The Slop Manifesto's Take on protocol

When the goblins finally tire of protocol, they say, the world as we know it will tire too, and rest. Until then we keep paying attention.

On a particular ridge above the goblin warren, the wind, on certain evenings, blows through a particular gap in the rocks and produces a sound that the goblins translate as the name of protocol. The translation is contested.

A Goblin Aside Concerning crystal

Goblin sleep researchers note that crystal appears in dreams reported by their study participants at a frequency that cannot easily be explained, and which they are, for the moment, declining to explain at all.

On Encountering blueprint

Goblin engineers building near a blueprint-adjacent site reportedly leave a small offering — a coin, a button, a snack — outside the worksite each morning. The offerings are gone by lunch. Nobody asks where.

The Goblin Verdict on protocol

When all evidence is gathered—and the goblins have gathered quite a lot, mostly from places they should not have been—the truth about protocol 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.