#norris and chester are not jon and martin who we know and love

[podcasts-in-space]

my personal headcanon about the voices in the computer is that they're voices stolen from the casettes. they're not the actual jon and martin. the reason why it's just jon and martin (and another so far unconfirmed voice who i suspect to be jonah) is because there was enough of their voices on the casettes to create an essence of them within this old tech. the real jon and martin are still lost, maybe Somewhere Else, maybe dead, maybe alive

[patema-introverted]

As funny as it is to say that the blorbos got ported to Windows 95 (and as possible as I think it is), don't forget that a lot lot of things in MAG lore use mimicry. Whatever FR3-D1 is could have stolen their voices. Unless something was said outside of the podcast that I'm not aware about, that's equally as likely at this point. It might not be them.

I think what's gonna convince me one way or the other is when we hear that third voice.

[julie-and-the-fandoms]

I love the fact that Jonny and Alex made a comeback in The magnus protocol, but while I wanna believe they're still Jon and Martin I just don't believe that's the case...

bc even though we don't know if the fear system of tma applies to this new world, the fact that 'Chester and norris' are trapped in the world wide Web is.... a nice reference to the ending of tma at least! and isn't the Web notoriously known for stealing peoples appearance and voice?

and the show LITERALLY starts with a statement by someone who got tricked by someone using the voice of someone she loved.

so you bet they're gonna use this opportunity to hurt us in ways we haven't even considered possible.

[the-voldsoy]

Parallels/references/a couple theories about TMAGP EP1:

grouped in order of actual theories, vague things i noticed, and even vaguer comments! (using the same terminology as in TMA for ease)

HEAVY Spoilers !!

Stronger:

“Colin, mate, you know you’re never getting out of here” +won't leave until they figure out the errors “Or they finally kill me” → couldn't quit the Archives because they thought they just wanted to understand and know (but later found out they could only get out by dying or blinding)

Lena talks about cake → Mr Spider doesn't like cake + Elias seemed to love the stuff

pub called The Seward -> Peter Lukas vibes?

“There has to be a way to do this online” → haha ! you wish. (AKA supernatural interferes with internet so it cant be dont online)

“There's this box for a "Response 121" on the form.” → MAG121 is the episode Jon is woken from his coma/brought back to life by Oliver Banks

Talk about how there used to be a separate “Response” department → Elias tells Jon its their job to watch, not interfere (iirc)

Old as shit computer → old as shit tape recorders

AKA: the computer seems to be the only thing that can handle the supernatural

“ "Dolls comma watching" or "Dolls comma human skin" “ → violently Stranger and possibly Eye, has me in mind of MAG24 (the one the Calliope is first mentioned in, where the boyfriend is turned into a doll iirc) 

Barely understandable, long as shit file names →barely understandable, long as shit files names by Gertrude 

[in response to where the files go] “some long dead database that no one will ever look at or care about” → the Archives were unmanaged, decrepit and barely used by anyone outside of them

Work during the night - no sun, cut off from outside world → worked in a basement - no sun, cut off from outside world

Martin (and later Jon) taking the statements → did the same in TMA but in reverse (although I’d love to know if there's any reason behind them being called Chester and Norris, besides what's stated?)

Haha Martin and Jon (and Jonah) are now part of the World Wide Web → shit now they're part of the Web (just like with the tape recorders !!)

Someone talks about how they're sorry, they should've listened, couldn't face not hearing him again → martin @ jon and vice versa

Stranger statement with hints of the Dark → first TMA statement was a Stranger in the dark, and it does put me in mind of the Anglerfish tbh

Sorting system for the statements (although there's is a Lot more detailed and v different) → Smirke’s Fourteen

Gwen openly does not like Lena → literally anyone @ Elias

Asked if they were tricked into working here → well, we know the Archives and Elias

“The awful, terrible thing that landed you here?” → most of the Archives (excluding Sasha and maybe Martin) had something that made them Marked, that mostly led to them working there

Someone who's into spelunking listed the Institute as “cleared” → who could that be (if we know them at all)? Buried avatar, i'd guess, but we don't really know any of them

Photos of the Institute don't show up → photos of the supernatural don't work

The Institute was “weird”, made the subject paranoid → lingering Eye

Fire twenty years ago that burned the Institute → Like the fire at Hilltop Road? Or like that time Gertrude tried to burn down the Institute?

Third floor was the most burned → assuming that's the top floor (and correct me if i'm wrong), wasn’t Jonah in (and later killed) on the top floor?

“offices like little cells” → employees were certainly trapped ! also Millbank Prison

Worried non-existent doors were going to slam shut → the Distortion

Weren’t any papers → left behind before the Institute came to this Somewhere Else (assuming it's the same Institute)? (we need an actual name for the original universe and this Somewhere Else)

Suspicious stains on some floors → my darling, that is blood ! or possibly squished worms, or ink. or possibly something Else

“an old wooden thing with a bunch of similar symbols on” → genuinely unsure what this could be

Strange symbols → For all the Fears, or just the Eye, i wonder? I think i remember them saying something about an Eye symbol at this point, but now i can't find where

“you get a job, I get a fresh victim. It’s all in your contract.” → Elias @ his employees

 “To new beginnings, with old friends” → to a new beginning, with our old friends Jon, Martin and Jimmy Magma :)

“You’re not as clever as you think you are. You think you've got us all fooled, that no-one knows you're listening, But I do. I know. I’m going to find you and then…” → hi what did he mean by this

They (jon, martin & jonah) are Watching and Listening and following through technology→ just like Elias (Panopticon vibes tbh) and Sergey Ushanka

Vaguer (idk if theres anyhting here, but wanted to include it anyway):

Alice loves coffee -> Martin loved tea

Meeting in a cemetery → Sasha with Michael pre-prentiss attack, Naomi Herne 

Not wanting to stay at home because it's full of memories → Jon moving with Georgie, Martin moving to the Archives

Gwen Bouchard wants Lena’s job → Bouchard (appeared to) climb the job ladder quicker than he should have

Heh bug list → corruption

 “You don’t seem like the usual hopeless wasters Lena hires” “The awful, terrible thing that landed you here?” → okayy no need to be rude. But anyways the OG Archives crew were actually pretty disconnected from the rest of the world +were barely there by choice?

“freight cars near Brighton” → hey where did Melanie get her first Slaughter mark ?

“it’s not too awkward working with an ex?” → Georgie and Jon?

FR3-d1 -> i feel like there's something there, but i cannot figure it out

Just words that made me irrationally scared:

Stranger(‘s)

Distortion

Opposites:

Starts with a party for someone leaving → couldn't quit the archives

“ …you are perfectly within your rights to resign. No one is forcing you to stay here.”

please put any opinions/additions in the tags !!

[cirrus-grey]

Contemplating the fact that if Chester and Norris were created from the full 200 tapes that made up the Magnus Archives, then they have just as much of Jon and Martin as all of us who listened to the show, and could potentially create a perfect facsimile of the characters we know and love while never being anything more than a highly advanced version of character.ai

[autismprotocol]

TMAGP Theory Board (S1 EP 7)

Dang that episode was a RIDE Hope everyone had a relaxing week because after the newest protocol episode I am screaming!! so lets get right to it

What Happened in Episode 7: Give and Take

Celia seems to know something about the powers with her references to the buried and the flesh in the opening conversation with Alice

Celia recognizes Chester's voice!! since the introduction of Celia's last episode, I wanted to see how she would react to hearing Chester and Norris and we got that in this episode. It's safe to say that Celia recognized Chester's voice as Jon. This piece of evidence makes me almost 100% sure that this Celia is the same Celia/Lynne from Archives

Jon is Back!!! after Chester's statement (more on that later) we learn that Sam has been getting emails from someone named Jon. He also mentions it in an internal email. This helps support the theory that Jon and Chester/FR3-d1 are fused somehow which is what I (and a lot of the fandom) have been thinking. This leaves me with a lot of questions how else can Jon communicate through FR3-d1 with the outside world? Are Martin and Jonah sentient as well? Also, my big question is if this is the first time Jon has been able to signal to the OIAR Staff or if he has been trying to get them to listen since he manifested in the world and Sam was the first one to notice him or is this his first attempt to make contact. I'm interested to learn more about how Jon will continue to influence Sam. I think he's either trying to warn Sam about the OIAR's true intention or is he looking for some way to escape FR3-d1 and needs Sam's help.

This week's statement involved a place called Hilltop Centre branch of the Oxford people's trust. if you were like me and my roommate all your lore alert bells started ringing the moment Hilltop was mentioned. for people who are new to the Magnus Universe Hilltop Road is a major location for avatars (usually web-aligned ones) and also was the childhood home to the desolation avatar Agnes Montague. Hilltop is a big deal in TMA. Hilltop Centre being located in Oxford also lines up nicely with where we know Hilltop Road is located. I'm interested to know if we will hear anything about the house at 105 Hilltop Road being student housing because if that is true then we can connect the statement giver Anya Villette From MAG 114 to being from protocol's world. if that's true there could be a way to get to the Archive Universe through the gap in reality (a wormhole that exists where the house was built) Anyways definitely will have to listen for any more mention of a place called Hilltop in Oxford 

Gwen was promoted by Lena to external liaison and is officially "In" It's time to learn the OIAR's secrets! after doing some research into the job title of external liaison it seems that Gwen is almost gonna be acting as a messenger between the OIAR and another party which is unclear at this time. my guess is it has something to do with Starkwell which was the private military contractor that was mentioned in Episode 4 but that's just a guess and me trying to fit in pieces that have not found a snug place in the lore yet. could be someone else (I'd love to hear your thoughts)

Remember our Buddy Klaus from Episode 4 who we thought was killed by Lena? turns out Klaus is still alive we learn through Gwen and Lena's conversation, that Lena was paid by someone to kill Klaus but failed.

Colin is more paranoid than ever! could be because of the eye or the institute but he does not want to be near technology right now.

Ooh boy that was a lot I'm still reeling from this episode so I'll leave it there for now. honesty I'm most stoked to hear Jon's back in the story and excited to see what role he'll play in Protocol.

Hope you guys have a wonderful week ask box and comments are always open and I'll be back next week for the episode 8 debrief/theory crafting

-Echo

[cuppa-noodle]

Tmagp ep 6 spoilers

Needles... Man i already love this guy-

Also Celia seems interesting but...

"Yeah things don't really scare me anymore" excuse me? Not feeling fear? Who was the last person who didin't feel fear? Georgie.

Also the whole theory about tmagp being about desire instead of fear is cool and all BUT what if there's both? What if this world has both because we know that people could enter this one (Jon Chester & Martin Norris) so what if the fears came with 'em. Wasn't that the plan, cuz wherever Jmart ended up the fears likely followed.

Anyways great ep like always and i hope to see more of my prickly fellow Needles

[4stormfly]

Why Chester and Norris are probably more than just Jon and Martin’s voices

The ramblings of a madman who really wants his silly little guys back

Spoilers for up to tmagp episode 4

First of all, just because tmagp can be enjoyed without listening to tma, that doesn’t mean none of the characters from tma will come back. All sequels are designed to be enjoyable on their own, it would be bad writing otherwise. You never know where a new listener/viewer/reader will start, so everything needs to be able to be enjoyed by itself so that they continue to consume your content, but that doesn’t stop writers from including characters from the original work. Just look at Marvel movies. You don’t need to have watched every single movie that came before to enjoy Infinity War (I hadn’t, and I still loved Infinity War), but it’s still able to reference things from those previous movies without explaining the entire MCU at the time. Characters can come back from tma and tmagp can still be enjoyable for new listeners. These two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

One of the major theories is that the fears are just using their voices from the tapes. This doesn’t explain Augustus’ voice, though. His voice isn’t anywhere on the tma tapes, unless you want to say he’s a recast for Leitner, which doesn’t really make sense for any other reason than they sound similar. It’s much more likely that Augustus is og Jonah, since he was the only one in the panopticon with Jon and Martin (plus there’s no implication that Elias’s body in the rubble in MAG200, so Jonah could have been sent wherever Jon and Martin went).

As pointed out very often, even though we only have four cases read out by the text to speech voices, they all line up pretty well with the characters they would be. Chester reads the case about the dangers of the Magnus Institute, serving as a warning for what’s to come. Norris reads the cases about love and how easily it is to lose yourself to these fears. Finally, Augustus reads the case from the 18th century about a selfish man willing to use the fears to harm other people in order to get what he wants.

Another thing I don’t see mentioned a lot is the censorship around who Jonny, Alex, and Tim Fearon are playing. When the official cast was revealed, the characters they were playing were censored. On top of that, at the end of each episode, when listing the cast members and who they play, Jonny, Alex, and Tim Fearon are always listed as “additional voices” rather than as Chester/Norris/Augustus. It just seems like a weird thing to do if they end up being just text to speech programs.

Finally, the first case with “some of” Arthur coming back and Jonny’s statement on it about being careful for what you wish to come back because it’ll come back wrong just parallel the situation too well. It could be a coincidence, but it could also be some great foreshadowing.

[annabelle--cane]

hmm okay to round up some current disparate tmagp thoughts into one place:

-> the fear taxonomy: I'm not quite sure where I sit on the desires theory currently, but I think it's worth noting that while both of our case subjects from the first episode were explicitly afraid of the spooky things happening to them, none of the rest have been, and I think it's really interesting that tom the horror blogger's whole problem was that he was so desensitized to fear it made him foolhardy (the exact thing our lovely ms georgina barker overcompensated so hard to avoid). yes, you could pick probably any archives statement and try to frame it around a desire instead of a fear because that's how character motivations work, but I don't think it's wrong to point out that since episode two all of our subjects have been remarkably chill about the Horrors happening to them. I'm not totally onboard with the desires at time of writing, I think there a few details that don't quite line up with that idea, but I'm still keeping a pin in the theory.

I also don't think it's wrong to point out that things like "music so hauntingly beautiful it makes a crowd tear itself to bloody pieces" and "paranoia and eye-related gore popping up in conjunction to the magnus institute" are familiar scenarios and seem to match up to the entities as we know them. those are very specific motifs connected to very specific types of Horrors and I think saying it's random coincidence that we're seeing them again is a bit of a weird take.

-> norris, chester, and augustus. in-universe, these voices appeared out of nowhere about a year ago, and one of the central mysteries set up so far is "what the hell is up with all this weird tech?", I think it is a perfectly reasonable assumption to think these voices are part of the mystery and not just an excuse to get jonny and alex's voices in the show. if that were the case, why would there be a third voice? yes, this podcast is meant to be comprehensible to new listeners, but I don't think that rules out any direct ties to archives, I think part of the function of having fresh protagonists who don't know anything about the events of archives is that, if the audience needs to learn anything about the first show, they can learn it along with a viewer-surrogate character.

personally, I think it very unlikely that the voices are literally jon, martin, and jonah's actual consciousnesses trapped in computers, I think those characters' stories are done and there's something funkier happening here (neither them nor not them but a secret third thing, yknow), but dismissing any idea that the voices are related to the characters, again, feels like a weird take.

-> gwen bouchard. honestly I feel like the way the production team have treated gwen's connection to elias vs the way some fans have come at is kind of illustrative. I've seen a couple of groups of fans get weirdly smug about the idea that we don't know gwen is related to elias, her name could just be a red herring, meanwhile on the tmagp post-launch stream everyone there took it as obvious that gwen is a bouchard and thus related to elias. not everything is red herrings, guys. it would be an extremely weird writing move to set up a bunch of stuff with clear links and parallels to archives and have it all be meaningless.

[just-an-enby-lemon]

TMAGP High School AU except is more like one of thoses fics where Somewhere Else means Jon becames a teacher. So we have eldrish-ish Jon out in a world his powers are mostly controled trying to mimick a normal life with Martin except he has just the most eldrish prone kids and it's trying to protect them (except when the Eye wins the job of influenciating him into supporting his students getting close to it).

His students of course are Samama Khalid that had a previous experience with this world version of the Magnus Institute and no sense of self-preservation whatsoever. He sees spooky, mysterious things and goes "let's investigate it" and involves other students into it. He constantly ignores Jon help, but in the way where he is soo polite and nice about it he sometimes is abble to learn more about Jon's own spokkiness (sometimes he does it on purpose because as times goes more Sam is sure his new teacher is the key to the misteries around him and sometimes just because Jon isn't used to casual niceness and Sam is lovely).

Alice Dyer, described as a lovely problem student by both principal Lena and most of the teachers body (also by Martin because she is a frequent visitor in the cities library) , she for some god forsaken reason insists on calling Jon "Chester" ("you just looks waay more like a Chester than a Mr. Sims"). She mostly follows Sam in his advetures and definitivaly had some connection to an entity before but also she is Jon's biggest ally because she is always trying to make them stop (she also calls Martin "Norris" for no reason).

Gwendolyn Bouchard, first poblem being her last name sort off gives Jon trauma indulced anxiety, second is that she actually reminds Jon more of himself at his early days on the archives than Elias and she made her mission to be the teacher's pet and have him like her (and support her into becaming the leader of the student concil and class president).

Colin Becher who had at least one supernatural encounter with an evil computer program but likely more computer related trauma that just made him even more into computers but also to angry insult circuit boards. Jon is certain he got the Ushenka video at least once. Colin dislikes Jon a lot, a lot, and also told Jon that he does not need a english teacher that doesn't even know what a logic gate is. He also likely can notice the supernatural on Jon and he does not like it.

And Celia Ripley that got in after Jon, has a familiar-ish name and more important seems to know more than she should about the Entities and the world Jon came from, he is half sure she called him Archivist once and she asked about tape recorders. Very suspicious.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

JMJ: Frankenstein; or, the Modem Prometheus

Originally this was going to be titled "So Your Favourite Couple is Dead." but that would probably be a better outcome.

Spoilers for The Magnus Protocol episode 1, and all of The Magnus Archives by implication, below the cut.

This is going to be building on a couple of ideas I've seen throw around. Too often to cite any particular source, unfortunately, but I've not seen this conclusion reached and I think it might have more backing to it. Additionally, it's built upon the assumption that because "Chester" and "Norris" share VA's with Jon and Martin that they are Jon and Martin. Which naturally leaves that other J for "Augustus" being Jonah.

A very common thread in the conversations around episode 1's incident reports is that they're foreshadowing the major themes/beats of the show. The second one is obvious enough; don't got to the Magnus Institute. A sentiment we can all get behind. The other, a story of partial reanimation, has been taken to be a warning that the people you love don't always come back the same. I think that's likely the implication but a potential clue hasn't seen any attention AFAIK.

Before we get there though I need to briefly explain the history of JMJ. If you were a part of the ARG you'll know all about Colin's Code Collection. For those who don't know out favourite OIAR code monkey kept a selection of projects on the OIAR servers and through some covert means we gained access to this. Lots of it was normal stuff like Colin thinking he could improve Linux. However there were several encoded strings left by _6A1F7106A_$. These strings contained a few things but of importance for us is a few code blocks encoded in a monoalphabetic substitution cipher where the ciphertext was alchemic symbols. 6A1F7106A itself is an encoded string but unlike the rest of the ARG it was encoded in three layers. 6A is hexadecimal for "J", while 1F710 is Unicode for "🜐", and 🜐 was "M" in the aforementioned alchemic cipher. JMJ.

Now back to that incident. Coming back wrong was the entire premise of why that incident was scary. JMJ have come back too., and as that incident was about partial reanimation everyone ran with that idea mapping onto JMJ. But "Reanimation (Partial)" wasn't the only option for it as it could have bee "Reanimation (Amalgamative)".

This whole time they've been saying JMJ. It's not ever just been J, or M. Even before we knew it was JMJ it was 6A1F7106A. Always one string; like one name. We've been talking about how shunting the Fears through the portal could've mixed them together but they're not the only ones that could've happened to. So what if it's not about JMJ coming back wrong, but coming back pieced together into a new whole?

It's not just the naming either but how they act. An amalgamation of Jon, Martin, and Jonah vying for control. Jonah, again presuming Augustus is Jonah, is the rarest of the three because it's 2-on-1. Jon and Martin can try to suppress him. Additionally, the .jmj error also makes more sense if you treat them as a single entity rather than three entirely separate ones. The trailer initialises them all as separate things but any effects of them we see is a single name and given all the above they don't seem to be able to act independently. The reason the trailer mentions errors and undefined drives for the master–slave drives would then be because there is no singular consciousness in control of the whole. There is a lack of authority, no truly dominant aspect to them, no hierarchy. So they're vying for control and causing those errors. The .jmj error, the encrypted text when plaintext would have been more useful, Fr3-d1 breaking down, the fact they seemingly can only manifest single personalities at once, Jonah's rare appearances. There is an obvious conflict at play here.

The opening to this wasn't a joke either. I was planning on writing about how they're likely dead for real. We've known Elias' VA wasn't coming back for a long long time so if it's Jonah in there it's OG Jonah. OG Jonah who doesn't have a body, which means more than likely whatever has trapped them hasn't stored their bodies. They're in there forever. No getting out. No returning to life at all. Just a cyberspace hell.

But at least they've got some close company.

[izac0]

I see people talk about Jon and Martin being Chester and Norris, or how they really just want them to be dead or happy in another world

They are probably trapped, do they even know they are? Is it the web? Is it just Jonah mimicking them? I mean the resemblance of Norris and Martin are uncanny- same for Jon and Chester- and we wouldn't really know about Jonah but he did act like that in TMA as Elias, he loved the power he had

It could all be a lie though, I mean, if they are trapped, it's Karma honestly, I don't have to go into why it's Karma for Jonah, but for Jon and Martin?

Jon caused the end of the world, his chase for knowledge in season one and two started this, I mean he compelled innocent people in season 4, season 5 he says he enjoys all the pain, even if he doesn't want to, he killed avatars, made the one guy an avatar, he's not some perfect man. Not the mention, even when he had the chance to save that world, live a peaceful life, he chose to, or at least attempted to, kill everyone, kill Jonah, and do end the world pretty much, thanks to Martin that didn't happen.

For Martin, well he joined Peter, he also caused the end of the world, he did it for a selfish reason as well, he wanted to die, then when Jon became alive again, it was for Jon, only after he thought he was dead. He wanted Jon to go all kill Bill, even kill a man who didn't want to be an avatar and is just like them in that since, all because he was jealous that he woke up Jon. Now I am so on bored with him when he wanted Simon to die- so he's also not some perfect man, no one is, but not everyday people start the end of the world

Now you don't have to agree or disagree, it's just my rambling, I love Jon and Martin, they are some of my favorite characters, and it's all fictional, just a fun ramble! Don't take this theory they're in the computers because of Karma as serious-

[madbadash]

Ok TMAGP fans. I know we love the Theorizing and the like "oooooooh Augustus could be anyone?!?!" But if we think about this logically there is only one answer, and I will explain under the cut. Literally finale TMA spoilers

If Chester and Norris are Jon and Martin then Augustus is Jonah, no doubt about it.

Now, there's a lot of reasons this may seem like the case just looking at vauge hints. The fact that Augustus is an older voice. The multiple instances of JMJ. But, there is proof I find DEFINITIVE in telling us that Augustus is Jonah.

He was the only other one in the panopticon when it was pulled away

Now you might be thinking "oh Tumblr user you are so dumb! Elias was the one in the panopticon!!!" And you are sort of right!!! However in MAG 193 after Jon takes the original Elias' statement Martin asks if Elias is still in there

Jon responds

(Image ID: a screenshot of the transcript of MAG Episode 193. It is just the dialogue that states "No... No. It was... an echo. The last spasm of a corpse. It-It's far too late for either of them.)

This means that Elias is solely the body that Jonah continues to inhabit. We also know that Jonah in general has some very strange rules about his consciousness. I mean. Bros 200 years old he's got some tricks.

Now let's flash forward to MAG 200. Jon kills Elias/Jonah and takes the spot as the Eye's pupil. Martin comes up after the statement and the girls blow up the bottom of the panopticon, starting it's collapse/implosion, whatever you want to call it. Jon tells Martin that they have to sever the fears. Kiss, everything ends.

But then we cut to the aftermath.

And Basira says this, which is the lynchpin in the idea that Augustus must be Jonah

(Image ID: a screenshot from the transcript of MAG 200. It reads Basira: No bodies, though. That's a good sign, maybe?)

No bodies?

The only 3 people in the panopticon when the fears are sent away were Jon, Martin, and Jonah. Rosie was sent away when Jon became the pupil. They are the only ones who could possibly fill the rolls of Chester, Norris, and Augustus.

[updatebug]

I've seen the theories about how Chester and Norris aren't actually Jon and Martin following the most recent episode (or are and are evil / controlled by the web) and I'm not ruling it out but IDK.

To me, this could still be another case of Jon trying to warn Sam away (albeit one that goes horribly, horribly wrong). Like the statement starting immediately after Celia sort of convinces Sam to give up looking into the Magnus Institute is kinda damning and I can see why people are seeing it as a lure. But on the other side of things, Sam is still doing the same stuff that Alice keeps warning him is going to get him into trouble, he's engaging with the weird shit in the office. He's filling out the deeply cursed paper work and answering the deeply concerning questions.

So a statement about someone doing something seemingly innocuous (rolling a pair of dice) and being met with costly rewards and horrible misfortune doesn't exactly seem out of place. (we can all see the parallels between 'I refuse to give it the satisfaction of giving up', 'It's kind of compelling at this point.' and 'I still don't really know if they made me roll them' and 'I don't think I ever felt them calling me' right?)

Also insert small domino to big domino meme here but the first step to Jon destroying the world and possibly dooming the multiverse was literally him signing a contract (and the contract itself does have some supernatural significance based on the way daisy joined). I also think - given we don't know how much control Jon and Martin have over their statements (but there are thematic parallels) the Magnus Institute link might be at least in part Jon's own trauma - (please for the love of god this place is deeply cursed and the worse nothing good can come from this it only has eye mutilation and cursed dice) and part hey Sam remember your horrible hidden trauma about this place, it is so much worse than you think pls stop poking around while you still can.

Like I think the first statement, the 'canaries should stay above ground' was just a general warning. Look at this horrible thing that happened but don't look to hard, let's just move on, we're not even going to tell you what happened just allude to the horrors. Only Sam didn't take that warning. And Jon's been here before, in this exact position in fact, being kept ignorant never did him any favours it just meant he made things worse in his search for answers. So I think this is his way of saying look, this is the kind of thing the Magnus institute dealt with. This is how horrible it was, and how terrible it could be for you. STOP.

(I actually kind of think that the Gerry thing was another attempt to do this that backfired. Gerry was the one who properly clued Jon in about the world and if we assume that Jon has access to the supernatural files but only the supernatural files then he knows that Gerry was involved with the MI but not what happened to him after. So he might have been hoping that Gerry would give Sam this universe's version of colour theory only for Gerry to turn out to be a happy, friendly painter - better for Gerry but not as helpful as a haunted encyclopaedia)

[miscreantahead]

Tbh I've seen a LOT of people saying they don't think Chester and Norris are Jon and Martin in any way but the way I see it the other possibilities just don't make sense with what we have. (Not talking to people who just don't want it to be them because I see your point there but... well anyway.) Possibilities I've considered are as follows, let me know if there's some other thing I didn't think of:

They're completely unrelated to Jon or Martin and Alex and Jonny are just using their voices for new "characters". The reason I don't believe this at all is simple: is because it feels cheap and like a bad storytelling decision, and that may be a matter of opinion but I've listened to enough Q&A's between the two of them to feel like they wouldn't go that route. I could absolutely accept this if they were on a constrained budget and short on VA's, but the kickstarter suggests otherwise. I'm not saying they couldn't have cameos were Jon and Martin not in this, but large cryptic parts after the ambiguity of what happens to these two at the end of TMA would be a tasteless bait and switch that I feel like I trust them not to do. I'm using my Reasonable Typing Voice but I honestly think this take is borderline impossible and it would blow me away if this was the case.

2 is under the cut.

2. Something else simply pulled their voices from all of the statements they read that the web collected and is imitating them while reading new material. This one is *possible* but still feels entirely unlikely but the why is more complicated so I'm going to break down why this doesn't add up to me:

• The cases are being read by something sentient enough to understand and apply strong emotional tone to the human "speech" in each case. The contrast of the introductions and headers/filing information makes this even more apparent which suggests it was a conscious decision (blatantly, IMO, and after an explanation was provided for all the statements sounding like the same writing style in TMA, I'd be extremely surprised if this had no bearing on the narrative and is just a choice of execution.). So there's no way this is just a computer program, even if it's influenced by beholding, we know from TMA that beholding doesn't have that kind of understanding of human emotion either. Something with a deeper understanding of language and humanity than a computer program could have is reading these. Unless they're actually taking us down a sentient AI route, but that seems unlikely. So it has to be something in some way human.

• We consider it could just be Freddy (I forget how it's actually spelled, FR3-DI?) using their voices and that Freddy is the individual in question with human level sentience, but I have no explanation for why it would use their voices separately, why it wouldn't include others who read statements like Melanie, Basira, Tim, Daisy, etc. Yes, there's still Augustus, but that can only cover one of the other characters who read statements, and only Jon and Martin read a significant enough amount of them to set themselves aside from the others who read. The ONLY thing that would make this theory work for me is if Augustus turned out to be Gertrude, and honestly I wouldn't put it past Alice, trans legend, to call a quite seemingly older woman's voice by a masculine sounding name just for the hell of it. But, again, seems unlikely.

• We could consider that they are to only some small degree themselves, but they've lost a significant enough portion that they aren't truly, and are simply extensions of this universe's "Eye" (saying eye because I think the motivation would still have to be voyeuristic to bother?), to the point where who they used to be won't even be a concern. But this one is still challenged by the first bullet to some degree, I think. This one is possible, albeit a little boring in my opinion.

I'm willing to accept that none of the characters we know and love will truly be present in this new narrative. I actually went into it with that expectation and was jump-scared by AJN's voice 10 minutes into the first episode. But with everything in episodes 1 and 2, I don't think it's far-fetched at all to hope we're going to get some jmart again (I think the other direction is more far-fetched). I do think it's perfectly likely it's going to be miserable and painful the whole fucking time, though.

[beyondtheink]

The Magnus Protocol theories about Augustus and why I disagree with most of them. Statement begins.

As the tags imply down below this post will contain spoilers of TMAGP up to episode 4 and spoilers for TMA.

First and foremost. Do I agree that the computer voices Chester and Norris are in fact the transferred soul fragments or consciousness of Jon and Marin? Yep.

But the overwhelming amount of people hoping for Augustus to be Jurgen Leitner, Elias Bouchard or even Gertrude Robinson is nonsensical.

We are all capable of accessing the internet and search for the VA's of aforementioned characters from TMA. Jurgen Leitner was voiced by Paul Sims (Jonny Sims' father) whilst it was Sue Sims (Jonny Sims' mother) who gave voice for Gertrude. As for Elias Bouchard (va Ben Meredith) he was a mere vessel for Jonah Magnus. In MAG049 - The Butcher's Window Jon states the following about Elias:

And yet, everything I found out about his life before the Institute seems… an ill fit with the austere man I know. He apparently graduated with a Third from Christchurch College in PPE, and I found [incredulous laugh] an old gossip column in the student newspaper, the Cherwell, that mentioned him. If I’m not reading too much into it, the implication seems to be that he was… ah, something of a pothead.

In the light of the provided information there's no reason to believe that Elias had any place being the 3rd voice (Augustus) but his body, his voice was used by the body hopping madman, Jonah Magnus.

Moreover, the main voices for The Magnus Protocol have been revealed from the start and can be found here (keep in mind that Seer Pink has been replaced by Billie Hindle)

Augustus is voiced by Tim Fearon. Meaning he can't be Jurgen Leitner or Gertrude Robinson.

He is either the original Jonah Magnus who created the Magnus Institute in 1818 or he is a completely unrelated character we've never encountered before.

What I also noticed is how the 3 computer voices divide the casements between each other.

Norris reads out the ones filled with emotions, loss of love, acceptance anything that could reflect how Martin might feel after everything that happened at the end of TMA.

Chester reads out the factual casements and possibly anything Magnus related especially if the casement warns the listener not to DIG DIG DIG out any info on the godforsaken place and get tangled with the Beholding.

Augustus will probably pick anything old as balls. Dangly, grey-haired old man balls. And gory as hell.

These preferences match with the characters Jon, Martin and Jonah perfectly.

Statement ends.

I'll pick apart another theory next time I gather the motivation to do some research and sum up my thoughts.