#tmagp speculation

It's genuinely galling that post-eldritch-nightmare-apocalypse London is currently not suffering through a drought and has the far nicer weather than my current reality, but it is nice to be back despite that. Not least of which is to see [Error] again, and, man, she's being very chatty this time around. Which I just love. Having her evolve into something that more concrete and, importantly, distinct from other characters sharing the title is wonderful to see. I'm not sure what the general sentiment is between her being Jon but that's always seemed like the least interesting direction to take it to me. It's still hard to say much of what she's planning but it does seem like she's got an interest in the Panopticon, which only makes sense. It also makes sense you can't make a deal with the eldritch horror. But who could've known that?

The statement is a good old fashioned one. There isn't a lot to say on it but it might be one of my favourites in a good while. It's got some really strong writing and Peter Bramhill does an amazing job with this statement and I'm half-convinced they should just be hiring VA's that were prominent in FFXIV. I've always found the post-Change statements tend to be more interesting thematically in regards to their Entity's purview and this is no different. Taking the Dark's fear of the unknown and twisting it into a deliberate othering and a continual fracturing of what's the in-group and the out-group is a clever exploration of it. Plus, I always love when it shows that the domain of an avatar will make them its victim should it get the chance.

Likewise, there isn't a lot to add with onto the scene with Sam, Basira, and Georgie. I do think Sam is getting some more character development here than we saw from the last episode's cast. That was more of a reminder episode and this feels like there is a bit more progression to it. It's all pretty explicit progression so there isn't much for me to speculate about but I'm liking that it seems to be going in a direction of making Dreamers more and more of a focus. That might be the most interesting part of the Primeline's setting to me so far. Also Georgie mentions a vault and those sorts of things never stay closed for long.

Anyway, on to episode 53.

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Episode 53 is great for a lot of reasons. But, honestly, I've just missed Gertrude's statements. Always highlights for me in TMA and even if this is maybe blatant fanservice I'm here for it. Even just Gertrude obviously owning a gun is great. As is the entire interaction between Alice, Celia, and Gerry. Hard for that to not put a smile on your face. But there is more to get into than just that so I won't dwell even if this scene might be one of those ones you really look forward to on a re-listen.

A big deal is that Gertrude burned down the Institute. I'm not entirely sure there is a lot to add there but back in my post for Episode 8, Running on Empty, I said that her burning it down to save Gerry was the scenario I saw being the most likely. Turns out it was and it was explained pretty clearly here so it's hard to say much on it. It's nice to see that her being capable of dispassionate violence is a constant though, I always liked how pragmatically ruthless she was. Although she was dropping a lot of death flags this episode about how old and tired and brittle she is. So that's not super chill. No more of that please.

There is a good amount to talk about in terms of Gerry though. Him being a "catalysed subject" is interesting in a few ways, and not just for more Institute lingo. The first is it's the thematic opposite of his characterisation in TMA. He's gone from a depressed victim of an abusive parent and getting trapped in skin book misery prison to, well, probably still having an abusive parent but at least ending up with supernatural positivity from it. Outside of the thematic parallel there it also gives some credence to the Institute's stance of finding a way to "invert" Dread and transform someone for hope. Because on the surface that statement is entirely cope. It's generic "we're not evil honest, we only sacrifice children to save the world" bad guy cope at that. However, with Gerry, they do seem to have managed it? It's obviously not moral, humane, or ethical in any sense. You can't experiment on children nor should you rob a person of their emotions like that, or inflict it upon others, but it's not just rationalising either. Which does raise the question of whether or not Gertrude has made things worse. If the Institute had finally managed to turn Dread into something positive has burning the place down only removed something that could forestall, or even entirely halt, Dread's effects? It also casts more of a shadow on the O.I.A.R. than they already do by themselves. The Protocol might be a net negative. It'll be interesting to see how that develops because we have seen what happens when Fear wins. We've seen that Change. We've not seen what happens if you go the other direction with it.

Gertrude's mention of the Archivist, and specifically the Blood-Brewer in similar context, does more or less settle some debates too. It's now pretty clear that these are names assigned to them and not titles within the Institute itself. They're labels, not jobs. Not that I'd exactly put it passed them to need a Blood-Brewer on staff but it doesn't seem like the Archivist is the Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, Manchester, it seems like she's "thing that collects stories so we'll call her the Archivist as a subject name". Which is just fine by me, I'm more interested in what they can do different than what they can do the same.

The mention of locations being able to catalysed in the same manner as beings or objects is worthy of a mention on two fronts. The first is we've seen the Institute search out locations they think might be candidates for that before. I'm not 100% sure Hilltop is one of those necessarily but we did see them in the process of using the Millennium Dome for that in Episode 21, Breaking Ground. The second thing is this isn't the first time a character has mentioned three things you could describe as people, places, and objects. Which is a somewhat popular theory for what CAT1, 2, and 3 refer to. I'm of two minds on this. I wrote a whole thing about why I think that methodology is fundamentally flawed based on the information at the time. I still think it doesn't really line up well. However, I think it's maybe pretty likely to be true anyway. But having said that this incident is CAT123 and its heading is Transmutation (Human). Which does a lot to narrow it's focus onto just people. With Gertrude's mention of "the first of the transmutation rituals" it could be that CAT is related to that in some aspect, which could also tie into Collin's dramatic transformation as that is the only other 123.

Phase 2 of the ‘Great Work’ isn't something I'd usually mention at this stage. It's come up a lot, the "great work" or the "magnum opus". It's usually the creation of the philosopher's stone and the imagery for it is all over the O.I.A.R. logo and it's been talked about a lot. That's not super interesting. What is though is what I alluded to while talking about Gerry. The Institute's mission of "hope not evil" or whatever might be genuine and that reframes the Great Work. Before this point it seemed like more of the same Watcher's Crown deal. Harness Dread to do some big Dread thing. Now it seems more like "harness Dread for sunshine and rainbows", or at least that might be their aspiration. Lots to look for going forward, and maybe lots to re-examine too.

I love that the only time Gwen seems professional is when she's telling Nigel Dickerson she doesn't care about doing her job well. I love the energy but she's gonna get everyone killed.

Great ep all around. Hopefully it'll keep this pace up in the final stretch of this season.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet (actually updated)

I'm skipping 52's here because it's XXXXs and there isn't anything to say on those.

DPHW Theory: 4565 is pretty normal. It's interesting in that it's very balanced which may or may not matter for what happened to Gerry but DPHWs don't map directly onto a subject like that from what we've seen. So it likely has very little bearing on what was done to Gerry

CAT# Theory: 123 is something we've seen before in Episode 31, Compartmentalising, where Colin turned into a meat server. That one had more wiggle room for if there was in fact a person, place, and object relevant to it but given this episode's focus I don't think it's hard to assume that 123 is merely a level of total transmutation that we've not really seen elsewhere. I'll need to do some number crunching at a later date and see what comes of it.

R# Theory: ABC is also something we've seen before. Episode 38, Circling Back, with the haunted carousel was ABC. At the time I was unaware of that because the transcript had a mistake within it. I still haven't fully integrated it with my current theories about how it relates to the evidence and therefor the urgency of response needed. I'll need to do some letter crunching at a later date and see what comes of it.

The opening with Celia and Georgie is a little of what I mean in the preamble to this. It seems to mostly serve to catch-up for what these peoples' deals are. Celia is sleep-walking, Georgie is a conspiracy nut, cows are good. I'll be curious to see how this feels to people who recently caught up in the hiatus rather than last listened to TMAGP last decade or however long it's been. I also meant to listen to spin-off but didn't. So let me know if that's worth getting to.

A very topical insight into Gwen's role as a department head because this is what the UK government is like at every level. Otherwise mostly just a catch up that she's in over her head and that none of her employees show up to work now.

But all is forgiven as the real meat of this one is the glorious return to Augustus. Who outside of Heinrich is the best part of this for me. Although despite said forgiveness this is actually more of the same sort of recap energy. It's a fun listen and has very strong vibes but it's not progressing the plot much.

Robert Boyle is a character/real historical person we've talked about a few times here. Of note episode 19, Hard Reset, is a letter from Robert Hooke to Boyle. This episode's letter serves as a sort of prequel to that one. In Hard Reset he's discussing the "Protocol" and "Dread emissions" and how much of a fuckup Isaac Newton is being. With the understanding being that the Royal Society of London is, in some way, a precursor to the OIAR's mission and might've been formed specifically for that purpose.

This letter clarifies that somewhat. The "invisible college" he mentions here is a precursor of sorts to the Royal Society. It was a sort of private group of like-minded philosophers and scholars and some of its members were founding members of the Royal Society which existed for similar purposes but more publicly and better funded. So all of that isn't exactly new information but it's interesting background. It also further emphasises the importance of balance in these factors, as talked about by a lot of characters given its relevance to alchemy, as well as the clandestine nature of their work. Balance and ignorance.

He's also briefly mentioned in episode 27, Driven. Y'know the one where that carriage ate a dude. But it's less relevant.

Boyle isn't the only character of import here though. W_ is just as central and given that he seemingly survived his own death and the mention of mutare materia it seems pretty likely that this is Dr. Welling of Welling Mutare Materia. Dr. Welling is a central figure of episode 21, Breaking Ground, which discuses the Magnus Institute's plans to use the Millennium Dome as an alchemic catalyst but he's shown up in a number of Institute related statements.

The only other character to talk about is H- who is probably Samuel Hartlib. Hartlib was an intelligencer the "Hartlib Circle" overlapped with Boyle's aforementioned invisible college and did help with getting the charter to found the Royal Society. Although he died soon after and so isn't very relevant beyond this. Another H-named, although fore- rather than sur- is, Henry Oldenburg. He's relevant in that he was also a founding member of the Royal Institute and served as its first secretary and was a diplomat and theologian that was very influential in the formation of the Royal Society. Although the specifics of that are up for debate. Both of these men were intelligencers and both fit the timeline. It's probably Hartlib in specific here, even if he's arguably more of a minor figure in all this, but I might as well squeeze in more history.

And just to make sure its' all covered; chrysopoeia is the transmutation of base metals into gold. Welling is done with that shit. Old hat. Prima materia we'll have talked about before too but as a refresher that's the formless base matter of all things. Mutare materia is a TMAGP invention AFAIK but is the bad version of that. It's possibly the source of all the major mutations and such we've been seeing and might be the "physical" influence of this setting's Dread entities.

Oh how I've missed Gwen and Alice hating each other. I don't think much is said here that needs to be talked about but I have missed these two at each other's throats.

Alice's section has a reminder of both Luke, and Teddy. Characters they've not really done a lot with but do keep bringing up. Teddy obviously has some shit going on with him and our handy-dandy OIAR state-sanction lie-detector does make it painfully obvious he's neither just swamped with work, or, indeed, "good". I'm not 100% sure what more there is to say on Teddy right now. Nice to have a reminder that he's still around all the same though. Luke has even less going on. While it is fine for a character to not exist for more than that it'll be somewhat of a surprise if he remains that way. It just doesn't feel like it's really building to much right now.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

Klaus Watch: Klaus was mentioned. Only reviving this bit to remind people that Schweitzer is their last name. In case you forgot. Like I did.

DPHW Theory: I'm gonna have to remind myself what I'm doing with these segment. My theory from episode 2 was correct outside of a synonym but it doesn't seem like I settled on how to handle this now I'm not talking about a theory. Although given I was 95% right I suppose it makes the most sense to keep talking about how accurate these seem. In either case 3456 isn't a super surprising value. I'm sure my DPHW intuition is pretty rusty but it doesn't strike me as odd.

CAT# Theory: 1. This is a bigger one to deal with. I think the most prominent theory for this is Person/Place/Object? Which is something I've spent time talking about for why I don't subscribe to it. I think this is more of the same on that front. Is it the process or the subject? The apparatus or the result?

R# Theory: My theory here is about supporting evidence and old written accounts have all ended up as B, I think? I'm not gonna check because I'm writing this minutes before I post it and don't wanna do that research. But Driven and Hard Reset were both B's too. Which is good enough for me right now.