Separating fiction from fact: Living in a post-Mason world

[Kevin]

Currently under discussion on Slack (and off and on all day):

With the news that TPTB didn’t know who Mason was, everything has been thrown into chaos. Figuring out what was written for the narrative and what is actually real has become…difficult, to say the least.

Are The System and iConfidant complete fabrications? Based on something? What about Noah, Stacey, Joyce, Horace, Tom Barrow, where do they fall?

Is the OSDM a real organization or a front? What about The Investors that we saw at registration?

Mason is real, but what about HIB? Was she part of the narrative or was she a step that lead to Mason coming out of the shadows?

How does BOS fit into all of this?

How long have they been coopting things that are out of their control or real into the narrative?

Feels like we’ve been going back and forth about this all day, so it might help to have the discussion in one spot.

[Brad Ruwe]

I firmly believe the BOS is real. His speech at the TMC Reveal shows his focus is whomever is behind everything. Whether or not MyChild is real or a fabrication, I’m not sure. Morgan seems to believe it’s real, but he could’ve been fooled by bad intel. If that’s the case, I worry for him. But if MyChild is indeed real, and under BOS / Resistance control, he’s a force to be reckoned with.

Also thinking the HIB leaks were real. One thing that stands out to me is the leaks (both by HIB and her friend) never mention OSDM, which could be a fabrication for the story. It’s all about the people behind the experiences at their core. What they’re doing with the actors, and with us the participants.

All of this though has my head throbbing trying to process this.

[Cristen]

Thanks for this, Kevin. I wanted to follow up with the idea the Joyce was put into play by TPTB as a frantic effort to make Mason seem like part of the narrative by having her discuss him.

I’s also venture that since Mason is mentioning HiB’s info, while she may not be real in the sense that she’s an actual person (could be Mason behind the twitter account,) her information was real. It explains why she was worked into the “narrative” after she disappeared; another effort to co-opt real problems into presumed fiction.

[Bryan Bishop]

@nothenrygale The slight bump there is that we don’t know what actually initiated the new BOS. Was it part of the show that DLB/CS were creating, and was Morgan part of those plans? In that case, it’s fiction, and while members’ sentiments might be real, the thing itself may have been a complete ruse.

The other option is that it was not a DLB/CS creation, and Morgan is operating independently. But in that scenario, he is creating a resistance movement in response to the fiction of the OSDM. The stated mission is to burn down something that may not even exist. So that is also fatally flawed. (I’m reminded of the discussions we’ve had of there not being a clearly-defined BOS mission, depending on one’s point of view. I’m wondering if this dilemma may be part of the reason?)

I’m not questioning anybody’s motives here, for the record. I continue to believe that everybody is operating with noble intent. I’m simply saying that given the last week, we don’t know. And what we learn from here could utterly upend any sense of allegiance, or right and wrong, that we think we have. Right now we are operating with an utter lack of information. We don’t know who has done what, and for what reasons. TPTB could have wronged us, or maybe they’re the victims. Maybe Mason is the “good guy”, maybe he wants to rub the lotion on its skin. Maybe all are true at the same time.

The only thing I think we can probably depend on at this point is the fact that we do not know anything.

[Kevin]

@nothenrygale I mostly think that new BOS is real, in a sense; it was created with a specific purpose and it wasn’t created (that we know of) by anyone but Morgan and those who participated in TMC. But there’s also a real chance it was created to target something fictional. Maybe TRPTB wanted it to happen, maybe it doesn’t matter to them, or maybe it’s all part of their plan blending the fictional and factual together. Of course, BOS can pivot to take down whoever is really running everything, but as you said, if the intel was bad, it doesn’t leave us in a great spot moving forward.

[Brad Ruwe]

@kevin @bcbishop His target never was the OSDM. His target is whomever is behind this whole thing. His target is whomever is hurting his friends and manipulating the community. I’d go back and re-watch his TMC speech. He wants the end of good people being harmed. Whether or not OSDM is real or not doesn’t factor. His target is whomever is at the core of all of this. Whether or not we thought the OSDM was that core at the time, his mission statement remains the same.

[Cristen]

@nothenrygale No one is arguing the intention behind his mission statement; we all support the strength of his beliefs. He specifically said he was going to “burn the OSDM to the ground” in the video you refer to. That is not to say his goals cant pivot, as @kevin said, but he most certainly indicated what, again with the information we had at the time, his target was.

[Brad Ruwe]

Very true, I stand corrected. That’s unfortunately the challenge the BOS has to figure out, the problem of intel. How to make sure the intel being taken is legit.

[Lawrence Meyers]

The actors appear to be central to this: Andrew, Damien, Erika, and Stephanie.
Here’s a review of what we know from @bcbishop convos with them (Bryan, please correct if I misspeak)

Andrew — “had a problem with what he described as the “hazy rules” — where even the actors didn’t know what was in-game, out-of-game, meta, or just trickery.” Andrew is seriously Method, so this would make sense. Seemed more annoyed than anything else.

Erika — Warns Bryan: “be careful with lust. It’s not as innocent as it seems.”

Stephanie — Has never said anything negative about Tension to my recollection. Was angry w/Darren at “being dragged into Lust”. Letter from Clint returned to sender. Floated the idea that this isn’t theater.

Damien — “He acknowledged that some sort of weekend retreat did happen for Tension, and that for him at the time, it seemed like a step up professionally…The retreat wasn’t that innocent, however. (He couldn’t share further details.)…Damien stressed that he would like to think that Darren are Clint were NOT behind the retreats and the other strangeness in the production. He wanted to believe that it was something the people funding the show were forcing…He was quick to point out that nobody was ever in any kind of physical danger, but that there are other kinds of danger: emotional, psychological, etc.”

Everyone seems to want to distance themselves from Tension, acc. to Damien.

But the retreat — this also seems central. There’s something about this retreat that is problematic.

If there was something problematic, and Mason is looking into it, why not meet with him as a group?
NDA’s are frequently unenforceable. Briarberg could indemnify them. Fear of being exposed as a whistleblower? Far-fetched in my mind. Nobody has to know they met with Mason.

Which leaves one thing: fear of what actually happened at the retreat…and its orchestrators.

We were told to ask the actors about it. Perhaps someone should reach out to Erika and Andrew about it.

I am supposed to see Stephanie at Annie’s show on Monday. I will ask her about it then. If she shows up. She’s gone dark — highly unusual.

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