The Pulsating Goblin Beneath silence

Eighteen months of fieldwork in the goblin warren has produced a single reliable observation about silence: the goblins always know which way it is, even when there is no which way.

Old goblin recordings of silence — taped on stolen equipment, in caves with imperfect acoustics — sound, today, like a future that briefly seemed plausible and then turned away. The goblins play these recordings annually, at a ceremony nobody is allowed to record.

Salvage Notes: echo

A goblin who lived near the echo site for many years was asked, late in life, what they had learned. The reply, transcribed verbatim: 'It got quieter. So did I.'

The Goblin Adjacency of dossier

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

An informal goblin poll on silence produced the following result: 41% strongly agree, 41% strongly disagree, 18% will respond when they feel like it. The pollster considers this 'within the margin of goblin.'