Darling Presentations

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Objects of Power

Darling: Objects of Power can cause, or be results of, AWE’s—Altered World Events—intrusions upon the perceived reality. A side-note: remember to cover their connection to the Astral Plane as well. Now, the Service Weapon is of course a primer example of an O.o.P. A very powerful one, ingrained in the Bureau’s DNA, a key component in our Prime Candidate program: come out of that Russian roulette a winner, and you, you’re it. Lose, and you’re, well, fired. Thank you. I’m Doctor Darling, Head of Research, Federal Bureau of Control.

Floppy Disk

Darling: Just look at it. 8 inches wide and capable of storing a whopping 80 kilobytes. Ah! Stolen by our friends at the CIA, the disk held the launch codes to Soviet nukes. This is not THE disk, of course, but one exactly like it. A perfect fusion of concepts vibrating in the Cold War era collective unconscious, a receptacle… It is a receptacle—for dangerous energies to hone in on. And they did. We don’t have the details, but when things started flying around the disk, it was transferred to us. It’s an Object of Power, O.o.P, oops! And it can launch things telekinetically through the air. To date, we’ve launched, maybe, three dozen pencils. And once we even launched a cup.

Hotline

Darling: Ring! Ring! It’s Dr. Darling calling. In 1978, a Comms Department intern heard the Hotline ring and picked it up, going against every safety protocol in the manual. She never recovered and the handful of witnesses required extensive memory repression therapy. It is a phone. It’s an Object of Power. It doesn’t connect to any typical network. A direct line to the Astral Plane and the Board, and my hypothesis is, under the right conditions, to other planes of existence as well. Our very own Ouija board. Only the Director can answer it safely and what he hears is kept classified.

Research Sector

Darling: Welcome to the Research Sector of the Federal Bureau of Control. I’m Doctor Casper Darling, Head of Research. Somebody thought this video would make for great internal communication. I’m looking at you, Mr. Tommasi. So. This is where the magic happens. Anyway. I’ve been here for 24 years now. I’ve always been here. Through those years, we’ve made astonishing discoveries. Authored studies of grave importance. In all of this work, there is one thing we know, and that’s how little we truly know. Rest assured we’re committed to keep pushing the known laws and borders of reality, and to make the Bureau proud. So welcome, assuming you have the necessary clearance. And do follow the safety protocols, read the manual, otherwise bad things will happen.

HRA

Darling: I’ve been fielding questions recently regarding HRAs: what are they for? Do you always need to wear them? And what’s the deal with the Hedron Resonance, anyway? I’ll—Fuck. Despite what you may have heard, HRAs are not monitoring devices. We are not tracking your movements or listening to your conversations while you’re wearing them. We do that regardless of whether or not you’re wearing an HRA. Think of them as a life preserver. Only instead of water, the thing HRAs protect you from is classified. One day, that classified not-water might pour in, and you’ll be glad you’re got an HRA keeping you afloat. And if you don’t have an HRA, don’t worry. It’ll be quick and painless. Kidding. I’m kidding. We’re making more.

Astral Plane

Darling: The Astral Plane. Similar to an iceberg, what you see is not what you always get. Regardless, this place is vitally important to the Bureau. Most information on the Astral Plane is classified, but we can talk in broad strokes, keeping in mind that these are staggeringly complex systems, and simplification does them no justice. The white non-space. The ever-present, inverted black pyramid. The Board. All linked. Intrinsically tied to the Oldest House, tied to the Director, the process of choosing a director, tied to all Objects of Power, in terms of who controls them? Yes.

Astral Spike

Darling: An early hypothesis was that the mindscape of the Astral Plane is subjective. But that was fast proven wrong. It’s an actual place, not a construct of the mind, even though it is with our minds that we enter and experience it. But then, one could argue that’s the case with all reality. We’ve been able to record footage of the Astral Plane by monitoring the brain activity of those experiencing it. That is the only concrete material that has come out of the Astral Plane expeditions… apart from one shocking exception. In the Astral Plane footage, we’re always in the vicinity of the pyramid. We’ve concluded that this, not the entire plane, is what the Board controls. We have glimpsed movement, native species, always in the distance. And yet, contact was made. We don’t have footage of this, a technical malfunction, but when one of our Astralnauts returned… A Brain cloud, an Astral Fugue, had hitchhiked a ride in his head. It ruptured out, killing the subject in question. It’s a relentless predator, pursuing thoughts, minds, lethal to those the entity feeds on. Proper containment protocols are to be observed when dealing with it.

Resonance

Darling: Resonance is the key. Vibration, frequencies, waveTo be Bowman, flying into the monolithforms, fields we didn’t know were here. Physics. These fields in complex interactions… Altering reality that comes to contact with them. Hedron is communicating with me. Trying to warn me of something imminent. I’ve been using every known method to analyze the data. Exposing myself to it, I’m seeing things and overcome by compulsions. And it’s not just data, it’s protection, it’s benign. We are about to be exposed to a different kind of resonance, a hostile, viral, invasive resonance. That’s what the Hedron Resonance Amplifiers are for: taking the protection Hedron can provide us, and keeping us from being wiped out.

Oceanview Motel and Casino

Darling: During an AWE investigation, our agents discovered a light switch cord in a Butte bungalow closet. They pulled the cord and were instantly transported to the Oceanview Motel and Casino. Dream-like haze. Inside, they found a door marked with an inverted black pyramid. And just like that, it led back to the Oldest House, some 2,000 miles from Montana. Now we’re finding the cord in increasing numbers throughout the Bureau. Somehow, the two places, they became attuned to each other. The actual physical location of the Oceanview is a mystery. Stepping beyond its walls so far proven impossible. A Place of Power. Like the Oldest House.

Black Rock

Darling: There are areas in the Oldest House where, on the right conditions, when frequencies match, other dimensions leak in. We call these areas Thresholds. The Quarry is one of the more stable Thresholds in the Maintenance Sector. That’s where Black Rock comes from. Extra-dimensional matter. It has the unique property of blocking out a lot of frequencies, a good thing—it keeps things stable, contained. Think of it as paranatural lead. Our research involves many dangerous things we absolutely need to keep in check. That’s what the Black Rock lined Firebreaks are about. The Panopticon container cells…
Pope: Sorry to interrupt, sir, but I need the code for the Quarry elevator.
Darling: Oh, Emily! The codes. Black Rock. 6-6-5. Neighbore of the beast. Get it?

The Oldest House

Darling: August 4, 1964. We discovered the Oldest House while investigating a suspected Altered World Event case in the New York City Subway tunnels. The agents found their way up into the building. Once we became aware of it, it was there. For the rest of the population it was hiding in plain sight, a slippery blind spot seemingly discouraging observation. It’s a Place of Power, an ongoing AWE of its own, seemingly adhering to its physical outer constraints, and yet constantly breaking the known boundaries of reality, it’s unstable and shifting. Note: for more details on Control Points and the research and process to stabilize and secure the core sectors, refer to a separate presentation. After extensive research and investigation, the Bureau made the building its headquarters on November 13, 1968. The Federal Bureau of Control was never out in the open. This was always an obfuscated, classified, top secret operation. So imagine our surprise when the building’s observation-resistant aspects began, in some unquantifiable way, to affect the Bureau as a whole.

Ordinary

Jesse: I wish things had gone differently in Ordinary for us. But wishing won’t change things. Finding the Projector will.
Darling: Ordinary. So much coming together in this one case. A new Object of Power. Something we’ve not seen before. Coming from me, that’s saying something. And the boy, Dylan Faden. Prime Candidate 6. And the sister as well, once we catch up with her. But the boy. So much potential. We’re talking Northmoor-level readings here, and I don’t want to invoke his name. It’s completely different circumstances here. It’s remarkable.

Darling: There was an incident. Yes. We lost a valuable member of our team, yes. Excessive force, but Dylan has so much. But he’s just a kid. I’ll take the blame. He needs some slack. Boys will be boys. He is exceptional and under a lot of stress. Roberts got killed. It’s an unfortunate accident, that’s all. Marshall needs to realize this. We will make this work. We’ll make this work.

Altered World Events

Darling: There is a curious correlation with the yet unknowable forces intruding upon our world in the form of Altered World Events. These forces gravitate toward archetypal objects: a gun, a television, a supposedly haunted house. So clearly, humanity affects this process. Our collective unconscious is a map of sorts. We hold the key, but we don’t know how to use it. We create these archetypes through everyday life, popular culture, urban legends, but we are observing and influencing a complicated system in action. We can change the likelihood of something being a receptacle for these forces just by thinking about it, but we haven’t found a method to control the outcome. And yet, there is something unique in us, in our dreams, in the conceptual reality we power with our minds. What’s the cause and what’s the effect? Are we the starting point, or just a necessary evil in this? A by-product, a reflection? A projection? We’ll struggle to find answers to these hard questions… Or die trying.

Altered Items

Darling: The exact process of how an Altered Item is born eludes us. We find them in the aftermath of Altered World Events. They take the form of everyday objects, ever-present in our lives, constantly evoked in the thoughts of millions of people. Now infused with unpredictable energies, they are altered. The superstitious would call them cursed. Are Altered Items sentient? Not quite. They are often fixated, programmed almost, to cause certain events to happen over and over again. While generally less potent than Objects of Power, they are not able to be controlled. Left unchecked, they can be highly dangerous. To study Altered Items, we contain them. In Panopticon.

Dylan Faden

Darling: Dylan’s a lost cause. I know I struggled to see this. We’ve contained him now. I wish I’d sided with Marshall back when it was just one person… So many dead. I thought his youth was an asset… just too much too soon. Effective immediately, I’m setting up a new department, Dimensional Research, in the Research Sector, transferring the Slide Projector there. That’s where my focus will be now. The Ordinary site remains as is. We’ll be back to… I don’t know when.

Slidescape-36

Darling: The projected image from each slide is a physical portal into another dimension. Only one slide remains. Dylan’s sister burned the rest in Ordinary before we could intercept. The text on it: “COLOR SLIDE FILM, THIS SIDE TOWARDS SCREEN” and the number “36”. The topography of Slidescape-36 bears deep wave marks. On the slide and in the distance, there’s a formation of five pillars, like crude outstretched fingers. There were casualties on our first expedition. Communication is an issue. There is no sound there, as if you’ve gone deaf, and radios don’t work. Correction, a resonance from an unknown source, in part within the range of audible frequency. It acts in unpredictable ways, causing feedback loops that can tear you apart. Trench insists he heard something else. It made his ears bleed. Our equipment found no evidence of anything beyond the primary resonance. Trench’s medical tests show nothing amiss.

Hedron

Darling: Expedition 3. We located the source of the resonance in Slidescape-36. It is an entity, a living organism of a considerable mass. I’ve named it “Hedron” based on its physical shape… the part that we can perceive. I honestly think there’s… The resonance it emits… The frequencies… We’ve never seen anything like it. We’ve built a container for it, we’ve brought it in. This changes everything. It’s beyond our understanding. We have brought so many questions with us through that hole in the wall. I will dedicate… I’m never going home.

Final Message

Darling: I’m doctor Casper Darling and this is my final message. It’s not the end, but after this I won’t… I’ve exposed myself to Hedron resonance, fully. It has… It’s changing me. I’ve seen— I’ve been shown so much. Slidescape-36 was where Hedron stopped the spread of another… It’s terrifying, it really is… another source of resonance. Trench was exposed to this other… It will now spread… I’ve done everything I can to stop it, the Hedron Resonance Amplifiers… I don’t know if it’ll make a difference. I won’t be here when it happens. I should have told Emily more. I’m being sent one more lesson, something wonderful, I think…

Dyna-mite

Mud Song: Nobody knew her name
But she turned up just the same
There was a knock on the door
A thump on the floor, and the party turned insane
As she called out her name…
And she walked in, looking like dynamite
She said, “Now come along, boogaloo through the night”
And by the way she’s moving, well, dynamite
Might she not, with all she’s got
She’s got the whole town lighting up dynamite
Nobody quite knowing what to do, wrong or right
But they all know Jesse is dynamite
They’re right!

Jesse: Really? This is so weird. But it is my head. You’re such a weirdo, Jesse.

Large Scale HRA

Darling: It’s done. With just one large-scale HRA. It was an easy choice, no choice. It’s there now. Protecting the most important thing from what’s coming. I’ll be there, inside. Locked in. Ready to be blown away. Commencing countdown, Major Tom. Ready for the journey— To be Bowman, flying into the monolith… Ready to see… to understand.

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