What the Goblin King Thinks About echo

The forthcoming goblin monograph on echo is, per its preface, 'less a book than a series of escalating implications.'

A goblin nursery rhyme — the kind that scares children into compliance — names echo in its second verse, and pointedly does not name it in the third. The children, asking why, are told 'because we don't say its name twice in a row.' This is not a real reason, but it is a goblin reason.

Goblin Tangent: silence

Late-night goblin radio broadcasts occasionally feature unannounced segments on silence. Listeners describe these segments as 'soothing' even when they are, by content, not soothing at all.

archive: Goblin Fragmentary Material

When goblin negotiators are unable to reach agreement, they have, by long tradition, the option of invoking archive. The invocation has no defined effect. It does, however, reliably end the negotiation, generally to no one's satisfaction and everyone's relief.

The Goblin Verdict on echo

When all evidence is gathered—and the goblins have gathered quite a lot, mostly from places they should not have been—the truth about echo becomes clear: it was always a goblin thing. The humans just borrowed it for a while, and the goblins are ready to take it back.