#no conclusions

This is not really a theory, more like a series of questions, gut feelings and ramblings of a madwoman.

I feel like we are led to believe that the OIAR, like all official government agencies, are doing some sort of service to the people, albeit with dark undertones. Occasional civilian sacrifice to keep the horrors at bay, and all that. It seems to track with everything we know about keeping a balance, about sending a Bonzo out to brutalize some party-goers, and about Colin's ramblings about what too much sulphur or mercury might lead to. But I have to wonder.

Why did Colin bring up Stasi? If the OIAR is a British government agency, why was he concerned with the East German secret police that doesn't even exist anymore? I have to assume that Fr3-d1 (or its prototype?) was created in the DDR, and for some reason the system along with the operations were moved to the UK. But why? If the OIAR is concerned with keeping a universal balance, surely it would take much more than one British organisation using their limited local externals. Does every government have their own branch? Or is there something deeper hidden in their history?

What rubs me the wrong way is the symbology in the logo, which at this point I've overanalysed to death. We have the symbol for the Philosopher's Stone (inverted, which could mean something or not), the laurels that were used to symbolise the completion of the Great Work, and the motto "Non vacillabimus", which conveys the idea of not faltering/hesitating/wavering. These do not feel like symbols of stability or balance, they feel like symbols of conviction towards a goal. The Philosopher's Stone is not created by merely keeping things balanced, it's the end goal of repeated, transformative processes.

This is where I'm going off the rails a bit, but I have to entertain the possibility that the OIAR was never meant to be a government agency to begin with. As has been pointed out, the logo does bear a striking resemblance to the royal coat of arms (with the lion and unicorn and all that), which is why no one would even think to question it. But the lion and the unicorn are also common symbols for the sun and moon, which must be brought together in union to make the Stone. And the quaternity (or circle divided in four) in the middle is similarly a common symbol found everywhere in alchemy. Additionally, the emblem doesn't even say "Office of Incident Assessment and Response", it says "O. I. A. R." Do we know for sure that's what it even stands for? It could just as well be an Order of some kind, and god knows there wasn't a lack of those in Germany.

The OIAR could have been established in Germany as another type of organisation, such as an alchemical fraternity of some kind, and then repurposed into a British government agency. Why? I have no clue. I just have this nagging feeling that all is not what it seems. And it doesn't help that they hid a major plot twist in the Magnus Archives logo and I didn't notice it until way after I'd finished listening. TMAGP being about alchemy, which is specifically the art of hiding secrets in plain sight, makes me more paranoid than ever.

Very interesting info re the question "why did Paul storm out of the recording of She Said She Said?"

and i think about that post a lot. like. obviously being non binary gives me additional insight into the ~non-binary experience, but I don’t think that actually should mean people have to give me a free pass if i say something offensive. most trans meds are trans people, and i don’t really think their trans-ness validates their opinions at all.

the position with the best logical conclusion as far as i see it is that opinions should be evaluated semi-independently of the person who holds them.

also ? internalized [oppression]ism exists; there are many men i would rather talk about feminism with than women because there are many women with enough internalized misogyny to prevent them from accurately reflecting on whether a certain opinion/product/action is misogynistic.

i remember defending BLM in high school and having 1 of the 2 black kids in my grade tell me that BLM is violent and unhelpful. i think i just stopped talking, which was probably the best course of action in an in-person, interpersonal scenario. but situations like this come into play online all the time. how can we best respond when instead of just shutting up, we have the option of continuing the conversation elsewhere ?

the way i see it, convenience culture is a manipulation tactic and an addiction (intentional or otherwise)

gsuite working not-quite-as-well on firefox, tiktok being fun, amazon having such a stream-lined process for everything and being cheap, etc

yes, google products work well. yes, tiktok is fun (i’ve heard). yes, amazon provides a very functional service.

but that’s what hooks people, thats why people can make the argument that “everyone is already doing it anyway” in response to measures that would limit corporate power.

If confused about what I mean by that, read my pinned post

The OIAR is a government organisation seemingly stuck in the past. They're all about needless bureaucracy, rigid organisational structures and obsolete tech that downright rejects any attempts to update it. If technology and innovation are feeding the humanity's ideas of change and mercurial adaptation, then the OIAR (and most government agencies tbh) are antithetical to that. This must be intentional on the writers' part, but is it intentional on the fictional level?

Salt as a principle has a very grounding effect, and we are living in a world where everything and everyone must keep evolving, the world is rapidly changing (for better and for worse), things that happened a week ago are old news, and social media is feeding our constant need for validation and self-expression. So if both Sulfur (fiery, personal drives) and Mercury (the fluctuating, ambient transformation) are in abundance, the agency that's dedicated to balancing them must be grounded with Salt, with stagnancy and rigidity. Which is why I find it especially worrisome that the “Salt config manager”found an “unmonitored orphan process” (whatever that means).

Here's some wild speculation: What if the entity that lives in Freddie is actively trying to disrupt the Salt? The OIAR was stuck doing pretty much the same thing they've always done, but recently things have been kicked to motion, thanks to some incidents targeted at the right people and some anonymously sent emails. There have been significant changes in the inner workings of the agency. And it feels like technology is particularly prone to some Mercury-based tamperings, what with it both representing change and providing us with the weird liminality of the cyberspace.