History Podcast / TheMagnusProtocol

** Another major difference from ''Archives'' is that supernatural incidents can be recorded digitally. Prevously, statements involving the Fears could only be documented on analogue cassette tapes because digital audio and video recordings were scrambled. At least one (MAG 157) was delivered by e-mail and the Web once built an online forum (MAG 123), but tapes and paper were still the norm. In ''Protocol'', everyone works on (very old and janky) computers that read records with text-to-speech programs, play video files and scrape from digital sources like e-mails and blogs.

** Another major difference from ''Archives'' is that supernatural incidents can be recorded digitally. Prevously, statements involving the Fears could only be documented on paper or analogue cassette tapes because digital recordings were scrambled. In ''Protocol'', everyone works on (very janky) computers that read records with text-to-speech programs, play video files and scrape from digital sources like e-mails and blogs.

* BreakingOldTrends: In the original series, a big deal was made that quitting the Magnus Institute is impossible, to the point where two characters even stabbed out their own eyes because it was the only way. ''The Magnus Protocol'' starts with a going away party for a former employee who's quit peacefully, and is being replaced by Sam. To drive the point in further, the phrase "No one is making you work here" comes up twice in the first two episodes.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[TagLine Fear takes many forms.]]]]

** It also clarifies the rather ambiguous noises heard at the end of episode 10 after Sam and Alice leave the institute. [[spoiler:An unnamed character picks the key Sam he dropped, uses it to unlock the trapdoor it was apparently trapped beneath, and then crawls out.]]

** The movie ''Voyeur'' in episode 5 is mostly unrevealed, but apparently starts with camcorder footage of something horrible from its victim's past, taken by someone who couldn't possibly have been in the same room.

** respectfully, I do not believe that's the case. Daria used a painting knife- she was cutting into her body to match the painting. That's also why she was committed, and her roomie was so alarmed.

* PrivateMilitaryContractors: A group called Starkwall appears in the background. All that's been revealed about them is that they once massacred a large group of people in San Jose, California...and that the OIAR has used their services as part of something called "the protocol."

* DysfunctionJunction: OIAR is ''not'' a great place to work. Any given employee will only be on friendly terms with one or two of their coworkers. At best.

* TheAllegedComputer: Well, operating systems, but still. [=FR3-d1=], the system that collects the OIAR's statements, runs on Windows NT-4.0, (an operating system from 1996) will break any newer operating systems, runs on a proprietary German source code that Colin can't make heads or tails of, and inexplicably has what [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane may or may not be text-to-speech capacity]] despite running on an operating system from the '90s.

* SinisterSurveillance: Each scene has the audience - and, most likely, [[HumanoidAbomination someone]] or [[EldritchAbomination something]] else - listening to the characters through some sort of device that's been hacked somehow. Computer microphones, intercom systems, personal cellphones, etc. The movie "Voyeur" in episode 3.

* SympatheticMagic: In the second episode, Daria supposedly changes her physical body by making alterations on a painting of herself after getting a tattoo from a mysterious parlour. Maybe. It's also possible that she took the paintbrush and paring knife directly to her body to supernaturally change her appearance. Or non-supernaturally used a paring knife on herself...

* SympatheticMagic: In the second episode, Daria supposedly changes her physical body by making alterations on a painting of herself after getting a tattoo from a mysterious parlour. Maybe. It's also possible that she took the paintbrush and paring knife directly to her body to supernaturally change her appearance.

* SinisterSurveillance: Each scene has the audience - and, most likely, [[HumanoidAbomination someone]] or [[EldritchAbomination something]] else - listening to the characters through some sort of device that's been hacked somehow. Computer microphones, intercom systems, personal cellphones...

* PrivateMilitaryContractors: A group called Starkwall appears in the background. All that's been revealed about them is that they once massacred a large group of people in San Pedro Square, California...and that the OIAR has used their services as part of something called "the protocol."

* TheAllegedComputer: Well, operating systems, but still. [=FR3-d1=], the system that collects the OIAR's statements, runs on Windows NT-4.0, (an operating system from 1996) will break any newer operating systems, runs on a proprietary German source code that Colin can't make heads or tails of, and inexplicably has what [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane may or may not be text-to-speech capacity]] despite running on an operating system from the '90s. It's also possible that Alice doesn't know, or is just [[TheGadfly messing with]] Sam by exaggerating a bit.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: A very minor example: Alice describes Windows NT 4.0 as a predecessor to Windows 95, when in fact it was released in 1996. Of course, since this is an AlternateUniverse it's possible that Windows NT 4.0 came out first in this timeline.

* TheAllegedComputer: Well, operating systems, but still. [=FR3-d1=], the system that collects the OIAR's statements, runs on Windows NT-4.0, (an operating system from 1996) will break any newer operating systems, runs on a proprietary German source code that Colin can't make heads or tails of, and inexplicably has what [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane may or may not be text-to-speech capacity]] despite running on an operating system from the '90s.

* BigBrotherIsWatching: The statem - er, messages [=FR3-d1=] collects come from all sorts of online sources, from message board posts to personal emails. When Sam asks about the legality of such blatant government violation of privacy, Alice just shrugs it off.

* BreakingOldTrends:
** In the original series, a big deal was made that quitting the Magnus Institute is impossible, to the point where two characters even stabbed out their own eyes because it was the only way. ''The Magnus Protocol'' starts with a going away party for a former employee who's quit peacefully, and is being replaced by Sam. To drive the point in further, the phrase "No one is making you work here" comes up twice in the first two episodes.
** Nearly all of the the episodes in ''Podcast/TheMagnusArchives'' could be categorized under one of fourteen EldritchAbomination fear entities. So far, few of the incidents heard in "The Magnus Protocol'' fit neatly into that system, (the urbex thread about the Magnus Institute descending into surreal eye imagery being a notable exception) or seem to incorporate themes associated with many different entities.