This topic has 8 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 7 years ago by 
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I’m going to offer what I call The Fucking Little Cockroach Theory (FLC). I think of it as the Shadow version of The Hungry Little Caterpillar. I’ll caution first by saying that we don’t have dots to connect, that much of this is based on intuition and not evidence, and I’m staying away from meta-theories right now and focusing on character. I speak from a position of zero authority and even less sanity — considering I’m the fucktard who invited the foxes into my henhouse (…sigh…yes, @mike go ahead….)
Once upon a time there was a Fucking Little Cockroach named Noah. He worked for OSDM. Think of them as Russia’s FSB. He fucked up with Ascension, screaming at Samson that he, Mike, myself, The One had made all of the data collection useless. So the FLC goes on the run, because OSDM is not very forgiving, or perhaps he’s merely been demoted. Regardless, he’s a FLC, so no matter what OSDM tries, he’s a survivor. They can’t stamp him out.
Ideally, he would defect from Russia and go to the West (The One), and offer intelligence in exchange for asylum. Except the West does not trust Russian defectors. So instead, he’s in Purgatory or, if you prefer…Switzerland.
The FLC wonders how he can get back into OSDM’s good graces, or perhaps create a situation where he can get into ours. Either way, he wins. If he ends up with The One, he will betray us in a fucking heartbeat. He faux-blackmails Bryan to demonstrate to OSDM that he can be the bad guy, but sweet-talks lovely @lilmsfancpants to show us he’s not such a bad guy. Then there’s the focus group, where the FLC’s “wife” busts his balls so as to generate sympathy for him. Even @pandace88 falls for the FLC [although I don’t care for the comparison made to @thebuz or @buz or whoever the real Buz is, because Buz isn’t nearly as handsome or drunk]. Why, even the ever-rational @kasch felt badly for him! And he didn’t smell like booze, and the cops weren’t real, and and and….
His story’s so touching, but it sounds just like a lie.
Because Noah is a Fucking Little Cockroach. I’ve seen guys like him all my life. So have you. Drunk? Charming? Sad sack? Whatever. He’s a Fucking Little Cockroach. That’s all you need to know. Dr. Smith, for you “Lost in Space” fans. Paul Reiser in ALIENS.
I could not care less about his “system”, because it’s nonsense. As @nosnevets insightfully pointed out, “Why do you follow?” I’ll add this: Who is your Master? We all have one. Did you see the movie? Hoffman’s character is a fraud. Yet because people LUST after that which they have placed value in, they will follow anyone who might provide it. Who or what is YOUR Master? Figure that out. Soon.
Anyways, fuck the Fucking Little Cockroach.
I’m more interested right now in the following (and this will change, natch):
1) Sarah Sinclair. I want to stare this woman in the eyes, and ask her three simple questions. That will tell me everything I need to know.
2) The voice that called Brad. My intuition tells me this is a clue that “The System” is indeed a misdirect.
3) ALL WILL HAVE THEIR PATH. This was in CAPS, for a reason.
4) We will need each other more than we know. Install your lightning rods. Mr. Dark’s Pandemonium Carnival is coming to town. “Something Wicked This Way Comes” was all about the power that people place in things they believe they value, making them vulnerable to the carnival’s temptations. Forget losers and winners.Because someone is going to try and roll a boulder in front of the entrance to Plato’s Cave, we will need to stop it.
Until then, I am patient and waiting for things to develop while I install my lightning rod.
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Thanks for the great theory @larry! Keep them coming. Every angle we can see things from, the better.
However, I personally don’t see the beginning through the same lens you do. When I witnessed Noah and Samson interacting, Noah was obviously in a position of power; Samson reported to him. So while this does fit in with your theory–and with Samson dead (possibly) at the hands of Michelle, Noah takes the fall for Tension (although I would argue they did get plenty of good, useable data).
I personally subscribe to the theory that Noah was an investor (popularized by @moustachemax and @bcbishop). If Noah truly is the face of his brand, and Sarah is the mind and power behind that brand, I could see Noah showing up to the final days of Tension as things are beginning to fall apart. With the data that he’s paying for becoming useless, he would be pissed; especially if he has to come home and tell Sarah that they just lost money on a partially failed experience.
Therefore, he’s faced Sarah’s wrath, their sex life has declined, and now he’s still the face (because he has to be) but resorts to the bottle as an escape from time to time.
This is how I see the story through my lens currently. But as you said, this is all speculation based on only a few dots. Thanks for sharing!
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I personally would pay serious cash money for The Carter Burke Experience.
The one thing that really stood out to me yesterday was @thecontroller’s warning to not connect dots yet, because we are so early in this experience. That, along with Clint Sear’s tease at the Austin panel that things will “swirl” and perhaps not be connected as we first assume, has me thinking that our attempts to impose narrative continuity between Tension and Lust at this point will prove fruitless (though it is certainly where my head goes as well).
We know that Noah recognized @Mike from Tension, but we also know that Otis said the Focus Group was a “theater thing”. So was the Focus Group “real”, or artifice? Is Noah a “real” person that some of us met during Tension, and who is now involved in Lust, or was he simply a character deployed in one piece of in-game fiction – a show designed to lure us in as part of a data collection scheme – that is now being deployed in a different piece of in-game fiction?
Almost all of our theories, including mine, have taken for granted that the Michelle portion of The End was “real” – her revelations about the Clockmakers, the OSDM, the election tampering, etc. That those story beats were looks behind the curtain, concrete parts of the Tension mythology, and could safely serve as connective tissue.
The problem with that is we already saw that much of The End was a sham. “Dead” characters disappeared. And later, many of us met many of them at the book party – even though some (like Sabrina) seemed strangely in character.
Along with the admonition that @julierei received to forget everything that came before, it all makes me think that we may have to assume we don’t know if The End was the end of that narrative – or if any of us has even been “out of game” at all. We’re talking about a true headtrip of narratives within narratives within narratives, but I suspect the relationship between Tension and Lust is not nearly as straightforward as it might seem.
I know your focus was on character vs meta, @larry, but I’m starting to suspect that the only way these things will make sense from a character perspective will be to look at each Experience (Tension, Lust, etc.) as a self-contained piece. I’ve always felt the Frank T.J. Mackey-esque Noah Sinclair persona bore little relation to the man I met in Ascension – and once we try to connect the different shows we will be forced to confront the meta.
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I find all of this so so interesting, but I am finding it a little hard to fully participate since I was not involved in Tension and am not in the know about all the things that went on. I know I can read up on different websites, but it’s not really the same. I want to dig into Lust and it’s really fun to try, but if it’s not at least somewhat of a contained story…not sure I (and others who didn’t attend) can fully participate or follow…
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“It was a bad call, Larry. A bad call.”
-Carter Burke System
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FWIW @sfire8, I think we’ve seen a lot of small clues pointing to it largely being a self-contained story (which I was trying to get at in my far-too-long-winded post above). But no clue is more important than the business realities: whomever is running this thing no doubt wants to reach a bigger audience than Tension did, and I doubt they’d hamstring themselves by tying it so closely to the previous show that newcomers couldn’t jump on board.
TLDR: We’re all just theorizing about Tension/Lust connections right now because that’s all we’ve got. But as @thecontroller has said, we’re just on page one of the prologue. I think those that didn’t attend Ascension will be just fine. 🙂
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@bcbishop, I hope so!! It’s all so much! And I don’t want to be a stick in the mud, but if this is really Sarah and Noah just pretending to be other people to collect data on everybody, it kind of takes me out of it…if I can’t at least somewhat believe what’s going on in the narrative for now?? Or maybe I just don’t understand.
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Coming up next, @larry and @bcbishop in Parliament:
“And I say to the Gentleman from Bishop, that I will deny the Meta should it come to pass, and that the population would be in agreement”
HUZZAH!
“And to the Gentleman of Meyers, I caution against dismissal of the Meta, for to do so would be to endanger us all”
HUZZAH!….
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