Elias are related but goddamn?!! I’m literally in love.

Lena - She knows something. This woman. this girl. she knows something that I do not know and I do not like it.

Colin - Live Laugh Love Colin!!! He def knows what’s going on!! I have a feeling he’ll be rlly important to the plot and his little end ‘speech’ (more like dialogue but oh well) at the end of the first episode was like??? Major Eye vibes.

RedCanary - I don’t even know where to begin. The insanity? The deleting photo? Canaries should stay above ground? The anger at ArcherK?? The mystery?

I really hope this character comes back but even if they’re a Sarah Baldwin situation that is 110% okay. I love the premise of this person finding something in that box (or maybe just the box in general) that drives them to insanity or drives them to some new information?

Misc. - Ok! Im not sure if the same like… ‘fears’ apply but someone (hi sunny) has said that there might be a new fear system? i think that’s going to be really fun to get into once I listen to the second episode. Secondly !!!! The Magnus Archive being turned into the library of alexandria (not literally but still) is such a cool concept to me. I think it’s very inchresting to think about because

A) as a child i loved researching TLA (the library of alexandria) and B) it makes a whole new timeline- i think?? Or maybe it’s some like alternate dimension or something!!! who knows!! I love it!

The idea of lost knowledge (and that knowledge once being uncovered driving people to insanity) (shoutout redcanary we will remember you!) is such a cool concept in general. the what-ifs and the maybes that can stem from it are so interesting and I can’t wait to see if they expand on that or not!! Either way- i’m loving the podcast so far.

ALSO JON AND MARTIN BEING CHESTER AND NORRIS RESPECTIVELY? DOES THIS MEAN THAT AUGUSTUS IS LIKE. ELIAS OR JONAH???? AUGH THIS PODCAST IS SO GOOD IM LOSING IT

[mllemaenad]

The Magnus Protocol: Rolling with It

Well – the show is on the cusp of a mid-season break, so it is absolutely time for someone to do something rash and foolhardy. This will almost certainly lead to a frustrating cliffhanger next week, because that's how pacing works. I look forward to Sam, Alice and Gwen all screwing up royally on their respective excursions.

That said, I genuinely don't believe that sticking your head in the sand is an approach that works. It's all very well to say a person should stay clear of the supernatural, but there's nothing in that that guarantees that the supernatural will go along with that plan. Something quite clearly happened to Sam at The Magnus Institute. Providing he is cautious about it, working out what that was is probably a good idea. But Sam doesn't feel cautious.

It's interesting how traditional this one was, and yet how different – because it's in the differences that you can see how this world works.

This is a bona fide Magnus Institute statement read by, at least insofar as how it sounds, the Archivist himself. And, like others before him, the statement giver has turned up to get the Magnus Institute to deal with his weird supernatural problem.

But the thing is – in The Magnus Archives the statements were always about the people. Oh, there were plenty of weird artefacts in them, but the storyteller themselves was always the point of the whole thing. It was the terror of the individual that The Magnus Institute actively sought, and it was following the interconnecting threads of the various recurring characters that led John to his conclusions.

But The Magnus Institute: Manchester does not care about the people. It cares about the stuff.

There is a very distinct difference between this:

Archivist Statement of Nathan Watts, regarding an encounter on Old Fishmarket Close, Edinburgh. Original statement given April 22nd 2012. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. – The Magnus Archives: Anglerfish

And this:

Chester Statement and Research assessment for artefact CD137 - Sam What the hell? Chester Magnus Institute – Manchester. Private and confidential. Viability as subject – none Viability as agent – low Viability as catalyst – medium. Recommend referral to Catalytics for Enrichment applicability assessment. – The Magnus Protocol: Rolling with It

The statement giver is nameless, you can only infer he's probably male from an offhand remark:

Chester/Unknown Statement Giver And that brings us about up to date. They're yours now, and I never want to see them again. Don't get me wrong, it’s a blow but I’m just not the right guy to carry them. – The Magnus Protocol: Roll with It

And that's hardly definitive. The Magnus Institute is interested in him only insofar as his experience illustrates what the dice can do. And it intends to take these dice, enhance them in some way, and then use them to cause something. Their use twists fate in some sense – so you can see the logic up to a point. If you're trying to make something particular happen, you might be able to use the dice to do that.

But what the hell were they doing? Specifically, what the hell were they doing to those children?

It's been a thread, all the way through, that distance from people in The Magnus Protocol. The way the cases are gathered, without the knowledge or consent of the people to whom these things happened, the barrier between the protagonists and the stories as Chester, Norris and Augustus are the ones who actually read them ... and now this. The Magnus Institute was looking for "supernaturally active items", not people who had had supernatural experiences.

RedCanary also found an object in The Magnus Institute:

Chester/RedCanary Re: Magnus Institute Ruins By RedCanary on Saturday April 23 2022 12:17pm The photos from the spelunk seem properly gone, but I did find an old wooden thing with a bunch of similar symbols on. Some kinda empty box, not really sure what for, though. Gonna see if I can get the light right for a decent pic. Edit: No dice, I’m afraid. Must be something up with my phone camera. Really not helping the whole paranoia thing either. Anyone know anything about photographic distortion? Gonna see if I can borrow my dad’s SLR tomorrow. – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

That didn't feel especially noteworthy at the time: The Magnus Institute always did have some weird crap in Artefact Storage. But I keep thinking about Mary Keay:

Mary Keay Often, during my studies, my mother would talk to me of the amazing arcane relics at your Institute. I’m sure you can imagine my disappointment when I finally got a look at the collection of mediocrity that you call your “Artefact Storage.” – The Magnus Archives: First Edition

Mary was ... quite a piece of work, obviously, and there's no doubt that some of the things in Artefact Storage were very dangerous indeed. But it does seem that The Magnus Institute of that universe only collected supernatural objects incidentally: usually because a statement giver happened to bring one in.

But here – well, the artefacts are the point. And RedCanary took one away. And – heh – "no dice". I wonder if that box ever held dice. I wonder if they had still come up snake eyes.

The rest of the point of the piece seems to be about the nature of choice. That's always been a question, of course:

Archivist/Annabelle Cane Of course, that’s not the real crux of the free will question that’s bothering you at the moment, is it? I think that one probably comes down to whether or not you’re choosing to continue reading this statement out loud. You didn’t mean to, did you? No, I’m sure you told Basira and Melanie that you were going to glance over it and report back; perhaps they asked you if you were going to record, and you shook your head: maybe later. That sounds like the sort of thing you’d say. But think about it, John; when’s the last time you were able to read a statement quietly to yourself without instinctively hitting record and speaking it aloud? Is it just instinct, habit? Or is it a compulsion, a string pulled by the Ceaseless Watcher or the Mother of Puppets? – The Magnus Archives: Weaver

You can say the characters are making free choices, sure. But if an evil god (for want of a better term) is leaning on you, that constrains your choices. If your access to pertinent information is limited, that constrains your choices. If you're in the presence of a hypnotic artefact, that constrains your choices.

The statement giver is clearly compelled, at least up to a point. He knows, and Gary knew before him, that rolling the dice was likely a fatal idea. But they both did it anyway. So did all the random people he presented with the dice.

But at the same time, there are hints of a gambling habit that was present before he took ownership to the dice:

Chester/Unknown Statement Giver It’s been a while since I played the tables but I’ve used enough dice to know they were too heavy… And there was something else too. From that point on I own those dice. And I know it. – The Magnus Protocol: Rolling with it

And he clearly took to the damn things in a way that Gary did not. Gary clearly rolled the dice and had both very good luck and very bad. And at a certain point he decided to make them this arsehole's problem (and as badly as that ended for him, I can see why). But our anonymous statement-giver was committed to becoming a dark agent of fate.

Chester/Unknown Statement Giver I started to enjoy that more than the luck. I was rolling for myself less and less, focusing more on being some mysterious stranger. I even began dressing for the part: I got hold of this long dark coat, a wide-brimmed hat, grew a proper goatee, the works. – The Magnus Protocol: Rolling with it

It's funny that he didn't like D&D, given how quickly he took to LARP-ing.

But there are other questions about compulsion, too. Nobody but Gary was hurt? Not true. What about the truck driver, whose life was likely ruined by this event? Were they compelled by the dice to fall asleep, or to plough into that building, even though they'd never touched the dice?

Sam clearly gets a prod toward a Magnus Institute-related case when he's muttering about giving him – but he's also pretty clearly committed, whatever he says to Celia. And he is explicitly in the middle of the world's longest and weirdest application process as he's having this conversation. Maybe Sam's being leaned on, a little, but he's not resisting it.

And then there's Teddy. It's not that anything he says is impossible, of course. It's just an odd string of luck. He gets that job just long enough to be replaced by Sam and Celia, and then it's gone again. And then he's back in Alice's orbit. Teddy's not around the OIAR any more than that truck driver was around the dice. But does he still fall under its influence?

"Gerry Keay's" behaviour in the previous episode was definitely odd, but at the time it was a little difficult to tell whether he was overdoing an act … or if he was actually like that, for some reason. I'm more inclined to think the latter, now. I'm more inclined to think something's leaning on him.

And last, but not at all least, is Sam's questionnaire. Sure, "Why?" might be the weirdest part in the generic sense, but this:

Celia Please list your earliest four negative memories associated with school or an equivalent childhood educational institution, then rate each from zero to seven with zero being neutral and seven being traumatic. – The Magnus Protocol: Rolling with it

It's an odd bit of luck, right, that Sam's paperwork lands on a question to which he is bound to have an interesting answer?

And Gwen – it sounds as though she's been sent out to visit some kind of incredibly irritating 90s television star (I want to strangle the man from the name "Prank Tank" alone). She is to deliver him a name and address, just as Sam previously received a name and address. The coincidence, however, lies most in the children.

What was playing on TV when Sam, Gerry and the unknown others were in The Magnus Institute?

[corrupttheconscience]

Sam: CHUCKNORRIS IS CANNON??? I need to go back to my universe I need to tell Alice-

Next episode,

Georgie, full gravity, hitting play on an old tape: Did the Archivist sound...like this?

Jon recording: --Statement begins. [INSERT HORRORS]

Sam: Oh my god

Sam: You guys know Chester?