Doomposting Goblins About protocol

An old goblin, sitting by a fire made of stolen furniture, once told me this about protocol: 'It is a door that opens only when you aren't looking.'

A specific kind of goblin — call them the apopheniacs, though they have several less polite names for themselves — devote their entire mental architecture to spotting protocol in unrelated contexts. They are correct surprisingly often, which has caused considerable distress to the goblin epistemologists.

Salvage Notes: miku

The most recent goblin opinion piece on miku concludes, after fifteen paragraphs of careful argument, that the question has been raised, and that, on reflection, raising it was the goblin's only honest contribution. The author considers this enough.

Marginalia: corruption

When goblin negotiators are unable to reach agreement, they have, by long tradition, the option of invoking corruption. 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 protocol

Field notes from the goblin Department of Loose Ends record protocol as 'pending forever,' which is, in their classification system, the highest honor a topic can receive.