ElliotHadEyes

This is also your reminder that if you have early access, Episode 53 of The Magnus Protocol is out NOW. 😊 👁

I at the moment am convinced that the Archivist is a Humunculous created from a Human and the Archives Tapes.

A homunclous in Alchemy referred to an artificial humanoid created from human semen and the womb of a horse. Homunculi were believed to be able to perform transmutation and other miracles. (They also had massive, hands, feet, and penises but that isnt helpful here.)

The creation of a Homunculous as outlined by Paracelsus is as follows:

That the sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed cucurbit for forty days with the highest degree of putrefaction in a horse's womb ["venter equinus", meaning "warm, fermenting horse dung"], or at least so long that it comes to life and moves itself, and stirs, which is easily observed. After this time, it will look somewhat like a man, but transparent, without a body. If, after this, it be fed wisely with the Arcanum of human blood, and be nourished for up to forty weeks, and be kept in the even heat of the horse's womb, a living human child grows therefrom, with all its members like another child, which is born of a woman, but much smaller.-Grafton, Anthony (1999). Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe. MIT Press.

The keys here are the need of an incubator, human blood, and Semen. Now I assume we are not using emolated ejaculate in Protocol but its likely being substituted for the "pieces" mentioned in "A New You"

Humunculous have come up a few times in Protocol so far:

"A New You"- The process of creating the Coral creature in this episode does contain certain parallels to the Alchemical concept of a Homunculi. Namely the marriage of human dna and another organism to create life.

Incubator [human body]-blood-Piece [Coral]

This episode harps on then inportance of pieces. Which will come back up later.

"Internal Investigation"-woman implicitly creates a humanoid from a beaker using her blood and something else unknown.

Also worth noting her organs have been transformed into metals. Which was an ability Paracelsus believed a successful Homunculous would have.

Incubator [Beaker, possibly drier]-blood-Piece [Unknown]

"Slipping"‐Adam is the most blatant case I feel. While he doesnt transform anything but himself he is a humanoid of miraculous ability created via experimentation and Alchemy.

Creation method unknown.

"Legacy Issues"-is my biggest stretch to be fair. And Im 50/50 on including this one. But it is another ritual involving human blood and the creation of a doppleganger/humanoid entity. Given W- is both cited as dead and not dead, and his corpse was found. Meaning W- is now two entities, or there is an entity born of him.

Incubator [Human Body]-blood-Piece [Custom Chair]

The Archivists casting call is as follows:

"Whoever [Redacted] was is long dead. literally." Which follows the rituals in A New You and Legacy Issues, which created monsters from the death of the ritual conductor. But also the Archivist isnt whoever its created from. Its a unique humanoid with supernatural abilities.

"Building an identity for itself at the expense of its victims" aligns with Adam and the Doppleganger in Internal Investigations (assumedly at least.)

I mentioned I wanted to return to the idea of a "piece" in relation to the archivist, soecifically I want to highlight the tapes. When questioned about being Sims it stated it was not Jonathan sims but "had his story." And if Protocol Sims is dead, its gotta mean Archives Sims. Who is in Fr3-D1 at the moment.

I think the Archives Tapes served as the "Piece" in the creation of the Archivist. Which is partially why its powers are all over the place.

Obviously theres its transmutative statement extraction. Transforming its victims, which is unique to itself. Similar to how Homunculous are meant to turn fear into gold.

But then it also has abilities from the other fears:

In multiple Archivesverse episode transcripts the Archivist demanifests and remanifests either from and into nothing or as mustard gas like fog. Similar to the Avatars of the Lonely.

In "Deep Trouble" it can create doors and mess with location layouts. This is attributed to it causing hallucinations but no one ever interacts with it to confirm the door is only a hallucination. The use of a door specifically is a clear callback to the Spiral.

The tapes it uses are the webs domain.

It spreading its eyes to RedCanary and Sam absolutely reeks of Corruption. While Eyes manifesting where they shouldnt be is smth the Eye causes, skin to skin infections are the corruptions deal.

Its puppeting of dead corpses evokes the End. "Breathing Room" specifically the drowing woman in MAGP 15 and the cadaver in MAGP 18.

And the "building an identity for itself" line in the casting call is very stranger coded.

And while they are worth bringing up, its other two qualities are a lot harder to pin to a specific fear. And could be non specific traits, but I still wanted to mention for completeness.

Its described by the witness in "Catching Up" to be "[...]A figure. Tall and thin and still in shadow even in the morning sun. I couldn't make out its face, but I felt it…looking at me. Looking at me from everywhere." Which is not a trait of the eyes servants normally, but does fall within servants of the Dark or the Spiral (Micheal specifically being hard to make out.

And "Deep Trouble" where it is described im the transcript as attacking the patroller with teeth in its gaseous form. Which is too vague to definitively pin on one fear, but Id say its likely Hunt or Dark.

The Archivist has a LOT of non-Archivist powers in its arsenal. The Tapes as intended by the Web, contained fear from all 14 of the powers. These powers are the other reason I believe the Tapes were the Archivist's piece.

Its a humanoid born of whatever powers hold dominion over the Protocolverse, powered by an artifact marked by all of the powers. Making it an artificial Avatar effectively.

TSFTL fanart based off a post by my friend @elliothadeyes :D