-Anya Villette got sucked into the Rift in 2009, and has lived in TMA's World since. She's not getting pulled back to her original universe. Why?
She says it might be because when she crossed, pre Change and pre Towerfall, the Rift wasn't big enough to pull her back.
My theory, she's not being pulled back because there was no Anya Villette in TMA's World. She says her parents never met in this universe. So she's not doubling up anyone. She's not unbalancing the world.
Also, the Fears don't work on her like they should. Probably because her world wasn't affected by the Fears... yet.
-Now, Sam. He IS being pulled back to the Rift. A "Sam" already existed in the TMA Universe where he is right now, so he can't remain there. Even if that Sam is dead. This would mean, a TMAGP Celia exists or has existed at some point in the TMAGP Universe. That would be why TMA Celia is being pulled back, no matter if she throws another random person through the portal.
Edit: I totally forgot about that Darrien guy, who had no problem in replacing his double in the TMAGP World and doesn't seem to be getting sucked into the Rift. That we know of, at least.
Edit 2: TMAGP Celia wouldn't be named Celia. Her original name, pre Change, was Lynne Hammond. Thx @marypenelope for pointing that out!
Some other questions about the last episodes:
-Did Gwen fucking fire all Externals? Or just the ones she considers "unstable"? I can imagine her trying to keep Lady Mowbry around...
-Teddy's new job might be the one spying the OIAR staff. The last time we saw him, he apologized to the broken camera WE were listening through. I saw someone theorizing he could be working for Elric Capital, but there's no evidence yet. Also, I don't know how all this explains how we're able to spy on Sam while he's on a whole other universe.
Man, welcome back Elias, this time with Jürgen pulling an uno-reverse card out of wherever the fucker is hiding in the protocol verse.
I have thoughts, and things I noticed.
Elric Capital keeps popping up more and more and I'm wondering what their interest was in that bath-house. How did they even notice it? What properties does it have that would make them invest in it?
That's the second time a bathhouse was sorta mentioned, in the ARG there were repeated mentions of the Durham City Bathhouse.
Augustus communicating with Gwen! So the three are capable of more direct communication, and while Chester keeps things more vague, Augustus is much less subtle.
More mentions of Transformations, and something about the way Elias talked about them struck me as odd.
Elias apparent supernatural senses aside, the transformation path is very interesting.
"man to dog, to plant, to fish, to tree, to… something I couldn’t even recognize"
We did encounter some stages of that path. Newtons Dog that took root and the Doctor who turned into a tree are some that I can recall without going over my entire conspiracy board.
I also looked into the other death that was on that property, though William Weddell hasn't been mentioned anywhere else.
All in all, this threw up questions but didn't lead to any big revelations, though I feel like some of the infos given here might be pretty big.
(click on image and zoom in for better quality and MUCH better readability)
here's the first board!! i started it at episode 3, and it has been updated to episode 8. I just wanted to get this first one out there before episode 9 drops for early access peeps tomorrow. i'm gonna try to make a key to kinda explain the colors/symbols to make it easier for people to read, but i'm on a road trip, so that may not be available for another week or so!
enjoy, and let me know if there's anything i can do to make it easier to read/more accessible!
Members of the Royal Society enact The Protocol to "purge dangerous and unfit knowledge". Right now, we have 3 examples of them destroying dangerous knowledge through fire:
GREAT FIRE OF LONDON of 1666 - Robert Hooke (The Royal Society's Curator of Experiments) talks about trying to find a remedy for the bubonic plague, which hit London in 1665. Then agrees that enacting a "Protocol against the great city of London" was correct, and says "only through the Protocol we were spared of that Dread emission", but hopes next time they will be able to cointain it faster to limit the dimensions of the fire.
ISAAC NEWTON'S LABORATORY FIRE - Robert Hooke writes the letter against Newton in 1684, and talks about Newton's experiments with Alchemy and the Philosopher's Tree (or Diana's Tree). Doubting it's morality, he repeats the need to "enact the Protocol but limit it to his laboratory, destroying his research"
and they blamed his fucking dog?
THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE FIRE of 1999 - I suppose we have no confirmation of this but... I mean. Sam confirms the Institute worked with Alchemy, and no books or files were recovered from the fire. The Royal Society burned the Institute down to destroy dangerous knowledge.
There's so much info in this episode. Lena talked about opposite forces in the world needing balance. What makes them unbalanced? Was the Institute's research in Alchemy tipping the balance to a dangerous side? Does Robert Hooke's letter imply the bubonic plague was maybe the consequence of an imbalance, and thus London needed to be purged with fire? What is the Dread emission he mentions? Is the OIAR working with the Royal Society?
I'm doing another post talking about Newton's experiment with the Arbor Philosophorum, because that shit's interesting, but this is getting really long. Comment your thoughts! Love y'all!
-Wtf is going on with Celia at the start of the ep? Why does it sound like she just woke up on a random highway, and why does she imply it's not THE FIRST TIME IT HAPPENED? Is she doing research on time travel, other dimensions and teleportation because she randomnly TELEPORTS AROUND??
-Lena confirms Mr. Bonzo is just one of the OIAR's "externals", and that whatever task he was sent to do will show up shortly in the Incidents. Are all the externals "avatars"? Is the task always killing someone else? Are all the Incidents caused by the OIAR's externals, and then they check the results by assessing the Incident...? I doubt it but there's so many possibilities, my mind is racing!
-INK5OUL is def the guy with the serpent tattoo asking for the sailor cadaver.
-Now I'm 100% sure the audio distorts whenever someone lies (you can hear it when Sam says "he's fine", and when Celia makes up an excuse for being late to work)
PRE SEASON 2 RECAP (spoilers for the end of TMA and TMAGP's Season 2 trailer)
We're so close to be back! I have SO MANY Important questions that are gnawing at my mind... It's a long post so, keep reading to join my meltdown :D I want to know your thoughts!
-Where are SAM and the ARCHIVIST?
It seems both are currently in the PRIMELINE (as the Season 2 Trailer Transcript says), aka TMA's original universe. We all assumed it got rid of the Fears after TMA's finale, but the Transcript says "sounds of unsettling not-quite human things can be heard". So… it’s not as clear as we thought. Was Jon and Martin’s sacrifice for nothing? :( Also, it seems they don’t come out together. If you read the transcripts, the Epilogue describes Sam exiting the rift in “London’s Exclusion Zone” without mentioning the Archivist. Then the Season 2 Trailer describes the Archivist exiting the rift without mentioning Sam…
-THE ROYAL SOCIETY, THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE, THE OIAR and STARKWALL
THE ROYAL SOCIETY is an organisation of High Achieving Intellectuals (like Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke), researching alchemy (among other things), and erasing dangerous knowledge when needed through executing Protocols.
At some point, some alchemists founded THE MAGNUS INSTITUTE to research Alchemy together, as “they had reached the limit of what they could achieve alone”. Their end goal was completing the Millenium Ritual in the year 2000, but they were stopped.
The OIAR “manages the bad guys”. There’s opposite forces (both benevolent and not) in the world, and the OIAR monitores them to keep the balance. The Response Department used to work with STARKWALL and executed at least one Protocol that we know of:
The Institute got destroyed by Starkwall in 1999, under the orders of the OIAR's Response Department and William Price, who ran the department. At some point after this, Starkwall and the OIAR ceased working together, and the Response Department disappeared.
-List of executed PROTOCOLS (that we know so far)
-1666: The Great Fire of London
Procedure: FIRE
Executed by: The Royal Society
Trying to stop: The bubonic plague?
-Around 1684: Newton’s Laboratory
Procedure: FIRE
Executed by: The Royal Society
Trying to stop: Newton’s research on Alchemy and experiments on Arbor Philosophorum Perfecta
-1999: The Magnus Institute
Procedure: FIRE
Executed by: Starkwall, under OIAR's orders
Trying to stop: The Institute’s research on Alchemy? The “Millenium Ritual”, planned to happen in the year 2000, attempting “Universal Transmutation”
-2016: Hilltop Centre branch of Oxford Peoples Trust?
Procedure: FIRE
Executed by: Starkwall
Trying to stop: Something like a ritual
The 2016 Fire at Hilltop apparently happens after the OIAR and Starkwall cease relations. So... WHO ordered that Protocol?
-Why is CELIA in this universe??
After TMA's finale, its easy to understand why Jon, Martin and Jonah get pulled through the Rift at Hilltop and spit somewhere else. But WHY CELIA?
Also, how long has it been since they arrived? Alice says the text to speech started 1 year ago, and Celia says her son Jack is around 1 year old. But she also says she had "a couple of wild years after she moved here" before having Jack...
-FR3-d1 (or Freddie), The Incidents and Voyeurism
Who records the Incidents? Whatever it is, it has access through many types of technology. But I find more interesting asking, who's listening to the OIAR staff? We spy the lives of the OIAR workers through the podcast. In TMA, they explained the "voyeurism" of the listeners through The Web. It was The Web, through the tape recorders, who wanted to spy and listen to the characters. We listened to whatever The Web was interested in. Whose intentions are we listening through now?
And what triggers the text to speech? At first, I thought only the "text to speech" incidents were "supernatural" in nature, similar to TMA's "only records on magnetic tape". But Lena says to Gwen in ep13 "whatever horrible case you read, it happened". So if ALL incidents are "real", what makes the text to speech ones different?
BRO Lena is spilling the BEANS?? We're getting TMA's season 2 ending, Leitner level explanations at fucking ep 13?? I mean I'm not complaining, just pleasanty surprised.
There're opposite forces in this world, some BENEVOLENT, most NOT. The forces need to be monitored and balanced, and that’s what the OIAR does. They are “managing the bad guys”.
Bro there's BENEVOLENT forces? That's already a big change from TMA, where only the Fears were present.
The need to have balance between the forces gives me "Alchemy’s First Law of Equivalent Exchange". If you want to gain something, you must give something in return. This reminds me so much of the cursed dice episode. Am I reading into it too much? In order to let the benevolent forces prosper, we need to let the "bad guys" act too?
